If you want to see a perfect example of how the left-wing media plans to smear and destroy Mitt Romney should he win the GOP nomination, no better example can be found than the hoax over a photo that lefties every where are trying to sell as evidence of Romney’s “privileged” life. Lefties say the photo in question shows Romney “getting his shoes shined” before getting on a private jet during his campaign travel. That is not what the photo shows, of course, but let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good left-wing mudslinging, OK?

The meme began from a photo by Getty showing Romney sitting in a chair on the tarmac with his foot up and a red-jacketed worker attending to the candidate’s footwear. The left immediately assumed that Romney was getting his shoes shined before getting on a “corporate” jet. This story was made up out of whole cloth because in reality what the picture shows is Romney getting his shoes wanded by an explosive sniffing device wielded by a TSA agent before being allowed to board the plane.

The photo seems to have appeared early on the blog of the MSNBC smear show “The Ed Schultz Show” with the headline, “Romney Creates Another Job.” The caption set the tone for the left-wing onslaught to come saying, “Mitt Romney created another job with his presence alone… a job giving shoe shines on the tarmac in front of a corporate jet.”

From there Salon’s most virulent hater, Joan Walsh, picked up on the meme on her blog with one titled “Mr. 1 Percent is clueless about inequality,” where she used the photo as an illustration to “prove” that Romney was out of touch with the reg’lar folks.

Salon’s Steve Kornacki then went on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show and launched into his interpretation of the supposed shoe shining.

“There’s a picture that’s making the rounds today — the shoe shine on the tarmac,” Kornacki explained. “I don’t know if you saw this one. I don’t know where this came from… He’s sitting in front of an airplane. I think it might be a corporate jet, and he’s wearing a suit and he’s getting a shoe shine. He’s got a big smile on his face.”

…“He’s getting a shoe shine! We put this on Salon earlier today. I’m not sure where it originated. But it never looks good for a politician to be getting a shoe shine, you know, on a tarmac but it looks terrible when it’s Mitt Romney and this is your image and background. It looks worse when it’s the year 2012 and the economy is in such a bad place, and the Democrats are going to be going after your party for being the one that sort of favors the people who get shoe shines on tarmacs!” he added.

So, not only did Kornacki lie about the photo — he had no knowledge at all about what it really showed — but he then throw in the “I think it might be a corporate jet” on top of it — again without knowing if it really was or not — so that he could add more layers of lies to the story.

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“To be honest, I don’t even really know who Ed Schultz is … I know he yells a lot.”

Oh ouch.

“Apparently, Mr. Schultz has a pretty thin skin for someone who goes around calling people sluts.”

Still laughing.

“But when you have less of a sense of humor than the end-of-the-world guy and show less logic and restraint than Tila Tequila, you just leave us no choice but to welcome both you and your ass kicking to “The RidicuList.”

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- The New Hampshire Union Leader endorses Gingrich.

- Sponsorships verses failing banner ads: an interesting discussion on the future of digital news advertising:

I simply cannot believe that there isn’t a way to tell people about new products and services and special deals without pissing them off. After all, at the right times and in the right quantities, we want to know about the new furniture store that opened up just outside downtown, next month’s concerts at the arena and the new flavor of Doritos. The problem is not that we hate advertising, the problem is that we hate the kind of advertising we get.

[...]

One promising alternative to banner ads, it seems to me, is a revival of the good old-fashioned sponsorship and the copywriting behind it.

- NYPD tells officers not to interfere with the press:

The New York Police Department’s commissioner on Wednesday sent an internal message to officers ordering them not to unreasonably interfere with media access during news coverage and warning those who do will be subject to disciplinary action, after several journalists were arrested covering Occupy Wall Street demonstrations last week.

The message by Commissioner Raymond Kelly was being read at police precincts citywide.

- As more and more viewers lose trust in media, all media, due to the bias, progressives move from manipulating the news itself to manipulating fact-checks with oftentimes questionable sources.

You’re reading a wrap-up of the Sept. 22 Republican presidential debate when you land on this claim from Rep. Michele Bachmann: “President Obama has the lowest public approval ratings of any president in modern times.”

Really? You start googling for evidence. Maybe you scour the blogs or the fact-checking sites. It takes work, all that critical thinking.

That’s why Dan Schultz, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab (and newly named Knight-Mozilla fellow for 2012), is devoting his thesis to automatic bullshit detection. Schultz is building what he calls truth goggles — not actual magical eyewear, alas, but software that flags suspicious claims in news articles and helps readers determine their truthiness. It’s possible because of a novel arrangement: Schultz struck a deal with fact-checker PolitiFact for access to its private APIs.

If you had the truth goggles installed and came across Bachmann’s debate claim, the suspicious sentence might be highlighted. You would see right away that the congresswoman’s pants were on fire. And you could explore the data to discover that Bachmann, in fact, wears some of the more flammable pants in politics.

This becomes an argument about perception. The petty Bachmann example cited is flawed and simply because the entire conclusion is based on a presupposition and attempts to asininely make scientific an off-handed remark. If you want a real example of scientific measurement, why not begin with the President’s claim that there exist 57 states in the union? Oh my gosh, Bachmann split an infinitive while giving her response in the last debate. FACT CHECK! Senate Democrats haven’t produced a budget in over 800 days while pouring blame all over conservatives in the media. Crickets.

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From NBC Universal:

Starting Monday, October 24^th, “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” will move back to its original time slot of 10 p.m. ET/PT, Monday-Thursday. “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz will lead off MSNBC’s primetime lineup each weeknight at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The announcement was made today by Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC. “The Rachel Maddow Show” will continue to air live at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

“This move will strengthen the flow of our programming throughout the evening. As the name implies, “The Last Word” belongs at the conclusion of our programming day, thoughtfully wrapping-up the day’s political dialogue,” said Griffin. “Ed’s passionate voice is a perfect kick off to primetime at 8 p.m.”

“The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” debuted in September 2010 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on MSNBC and moved to the 8 p.m. ET/PT time slot in January 2011. “The Ed Show” launched in April 2009 at 6 p.m. ET on MSNBC and replaced “The Last Word” at 10 pm ET/PT in January 2011. (more…)

- Via NewsBusters, it’s come to this: Ed Schultz says he will be “cheer-leading” for the Occupy  Wall Street movement every night on the air. I’m  not sure even  the Left can handle Ed  Schultz in a cheer-leading uniform every night. Come on, Ed, we could understand every once in a while on a weekend, maybe, especially if you’ve had a few too many, but every night?

Uh, is this intended to help or hurt?

- Washington Times:

- The Media Primary: How news and blogs view the GOP primary candidates. Ron Paul, does in fact, get the short end of the coverage stick. Mitt Romney’s negatives trump all.

- CNN uses PolitiFact to hit GOP candidates. But who hits PolitiFact? We do, that’s who!

What good is a self-appointed truth squad that appears in a national news segment like this merely to call the top-three GOP candidates “mostly” liars? Oh, and what about one that doesn’t bother to fact-check even a single Democrat?

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Read Project Mayhem, Part I and Project Mayhem, Part II

Recently, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and White House reporter Tommy Christopher attacked Andrew Breitbart and myself for a “failed ambush” after I released Project Mayhem, Part II, which included video in which I broke the first rule of Project Mayhem, and asked Schultz how Ohio Senate Bill 5 allegedly takes away union rights to bargain on safety, which he and his panel contended, when it specifically does the opposite.

Recounting this in a subsequent broadcast, calling me part of a “goon squad,” Schultz explained that “after the show, one of Andrew Breitbart’s lackeys ambushed me.”

First of all, I did not “ambush” him; I asked him for a few moments of his time for an interview and he agreed. Perhaps I should from now on duck, cover and scream “Help!” every time some Greenpeace member asks me if I have a moment for the environment.

Apparently Schultz’s definition of the term “ambush” is any consensual interview in which specific questions are asked which don’t comfortably warrant platitudinal answers. (By this rationale, most questions towards President Obama regarding specific language in Obamacare are ripe for secret service intervention.)

Schultz continued: “It wasn’t a scheduled interview he just came up and started talking.”

Actually we did schedule it. I asked, “Hi Mr. Schultz, can I ask you a few questions for the people of Ohio?” He said, “Sure.” So I began. I assumed by “sure” he meant “right now is fine,” as opposed to “call my assistant, she knows my schedule this week better than I do.”

In the interview, I pointed out to him that “the bill under Section 4117.08 actually gives the right to unions to be bargain on safety which the Democrat bill of 1983 didn’t.” His response was “that’s not what the firefighters are telling me,” to which I said, “But the bill says so.”

… And it still does. As the author of the bill Shannon Jones advised Schultz in my earlier video, “Reading is fundamental.” In response to the video release, Schultz admitted that while the bill does in fact say so, it at the same time doesn’t say so:

“What Breitbart and the anti-union Republicans don’t want you to know about is Section 4117.14 of the bill … Right now if firefighters and lawmakers have a disagreement, they go to a neutral third party to reach an agreement. In Senate Bill 5, those rights are taken away and the lawmakers — the lawmakers — have the final say.”

Once again, Ed, reading is fundamental. Had Schultz actually read the article I wrote in which the video was embedded, he would have found that this “Breitbart lackey” who “[doesn't] want you to know about … Section 4117.14,” specifically mentioned Section 4117.14.

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(Read Project Mayhem, Part I here)

When he’s not busy encouraging Massachusetts voters to commit voter fraud to “keep these bastards out,” or condemning “tea party rhetoric” for not “rising to the president’s challenge on tone” while calling Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut,” MSNBC’s Ed Schultz indulges his hobby of swooping into states like Wisconsin and Ohio, becoming an overnight expert on legislation he is only familiar with from having skimmed through SEIU-furnished Cliffs Notes, calling the legislation “racist” while cheerleading union rallies with applause-cuing platitudes, waving his arms in solidarity and then peacing out.

Schultz made a recent visit to Columbus, Ohio in which he had Congressman Tim Ryan (whom I had interviewed hours prior about Senate Bill 5’s alleged confiscation of safety equipment) and Senator Sherrod Brown on the show against a backdrop of union firefighters to whom, during commercial breaks, Schultz yelled that SB 5 “makes me believe Jimmy Hoffa even more that they are sons of bitches!” Throughout the broadcast Schultz and his guests parroted the manufactured mantra that the bill takes away safety equipment, perhaps almost enough times to make it true.

Admittedly breaking the SEIU’s first rule of Project Mayhem, I subsequently interviewed Schultz on camera and asked him to respond to the fact that the bill gives bargaining rights on safety equipment — which the Democrats’ earlier bill didn’t, citing the exact section number — to which he offered a Pulitzer Prize-warranting response: “That’s not what the firefighters are telling me.”

Well Ed, that may not be what the firefighters are telling you the bill says, but it is what the bill is telling me the bill says. When I later asked the author of SB 5, State Senator Shannon Jones, to respond to Schultz’s talking points, she clarified the provision in depth, noting to Schultz that “reading is fundamental.”

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Several weeks ago MSNBC’s Ed Schultz worked up a fit of outrage over a Rick Perry quote that he edited. This same outrage was repeated on Al Sharpton’s show and by a few progressives. The outrage over the edited remark was greater than outrage that it was edited — and by ”greater than” I mean nonexistent. Progressives so badly wanted to insert a racist wrench into Perry’s presidential plans that they concocted an example when one wasn’t found. On Saturday the LA Times did to Herman Cain what Schultz claimed Perry did to Obama.

Their original lede (my emphasis):

Reporting from Tampa, Fla. — A black threatening cloud hung low over the Orange County Convention Center on Saturday evening as top members of Gov. Rick Perry’s brain trust left a place their candidate would love to forget.

Perry had just capped a shaky showing in a debate there Thursday evening with a stinging straw vote defeat at the hands of the Hermanator, longshot Herman Cain, who outpolled the GOP presidential front-runner by better than two-to-one.

The sentence was changed later on Saturday afternoon, but Google doesn’t forget:

Neither do the commenters, who remembered the hay made from the Schultz drama.

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-  Newsweek continues its victory lap around the toilet bowl.

- Female Mexican journalists killed because of their gender.

- You can’t call Ed Schultz’s ideology “extreme liberalism.” It’s an insult to classical liberalism. A “raging socialist on steroids” is more appropriate.

- Online video finally chipping away at broadcast TV:

A quarter of people in countries with access to high-speed broadband are streaming video to their TV, although more than 80 percent still watch broadcast television as well. But that’s slowly beginning to change: According to survey data from Ericsson, there’s been a slight decrease from 2010 to 2011 in the percentage of folks watching broadcast TV, while Internet-enabled options, such as long-form streaming sites like Netflix, short-form videos aggregators like YouTube and downloaded content are all on the rise.

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It only took a few days for NBC News’ newest star Al Sharpton to insult his colleagues and further undermine the already diminished journalistic credibility of MSNBC.

In an interview with The Daily Beast the controversial activist turned TV news anchor defended himself against criticism from the National Association of Black Journalists.  (emphasis mine)

“To be fair about it, the NABJ understood that if I didn’t get it, it wouldn’t have gone to a journalist,” Sharpton tells me. “It’s a moot point. There are no journalists [as hosts] after 5 p.m. on MSNBC. Everyone after 5 deals with opinions. So the argument is kind of apples and oranges.”

In an effort to defend himself from the obvious observation that there are many more qualified journalists (of any color) to fill a nightly anchor spot at MSNBC, Sharpton has inadvertently “outed” Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Ed Schultz as mere commentators voicing opinions rather than legitimate journalists presenting news as well as ideas and opinions to their audience.  For the sake of this column, let’s forget O’Donnell and Schultz for a moment because their shows do border on the brink of pot and pan banging temper tantrums, let’s just focus on Matthews and Maddow.

One has to wonder how Chris Matthews feels about his new workmate telling the world that he isn’t a journalist.  Matthews spent fifteen years writing for the San Francisco Examiner.  He’s covered politics for decades on behalf of newspapers and television news bureaus.  I bet if you asked him, he’d say he was a journalist.

And Rhodes Scholar Maddow (a title Sharpton could never dream of acquiring) also has her share of opinions on her show, but she also prides herself on her excellent team of researchers who painstakingly dig for stories and facts to present news to their viewers.  Look how she presented herself in her first “Lean Forward” ad.  Surely you can see that she considers herself a journalist obsessed with details and facts, not opinion:

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From Breitbart.tv:

For the record, Mr. Schultz stated that he regretted the error of including a deceptively edited video clip of Gov. Perry. He never apologized for the racist implication he made with the severely edited clip. A media watchdog journalist like Howard Kurtz should know these facts before misinforming his audience.

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Something huge will happen at 6:00 PM on MSNBC today.

As a regular viewer of the yet-to-be-named Al Sharpton show, I’ve come to expect momentous TV moments during this time of day.  Whether it’s Sharpton’s patented rambling nonsensical statements that are supposed to be questions for his painfully uncomfortable guests, or his famous ad-libs that give us instant classics like “Resist we much”, Sharpton has provided endless hours of excruciating entertainment.

But tonight, expectations are even higher.

On yesterday’s show Al Sharpton followed the lead of his on-air colleague Ed Schultz and accused presidential candidate Rick Perry of racism when he proclaimed that a “black cloud” was hanging over America.  As any regular reader of Big Journalism knows by now, the accusation is completely false and contrived.  Producers at The Ed Show deceptively edited the Texas governor’s words and cut him off in mid-sentence.  His actual statement was that there was a “black cloud hanging over America, this debt that is so monstrous.”

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From Breitbart.tv:

Ed Schultz used a deceptive edit to misinform his audience about the content of Gov. Rick Perry’s speech in Iowa yesterday. Schultz claimed that Gov. Perry was calling President Obama a “black cloud hanging over America” when in fact, the governor was talking about the national debt.

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This is why MSNBC consistently leans forward from behind in cable news ratings. This is also why I found it ludicrous when the network briefly suspended Keith Olbermann after — shockers! — discovering that he donated to … DEMOCRATS! That apparently was a bigger threat to his “objectivity” than Olbermann himself compromising it every single night with stunts like calling conservative women “mashed up bag[s] of meat with lipstick.”

It’s one thing to attend or emcee rallies in your own personal time, as Schultz has done. I don’t have a problem with anyone expressing their free speech, in which I include campaign donations. Just don’t pretend that you’re bipartisan when you return to the air and deliver irrevocably partisan coverage of an election, like Schultz (and every other MSNBC host, including Mr. Resist We Much) did last night:

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MSNBC didn’t even pretend to be objective last night with their coverage of the Big Labor financed recall effort against six Republican State Senators in Wisconsin. Instead of the standard, sober, in-studio reporting one would expect from a news gency reporting on the results of an election, MSNBC staged what can only be described as an outdoor pep rally complete with screaming crowds holding eerily fascist-inspired signs (red with raised, clenched fist, really?).

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“The tan man is a heck of a lot more comfortable on a bar stool …”

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Continuing our series illustrating how MSNBC relies on Media Matters (the Soros-funded non-profit organization whose dubious tax-exempt status is currently under fire) as their research department, we are pleased to present the Ed Schultz “Psycho Talk” edition.

The Ed Show on MSNBC has a segment called “Psycho Talk” where Schultz shows clip of Republican politicians and media figures saying things that he finds objectionable. Here are three examples in the past few weeks that show how Schultz is taking the story, the talking points and in one case even source video directly from Media Matters.

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Just a small glimpse into the past week’s “new tone” rhetoric from President Obama, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Joan Walsh, Tina Brown, and Josh Marshall.

Ed Schultz tries to pronounce “Schlafly.”

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