- Do some fact-checking organization confirm liberal bias?

- Chelsea Clinton’s NBC debut:

- Roger Ailes is writing an autobiography.

- The ABC debate brought in big number for the network: 7.5+ million viewers.

- Journalists have the vapors and say that NYPD treats them unfairly, like in the video below.

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CHRIS MATTHEWS:  Tonight, President Barack Obama. Let’s play Hardball.

OBAMA:  Hello, Chris. Hey, you ever see someone about your ADHD problem?

MATTHEWS:  Too busy. Sir, recently I criticized you pretty harshly. You came on anyway. I’d like to kiss and make up.

[from off screen]

MICHELLE:  You keep your distance, buddy boy.  I’m watching.

MATTHEWS:  Yes’m. Sir, rumor is you cut the Asia trip short for clandestine meetings with the Supercommittee.

OBAMA:  Not true, Chris. I returned earlier, but for a more important reason than rescuing our economy: I wanted to save the NBA season, and in so doing show the world I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

MATTHEWS:  You’re involved in the negotiations?

OBAMA:  Hush-hush summit at Camp David. Reverend Jackson and Secretary of State Clinton were my lead mediators. Kobe Bryant and David Stern agreed to represent their constituents. (more…)

- NYT under fire from its readers for the casual use of both “rape” and “sex” in their Penn State stories:

Times Ombudsman Arthur Brisbane said the word “rape” is in flux, and that the Times’ Stylebook says it should be used to mean “forced intercourse, or intercourse with a child below the age of consent.” Brisbane talked with sports editor Joe Sexton about the issue:

[He] told me the paper had “no reluctance to use ‘rape’ ” and was not trying “to somehow shy away from the graphic nature of the allegations.” He said the charges included a variety of acts, so the paper had used “sexual assault” to cover the range. Further, he said, the paper’s reporting on Penn State officials’ accounts of their actions required careful wording, as none of them besides the graduate assistant had acknowledged that rape was involved.

Brisbane said journalists should be as specific as possible.

We asked this question a couple of weeks ago: Why Is the Media Glossing Over Child Rape?

-David Frum says he’s blacklisted from Fox because of his Limbaugh comments.

Frum gets his digs in.

- The New York Press Club announces its forming a new group to monitor relations between the NYPD and the press. They’re calling themselves The Coalition of the First Amendment.

- Why are more and more newspapers turning to firewalls? The cost of advertising:

a University of Missouri study found that 50 percent of newspapers derive only 9 percent of their revenue from online editions. What the heck’s the problem?

The answer, it turns out, may just be that newspaper advertising costs too darn much.

According to this analysis by comScore, the average CPM for online advertising is $2.52. Social media – by far the hottest and one of the most effective and targetable categories – CPM rates come in at $0.56. Newspapers on the other hand had an average CPM of $6.99…277 percent greater than the national average!

If you look at CPM rates across media (a notoriously-difficult comparison), print newspapers look even worse. According to these 2008 figures from Borrell Associates, which compare local ad costs across all major media, newspaper CPMs come in over $60…almost three times more than primetime broadcast TV, almost six times more than non-premium cable, and around 20 times more than online advertising!

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CHRIS WALLACE: Jon Stewart, thanks for appearing again on Fox News Sunday.

JON STEWART:  Wasn’t my idea, Chris.  Last time, I looked like Kwai Chang Caine being schooled by Master Po.  My ratings actually fell off the next week.  So the suits at Comedy Central Central told me to take another shot at you.

WALLACE:  So, you got your marching orders . . . to do what?

STEWART:  Leave you whimpering like Jim Cramer, my friend, make you look like a boob.  [from jacket pocket pulls out small beaker, removes cover, tosses contents into Wallace’s face]

WALLACE:  [reeling] Whoa, what the hell!

STEWART:  Who’s the joke on now, Chris?

WALLACE:  [wiping face] Are you crazy?

STEWART:  Lighten up, Chris.  You need a sense of humor if you want to be taken seriously.  Hey, it’s only water, man.  [pointing to label on beaker] See, water–  H2O.  Says here right on the . . . [reads]  “HCl—hydrochloric acid.”  Oops. Mislabeled.  My bad.  Note to self: use cream pie or glitter next time.

WALLACE:  But why?

STEWART:  [reasonably] Try to understand my position, Chris. A sizable chunk of The Daily Show’s core audience hates your guts; they were PO’d when I showed respect and treated you like an equal.  That’s not who I am.  I humiliate right-wingers in a non-partisan way.  I had to return to redeem myself.

WALLACE: Your core audience?

STEWART:  Yeah.  Fox has the Birchers, the neo facists, LaRouchers, and unborn rights freaks.  My core’s a mishmash of animal liberationists, anarchists, human extinctionists, Palinphobes, water cooler thirtysomethings, and fever swampers from The Daily Kos and Democratic Underground.

WALLACE:  I reject your . . . . (more…)

Those bastions of objectivity over at Rolling Stone magazine have taken a break from publishing off the record comments and covering the exploits of Lady GaGa to defend America against non-liberal news bias.  Their target, of course, is Roger Ailes, President of the Fox News Channel.

As Brent Bozell at NewsBusters points out, the alleged “writer” used anonymous sources to make the obvious connection that being celebrated for success at a party is almost indistinguishable from a communist dictator with 70 million deaths on his record.

via NewsBusters:

After painting a picture of employees loyally cheering the boss at a holiday party, Dickinson entertained comparisons to…Mao Zedong.

“It was as though we were looking at Mao,” said disgruntled ex-employee Charlie Reina. “It’s like the Soviet Union or China: People are always looking over their shoulders,” added “a former executive” with News Corporation. Dickinson also said Ailes runs “the most formidable propaganda machine ever seen outside the communist bloc.”

Put aside that Ailes isn’t responsible for 70 million deaths and mass cannibalism, and that his politics are essentially the philosophical opposite of communism – and OK, he’s Mao.

The anonymous sources and story of the party that celebrated the Fox News executive mass murderer were from 2002, and, other than the fact that it’s extremely old, it’s hard to determine why this would suddenly be brought up now. (more…)

Yesterday I was all confused, when I originally heard the news that Glenn Beck was leaving his daily Fox TV show, I wasn’t surprised.  Beck had been dropping hints about it since the end of 2010.  He was saying things like, “You must prepare yourselves to carry on without me,” which was a signal that he was either looking for other opportunities, God-forbid had a fatal illness, or that girl he dated finally admitted to the police that he was fully aware of the fact that she was only nine.

On the other hand, the folks at Media Matters claimed victory, they said their efforts to slander Beck had finally worked and Fox was getting rid of him.  According to the Soros funded group, Beck’s audience was way down (even though he still beats most prime time cable audiences) and thanks to their efforts, every TV advertiser in the universe refused to advertise on his program (even those in the Gamma Quadrant).

The Jewish Funds for Justice agreed, in fact they said that the efforts of the 400 Rabbis who condemned Beck in the Wall Street Journal was a big factor in what they claimed was the cancellation of the Beck show.  Apparently those “Rabbis” were praying to God non-stop ever since someone explained to them what prayer was (and what God was also).

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Interesting, considering the source. At some point, politics are laid by the wayside because capitalism wins every time.

Among the many quotes in the Esquire profile of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, one stood out: MSNBC president Phil Griffin. Griffin, who has helped oversee MSNBC’s transformation over the last few years, admits to cribbing from the Ailes playbook.

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As we continue our Summer series of the most left-biased journalists working in the Old Media today, it’s time for number seven on the list. We’ve done Cable TV, we’ve done a wire service, and we’ve done a newspaper, so now it’s time to turn our attention to the wonderful world of magazines where we find a worthy candidate in Howard Fineman of Newsweek.

The venerable magazine has been around since 1933, but a bit of its long-time luster has faded of late. Not long ago the news mag tried a revamping under the guiding hand of wunderkind Editor Jon Meacham, but the new take didn’t… take, I mean. For some time Newsweek has been steadily losing readers and money (it lost about $29 million in 2009 alone). Perhaps it is because some of its writers are so hopelessly biased?

Enter Howard Fineman.

One of the first strikes against Fineman is that he’s a constant presence on the most left-wing entertainment/news cable networks in America. A day hardly passes when Fineman isn’t seen on MSNBC and that right there bodes ill for his status as a non-partisan journo.

But even if it were possible to maintain a good, unbiased status while still making the cut to appear on MSNBC–a dubious proposition in itself–Fineman isn’t able to toe that line. (more…)

In news that’s sure to make liberals’ heads explode, Fox News has now sat atop the cable-news ratings for one hundred consecutive months. From Fishbowl DC:

The gang at FNC has to be pleased. The network rolls in at #1 for 100 consecutive months in total viewership, according to Nielsen Media Research. This includes Primetime and Total Day news programming.

FNC also secured nine out of the top 10 programs in cable news for April in total viewers. Here’s the pecking order of the top five:

1. Bill O’Reilly
2. Glenn Beck
3. Sean Hannity
4. Bret Baier
5. Greta Van Susteren

As if on cue, liberals’ heads exploded.  Here’s one now: (more…)

Failed former New York Times editor and “self-hating Southerner” Howell Raines — whose dubious journalistic legacy includes the Jayson Blair, Rick Bragg, and the Martha Burk fiascoes — has lurched out of the fly-fishing shadows with this bizarre op-ed piece, apropos of apparently nothing, in the Washington Post.

Why, the carefully crafted lede alone demonstrates why Raines was held in such high regard among the journalistic community during his brief, unhappy tenure in the seat formerly occupied by Clifton Daniel:

One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration — a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

As Humpty Dumpty might have said: talk about a portmanteau! (more…)

In case you missed this cheer moment Sunday on ABC’s This Week, guest-hosted by Barbara Walters, here’s Fox News’s Roger Ailes swatting aside a pesky Arianna Huffington the way President Obama might dispatch a fly:

Naturally, the frothing Left had a fit:

… bringing in Paul Krugman, Arianna Huffington, and George Will to discuss the news with Barbara Walters on ABC’s This Week made sense, but Roger Ailes, president and CEO of FOX News, made an appearance as well and did exactly what one would expect from a FOX representative — evade the facts and rely on ratings as validation.

Using the ten-point-must system, how did you score the fight?  Let’s have your overnight thoughts.

When the news broke yesterday that Sarah Palin had signed on as a Fox News contributor an awful shrinking feeling in the groin must have hit the execs at the network’s competitors. While the old media continues to try to paint her as a crazed redneck, the fact of her ascendancy as a serious power player is now an inescapable fact. Her autobiography, Going Rogue is a publishing phenomenon, having sold 2.7 million copies as of December 1 of 2009.  It’s one of  just four political memoirs to sell more than a million copies.

This from — as the left frames the narrative — a failed vice-presidential candidate who didn’t even finish her first term in office as governor of Alaska.  The old media and its enablers have tried in vain to discredit, demonize and disenfranchise the woman only to make her stronger. Yet still they hammer away at her relentlessly.

In the new book that has evey tongue in Washington wagging, Game Change, by political writers John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, it’s claimed that some McCain staffers who worked directly with Palin began to worry that she could be “mentally unstable.” This claim has been trumpeted by left-wing bloggers and the usual suspects in the press, desperate to keep up the Palin-bashing so they can ignore Obama’s increasingly evident failures. (more…)

We’ve all heard it — the screech of the Fox News haters who feel perfectly free to share their low opinion of the cable-news channel with everyone within ear shot.  Normally, well-bred and well-mannered people don’t feel compelled to challenge someone’s private choice of viewing and reading material — in fact, they’re usually the first to scream about “the right to privacy” and the sanctity of the First Amendment.  But when it comes to Fox News, otherwise rational people — and even some who were irrational to begin with, such as your average progressive — suddenly become deranged and start foaming at the mouth.

Now comes this piece about Fox News chief Roger Ailes in The New York Times on Saturday — the day where interesting news goes to die and get buried – that will make them even crazier:

At a time when the broadcast networks are struggling with diminishing audiences and profits in news, he has built Fox News into the profit engine of the News Corporation. Fox News is believed to make more money than CNN, MSNBC and the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC and CBS combined. The division is on track to achieve $700 million in operating profit this year, according to analyst estimates that Mr. Ailes does not dispute.

This outsize success has placed Mr. Ailes, an aggressive former Republican political strategist, at the pinnacle of power in three corridors of American life: business, media and politics. In addition to being the best-paid person in the News Corporation last year, he is the most successful news executive of the last 10 years, and his network exerts a strong influence on the fractured conservative movement.

Leaving aside for the moment the obligatory Times cheap shot at the “fractured conservative movement’ — except in terms of the political horse race, which is the only thing most political reporters understand, there’s nothing at all “fractured” about the ideals and beliefs of the conservative movement, only a discussion about tactics — let’s ponder that for a moment: Satan’s News Network is making more money that all its rivals combined. (more…)

Media Matters (for America, they claim) has officially become a parody unto itself.  What started as a wonderful (if not Orwellian) dream of a non-profit entity living off of the ample teat of George Soros busily crafting “rapid response” items in opposition to the small yet enormously effective voices from the right in journalism, has now turned into what appears to be a bunch of guys monitoring radio, TV and the internet with the hopes of finding the slightest divergence from left wing orthodoxy as dictated by their founder, spaceship enthusiast John Podesta.

John Podesta

It isn’t enough that they label as “homophobic” any questions about Safe School Czar Kevin Jenning’s objectively questionable judgment with regard to the teaching materials associated with his organization GLSEN.  And it isn’t enough that they dismiss any video report exposing left-wing sacred cows such as ACORN and Planned Parenthood as “heavily edited” as if editing automatically renders a report untruthful (even though the entire, unedited transcripts and audio for the ACORN stories have been available at Big Government).  No, those ridiculously laughable positions that fly in the face of common sense are not enough to keep the team at MM(FA) feeling smugly supercilious and self-important… now they go on the attack if a journalist dares to refer to Guantanamo prisoners as “terrorists,”   No, this is not a parody. (more…)