Monthly Archives: July 2010

Guerrilla Armed With Beer Sighted in Venezuela

Posted on 07/30/2010 by Steve Rendall

The Washington Post's latest attack on Venezuela comes in an editorial headlined: "Colombia Proves Again That Venezuela Is Harboring FARC Terrorists." The editors don't say why a point already proved needs be proved again, but before offering the new evidence, … Continue reading →

Posted in Washington Post | Tagged , | 14 Comments

USA Today: Americans Continue to Support Afghan War–in 2001

Posted on 07/30/2010 by Steve Rendall

A USA Today story by Susan Page (7/27/10), on the impact of the WikiLeaks revelations, reports that despite some erosion, "Most Americans continue to support the war in Afghanistan." To back up this assertion, Page cites Gallup poll findings (7/8-11/10) … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, Polling, USA Today, War/Military | Tagged | 10 Comments

Time Magazine: We Cannot Leave Afghanistan

Posted on 07/29/2010 by Peter Hart

In case you thought the WikiLeaks story might change everything: The forthcomingTime magazine (out tomorrow) has acover photo ofa disfigured Afghan woman with the headline "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." The implicationwould seem to be that the Taliban will … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, Time, War/Military | Tagged , | 22 Comments

On ABC, Sundays Will Never Be the Same

Posted on 07/29/2010 by Peter Hart

When ABC announced that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour would take over as host of their Sunday chat show This Week, there were rumblings about how different things would be. Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales wrote a nasty hit piece … Continue reading →

Posted in ABC | Tagged , | 15 Comments

NBC's Chuck Todd, Sleepless and Depressed Over JournoList

Posted on 07/28/2010 by Peter Hart

For those of you not following right-wing non-stories, there is a mini-scandal brewing over something called JournoList, a now defunctprivate email list started by a liberal blogger named Ezra Klein. It came to include something like 400 members, many of … Continue reading →

Posted in NBC | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

More of Lara Logan's Media Criticism

Posted on 07/27/2010 by Peter Hart

Fresh from her comments slamming Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings forreporting things the military wouldn't like, CBS reporter Lara Logan weighedin on the WikiLeaks story on last night'sCBS Evening News, where she argued that reporters should do more to stress the … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, War/Military | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

WashPost on Wikileaks: *Yawn*

Posted on 07/27/2010 by Peter Hart

The stories in today's Washington Post tell you everything you need to know about the media establishment's reaction to the Wikileaks Afghanistan documents: WikiLeaks Disclosures Unlikely to Change Course of Afghanistan War By Greg Jaffe and Peter Finn …The documents' … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, Media Criticism, War/Military, Washington Post | Tagged , | 14 Comments

NYT Op-Ed Writer Bored by WikiLeaks' Revelations on Afghan Deaths, Civil War

Posted on 07/27/2010 by Jim Naureckas

Former special ops squad leader/current think tank fellow Andrew Exum noisily yawns at the WikiLeaks Afghan document release on the New York Times op-ed page today (7/27/10): The news media have done a good job of showing the public that … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, New York Times, War/Military | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Leaked Reuters Memo Suggests Reporters Should Keep Their Ideas to Themselves

Posted on 07/26/2010 by Jim Naureckas

Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger sent a memo to staffers on July 8 with the subject line "How Social Media Impacts Your Professional Life," suggesting new rules for journalists' private expressions of opinion. So far, the memo seems to have only … Continue reading →

Posted in Reuters | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Missing the Point on Shirley Sherrod

Posted on 07/26/2010 by Peter Hart

The lesson of the Shirley Sherrod story would seem to be a simple one:A conservative blogger with a history of promoting inaccurate, racially chargedstories published another one, and people in the media (not to mention the White House) fell for … Continue reading →

Posted in Barack Obama, New York Times, Washington Post | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

How Important Are Dead Afghan Civilians?

Posted on 07/26/2010 by Peter Hart

The story of the day is obviously the large pieces in the London Guardian and the New York Times that are based on tens of thousands of documents related to the Afghanistan War published by WikiLeaks. The leak is already … Continue reading →

Posted in Media Criticism | 14 Comments

Sherrod Hoax Exposed, but Breitbart's ACORN Fraud Lives On

Posted on 07/23/2010 by Zachary Tomanelli

Reporting on Andrew Breitbart's latest bit of deceit–using a selectively edited video to paint a low-level USDA official Shirley Sherrod as a racist–has given the media a chance to resurrect one of their favorite myths: Breitbart's triumphant takedown of the … Continue reading →

Posted in AP, CNN | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Howard Kurtz Absolves Fox in Sherrod Smear

Posted on 07/23/2010 by Steve Rendall

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz (7/22/10) defends Fox News against charges it promoted Andrew Breitbart's fraudulent Shirley Sherrod story–because, he says, Fox's news division didn't even address the story until after Sherrod resigned. In an extensive defense of Fox, … Continue reading →

Posted in Fox News, Media Criticism | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Mary Shepard, Longstanding FAIR Activist With a Passion for Justice

Posted on 07/23/2010 by Jim Naureckas

FAIR founder Jeff Cohen writes a tribute to Mary Reed Shepard, one of FAIR's longest-serving and most effective local activists. I met Mary Shepard, an incredibly energeticactivist and media critic from Minneapolis/St. Paul, when she was young–about 70-years-young. "If we … Continue reading →

Posted in Media Criticism | Tagged | 2 Comments

Amazon vs. the Little Guy Does Not Mean Macmillan

Posted on 07/23/2010 by Jim Naureckas

Unlike a lot of critiques of Amazon from the publishers' point of view, Colin Robertson's article in the latest issue of the Nation (8/2-9/10) does describe actual bad behavior on the part of the online bookseller: Dennis Loy Johnson, co-publisher … Continue reading →

Posted in magazines, Media Business | Tagged , | 2 Comments