-By Warner Todd Huston
ABC has made the unprecedented move of giving prime-time programing air time to President Barack Obama for a “Healthcare Reform Special” to be aired next week. Uncommonly a major TV Network has turned over its airtime to what is essentially a White House infomercial on an important upcoming legislative effort.
But, perhaps it is not too surprising that Obama has landed himself some prime viewing time on ABC. After all, former ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass is now the Director of Communications for the Obama White House Office of Health Reform. Coincidence? One would be excused to suspect it.
ABC to Air Obama Healthcare ‘Special,’ Former ABC Staffer Now Obama Comm. Chief. Coincidence?”
On May 20, ABC’s Jake Tapper
Before we begin today’s lesson, let us review the purpose of a library, shall we? Are libraries not a compilation of knowledge in the form of books and visual aids brought together for the edification of students of humanity to be used a s a tool for their growth and enrichment? If it is, the earnest curators of the
Just imagine one morning you rise up bright and early, go get your usual cup o’ joe from the kitchen then plunk yourself down in front of your computer to pull up the Drudge Report only to find out that you’ve made headline news by being banned from a country that you never even intended to visit. Snap, crackle and ka-pow is not the best way to start the day but that is exactly how conservative and controversial national talk show host, Michael Savage, started his day earlier this week.
The folks at
General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt, thought to be one of Keith Olbermann’s biggest supporters, and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker are reported to have called some of CNBC’s on-air talent to a secret meeting at least if the
When you visit a blog and read a report taking the Associated Press to task for its continuous leftward bias, are you reading “stolen” AP content, or are you reading legitimate news? Is criticism of AP’s work fair use? What is “fair use,” anyway? Could the AP sue critics?
All day Friday the newspapers, TV stations, radio, and the Internet were abuzz with Barack Obama’s failed joke about the Special Olympics Thursday night on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. In shades of John Kerry’s failed joke about the unschooled being “stuck in Iraq,” the president’s apologists said he was merely joking and didn’t mean to say anything disparaging about people with developmental challenges. Still, the incident stirred passionate discussion all day Friday. At least it did for everyone but
Our institutes of “higher” learning are all about being inclusive. They are stridently for freedom of speech and stand 100% behind the concept of open political debate. Well, unless you’re a Christian, that is. Christians, you see, are the only group that our fetid colleges and universities have agreed to discriminate against.
This is not a story of bias in the media. It is a story, rather, that affects both the Old Media of newspapers, TV and radio, as well as the New Media of the Internet. Our disagreements with the Old Media aside, we both stand to see trouble if a recent court case in Massachusetts gains momentum or is applied liberally henceforth.
Usually I don’t go for the hard-edged treatment of politicians as my headline here does. I don’t often call individuals “liars” and the like, though I’ve been known to do so on occasion. Generally, I prefer to assume that those that oppose my views are truthfully advocating for deep held beliefs and not using lies and obfuscation to get there — some exceptions to that, of course. I am not really the biggest fan of the wild-eyed, Olbermannesque sort of bombast and name-calling.
The old joke about CNN in the 1990s was that it stood for the Clinton News Network. The current joke about the anti-Israel Associated Press is that AP stands for Allah Press. In the 70s, people joked that NBC really meant National Broadcasting for Communists. We’ve all heard the various joke acronyms before, of course. But, the presumed sentiment of the individuals working for these news agencies aside, these are just sarcastic jibes cast at journalists and the companies they work for. But, a current situation blurs the line between mere jokes and reality. Time Magazine has employed a photographer named Callie Shell that has apparently been doing double duty as both a “journalist” AND a member of team Obama, taking pictures subsequently sent out as official White House photos.
On January 22 the Associated Press posted an
In the midst of the Obama coronation in Washington this week, school board member Sheila Patterson of the Jackson Public School System in Jackson, Michigan told teachers in her district that if they don’t show Barack Obama’s inauguration in the class room they should just “go home.” Patterson further told teachers that if they didn’t show the ceremony they “don’t belong in this school district.” Patterson also tsked such teachers sternly alerting them that she was “very, very disappointed.”