‘We’re a bunch of idiots’

Embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently wrapped up a two-day media blitz of national media, chatting with just about anyone with a mic and national airtime, from Larry King to the panel on “The View.”
‘Blago’ was a soundbyte machine during his two-day media blitz. He plead his case to any and all who wanted to [...]

Is media focus on Palin’s family fair?

Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin is a polarizing figure.
She’s beloved as much as she is mocked. Palin fills the seats for her public speechs … and she was the prime target of late night comedy for the last part of 2008.
But Sarah Palin recently took a stand and told the media to ‘leave my kids alone.’
Palin said: “I [...]

Conflicts overlooked by the media

MSNBC has a solid piece – complete with an easy to understand interactive global map – outlining the international conflicts don’t involve Iraq, Afghanistan or the Middle East.
Here are some of world’s Forgotten Conflicts - violence that isn’t finding consistent prominence in the media.

JonBenet: Still dead.

Somehow, someway JonBenet Ramsey is back in the news.

She shouldn’t have been news in 1996. She shouldn’t have been news outside of Denver. The story should have been buried before JonBenet was.
And it’s NOT news today. This is a case study of news judgment gone insane.
But according to MSNBC, the top news of the day is the [...]

Incredible and Unbelievable

Here’s a story y’all may or may not believe …
So a woman developed a little bit of an itch on the top of her head. Eventually, the itch got progressively worse and worse. Somewhere along the line, she starts itching her head during her sleep – and one fateful night she actually managed to scratch [...]

Loud Silence

Almost a week and a half ago, the New York Times published a damning article regarding the major TV networks and their military analysts. Reporter David Barstow’s original article was published on April 20.
This was no softball indictment of military analysts – many who are, according to Barstow’s article, are just mouthpieces for the White House, [...]

3 minutes of heaven

It’s the one story that everyone remembered from the morning news rotation.
And was NOT the story about several airlines under investigation for failing to comply with FAA rules. It wasn’t the story about city council leaders and the mayor hoping to impose a 20-cent fee to supermarket customers who choose plastic over paper bags. And [...]

Chelsea Clinton and the press

Chelsea Clinton has established herself as an ambassador for her mother’s presidential bid.
She has also closed herself off from the media on several occassions – including recently brushing off a 9-year-old reporter and most recently striking down a student reporter’s question about the Lewinsky scandal’s effect on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The question here: is Chelsea Clinton [...]

Iraq War lost in the news shuffle

Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton. Eliot Spitzer. Soaring oil prices. $4/gallon gas looming. Worries of a possible recession. The murder of a UNC student body president. The death of William F. Buckley.
But a new Pew Research study finds that the Iraq War has quietly faded into the background noise, lost amid a new torrent of news headlines.
The [...]

FCC considers probe into possible ‘60 Minutes’ blackout

Technical glitch, or an orchestrated blackout of a politically-charged story in Alabama?
‘60 Minutes’ ran a piece that examined the bribery prosecution of a democratic Alabama governor. The report presents a possible plot to take down ex-Gov. Don Siegelman, a democrat, spearheaded by republicans – and Bush’s former adviser Karl Rove.
‘The Prosecution of Governor Siegelman’ segment [...]

Media attempts cover up – fails miserably

Front and center of the Web site for The Society of Editors – a membership of British journalists – is the following pledge:
“The Society of Editors works to protect the freedom of all sectors of the media to report on behalf of the public.”
Among the Society’s four ‘values that matter’: “The promotion of press and [...]

Pres. Bush live on ABC, CBS – but not NBC

ABC and CBS broke into their regularly scheduled Thursday morning programming to broadcast President Bush’s news conference.
NBC, however, did not follow suit. Instead, it diverted conference coverage to NBC’s cable network MSNBC.
NBC News senior vice president Phil Griffin said it was part of a decision to make MSNBC a more prominent news destination.
(For what it’s [...]

SHARK ATTACK!!

Yahoo, MSN and other Web portals are not exactly established, respected and revered news outlets – but boy-o-boy a lot of people click through those sites on a daily basis.
That’s what makes a recent headlining story on Yahoo so discouraging. Its headline read: ‘Shark Attacks on the Rise.’
This was the featured story that prominently ran [...]

Was the McCain-lobbist story ‘fit to print’?

The New York Times recently published an intriguing story, ‘For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk,’ that alleges a romantic relationship developed between the Arizona senator and a telecom lobbyist prior to John McCain’s presidential bid in 2000.
The Times-McCain story is one of a respected legislator who has been accused in a most [...]

Race, gender & the White House

So Hillary Clinton is a woman and Barack Obama is a Black man.
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson wrote a column today regarding that bit of detail surrounding the 2008 Democratic race for the White House.
Clinton’s gender and Obama’s race are, unfortunately, aspects of their personas that are intrinsically part of their campaigns’ foundations. Neither is [...]