Newspaper Misspells its OWN Name on Front Page

-By Warner Todd Huston

For a little humorous break from the world of hard news, we have the embarrassing story of the Valley News that serves Vermont and New Hampshire misspelling its own name on the front page of the July 21 issue.

The big oopsie was followed on July 22 with an egg-on-the-face, editor’s note apologizing to the readers for this ridiculous mistake.

Editor’s Note – Readers may have noticed that the Valley News misspelled its own name on yesterday’s front page. Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold them accountable for their mistakes, let us say for the record: We sure feel silly.

Gosh darn it but don’t they look silly? Still, it’s great that they took the gaffe in good humor. After all, with a mistake that absurd, what else could you do?

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Farnsworth of CBS News Needs American History Lesson

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember when the 49ers gold rush happened in Maine? How about when Dan’l Boone explored California? Do you remember when Lee surrendered his Confederate army in Fargo, North Dakota? Well, to those famous places with famous incidents we can add that great Revolutionary War battle of Lexington and Concord… Virginia. At least we can do so in the reckoning of one Jamie Fansworth of the CBS News blog “From the Road” because it seems our friend Farnsworth is a little fuzzy on where some of the most famous battles of the American Revolution were held.

Today, in the CBS blog post about McCain declaring “Energy Independence by 2025,” CBS News’ Jamie Farnsworth wrote the following (my bold for emphasis):

Las Vegas, NV — Senator John McCain unveiled the name of his energy project in Las Vegas today as he wrapped up the western swing of his two week energy tour. Deemed the Lexington Project, McCain’s plan states the U.S. will be independent of foreign energy sources by the year 2025.

“For the town where Americans asserted their independence once before,” McCain explained of the plan’s namesake in Virginia. “Let it begin today with this commitment: In a world of hostile and unstable suppliers of oil, this nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025.”

One teenie, weenie problem. The famous battles of the Revolution in question occurred in Massachusetts not Virginia.

In fact, Lexington, Virginia wasn’t even founded until after the great Revolutionary War battle in Massachusetts. We know this because the battle in Massachusetts was what the town in Virginia was named after.

Here is a bit of help for Farnsworth.

The City of Lexington, originally known as Gilbert Campbell’s Ford, was established as the town of Lexington in the Spring of 1778. The name chosen by the Virginia Legislature for the new county seat was in honor of the first great battle of the Revolutionary War, the battle of Lexington, Massachusetts, which had occurred three years earlier.

As Max Smart is wont to say, “Missed it by that much.”

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Media Fooled: ‘Lost Tribe’ Not so Lost as Previously Reported

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember last month when the “amazing” photos of the “lost Indian tribe” in the Brazilian jungle were making the rounds? Remember how every single news agency in the world jumped on this “astounding” report? They were a “lost tribe,” they were an “uncontacted” people, they were shooting arrows at the “big bird” and dressed in war paint. All manner of claims were made about these people, but many reports seemed to claim that these photos were intended to “prove” they exist and that the photographs were the result of a chance encounter.

Turns out that there was no “chance” to it and no one seriously doubted these people existed at all. Further, the man who took the photos knew almost exactly where to go to get those pictures, so “lost tribe” is hardly the correct terminology bywhich to describe these people.

What we have with this story is a perfect example of the media jumping on a story without bothering to clarify all the facts. In fact, the newest news of the incident is going to the other extreme and calling the whole incident a “hoax.” But the revelations made by the photographer do not really reveal an outright hoax as much as evidence that the original story was only a little misleading.

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Western Media Swallowing Chinese Propaganda Whole

-By Warner Todd Huston

Over the weekend, the London Times gave us a foolish headline for a foolish story. The trumpeting headline read, “A seismic shift in China’s relations with West?” This would be momentous news if true of course. But this supposed “seismic shift” was made up of whole cloth, not of any proof of actions by China otherwise. Instead of a story citing a series of decisions given a suitable amount of time to prove that China really has made some sort of shift in relations, it’s all built on an ego stroke the Chinese gave western reporters. This “seismic shift” only exists in the uncritical minds of the western press because they had an easier time of covering this story with less of the usual Chinese restrictiveness. So, they now assume, because the Chinese gave the western press a few minutes of unexpected face time, this must suddenly mean there is a “seismic shift” in relations between the oppressive, murderous Chinese government and the west? The assumption is as simple-minded as it is stupid.

I don’t often get as downright blatant as this, but sometimes one has to just come right out and say it — the western media is filled with stupid people. If this story doesn’t make you a believer that too many in the media don’t have the good sense God gave a common rock, nothing will ever convince you. This story has it all; self-congratulatory arrogance, ignorance of history, foolishness, blindness and the willful appeasement of one of the worst, most oppressive governments in human history.

The story started off as if being told by a rock star’s groupie telling her drugged out pals that she was allowed backstage to see her idol for a little face time.

Our correspondent was allowed personal access to China’s Prime Minister as he pledged openness and invited foreign journalists to a town at the epicentre

Apparently the reader is supposed to gulp in amazement that the Times’ correspondent “was allowed personal access to China’s Prime Minister.” “Gosh,” you are supposed to say to yourself, “how wonderous!” Feel blessed… the Times seems to.

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Newspaper ‘Comedy’: GOP ‘Longs’ For ‘1952′ When ‘Women, Blacks and Gays Knew Their Place’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The York Daily Record thinks it has comedy gold on its hands today with a faux “ad” that claims that Republicans are frustrated because they “long for a simpler time, say 1952, when women. blacks and gays knew their place.” The supposedly humorous “ad” says that Republicans want people to die from diseases and fear the war ending because war profiteering will cease stopping Republicans from making “tons of money off the suffering of others.” It makes Republicans out as warmongering, uncaring cretins that want people to be harmed all across the country. In short, just about every offensive thing you can imagine is leveled against Republicans “suffering electile dysfunction.”

The faux ad is presented like a drug company ad for a drug that “blocks the receptors in the brain, those things liberals call a conscience.” The fake ad also features a very, very badly produced fake radio commercial to go along with the unseemly print edition. You can hear the ad at www.mikeargento.com (Go on over to ol’ Mikey’s website and leave a nice, kind message about his efforts, will ya?)

Here is the text of the fake ad as published in the York Daily Record:

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In Twofer, Paper Makes Fun of American History And Capitalism At same Time

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here is a story in a small paper in Philadelphia that serves as a fine example of the junk that all too often passes for “journalism” in America today. This example is as ridiculously anti-intellectual and dismissive of the importance of preserving our history as it is anti-corporate. It’s a fine example of a journalist who thinks he is smarter and funnier than everyone about whom he writes — even his name reflects that condescension. The arrogance and smarminess is so thick with James Smart’s “Renovating a historic home” that it just drips off the page.

Of course, Mr. Smart’s work isn’t what one would call straight journalism, but more like the sort of commentary one would see from writers such as Dave Barry. Light hearted, ultimately pointless wastes of time that would find readers no better informed after having read them, but no worse off for the four minutes or so of their lives they’ll never get back from the exercise. But, in this particular piece, Smart goes over the edge of simple minded, blather and into uncalled for denigration. It also reveals his intense anti-capitalist feelings. Whatever his past work, this one reveals far more about his generally dismissive attitude against our history and capitalist system than it does about the subject matter.

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SPJ Suggests ‘Omitting Race’ in Crime Reporting

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Society of Professional Journalists has decided that it is best to leave a suspect’s race out of crime reporting except for “extraordinary” reasons. Of course, to the SPJ, “good reporting” means race info in a story about crime isn’t “useful to people in the community” even if the race of a suspect is part of a police report apparently. Despite their claim that they aren’t toeing the PC line, their explanation is filled with just the sort of reasoning based on PC thinking — one of which is that all whites are racists.

Some of you may remember the story in September of 2007 when the Sacramento Bee announced that they were revisiting their policy of including race in their crime stories. A particularly gruesome crime occurred that brought the Bee to revisit their policy when they reported on the suspect leaving out race while Internet reporting as well as the Bee’s own comments section on their internet posting of the story reported the race of the suspect anyway.

SPJ continues, however, to come down on the side of leaving the race of a suspect out of crime reporting. I find their reasons, though, less than convincing. In fact, their concerns are so broad as to make all reporting on every issue untenable if applied farther than just race in crime reporting.

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Texas Pol Caught drunk Driving: Name That Party!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, we’ve played “Name That Party” so often that it is getting to be old hat. How many times have we seen it where the MSM refuses to mention that a Democrat is the troubled politician in the news? We’ve also said many times that if only that criminal politician were a Republican, why we’d get the party mentioned ASAP. We say it and accept the claim as fact, but we don’t often focus on examples to prove our case. Our detractors point to that and say “prove it!”

Call this one more proof of the claim.

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Poll: Democrats Trust Press More than Republicans Do

-By Warner Todd Huston

Harris released one of their latest polls on the 6th and it showed that less than half the general American public trusts the press. With the state of the media today, this should come as no surprise to anyone. But, the numbers are pretty amazing when it is realized that 54% of those responding said they did not trust the press while 46% admitted that they don’t trust television news either. The Internet fared better with 41% saying that they trust what they see there with only 34% saying they do not trust the web for their news.

But, the really interesting news with this poll is the wide disparity between Democrats and Republicans where it concerns their trust in the media. It seems that Democrats are far more trusting in the media in nearly every category than are Republicans. (Independents trusted the media even less, incidentally.)

According to Harris, the press is trusted by 43% of the Democrats polled but only by an anemic 19% of the Republicans contacted. Radio is trusted by 51% of Dems, and 45% of Repubs while TV is trusted by 50% of the Dems and only 31% of the GOPers. The Internet saw the two sides closer together with 45% of the Dems trusting what they find there and with 40% of the Republicans who also did.

Now, this should also come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the left slanted nature of the “news” that comes out of most of the media. With TV and the press firmly in the left’s corner, it is not a shock to see few Republicans trusting what they see and hear from those sources. In fact, this poll pretty much serves as more proof of how far left most of the media is.

The poll also showed that the Internet is not yet a dominant news source for the general populace.

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Reporter Who Badgered Elderly Robbery Victim Fired

-By Warner Todd Huston

You may recall the report last October of the story of reporter Rebecca Aguilar of Fox 4 in Dallas, Texas who confronted and badgered an elderly victim of several robberies who responded to his attackers with deadly force. Aguilar was seen in her interview keeping the poor fellow from shutting his car door as she accusingly asked the man if he was “a trigger happy person” because he had killed the robbers who accosted him.

Well, we have an update on this pushy, unfeeling reporter, It seems she’s been fired.

In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Aguilar, 49, said she was checking her mail at mid-afternoon that day when she noticed an envelope under her front door mat. It informed her that Fox4 was exercising an option to drop her at the halfway point of a two-year contract that began on March 6, 2007.

“No doorbell, no knock on the door,” said Aguilar, who had been on paid suspension since Oct. 16th following her controversial interview with an elderly West Dallas salvage business owner who had shot and killed two alleged burglars within three weeks time.

Aguilar’s controversial, attack dog-like interview of James Walton, the elderly business owner, is quite a show. In it Augilar treated this 78-year-old man as the criminal. Mr. Walton, though, had been robbed countless times and was only protecting himself.

As was reported last October, the Dallas police are defending Walton’s actions. According to some reports Mr. Walton has made over 40 calls to police concerning break ins.

Police said Mr. Walton is allowed to protect his property. No charges were filed against him Sunday, though the case will be referred to a grand jury, police said.

“He’s got a right to defend his property. What gives a stranger the right to go in and vandalize or burglarize his business?” said Dallas police Sgt. Gene Reyes. “He’s within every legal right to do this.”

But despite that he is the victim, Aguilar treated him as the criminal. By her accusatory tone, you’d have thought it was the robber’s Constitutional right to rob the old man instead of his right to defend himself!

(Also see video at BreitbartTV)

In any case, it seems as if justice is done and this ignorant woman has been canned. Good for Fox 4.

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How the MSM Twists Language to Blame the Innocent, Mislead Readers

-By Warner Todd Huston

NBC Channel 10 News of Philadelphia, PA has given us a perfect example of how the media misuses words in order to illegitimately blame things and people who are otherwise blameless. This particular story really shows how the media manipulates… or is, perhaps, just plain illiterate at the very least.

The headline begins us on our journey of media manipulation and nonsense. With the proclamation that “French Fries To Blame For SEPTA Station Gang Beating”, we are supposed to be informed that “French fries” are at fault for a beating. I guess it wasn’t the gang-banger punks that were responsible, huh? It was the “French fries”? Already the news piece shies blame away from the humans responsible to an inanimate object; the French fries (a favorite poly in the “gun violence” meme, by the way).

Oh, but it doesn’t stop with just an illogical, misleading headline. The very first few paragraphs caries us further on our journey into absurdity.

PHILADELPHIA — A teenager riding SEPTA home from school said Wednesday she was attacked by a group of teenage girls over French fries, and wanted to thank the good Samaritan she said stopped the beating.

The 16-year-old girl, who was not identified, told NBC 10 News she knew others had been attacked on SEPTA, but said she had no idea she would be the next victim.

So within the first two sentences we see that this sort of violence has been happening more and more on the mass transit in the “City of Brotherly Love,” and that makes the lie to the “French fry” claim… unless people wander around Philly carrying French fries (an obvious item of burning desire, jealousy and passion, of course) at all times?

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Detroit Mayor Sex Scandal Revealed, But Not That He’s a Democrat

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick was at age 31 the youngest elected Mayor in the history of Detroit, the Motor City. Now, at 38, he is also the Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors as well as that organization’s representative to the Democratic National Committee. He also seems to have a problem with appropriate behavior… then lies about it to try to cover it up. But one thing he doesn’t seem to have to worry about is the MSM telling people he’s a Democrat!

In a series of articles with ongoing coverage the Detroit Free Press reveals the attempted cover-up of an affair between Mayor Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty. (OK, you guys. Quit with the “chief of staff” jokes, I KNOW what your thinkin’)

Apparently, the long and short of it is that the Mayor’s police security detail had undue overtime. When the police force investigated, they discovered wild parties and a cover up of the overtime. The police also uncovered during the investigation hints of the Mayors various secret affairs through text messages to his chief of staff and various other women. Suddenly, Detroit’s police chief was fired so he filed a wrongful termination suit against the mayor claiming that he was fired to cover up the mayor’s affairs.

Blah, blah, blah, etc., etc., etc. Just another messy sex cover up, really.

But, so far, we get the story in the Detroit Free Press (Here and several other stories), the Associated Press, and the Lansing State Journal (with a report from the Free Press), as well as TV station WDIV’s repost of another AP report, and The Detroit News version.

But, not one source so far identifies the Mayor as a Democrat, and a prominent one at that.

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Magazine Reports New Veteran’s Cemetery With Photo Of WWII Nazi Soldier

-By Warner Todd Huston

**Updated below fold**

Lifestyle magazine, a publication that serves Pennsylvania’s Delaware Valley area, published a nice story this week reporting how a long awaited veteran’s cemetery is finally underway in Buck’s County, Penn. Oh, the story seems nice enough, but there is one problem. The photo accompanying the story shows a soldier, circa WWII, in near silhouette trotting across a wintry field, rifle in hand. That there is a photo of a soldier from WWII tacked onto a story about a new veteran’s cemetery isn’t the problem. The problem is that the photo is of a Nazi German soldier from WWII and NOT an American soldier! This is a shocking mistake that reveals many things about the folks at Lifestyle Magazine.

Why is a story about an American veteran’s cemetery being illustrated by a photo of a Nazi solder? The answer can only be that the folks at Lifestyle magazine are so unfamiliar with anything military that the glaring mistake went completely unrecognized by its Editors and designers.

Even the first paragraphs of the story are a bit odd. A story about the final resting place of our honored veterans is begun with two paragraphs about a Kris Kristofferson song!

“Caught in the action of kill or be killed, no greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for his brother.” These were the words that singer Kris Kristofferson said in his opening to the song by country music artists, Big & Rich entitled, “The Eighth of November.”

It was a ballad about a Vietnam veteran, Niles Harris, whom the two singers met in a bar, and they were so taken with his personal story of bravery and heroism they wrote a song in his honor.

Now, it seems to me that this is a rather flippant way to start a story about honoring our vets. Using an explanation of a pop song just seems so trivial when juxtaposed against the sacrifices of our military men in battle and the deserved construction of a suitable final resting place when they pass from this mortal coil.

I don’t know about you but I would not have started this story off with talk of Kris Kristofferson.

Still, the rest of this article is not so bad. But the glaring error of using a photo of a Nazi soldier when talking about our veterans is unforgivable here and the less than serious talk about a Kris Kristofferson song to kick the story off didn’t help much either. It all adds up to a magazine entering into unfamiliar territory; the military.

And, that is the saddest thing of all. That the folks at Lifestyle magazine are so out of their depth when discussing the U.S. military that they cannot tell the difference between a photo of a Nazi soldier and an American is outrageous. But it seems to be a mark of our times when folks in the media haven’t the slightest clue about our military and its history. It’s horrendous that they are so sloppy with their work that they don’t even know what an American soldier looks like but it is a situation that has sadly come to be expected of the media.

One last thing to show how ignorant the editors and writers at Lifestyle magazine are. Witness this line in the story (my emphasis)…

Currently, there are only three national veteran’s cemeteries in Pennsylvania. There is one near Pittsburgh, another northeast of Harrisburg, and the third, which is not taking any new internments, in Philadelphia.

Dear, dear editors of Lifestyle magazine. Cemeteries take interments NOT “internments”!!

**Update** 11AM 01/14/08

Well, there is a reason that I made a screen capture of the original picture that accompanies my article here. The photo on the Lifestyle website has now been changed to show American soldiers. Mysteriously, no correction notice or apology was made. The picture was just changed with no word about it.

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‘Liberal Europeans’ Should be Allowed to ‘Vote in U.S. Elections’

-By Warner Todd Huston

They hate us, they love us, but they want us to comply with “Yankee go home,” and leave them alone. Yet they crave our cash, our military protection, our cash, our leadership, our cash, our culture, oh, and our cash. Now they want to vote in our elections, too. To that end, a Brussels newspaper called De Standaard has issued the call for liberal Europeans to vote in our elections. And, WHY does Evita Neefs of De Standaard think she should be allowed to vote in our elections? Is it because we have such a great system, one she is dying to be a part of? No, it’s because she wants a chance to vote into office candidates that will restrict the U.S. on the international scene, that’s why. In other words, she wants the right to vote so that she might use that privilege to materially cripple U.S. interests. Well, at least she has the same goal as our own Democrat Party!

Neefs’ original piece is not in English, but here is an excerpt in English provided by the Brussels Journal:

Liberal Europeans Demand Right to Vote in U.S. Elections

American presidential elections are not “home affairs.” American decisions have repercussions all over the globe. The American mortgage crisis affects banks in Europe. The insatiable American demand for oil makes the Arabian sheiks rich. The American refusal to care for the environment causes the North Pole ice to melt and coastal areas in Asia to flood. A weakened dollar and an immense budget deficit affect the global economy.

Hence, the world should be given the right to vote. Because the current situation is a blatant case of taxation without representation, against which the Americans rebelled in 1776. But of course the world will not be allowed to vote. The best we can hope for is that the Americans choose a leader who is deeply aware of the U.S.’s responsibility, as a superpower, for the rest of mankind.

The international community was able to limit America’s hegemony somewhat through organisations for international consultation, agreements and the corresponding judicial apparatus. But that system is in crisis, partly through the actions of the current American president.

We are so eeeevil, aren’t we? But, what is the chief complaint here? None but the same Bush Derangement Syndrome that Miss Neefs learned from her liked minded compatriots at the New York Times and CNN! (and I repeat…)

But that system is in crisis, partly through the actions of the current American president.

So, a Vladimir Putin who is turning Russia back into the U.S.S.R. — no problem. The past French president, Jacques Chirac, and his sinister pal ex German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, both of whom used their offices to enrich themselves and their terrorist friends in Iran — ppffft. Perhaps we have no need to become involved in the next Pakistani election — nukes in Islamist’s hands? Booooring. So, move along, nothing to see here. It’s America that is the eeeevil one, we must remember!

But, wait. Maybe this might not be so bad?

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