Palin’s speech had been remarkably effective. This troubled members of Journolist. On Sept. 8, 2008, five days after Palin’s national debut, some members of the group discussed producing coordinated propaganda designed to wound Palin and boost Obama.
[…]
While other members of the group debated whether to coordinate a pro-Obama message – or, more precisely, whether to concede that such a message was being coordinated — Todd Gitlin of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism had already made up his mind.
[…]
“Repeat after me:
“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.
“These people are cynical. These people are taking you for a ride. These people are fakes. These people love Bush.
“Again. And again. Vary the details. There are plenty. Somebody on the ‘list posted a strong list of McCain lies earlier today. Hammer it. Philosophize, as Nietzsche said, with a hammer.
“I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not waiting for any coordination. Get on with it!”

MICHAEL TOMASKY, THE GUARDIAN: I’m just jelly. Lord!

More questions, including “What I would like to know is how much did the J-List folks officially and unofficially coordinate with Obama’s campaign?”

Via Mark Levin, “A Free Republic poster has compiled the list of known members to date of the left-wing now-defunct JournoList listserv. Spread the word.”

Continue reading →

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.
But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio, that isn’t what you’d do at all…
Update: Rush responds

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

The Calgary Stampede – Canada’s only major sporting event to make the CBC National absent the names of the winners.
(Actual, you know, balanced coverage of Stampede highlights here, including the auction of retiring chuckwagon driver Neil Walgenbach’s outfit for more than most CBC reporters’ net worth.)

“There are examples of other institutions in the U.S. where state support does not translate into official control. The most compelling are our public universities and our federal programs for dispensing billions of dollars annually for research. Those of us in public and private research universities care every bit as much about academic freedom as journalists care about a free press.”

So, there, mainstream networks… how’s that news filter been working for ya?

“File footage” goes horribly wrong…

Some readers indicated that I must have been mistaken, they could not believe that a national news service would broadcast a fake video report.

Such innocence.
 

“I’ve been a Democrat all my life…”

Mr Carlin,
I write this letter to register a complaint about the ww.cbc.ca news item cited above. This article, redacted by CBC News staffer, not by a press agency, is blatantly politically biased and must be corrected.
The title, “Some Palestinian kids malnourished: Lancet”, is an inaccurate representation of the data that shows there are seven times more overweight than underweight children in the Palestinian territories. The article starts with “About one in four Palestinian children goes without breakfast, say researchers who found many had stunted growth or were malnourished.” The rest of the article describes, without any attempt at objectivity or perspective, a state of nutrition that is in fact unremarkable, even by Western standards.
The stated rate of obesity among Palestinian children, 15%, is similar to the Canadian rate of 18% (Canadian Community Health Survey, 2004, Statistics Canada). The stated rate of underweight children, 2%, is comparable to the U.S. rate of 1% (data not available for Canada) and better than all other Middle Eastern countries. For comparison, here are a few rates of underweight children:
Lebanon : 4%
Jordan : 4%
Turkey : 4%
Egypt : 6%
Iraq : 8%
Syria : 10%
Saudi Arabia : 14%
Afghanistan : 39%
Yemen : 46%
Israel : not available
Source: UNDP Human Development Reports 2009 http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/101.html
This article is based on a short publication (an abstract) written by Palestinian doctors and published (online only, registered users only) by a British medical journal; how did the CBC learn about this small, technical publication? The text of the original abstract (attached to this email) is less negative, more factual than the text from CBC staffers. Who wrote this text? Why this title? Why this degree of publicity and this negative spin on such an obscure non-story?
There can be only one explanation: CBC staffers and editors are using my taxes to promote a political agenda and are willing to violate the principles of journalistic fairness, accuracy and integrity to achieve this end.
With this letter, I want to register my protest against what I see as a blatant political bias by CBC staffers. This article violates the CBC’s own journalistic standards and the 1991 Broadcasting Act. I also ask your help to obtain a public retraction of this shameful piece of propaganda, replacing it with a more accurate portrait of the state of children nutrition in the Palestinian territories and other Middle Eastern countries.

Courtesy Manny

“A workshop hosted by Germany’s international broadcaster urges journalists to abandon neutrality on climate change…”
(link fixed – sorry!)

Via Mediaite.

h/t Hiding.

Broadcast Evening Newscasts Lose More than 1 Million Viewers in Past Year

“Tea bag them before they tea bag you”.

*

According to ABC News, this morning the earth passed through the shadow of the sun.
h/t

“There goes your producer, Scott” – CTV host Marcia MacMillan to reporter Scott Laurie, as his producer is escorted away in handcuffs at the G20 protest.

First Runner-up : “These anarchists are much more organized than people realize.”