You might think because of the First Amendment that the press will always be free. Think again.

There are those at work today who would like the government to nationalize the news media much like they did the banks and auto industry. They base their ideas on the oft referred to “crisis in journalism” happening with the demise of many great newspapers, the closing of many national magazines, and the decrease of advertising revenue to support the same.

A few politicians and many socialistic leaning activists in places of power in Washington DC are suggesting the government subsidize journalism with tax credits and cash grants because the “capitalist media” has failed. They want to enslave journalists to the state so they can maintain a free press. That’s kind of like cutting down the trees to save the forest; doesn’t make any sense.

Take a look at what the government has done with the banks and the auto industry after giving them some bailout money. They now tell the banks who to make loans to and how to structure the wages of their CEOs. After handing a few billion dollars to the auto industry, a couple of faceless government appointed bureaucrats arbitrarily shut down certain automobile dealerships – many of which were well managed and profitable. Now they are dictating union wages and what kind of cars the auto companies are to build. It’s a simple principle: The government controls whatever it subsidizes.

If you don’t like what The New York Times prints or what you hear on the nightly news or what is broadcast on talk radio – imagine how much you’ll enjoy the Big Government News Service giving you all the news THEY decide that’s fit to print.

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On Sunday, the Chicago Sun-Times gave Rahm Emanuel the gift of a front-page feature story called “Rahm on the Record” by reporter Fran Spielman. I wonder how many of the other Chicago mayoral candidates will get this kind of feature coronation-style press? The Chicago media, even at this point, appears to be giving Emanuel exalted status.

In the Sun-Times story’s Q&A format, there were few follow-up questions and little-to-no rebuttal. Mr. Emanuel was allowed to dismiss questions and had the last word every time to spin the more controversial aspects of his candidacy. In reference to the Blagojevich trial, Spielman asks, “You were wheeling and dealing about names anyway? Was that appropriate?” Rahm’s answer: “That’s a characterization. They’re prosecuting the governor, right?” However, I, at least, appreciated that some of the questions were tougher than the usual softballs. Spielman’s questions were not all “How are you feeling today, Rahm?”

Unfortunately, if recent events are any indication, “touchy feely” press is what the Chicago media will be trending for Emanuel. Anyone who contradicts or attempts to circumvent that trend will be attacked and vilified.

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Even the children:

Ha ha.

This is how real reporters cover war, by being in the middle of the crossfire, not by watching it on television in an air-conditioned media briefing room:

Looking every inch a president in his fancy sneaks and White Sox cap, the Punahou Kid displays his common touch while on his sixth vacation of the year. From Jake Tapper, perhaps the only honest member of the Washington press corpse — oops! — corps:

President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their two daughters Sasha and Malia traveled to Nancy’s Restaurant on the waterfront of the Oak Bluffs section of Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday afternoon.

Crowds gathered to watch as the president, wearing his White Sox baseball cap, noted the abundance of Red Sox caps. He and the First Lady shook hands and posed for pictures with folks in the crowd. The president ordered from the take-out window of the snack bar section of the eatery…

As the president walked around the restaurant, some cordoned-off reporters shouted out to him questions, including one about the war in Iraq. Next Tuesday night, the president will deliver an Oval Office address at 8 pm ET, in which he will mark the occasion of the withdrawal of US combat troops from the country.

But the president was in no mood today to discuss the issue with reporters in that setting. He ignored questions for a bit, then turned to the reporters.

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Worth revisiting this classic from Iowahawk’s Media Violence Project:

No more boys on the bus: this is how campaigns happen these days:

No wonder the media hates her. Something’s happening here: (more…)

Now that the media has embraced its inner partisan, expect to see a lot more of this behavior:

What happens when you combine juvenile snark with the loss of professional standards? Now you know.

There is a citizen-reporter video currently making its way around the web of a group of  gay veterans, who handcuffed themselves to the fence in front of the White House in a call for the repeal of the military’s policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The most chilling part of this citizen video is that the police chose to close Lafayette Park and forced any reporters and citizens away from the protest. When I saw this video, I had to check my atlas as I thought I lived in Washington D.C. in the United States, not Pyongyang in North Korea!

It seems that, with the current regime, patriotic dissent that was once hailed has now become a crime in America; if you engage in it, you will be tarred and feathered. Remember the audio of Hillary Clinton screeching that as Americans we have the right to disagree with an administration, yet I don’t expect her to comment on this incident as she is carrying out the regime’s top foreign policy of destroying Israel.

President Obama and his regime (to use Rush Limbaugh’s mot juste) have made the repeal of the policy an agenda item, but gay-rights activists feel the president has not moved fast enough, and these same activists heckled Obama at a fundraiser in California for Senator Barbara Boxer Monday night:

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A telling statement is spoken by the “reporter” in the Lafayette Park video as he obediently retreats.  While back-peddling along with the other media people, he says this to someone on his cell phone:

It’s one thing to be pushing the public back, but to not let the media film is just ridiculous.

It’s “ridiculous,” this trained wordsmith said.  It is, but not as he meant it.

That one sentence summarizes the state of the legacy media today. They are sheep, whose attention is easily directed by governmental authorities toward where they would have them look.  When it’s not in the authorities’ interests for the media to know or see something, they are not shown. And they seldom ask to know. Today, they are stenographers, more than reporters.

So what does it matter to we the people that the media are so easily controlled? The man in the video just followed orders from an armed Capital Hill officer of the law. Doing what he was told…backing away from a protest event that the authorities did not want to become an embarrassing media event. But what does it matter in the greater scheme of things?

It matters greatly. (more…)

If you ever have been, are now, or are hoping to become a reporter in the future, this video ought to make your blood boil:

It’s not just the cop’s rudeness and bullying, although that’s bad enough.  Petty tyrants love to shove other people around, but when those hired to “protect and serve” start acting like they’re armed bureaucrats who don’t have to answer questions from the rabble, then we’re in trouble.  Especially when it was not an emergency, and lives were not in danger.  There had better be a pretty darn good reason from barring citizens, and their representatives in the media, from a public park, and this sure doesn’t seem like it.

What’s even more disheartening, though, is the way the reporters passively accept getting shoved around, and meekly shuffle backwards while complaining into their cell phones.  And they weren’t sounding off like they had a pair, either.

What a pathetic display of cowardice, ineptitude and unprofessionalism.  Believe it or not, there was a time when reporters were more than regime stenographers, when they laughed at a little obstruction like a guy with a badge and a gun, when they knew and asserted their rights as citizens and as practitioners of the only profession specifically protected by the Constitution.  When this guy was the face of journalism: (more…)

First, take a look at this story, which appeared today in Foreign Policy:

This week marked the international coming-out party for a new media organization that could upend the sacred cows of traditional journalism. Wikileaks, an Internet-savvy investigative journalism outfit, released a video showing an American Apache helicopter open fire on a group of men, killing two Reuters employees, along with 10 other people, on July 12, 2007.

“There was no threat warranting a hail of 30mm [caliber gunfire] from above,” says Anthony Martinez, a former U.S. Army noncommissioned officer who has watched thousands of hours of aerial footage of Iraq.

Now watch the video:

The video was sensational, and it exploded online Monday — it’s since gotten more than 2 million views on YouTube and prompting a follow-up story by the New York Times. (more…)

“A foreign reporter — preferably American — was much more valuable to us at that time (1957) than any military victory,” wrote Ernesto “Che” Guevara in his diaries. “Much more valuable than rural recruits for our guerrilla force, were American media recruits to export our propaganda.”

“We cannot for a second abandon propaganda. Propaganda is vital — propaganda is the heart of all struggles,” said Fidel Castro in a letter to a revolutionary colleague in 1954.

“In all essentials Castro’s battle for Cuba was a public relations campaign fought in New York and Washington.” — British historian Hugh Thomas

Fought and handily won, I might add. (more…)

With a whiff of nostalgia, I can imagine the old time journalist with the smell of coffee and cigarettes wafting through the click and clang of the typewriter.   Fifty years ago, a “journalist” had the ring of a dispassionate, creative, honest, fair, and trusted detective/storyteller.  Fifty years ago, if you graduated from an accredited journalism school, you were presumed “unbiased.”  Much as the physician takes an oath that she will “first, do no harm,” the “journalist” title meant that you were first, unbiased and balanced. Neutrality in the story was as necessary as it was assumed.

Sometime between half a century ago and today, something went very, very wrong.

We can speculate on what the “something” was, but we may never know for sure.  Much like the wind blows, there is no discernible source, but still we know it blows. Journalism became slanted to the left to the degree that the right had almost no voice by the mid-1980s.   Almost no voice, until Rush Limbaugh came on the scene.  Almost 30 years later, the tables have turned.  The problem for these journalists is that they have functioned robotically and cavalierly for so long, that they are not aware of the reality around them.  Things have changed. Drastically. (more…)

In researching my article on “Rubber Room” teachers, who are paid not to teach after being accused of a crime, I came across some information that deserves further discussion. The problem is much worse than the media would have you believe.

The teachers in these programs are the ones who managed to escape prosecution but are considered too great a risk to be allowed to return to teaching. Or else they’re the accused waiting for judgment. Or they’re people the schools can’t get rid of due to tenure deals.

In 2004, Hofstra University professor Dr. Carol Shakeshaft published a report for the United States Department of Education titled “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature.” It was presented to Congress as part of the No Child Left Behind Act. In it, Shakeshaft stated:

As a group, these studies present a wide range of estimates of the percentage of U.S. students subject to sexual misconduct by school staff and vary from 3.7 to 50.3 percent. Because of its carefully drawn sample and survey methodology, the AAUW report that nearly 9.6 percent of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career presents the most accurate data available at this time. (more…)

The way reporters used to be:

Can you name someone like “Frank Ross” today?  Let’s have your thoughts.