Archive for posts ‘traditional media’
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Here is the image that CNN used for its article on allegations of sexual harassment levied against soon-to-be-former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY):
A quick Google Image search reveals several photos of Massa, including official Congressional portraits, which do not involved thrusting and/or phalluses (phalli?), but hey, who is CNN’s “best political team” to pass up a good dick joke?
That is, of course, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), not Wesley Snipes.
For comparison, here’s Snipes in his upcoming film, Brooklyn’s Finest:
Yeah, those guys look the same.
I have Facebook. Can I be on TV?
Vice President Biden is in Iraq this week, but instead of asking him about the troops or the situation on the ground or anything remotely related to defense or foreign policy, your national media wants to know what he thinks about President Obama calling Kanye West a jackass.
And they wonder why their industry is dying.
A friendly reminder that you shouldn’t always believe what you read in the traditional media.
As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.
The truth, from the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center:
We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.
It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.
As [Obama] tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression.
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It is bad history because our current economic woes don’t come close to those of the 1930s.
The truth, from Media Matters:
Has Obama ever claimed that today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression? Readers have no idea, because Schiller can’t be bothered with quoting the president.
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For the record, here’s what Obama said (and what Schiller wouldn’t tell readers):“We are going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”
Note a couple things. Obama did not suggest, as Schiller falsely claimed at the outset of his column, that “today’s economy” is just as bad as the Great Depression. Obama said we were experiencing the “worst economic crisis” since the Great Depression. Words have meaning, and an econ prof ought to be able to differentiate between the “today’s economy” and an “economic crisis.” Either that, or Schiller played dumb really hard.
Second, note the “since” that Obama used. He claimed today’s economic crisis represents the worst since the Great Depression. But in his column, Schiller quoted all kinds of stats to prove today’s woes don’t compare to the Great Depression. But Obama never compared it to the Great Depression. He said it’s the worst since.
Does Schiller honestly not realize that by claiming today’s economy crisis is the worst since the Great Depression, that Obama was not claiming today’s economy is just as bad as the Great Depression. Or was Schiller aggressively playing dumb. Again?
When Republican Senator Judd Gregg announced on Thursday that he no longer wished to be the Commerce Secretary nominee, he said that the decision was based in part on serious disagreements with the Obama White House over the 2010 census.
The truth, from, erm… TIME’s AMY Sullivan:
Gregg himself backed off the issue in a news conference after he announced his withdrawal, insisting that his concerns over the census were “slight” and refusing to address it further.
And the print media wonder why they’re all going out of business. Maybe they should fire some columnists and hire some fact-checkers.
Your traditional media, keeping the American people informed:
We arrived at 1141am, but were told this was likely just a restroom stop at what appears to be a rather well-appointed resort.
Thank God the media is here to tell us when Barack Obama goes to the bathroom.
While I actually like Joe Biden, part of me hopes that he isn’t Obama’s choice for VP if only because CNN, ABC, the AP/MSNBC, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Politico would all come out looking like the fracking morons that they are.
The plus side to all this veep-speculation-craziness is that Team Obama scores an epic win in the controlling-the-media-department.
Update: John on Joe:
The pick is probably gonna be Biden according to the media, who I rate as the person most likely of all the VP possibles to call Mitt Romney an asshole. Others are hoping for a casual “m____ f_____.” Either way, I call that a win.
Apparently, John McCain doesn’t care if the troops come home any time soon.
Given that John McCain has a tendency to lie to the press and the press doesn’t care when he lies to them, I’m sure this will all blow over shortly.
Whenever anyone from the Bush Administration says anything, regardless of whether they have the evidence to back it up, they can take comfort knowing that their trusted lapdogs in the U.S. media will report it as the whole, unadulterated truth. Yesterday, ABC News reported that John Kiriakou, leader of a CIA team that captured and waterboarded a crazy, schizophrenic al-Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, revealed that he believes waterboarding to be torture, but necessary:
A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.
In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.
“The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate,” said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News With Charles Gibson” and “Nightline.”
“Well,” I said to myself, “we are a nation of laws, and the law says that torture is illegal.” And I went to bed thinking that I would wake up to see the traditional media finally ripping apart the Bush Administration. “Bush Administration Tortures” the papers would say, “Ex-CIA Agent admits government broke federal and international law.”
But those weren’t the headlines I saw this morning. No, the U.S. traditional media has accepted Kiriakou’s assertion that waterboarding provided valuable information on face value, and has given George Bush and his cronies a free pass to continue doing whatever they please–laws be damned!–for the next year.
MSNBC: Waterboarding ‘probably saved lives’
The Day: Ex-agent: Waterboarding got results
Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Waterboarding is torture but worked, ex-agent says
USA Today: Ex-spy describes waterboarding as torture, says it broke al-Qaeda figure in seconds
Bloomberg: Ex-CIA Agent Says Waterboarding May Be Torture, Yields Results
FOXNews: Report: CIA Agent Says Waterboarding is ‘Torture, But Necessary’
Baltimore Sun: Waterboarding worked wonders, ex-agent says
In every instance, the American media has pounced on the “success” of waterboarding without stopping to ask for any evidence of success other than the word of one former CIA agent. And the fact that it’s torture? Apparently that doesn’t matter to the U.S. traditional media as long as the Bush Administration says that it’s working.
For contrast, let’s look at some of this morning headlines from foreign media:
Sydney Morning Herald: Suspect was tortured, former CIA man says
Philippines Inquirer: Ex-CIA agent admits waterboarding, but calls it torture
Press TV: Ex-CIA agent admits waterboarding
The Australian: Ex-CIA agent admits suspect was tortured
The Daily Telegraph: Ex-CIA agent: We used torture and it worked
Outside of the U.S., the big news story of the day is that the government of the United States officially sanctions torture. Only the Daily Telegraph even mentions Kiriakou’s claims of success, and even then the connotation is drastically different. Compare “We used torture and it worked” with “We used torture but it worked.” Which of those sounds like reporting and which sounds like a pitiful defense?
It looks like most of the media outlets, domestic and foreign, and using the same text from a Washington Post/AFP story, but the similarities in the text only exaggerate the differences in the headlines. The media of this country are being put to shame by their foreign counterparts. Only the foreign press has the stones to report facts–that the the CIA admits to torture–in big, bold letters and leave the Administration’s unsubstantiated claims of success for the fine print. That’s real journalism, and it’s the biggest difference between the traditional media here and the traditional media abroad.
(Cross-posted at DailyKos)
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