Imagine that the company founded by the frontrunning Republican presidential candidate also owned a massive radio company–say, the largest one in the country. And imagine that said company announced, right as the election season started, that it was ditching its progressive talk format in a major city for a mostly conservative lineup. Stop imagining–Brad Friedman reports that this is reality: The only progressive AM radio talk station, Green960-KKGN, in one of the nation's most liberal cities, San Francisco, is being taken off the AM dial by radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications, Inc.–a media conglomerate now owned by Mitt Romney's Bain [...]
Nov
30
2011
Mitt Romney's Murderous Dictator Gaffe
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If you've paid attention to the presidential campaign season, you've no doubt been entertained by the string of embarrassments and gaffes: Rick Perry blows the voting age! Herman Cain can't remember what to say about Libya! Mitt Romney talks about the upside of a murderous dictatorship! Wait–what? In the November 22 debate, Romney gave this answer to a question about what to do about Pakistan: We don't want to just pull up stakes and get out of town after the enormous output we've just made for the region. Look at Indonesia in the '60s. We helped them move toward modernity. [...]
Oct
18
2011
Attention Fox News, Reuters: Mitt Romney Is Funding OWS!
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The New York Times has an interesting profile today (10/18/11) of a retired Wall Street trader named Robert Halper who, it turns out, made an early donation to Adbusters to help with the Occupy Wall Street movement: Mr. Halper, who lives on the Upper West Side, had long been a supporter of the magazine, donating by his estimate $50,000 to $75,000 over the last 20 years since he was first attracted by the magazine's spoofs on corporate logos and advertisements. So he wrote a check for $20,000 and returned to his life in New York. Interesting. But the Times clearly [...]
Sep
20
2011
Rick Perry, Job-Creating Rodeo Cowboy!
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The front page of USA Today (9/19/11) tells us that Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is taking "the heat," but not to worry–he says he can handle it. That's especially true with reporters like Susan Page on his side: He's not worried, he said, because only one issue really matters to Americans in this election. It's the one he plans to ride first against his Republican rivals and then against President Obama. Jobs. "I'll be asked about a hundred different issues a thousand different ways," he said in the interview Friday, one of only a few he has done since [...]
Aug
26
2011
Ron Paul Top Tier Shakeup!
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There is little reason to care about what the polls say right now about who's leading in the Republican presidential nomination. But the media obviously think otherwise, hence this headline in the Washington Post yesterday (8/25/11): Romney Loses GOP Front-Runner Status The "news" is that Rick Perry is leading in a new Gallup Poll. But read a little further: The survey showed Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) at 13 percent and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) slipping to 10 percent. No other candidate registered in the double digits. So this means Paul's in the "top tier" now, right? This is a good [...]
Aug
15
2011
Weeding the Field: Press Declares "Top Tier" GOP Candidates
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As we've said plenty of times before, one of the main jobs of campaign journalists is winnowing the field of candidates– which must come as a relief to voters who don't want to have more of a say in the process. Before the results of the Iowa straw poll rolled in this weekend, there were pieces about whether anyone should pay attention to the event in the first place. Most reporters are willing to admit that paying so much attention to an elaborate popularity contest where the candidates pay voters to participate is a little odd. The lesson for readers [...]
Jun
13
2011
June 2007 Flashback: The Clinton/Giuliani Election
By 3 Comments
I noticed a few stories in today's USA Today (6/13/11) about supposed Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. There will be plenty more of this to come–horserace commentary based on polling that's being done in order to give journalists a reason to talk about one candidate more than another, which candidate has "momentum" and so on. It's worth remembering that the polling at this stage of the race is useless. Actually, it's probably worse than that, since the political press corps obsesses over this trivia at the expense of doing any actually useful reporting about the candidates. I wanted to find a [...]
Jun
10
2011
To WaPo, Planet's Fate Is a 'Second-Tier Issue'
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The Washington Post had a piece yesterday (6/9/11) on Mitt Romney's views on global warming. It serves as a reminder that Republican political candidates are under enormous pressure from the right-wing base of the party on this issue–any politician who's ever suggested that climate change is a problem, or backed efforts to address it, is in trouble. This is an important thing to point out. But that doesn't mean the Post thinks climate change is important. See the article's lead sentence: It seemed like a straightforward question on a second-tier issue: Would Mitt Romney disavow the science behind global warming? [...]
Mar
02
2010
Fortune Journalist–and Mitt Romney Adviser?
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Sasha Issenberg reports in the Boston Globe (3/2/10) that Fortune magazine Washington bureau chief and Fox News pundit Nina Easton advised Republican Mitt Romneyon his recent book No Apology. Easton told the Globe that she "offered some writer's advice on things like structure and how to better tease out themes in his writing." This isn't the first time Easton has had conflict-of-interest issues; her husband was a media consultant to Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, and earlier worked for John McCain's bid, entanglements that Easton dealt with by avoiding writing about her spouse's boss (L.A. Times, 3/19/07). As Issenberg notes: Many [...]
