When the International Atomic Energy Agency is about to release a report on an official enemy like Iran, you can be fairly confident that contents of the report–or what people believe should be in it–will be leaked to elite newspapers by anonymous sources in or near the IAEA, who will tend to make more alarming charges than the agency will eventually make in public. That started happening this weekend. At the Washington Post, Joby Warrick had a piece on Monday headlined, "Iran Close to Nuclear Capability, IAEA Says." The most telling indication of what was going on was right in [...]
Nov
08
2011
Pipeline Protesters Are Noise to the Washington Post
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Opponents of the Keystone tar sands pipeline project–10,000 of them, by some reports–surrounded the White House on Sunday to call on Barack Obama to reject the deal. That generated a short Metro section story in the Washington Post on Monday. More revealing than that was the Post's preview story in Sunday's paper, which presented the issue as one where protesters are "noise" and proponents talk about facts. Here's how Juliet Eilperin's story begins: Canadian ambassador Gary Doer has a straightforward analysis of whether TransCanada will win the Obama administration's approval to build and operate an enormous pipeline to transport oil [...]
Nov
07
2011
Another Sunday Morning, Liberal Media Style
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ABC This Week host Christiane Amanpour (11/6/11) kicked the show off with a pretty funny joke: Clash of the titans in Texas last night, as Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich met for the first of a series of one-on-one Lincoln/Douglas-style debates. Less funny was the show's very imbalanced roundtable discussion: So let's bring in our roundtable: George Will, the Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington, former George W. Bush strategist Matthew Dowd, and historian and Newsweek columnist Niall Ferguson, author of the new book Civilization: The West and the Rest. Three conservatives and the left-liberal Huffington. But if anything, ABC's panel was [...]
Nov
04
2011
WaPo: Greece, Don't Be an Argentina!
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Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero has a piece today (11/4/11) that attempts to compare the Greek economic crisis with other similar debt crises, particularly in Latin America. Unfortunately, he draws some misleading conclusions. Forero's point is that there's a lot about Greece's problems that are reminiscent of troubles in Argentina and Uruguay just a few years ago. One country chose the right response, and the other is called Argentina: In a story that may provide a lesson for Europe, one country, Uruguay, that was on the edge of financial oblivion organized a fast, orderly and negotiated response that revived the [...]
Nov
04
2011
NY Post to Mayor: Reclaim New York's 'Dignity'
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Yesterday the New York Post–Rupert Murdoch's down-market tabloid, for those who are blessed to live beyond its circulation area–ran this front-page editorial demanding that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg shut down the Occupy Wall Street encampment to reclaim the city's "dignity": Uhh…. that message would be coming from the paper that ran this dignified cover, waaay back in August: And don't forget the Post's Iraq War weasels covers: And why not this, while we're at it? And let's not forget the paper's stellar work during the Anthony Weiner scandal: "Weiner Exposed," " Hide the Weiner," "Weiner: I'll Stick It Out" [...]
Nov
03
2011
NYT Invents a Steve Jobs Backlash
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Remember how the media all turned negative on Steve Jobs so soon after his death? Me neither. But don't tell the New York Times. Today (11/03/11) the paper has a piece by Alex Williams pondering the speed with which the glowing tributes turned into something else–i.e., when "bloggers began their assault." That assault, by Williams' account, consisted of things like this: "Was Steve Jobs a Good Man, or an Evil Corporate CEO and Wall Street Shill?" asked a contributor on the Occupy Wall Street website. Then, on the Forbes site, David Coursey, a technology writer, wrote an article called "Steve [...]
Nov
02
2011
It's All Greek to Them
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Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's call for a referendum on the EU bailout package seems to have prompted media outlets to rummage through their store of Greek cliches. The Washington Post's editorial against "Mr. Papandreou's ill-advised announcement of a referendum" led with a classical reference: Not since the night when soldiers emerged from the belly of a giant wooden horse in ancient Troy has Greece engineered a more stunning surprise. On the CBS Evening News (11/1/11), Mark Phillips weighed in with a culinary metaphor: This was supposed to be the week that world leaders gathered in France to chart the [...]
Nov
01
2011
What Would Steve Jobs Do?
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On the Meet the Press roundtable on Sunday (10/30/11), talk turned to Steve Jobs. And, as one might expect from the avalanche of hero worship that accompanied news of his death, the chatter concerned how we might all one day live up to Jobs' legacy. Here's host David Gregory, speaking to Tom Brokaw: Tom, it's interesting, author and journalist Jeff Greenfield tweeted recently about Steve Jobs the following: "Imagine a Steve Jobs in the auto industry, in healthcare, in energy, even in government. We'd have a different country." We know from Walter Isaacson's biography that Jobs had some pretty strong [...]
