Politico – MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay after POLITICO reported that he made three campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.

It reminds me of the sense of excitement and possibility I felt in November 2008, as if in electing Obama, we Americans were acting as our best, smartest, least racist selves, as if there really was change we could believe in. And, OK, so it’s been a long two years since then, and for a lot of people it’s been an undeniably hard two years. But I’m just not convinced that’s Obama’s fault.

Via Drudge
Don’t be too tough on him her. It’s a lonely time for America’s intellectual minority.

Big Government;

The voices are believed to be those of the news director for CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA, along with assignment editor Nick McDermott, and other reporters, openly discussing creating, if not fabricating, two stories about Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller.

Tape and transcript at the link. Via Dan Reihl
(*Updated post title courtesy Altaguy)

Think about it: A barely two-year-old business with no marketing budget in a modest storefront in a less-than-fashionable part of town now has a larger and arguably more passionate audience than a once-mighty metro daily that traces its history back to 1865.
How did it happen and what does it portend for what’s left of the Chronicle and the newspaper business?

It could just be that people like ice cream.

After, you know, contending with the fact the government don’t own it.

Nobody reads it.

Whoops.

The AP has a story from October 21 that features the news that Democrats in Maryland are turning out in bigger numbers for early voting than Republicans. But according to the Maryland State Board of Elections, early voting in the Old Line State isn’t supposed to start until October 22.

‘Editor & Publisher’ magazine replaces editorial staff – “The report quotes a release from Duncan McIntosh saying that, “‘Editor & Publisher’ magazine will be utilizing more individuals for the print edition who are experts in their individual fields as opposed to reporters who track down experts and put the expert’s story into the writer’s words.”

And thus ends the Journastic Period.
h/t Maz2

“A Productive Congress Gets No Respect From Voters”

“Yet the gunman and his motive remain an enigma.“
h/t Uncle Meat

Great moments in Canadian Journalism;

“Did you know that Stephen Marche, who wrote that ‘Rob Ford is a fatty fatty fat fat’ piece, is Robert Fulford’s son-in-law?
“Married to Sarah, editor of Toronto Life'”

During the Great CBC Power Outage Of 2010? Share your stories in the comments below.

Five years after Dick Cheney’s minor hunting accident, the Washington Post runs a 3,000-word exposé on the guy who got a piece of birdshot lodged in his throat.

Another season of Lost – 739,000 network news viewers vanish…

ABC, CBS, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and the San Francisco Chronicle all reported on the arrests today without mentioning party affiliations.

It’s a “WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF?” UPDATE!
The “edit your own message” template is now gone and only the Friends approved text remains …. odd, that!

(Original post continues below)
The Friends Of Canadian Broadcasting need our help again!

“Stephen Harper seems determined to beam into every home in Canada a new right wing TV news network modelled after the hate mongering, ultra-conservative U.S. Fox News Network.”

Step 1 – Provide your name and address.
Step 2: Your Message

Please feel free to edit the subject line and message to reflect your own perspective and opinion.

Friends will send you a confirmation email with .pdf file attached to prove your opinion has been forwarded to your MP and party leaders. Easy? Easy.
One thing puzzles me, however. Friends used to feature these mail campaigns on their front page. This time, there seems to be no mention of it.
Odd, that.

A reporter who helped write the first and positive New York Times story on the Ground Zero Mosque was trained by the group run by mosque leader Feisal Abdul Rauf, according to that group’s website.

The media is going to help the Democratic Party’s national messaging, which is that the GOP is a party full of Christine O’Donnells, a party that wants to take away your Social Security and your right to masturbate…

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
CBC Managing Editor for Manitoba, August 21, 2010 – Complex stories rarely come to us as neat little packages that are immediately ready to broadcast. There is usually evidence to weigh, facts that need confirming, motivations that require questioning and widespread deliberation and investigation to determine what the facts mean. Only after completing that process are we ready to go to air.
Winnipeg Sun, Sept.15th, 2010 – The next time the CBC gets a phone call from a repeat, violent refugee offender who’s been deported to Somalia and who claims he’s being held captive at an airport by armed extremists, they’ll probably think twice before running a story about it. Looks like our public broadcaster got duped this week by convicted criminal and known con artist Mohamed Said Jama.
h/t Mike