Category: Newspaper

Arlen Specter: Double standard for two-faced Senator

Arlen Specter. If he was really two-faced would he have chosen that one?
Arlen Specter. If he was really two-faced would he have chosen that one?

You know the media bias is out of control when reliably-liberal Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz notices it.

Here’s what Kurtz said about the media’s coverage of Arlen Specter switching parties:

Correspondent Carl Cannon, on AOL’s new PoliticsDaily site, says conservatives are right in complaining that much of the media have “a double standard regarding party-switchers. . . . When Republicans morph into Democrats, we tend to act like they finally saw the light, and quote them ad nauseam about how the Republican Party has gotten too narrow, etc., etc.” But when a Democrat joins the GOP, “we concentrate on the tactical advantage to the party switcher.”

When it comes to commentators, their analysis often turns on the direction of the defection. In 1994, when Democratic Sen. Richard Shelby switched parties days after the Republicans won control of Congress, a New York Times editorial said: “Talk about slipping out of the hills to bayonet the wounded! . . . His desertion to the victorious Republicans this week was hardly a huge surprise.” But when Jim Jeffords flipped control of the Senate to the Democrats by leaving the GOP in 2001, the Times said approvingly that the Vermont lawmaker had given George W. Bush “an embarrassing lesson” for having pulled a “conservative bait-and-switch” on the country.

Arlen’s switches back and forth are not uncommon in nature.

Here’s how the New York Times describes a similar situation:

When a school of reef fish loses its single male, the largest female begins acting like a male within a few hours and will produce sperm within 10 days. Some other species repeatedly switch back and forth between the production of eggs and of sperm during a single mating. Among deep sea fish that only rarely encounter potential mates, reproduction is often possible only if one changes sex.

Poor Arlen. The only sex involved in his switch was when he screwed the Republicans.

Source: Washington Post

Headline of the Day
“New York Times set to increase price”

“Wholesalers expect the New York Times to increase its price from $1.50 to $2.00 for Monday to Saturday editions and from $5 to $6 on Sundays. A spokeswoman declined to comment.”

C’mon, man, these geniuses have Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman on staff. Maybe they should ask him to explain the law of supply and demand someday at lunch.

Source: Financial Times

New York Post finds 100 Obama faux pas in 100 days, but CNN has trouble finding ten

On President Obama’s 100th day, CNN did one of its pathetically weak periodic attempts to show its lack of bias by presenting a list the President’s Top 10 faux pas.

Despite the fact that the New York Post was able to put together a list of 100 presidential screw-ups, here’s the best CNN could come up with.

10. Screwing up the oath of office (although CNN laughingly blamed it on Chief Justice Roberts)
9. Whacking his head getting into Marine One
8. Bowing to the Saudi king.
7. The First Lady touches the queen
6. Making the Special Olympics gaffe on the Tonight Show
5. Stepping on wife’s dress during an inauguration dance
4. Teleprompter woes
3. His daughters talk too much
2. Saying Nancy Reagan had a séance
1. Michelle called the new First Dog as Barney instead of Bo (although this was really Michelle’s faux pas)

The way we count it, the score was Barack 6, Michelle 2, Chief Justice Roberts 1, Malia and Sasha 1. In the end, CNN could only find six Obama faux pas. Somehow, they overlooked the foreign policy gaffes, the diplomatic woes, his domestic policy problems, his god awful history of nominee troubles, the exploding deficit, and on and on.

But they did notice that he stepped on his wife’s dress. This is truly investigative journalism at its finest.

Source: Brietbart.tv

Times of London turns Star Trek review in political statement: “Star Trek boldly goes into the Obama era”

Don’t you hate critics who review “films” instead of “movies.” You know, those self-important nimrods who think they’re too smart by half and wear out their thesauruses (thesauri?) in an attempt to convince you of the same thing.

The Times of London just ran one of those reviews on the new Star Trek movie that premieres May 8.

(One disclaimer: we are not ashamed to say that we are long-time Trekkies. We don’t even attempt to hide behind the supposedly more dignified name “Trekker.”)

Let’s just go with one paragraph of this freshman poly sci term paper disguised as a movie review:

There was always a very close relationship between the American Dream — not to mention American imperialism — and Star Trek, with its liberal, secular, multiracial, technophiliac vision of the future. But the two seem almost to have mind-melded with the election of an optimistic, liberal, multiracial President with a Kenyan father and a white American mother (Star Trek featured the first interracial kiss on US television, sparking protests at the time) — and, who is himself something of a 1960s tribute act, with his JFK and Martin Luther King cadences. Suddenly, with Barack Obama at the helm, America looks like a brand that people can believe in again. Or at least root for at the movies.

For God’s sake, it’s just a friggin’ movie, Limey Boy. It’s cowboys and Indians in outer space. Good guys versus bad guys. White hats versus black hats.

Read the whole thing. Just to remind yourself why newspapers are neither living long nor prospering.

We have to go now. Advance tickets just went on sale downtown for the May 8 opening.

Source: Times of London via Big Hollywood

New York Times playing strip poker to survive

New York Times publisher Pinch Sulzberger frantically negotiating to save his left wing publishing empire.
New York Times publisher Pinch Sulzberger frantically negotiating to save his left wing publishing empire.
According to the latest rumors swirling around the Big Apple, the New York Times Company is stripping away more assets in an attempt to head off bankruptcy. If they were playing strip poker, you’d say they’re down to their skivvies.

According to a nearly gleeful report in the New York Post:

NYT Co. May Sell Classical Radio Station

Beethoven and Bach could become the latest victims of the New York Times Co.’s financial crisis. Rumors are raging that top suits have discussed putting classical radio station WQXR (96.3 FM) on the block to shore up the company’s dwindling cash stash.

The Times has already sold off its landmark headquarters building to escape killer mortgage payments. They’re threatening to shutter the Boston Globe because closing it is cheaper than operating it. Their share of the Boston Red Sox is also on the chopping block. And now it looks like classical music may be the latest victim of the Times downturn.

According to a report last week, the company has $1.3 billion in debts and a relatively paltry $36 million in the bank.

You can’t feel too badly for The Times. They sold out to the extreme left many years ago. And now they’re willing to sell out to just about anybody.

Source: New York Post

Headline of the Day
“Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild”

“Genetic data indicate this outbreak won’t be as deadly as that of 1918, or even the average winter.”

20,000,000 may have died worldwide from the Spanish Flu between 1918 and 1920. 35,000 died of regular flu in the United States last year. So far 7 have died of swine flu worldwide.

This doesn’t exactly square with the media bias that says this is the worst catastrophe since the election of George W. Bush.

Source: LA Times.com

London Daily Telegraph asks, “Why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?”

President Pantywaist? As we’ve chronicled here over the last few months, the British newspapers have not converted to the Church of the Almighty Obama.

The view from London seems to be considerably different than the view from Washington, DC
The view from London seems to be considerably different than the view from Washington, DC
President Pantywaist? As we’ve chronicled here over the last few months, the British newspapers have not converted to the Church of the Almighty Obama.

Here are the opening paragraphs from the Daily Telegraph’s latest scathing commentary:

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people – not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama’s problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

How can they see so clearly when they’re so far away?

Source: London Daily Telegraph via GatewayPundit

100 days of puffery, ballyhoo, hoopla and hype

Iowa flooding looked as bad as many sections of New Orleans. So where was the media? Where was Sean Penn?
Iowa flooding looked as bad as many sections of New Orleans. So where was the media? Where was Sean Penn?
Kudos to Politico’s Richard Benedetto for writing about the way the mainstream media has been covering the Obama presidency in his column “Watchdogs are heeling for Obama”. We would’ve gone a little further and titled the piece “Media lapdogs are lying down for Obama.”

Benedetto’s journalism students gave the media a C+/B- for their covering during the first 100 days. After chronicling a few instances of media double standards in the way similar-to-identical statements made by GWB and BHO were portrayed, the columnist felt a C+ was about right.

His list seemed a bit short. How about the way similar events were covered? One of the major stories that’s been virtually ignored was the Iowa/North Dakota flooding. Remember the overwrought and outright false Katrina coverage? (“10,000 dead”?!)

As a widely circulated conservative-leaning email asked, Where was the hysterical 24/7 media coverage, with reports of lootings, shootings at rescuers, of rapes and murder? Where were the stories of people screaming that Barack Obama hates white, rural people? Where were the government bailout vouchers and government debit cards? Are the values of Iowa and Louisiana residents that different or is the media just that skewed?

What grade would you give the media for their coverage of Obama’s first 100 days? We’d give ’em a D for duplicitous double-standards.

Source: Politico.com

Obamagasm: TV news covers Obama more than Bush & Clinton combined.

Reverends Couric, Williams and Gibson conduct services nightly.
Reverends Couric, Williams and Gibson conduct services nightly.
This will come as no surprise to anyone this side of a catatonic trance, but TV network news has given us all Obama all the time.

The nonpartisan research group Center for Media and Public Affairs along with California’s Chapman University released a study that found the nightly newscasts devoted 27 hours, 44 minutes to Pres. Obama’s presidency in his first 50 days. That compares to 7 hours, 42 minutes for Pres. George W. Bush and 15 hours, 2 minutes for Pres. Bill Clinton during the first 50 days of their first terms.

Not only has Obama gotten more coverage, but that coverage has been more positive than his predecessors.

On the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts, 58% of all evaluations of the president and his policies have been favorable, while 42% were unfavorable. That compares with 33% positive in the comparable period of Bush’s tenure and 44% positive for Pres. Clinton.

The study continues:

CBS led the coverage with 365 stories and 10 hours 46 minutes of airtime, followed by NBC with 327 stories and 9 hours 38 minutes, and ABC with 329 stories and 7 hours 20 minutes.

The first half hour of Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier,” which the study says most closely resembles the network evening newscasts, devoted 10 hours 24 minutes to the Obama administration, nearly as much airtime as CBS gave him.

But Fox News stands apart from its competitors here – only 13% of comments* were considered favorable. On ABC, 57% of the comments were favorable, compared to 58% for CBS and 61% for NBC.

What these numbers don’t tell us is what percentage of the comments were neutral and what percentage were negative. We’re willing to bet the ratio of positive to negative is stunning.

Source: MediaBistro.com

Say good night to your morning newspaper, circulation in freefall

Read all about it while there's still a newspaper left to read.
Read all about it while there's still a newspaper left to read.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation, the bible of the newspaper business, just released the latest circulation figures for the country’s newspapers.

In a word, ouch.

Circulations are plunging faster than Janet Napolitano’s credibility. In fact, the only major paper to gain circulation in the last twelve months was Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. Other’s dropped in jaw dropping percentages.

It’s getting so bad that single digit drops look good. The New York Post dropped more than 20%. The San Francisco Chronicle almost 16%. The Newark Star-Ledger almost 17%. And the Atlanta Journal Constitution almost 20%.

Here are the daily averages for Monday-Friday circulation for the nation’s top 25 papers.

newspapers

Source: Editor & Publisher

“Ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle
and baked wind”

orourke This comes from a speech P.J. O’Rourke recently delivered in Sydney. Damn, this guy knows how to string words together.

America has wound up with a charming leftist as a president. And this scares me. This scares me not because I hate leftists. I don’t. I have many charming leftist friends. They’re lovely people – as long as they keep their nose out of things they don’t understand. Such as making a living.

When charming leftists stick their nose into things they don’t understand they become ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people’s money. They are the lap dogs of the poly sci-class, returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow-who-eats-her-young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom-feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp of democracy.

Source: Tim Blair/Sydney Daily Telegraph

The One’s one hundred mistakes in the first one hundred days

We "hope" things "change" in the next 100 days.
We "hope" things "change" in the next 100 days.

While the left is celebrating the greatest president in history, the hippest president in history, the greatest orator in history, the…ok…you get the idea. While they’re doing all of that, some people are living in the real world and seeing what an unmitigated disaster this unskilled rookie has become.

An article in Sunday’s New York Post lists the top 100 screw-ups in The One’s first one hundred days.

1. “Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of ‘earmarks,’ urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. ‘Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,’ Obama said.” — McClatchy, 3/11

2. “There is no doubt that we’ve been living beyond our means and we’re going to have to make some adjustments.” — Obama during the campaign.

3. This year’s budget deficit: $1.5 trillion.

4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million — a whopping .0027%!

5. “The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties.” — ABC News, 4/15

6. “Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the ‘teleprompt president’ over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech.” — Sky News, 3/18

7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn.

8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer — to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own — a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew.

9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn’t properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey’s induction into the European Union.

10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide.

If you’re strong enough to handle it, click here to see the rest of the list.

Source: New York Post

Octomom lands a TV deal. For sure. Or maybe. Or not at all. Depends on who you talk to.

Reinout Oerlemans. Why would a nice Dutch man like you inflict Nadya Suleman on the rest of the world?
Reinout Oerlemans. Why would a nice Dutch man like you inflict Nadya Suleman on the rest of the world?

Nadya Suleman says she’s landed a reality show deal. Or a documentary deal. Or maybe she hasn’t.

“Yes, it is official,” Suleman said. “I’m going to be doing a show, but it’s not a reality show. What I’m doing with this TV show is basically creating documentaries about the lives of my children. It’s going to be an ongoing thing, and it will follow them from now until they are 18. It’s being done by Eyeworks. They’re in the UK. It will air in the UK and then we’ll see if the US is interested.”


Unfortunately, Nadya may have jumped the gun here. No European network has agreed to carry the show and even Eyeworks disputes that it’s reached an agreement.

“At this time we are in active negotiations with Nadya and her attorney for an unscripted format following the life of Nadya and her children,” said Eyeworks CEO Reinout Oerlemans. “Nadya’s story is a unique and exciting one that needs to be told in the right manner…We are confident that we are the right party to tell their story around the world.”

How could the OctoMom story get any wierder?

Two words: Reinout Oerlemans?

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Dumb Comment of the Day
“supper excited to find a site entitled ‘I Hate the Media’ but super disappointed to see how far to the right you swing. And come on, Miss California a strong woman? She lost and rightly so. I will continue in my search for unbiased media, until then, I will stick to the best source, NPR.”

Yup, that’s verbatim. We’re excited about supper, too. Mmmm, pot roast tonight.

Associated Press attacks Bobby Jindal’s travel expenses even though they’re not illegal

When didn't Bobby Jindal do anything illegal and when didn't he do it. The AP demands to know.
When didn't Bobby Jindal do anything illegal and when didn't he do it. The AP demands to know.

The libs must be worried about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. They sent the attack dog Associated Press out to do a hit piece about the popular Republican’s travel expenses.

Please allow us to save you some time. Just review the first three paragraphs and the last four paragraphs and ignore the nine meaningless ones in between. Here’s the AP’s opening:
Continue reading “Associated Press attacks Bobby Jindal’s travel expenses even though they’re not illegal”

Birth of a controversy: Chinese pissed off at Mao condom ad

To the Chinese, this condom ad is pregnant with meaning.
To the Chinese, this condom ad is pregnant with meaning.
China’s official media protested a German condom ad that shows revolutionary leader Mao Zedong as a sperm cell. The campaign includes other ads featuring Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden.

The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, devoted a full page to the controversy and demanded that the condom company apologize to China.

Grey Worldwide, one of the world’s largest ad agencies, created the safe sex ad for Doc Morris Pharmacies. They’ve reportedly sent a letter of apology to the Chinese consulate in Frankfurt.

Not all Chinese seem quite so angry, though. “I am a former worker who is now 70,” said one comment on the sina.com website. “I have thought about it a lot and I still cannot understand why these people defend Mao so strongly.”

He is survived by his wife, three children and seven grandchildren (all boys).

Source: Breitbart.com

Happy birthday: Harry Reid’s greatest stupidity is now two years old.

Can someone explain why Harry Reid is the leader of the United States Senate? For God’s sake, man, is this really what passes for a leader in today’s America?

Nevertheless, this Caspar Milquetoast of a man decided two years ago today that the war in Iraq was lost. He announced it to the world.

If you’re still in an explaining kind of mood, can someone please explain why this clip wasn’t shown time after time after time on every TV network and independent station in America during the last election?

Yes, we hate the media.

Sacré bleu! Nicolas Sarkozy resigns from the Barack Obama Fan Club

Nicolas Sarkozy pense que Barack Obama est plein de la merde.
Nicolas Sarkozy pense que Barack Obama est plein de la merde.
Let this be a warning to all the world leaders reading IHateTheMedia.com: Do not steal the limelight from Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy is calling time out on President Obama’s attempts to reassert American leadership, calling them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated.

The French president is a little pissy about the superstar treatment Obama received on his European tour a couple weeks ago.

According to the Times of London:

The American President’s call to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare” was hot air, Mr Sarkozy’s diplomatic staff told him in a report. “It was rhetoric – not a speech on American security policy but an export model aimed at improving the image of the United States,” they said. Most of Mr Obama’s proposals had already been made by the Bush administration and Washington was dragging its feet on disarmament and treaties against nuclear proliferation, the leaked report said.

Personal pique and French politics are also behind the souring of Mr Sarkozy’s self-promoted honeymoon with the United States. On the personal side, the French President is needled by the adulation for an unproven US leader whose stardom has eclipsed what he sees as his established record as a world troubleshooter. “The President is annoyed by what he sees as the naivety and the herd mentality of the media,” said a journalist who is privy to Elysée thinking.

One member of IHateTheMedia.com’s Editorial Board suffered through two years of French in high school. He’s had an intense dislike of the country and its culture and its people and its food ever since. He hates French poodles, French fries, and French braids, French maids, French pastries, French accents and French perfume.

But now he says, “Vive la France! Vive Le Sarkozy!”

Source: Times of London

Iraqis bury victims of Saddam genocide, American media yawns


Thousands of Kurds attended the burial ceremony for victims of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi genocide.
Thousands of Kurds attended the burial ceremony for victims of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi genocide.
Saddam Hussein slaughtered more than 180,000 Iraqis during the early 1980s. Iraqi Kurds recently held a ceremony to bury 187 of his victims, but the American media was so busy reporting on the new first dog that they missed the ceremony.

In case anyone in the American media is interested, here’s how Iraq’s Aswat Aliraq News reported it:

Ceremonies on Tuesday were held in Kurdistan’s southern area of Kermyan to mark the burial of the remains of 187 victims of al-Anfal campaign in the presence of thousands of local residents.

The coffins carrying the bodies were wrapped in the Kurdistan region’s flags and prayers were offered for the souls of the victims in the midst of an increased security presence.

The Kermyan mayor, Tareq Rasheed, had told Aswat al-Iraq news agency that the remains of those victims will be buried in the area of Dibin in Kermyan on Tuesday (April 14) in ceremonies to be attended by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barazani.

Representatives of the two presidents attended the ceremonies.

The former Iraqi regime launched a series of campaigns codenamed Anfal during the early 1980s, which resulted in the death of thousands of Kurds, most of them were buried in mass graves all over Iraq.

According to figures released by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), more than 182,000 persons were killed in the Anfal campaign.

Sad that the American media thinks Barack Hussein’s dog is more important than Saddam Hussein’s 180,000 innocent victims.

Source: GatewayPundit

Cannibalism: NY Times attacks LA Times over ads disguised as news

There's nothing more fun than watching the media devour themselves.
There's nothing more fun than watching the media devour themselves.
This may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but the truth-challenged New York Times has attacked the Los Angeles Times for disguising advertisements as news stories.

One day after catching holy hell for disguising a front age ad for a new TV show as a news story, the LA Times did it again.

An ad in Sunday’s Calendar entertainment section ran alongside a four-page ad for a new movie called “The Soloist.” The four pages are designed to look like a news.

A Paramount Pictures spokesperson said the Times approached them with the idea. The complete advertising package included an online contest and promos that ran on KTLA, which is a Times sister company.

“You dress an ad up to look like editorial content precisely because you think it will make it more valuable,” said Geneva Overholser of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. “Fundamentally, that’s an act of deception.”

This is shocking. No, not the deception on the part of the Los Angeles Times. Everyone knows that. What’s shocking is that Overholser seems surprised by it.

Source: New York Times

Guilt by association by Associated Press

Tim Blair, Sydney Daily Herald, or a reasonable approximation thereof.
Tim Blair, Sydney Daily Herald, or a reasonable approximation thereof.

Tim Blair, the opinion editor of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, is a man who recognizes hypocrisy when he sees it.

In fact, he does a better job covering the hypocrisy of American journalism than most American journalists do. Blair’s blog featured this item recently:

In the tradition of the mother of the boyfriend of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s daughter:

A half sister of Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband is accused of breaking into the same home two times with the intention of stealing money.

Both pieces from Associated Press, specialists in association.

How many degrees of separation does it take before Associated Press thinks a story isn’t newsworthy? Could someone please look that up in the AP Style Guide.

Source: TimBlair

I HATE THE MEDIA ™
Verified by MonsterInsights