PRESTOPUNDIT -- "An intense brain-buzz, guaranteed" -- 2blowhards

DAVID BRODER -- "Thanks to the Internet

I now receive chastisement for the errors and misjudgments committed in this column faster than ever before."

WHAT the LA Times did right

this year -- Patterico has a run-down. There actually was some excellence at the Times this year. Highlight of the year -- the MLK/Drew hospital series. Image how many stories each year the NY Times could do if it did what the LA Times has done -- put good journalism as a priority coming before brain-dead leftist politics.

HUGH HEWITT --

"A Unified Theory of the Old Media Collapse." Quotable:

If old media .. was a city and not simply a set of gasping institutions, it would look like Stalingrad circa 1944. Parts of most of the virtual buildings are still standing, but the devastation is pretty complete. And the pummeling just keeps coming. On Sunday last, Power Line's John Hinderaker undressed the New York Times biggest big foot, Thomas Friedman, for all the blogosphere to see, The Belmont Club was scissoring the Associated Press's credibility, and I was .. discovering that reporter Michael Powell, who came from a background of tenants' advocacy, had written extensively on tenants' issues without disclosing to the reader his past background. And that was just three posts on a single day of the new world of accountability for the old media ..

Another example of old (lefty) media meltdown here.

TOM FRIEDMAN of the NY Times must wish

he could hide under the bed after this bloody fisking by John Hinderaker. Friedman is exposed as a second-rate hack willing to put all integrity aside for the sake of his leftist ideology. Reading this take-down gives you that uncomfortable feeling you get when staring at a grizzly wreck along the side of the road. Via Betsy.

THIS YEARS Joseph Goebbels award goes to

Dan Ra^ther of the corrupt CBS News service. Quotable:

It was news by Dr. Goebbels' standard -- something that could lead to desired political reactions by the audience. Waiting until it would have been virtually impossible for an effective answer to be made before election day was in the same Goebbels spirit. Had the documents been real, Dan Rather would still have been a strong contender for the award. The fact that virtually everyone, with the notable exception of Mr. Rather, now regards those documents as fake -- instead of simply "not authenticated" -- makes Dan Rather the clear winner of the Joseph Goebbels award for 2004.

THE NY TIMES WATCH

Worst Quotes of 2004. These caught my eye:

"As long as affluent, educated Republicans are allowed to control wealth in this country, they're willing for the rednecks to pray in the public schools that rich Republicans don't attend, to buy guns at Wal-Marts they don't patronize, to ban safe abortions that are always available to the affluent, and to oppose marriage for gays who don't vote Republican anyway."
-- Former NYT Executive Editor Howell Raines in the July 26 Washington Post.

"But the vitriol also reflects the fact that many of the people at that convention, for all their flag-waving, hate America. They want a controlled, monolithic society; they fear and loathe our nation's freedom, diversity and complexity."
-- Columnist Paul Krugman describing the Republican National Convention, September 3.

"You have made so many offensive comments over the years. Do you regret any of them?....You seem indifferent to suffering. Have you ever suffered yourself?"
-- Two of Deborah Solomon's questions to William F. Buckley Jr., retiring founder of National Review, July 11.

"Despite Drop In Crime, An Increase In Inmates"
-- Headline to a November 8 story from crime reporter Fox Butterfield.

MICHAEL KINSLEY --

when blogs are better than newspapers. Mickey Kaus piles on:

Kinsley got more overall attention for his argument by making it in the blogosphere than it would have gotten if he'd printed it in the rather large conventional paper whose opinion pages he runs. And I'm not just talking "more attention" in the sense that the blogosphere is big--bigger than the conventional print-centric media elite. Kinsley's thesis got more attention not just in the blogosphere but within the conventional print-centric media elite, even from those who pay little attention to blogs, because he got it posted on some blogs. ... Crudely put, Tim Russert and Al Hunt and William Safire and Bob Shrum and Sen. Harry Reid re more likely to know about Kinsley's idea because Kinsley bypassed his own LAT op-ed page ..

.. the dirty little secret [of journalists and columists] is that the elite MSM has become addicted to (and inevitably dependent on) the blogosphere as a source of new angles and arguments.

TUCKER CARLSON

escapes from hell. (via InstaPundit)

THE AP's latest outrage --

according to the AP, George Bush was selected President by the U.S. Supreme Court rather than by the Electorial College. The AP continues to veer far to the left, while few notice.

BOB KOHN has a new

media watch blog called, well, Bob Kohn's Media Watch. Kohn is the author of Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted.

Via RatherBiased.com, who has the latest on Ra^thergate, which is beginning to boil again.

THE LA TIMES

has corrected the "fake turkey" story I told you about some time ago.

HOW PATHETIC is the LA Times? Perhaps

this pathetic.

POLITICAL opponents served up

a bowl of dioxin soup for Ukraine's Yushchenko.

AN OPENLY left-Democrat CBS News -- Dean Esmay wonders, would that really be a bad thing?

TAKE BACK THE [LA] TIMES, a new blog by the former Times political writer Ken Reich. Quotable:

the editorial pages are now as sharply to the Left as they once were to the Right .. Recently, since Michael Kinsley took over the editorial pages, the situation has gotten worse .. Kinsley writes a weekly column that echoes Bob Scheer, but I don't think he conveys as much sincerity as Bob Scheer. Together, the two have hijacked the editorial pages. It wouldn't be as bad, if they had shrill writers from the Right as well. But the Rightists that are used are bland and respectable. It's all costing The Times a lot.

via LA Observed.

THE NEW MEDIA --

"is a very American thing." Bill Bennett gets a civics lesson from the American people. (via Hugh Hewitt, who's "on vacation.")

UPDATE: Hewitt has more here. (On vacation!). Via Patterico.

FACTS continue to overwhelm

the BS spouted by dishonest journalists -- yes, Virginia, the press is left-wing.

ANYONE WHO'S EVER BEEN

in the U.S. military knows that George Bush held up a real turkey when he went to Iraq last year -- but the Blue State editors of the LA Times keep allowing fake news to trump the facts on this matter, as they did again today in a story about faked "reality" television. What about fake "news" in a fake big-time newspaper?

NOONAN ON

RA^THER:

If you were a young Dan Rather you knew which side was the side to be on. You knew which side your bosses were on. You knew which side would lead to your rise. And you knew which side would win. It wasn't exactly complicated. Every conservative in America in the last century, especially in the media and in the colleges, knew they would be dinged and damaged if they held to their beliefs. Every [leftist] in the media and the academy knew they could rise if they espoused [leftist] views. Dan wanted to rise.

Probably the worst moment in his career .. was the time Dan tried to beat up George H.W. Bush live, on the "CBS Evening News," over Iran-contra. Mr. Bush decked him instead, and with a question that reverberates: How would you like your whole career to be judged by one mistake? ..

Ultimately this is what I think was true about Dan and his career .. He was a young, modestly educated Texas boy from nowhere, with no connections and a humble background. He had great gifts .. He covered hurricanes and demonstrations, and when they got him to New York they let him know, as only an establishment can, what was the right way to think, the intelligent enlightened way, the Eastern way, the Ivy League way, the Murrow School of Social Justice way. They let him know his simple Texan American assumptions were not so much wrong as not fully thought through, not fully nuanced, not fully appreciative of the multilayered nature of international political realities. He swallowed it whole.

INFOTAINER TOM BROKAW

RETIRES.

UPDATE: See also Dorothy Rabinowitz's appreciation.

RA^THER WEIRD -- Dan Ra^ther claims he's seen and talked to the ghost of Ed Murrow on the third floor of the CBS building. Unfortunately, Ed forgot to tell Dan the National Guard memos were fake. What Ed and Dan did talk about, Dan hasn't yet disclosed.

TIME MAGAZINE'S

People of the Year.

The blogosphere has spoken.

THE TIMES OF LONDON

introduces British readers to the Pajamahadeen. (via Memeorandum & Betsy's Page, who leads this morning with an hysterical story on the Bluestaters' biggest fear.).

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE

PATTERICO to learn something new every day -- where's something important I didn't know about Vietnam. I did know that Michael Kinsley is sometimes more found of his political beliefs than he is of the truth.

THE NY TIMES REPORTS

that firings are expected in the Ra^thergate scandal -- Tom Maguire has the story. The great thing about Dan Ra^ther's half-way retirement is that he's gone from the evening news -- and he can still be fired by CBS. Is that great or what?

OF COURSE ...

WATERGATE,

RA^THERGATE:

Bad as all that was, Ra^ther managed to make it worse. He went on the offensive against bloggers and others raising questions, smearing them with sweeping charges of partisanship. "I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces," he told The Washington Post. He told The Wall Street Journal that doubters attacked the documents "because they can't deny the fundamental truths of the analysis."

It was rancid hypocrisy, given that it was Ra^ther who, in the eyes of many Americans, had turned CBS into a subsidiary of the Democratic Party. And for such a media bigwig to accuse anyone who doubted him of political bias only fed the eat-the-media frenzy, where every story was being viewed through blue state/red state divisions.

It was all so, well, Nixonian ..

BONUS -- Dan Ra^ther, Investigative Reporter.

DAN

RA^THER -- biased from the beginning.

DAN

RA^THER hangs up his pajamas. More here and here.

Track the story at:

Ra^therBiased.com and Ra^therGate.com

Blogosphere reactions here. Quotable:

For as long as I can remember, he seemed half nuts.

More.

Additional blogosphere reactions collected at PowerPundit.

IN PRAISE OF

REED IRVINE. Yes, really.

ACE USES HIS DECODER RING

to translate lefty talking points and finds that:

"Diversity of thought" always means "need more [lefties]."

Ace's decoding operation was inspired by the pertinent quetion, "If "Diverse Opinions" Are Important for Bush's Cabinet, Why Not for the MSM & Academy?".

DAVID BRODER

with breaking news -- BimboPundit Maureen Dowd of the NY Times is completely unhinged. Thanks for the update, David.

In other news, Broder points out that 50 percent of those who voted for Bush were against civil unions for sex partners of the same sex. However, Broder fails to point out that Bush himself supports civil unions, as he plainly stated in an interview a few weeks before the election. (Bush's position is essentially the same as that of Blue State governor Arnold Schwarzenegger). So 50 percent of Bush's voters supported him despite their opposition to his stand on civil unions. On other side of the ledger, Broder reports that 12% of the Bush vote favored marriages for gay sex partners, and 38% favored civil unions for these folks.

The vast majority of press bias comes in the form of what doesn't get reported, or what doesn't get attention brought to it. When the overwhelming bulk of the news comes from the same time worn Blue State folks with a time worn Blue State outlook on the world, the news ends up coming to you through dark and thick Blue colored glasses. But those in the cocoon wearing the team approved glasses have no idea, everyone -- everyone -- they know sees the world in exactly the same Blue shades.

UPDATE: Breaking news -- Tom Brokaw reports that he has a Republican friend. One Republican friend. Gee. That's great Tom. His friend lives in Iowa. Tom calls him up all the time. Really.

THE PC DUTCH GET A WAKEUP CALL FROM

THE ISLAMIC JIHAD.

"SOME NETWORKS put forged documents on the air."

-- CBS News is still getting hammered for faking the "news" -- this time by a Fox affiliate. That's got to hurt.

TRANSCRIPT --

WaPo reporter Michael Dobbs answers reader questions on John Kerry and the Swift Vets via the Internet.

KERRY SPOT

has the full story on the Michael Kranish/Boston Globe Kerry campaign book mess. It seems the publisher did a bait and switch, and Kranish isn't as closely in bed with the Kerry campaign as Matt Drudge and others were mislead by the publisher into believing. A weird and unfortunate situation for Kranish and the Boston Globe.

Scroll down. Kerry Spot has LOTS more great stuff, including another LA Times "jump the shark" moment, and a must read memo from ABC NEWS.

CBS NEWS

Senior Political Editor Dotty Lynch goes after the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- it's all a sham she says, offering no evidence, only character attacks on the Swift Vets. She labels their effort "Nixonian". This, of course, is what we've come to expect from CBS News. Check the side-bar of the page for further insight into the Michael Moore agenda of the Rather Biased network.

"IT'S THEIR WATERLOO"

-- LILEKS on press coverage of the Swift Boat Vets story:

There are two tales here: the story, and how the story will be played in the dino media. I have nothing to add to the first and it�s too early to comment on the latter. This is not about Vietnam. This is about character, and this is about spin. Over the next week there�s going to be a lot of discussion in newsrooms about what this story means, and how the mainstream media�s handling of the charges will affect their image. They can tear the story down to the foundation and root for the truth, or they can hide behind he-said-they-said reportage. It�s their Waterloo. We�ll see.

UPDATE: Well, this was predictable: "CBS, CNN and MSNBC on Thursday night decried a new anti-Kerry TV ad produced by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. CBS anchor John Roberts stressed criticism of it: "A harsh new television ad that attacks John Kerry is being denounced as quote, 'dishonest and dishonorable' by a Bush supporter, Republican Senator John McCain." (Just last week on the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather trumpeted "John Kerry's band of brothers from Vietnam on one last mission.") CNN's NewsNight didn't inform viewers of the views of the veterans in the ad, just as the show on May 4 ignored, along with ABC and NBC, the press conference held by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But NewsNight, and ABC, had time on Thursday night for how John Kerry mocked President Bush for the seven minutes in the Florida classroom highlighted by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann repeatedly mis-identified the group as "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush." -- From Friday's Media Research Center Cyber Alert (not yet updated to the web).

MEMO TO THE MANHATTAN TIMES:

Soldiers don't "hike".

IS THE NY TIMES A LEFTIST NEWSPAPER?

Are lemons sour? Is ice cold? Does rotten milk stink?

Believe it or not the NY Times has given up the charade that its an objective source of journalism. Next thing you know the good ol' NY Times will come fully clean about its long history of covering up for Uncle Joe, Alger Hiss, and Fidel Castro -- or its contemporary record of covering up for Joe Wilson, John Kerry and Sandy Berger.

Quotable: "Articles containing the word "postmodern" have appeared in The Times an average of four times a week this year - true fact! - and if that doesn't reflect a Manhattan sensibility, I'm Noam Chomsky."

Well, Daniel "Noam Chomsky" Okrent, I think I've heard even my daughter's grandmother use the term "post-modern". All the way out West, the city of Portland, Oregon has had a widely known "post-modern" city hall since the 1980s, and even "red staters" from Eastern Oregon know about it. Time for this navel gazing New Yorker to learn something about the country he live in, don't you think?

Ed Driscoll: "Gee, that only took 70 years to admit."

Allah Pundit: "Hey, what's that elephant doing in here?"

More blogosphere reactions here.

TIM RUTTEN

of the LA Times -- master of malice, mendacity, and misrepresentation. Enough duplicity Tim, it's time for the Times to come clean and get right with the facts. And here's an idea -- hire Patterico. Overnight the truth quotient of the paper would expand dramatically.

"WHY WON'T THE MEDIA TELL THE TRUTH?"

The LA Times has their mitts on a good question, but for the Times it's a question to dodge, not answer. Instead, their aim is to smear the blogosphere and those who've exposed the deceptions of the LA Times. Kevin Murphy has this thought for the Times: bite me.

IT'S ANOTHER LA TIMES

whitewash.

Our ant-Bush news services.

"A few days ago, the Financial Times was back with more news: An independent British commission investigating the government's use of intelligence during the runup to the war in Iraq, the paper reported on Wednesday, "is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger." But this, too, has been largely ignored by the American press. Curious, no? Journalists couldn't get enough of this topic when the story line was that Bush and the British had lied. Shouldn't they find it just as riveting when facts point in the other direction?"

MORE JEFF JACOBY -- "A new look at Bush's '16 words'".

Are they anti-Bush because they they are anti-war? or are they anti-Bush because they are anti-America? Or maybe they anti-Bush just because they are Democrats and leftists. Michael Moore is with no doubt all of these. Unfortunately it is often its very hard to distinguish the American press from the likes of Michael Moore. Certainly it would be nice if the press made this all easy to tell. But they don't.

Bloggers vs. The LA Times.

John Leo reports. Quotable:

"The blogging world cackled a bit about the mess the Times made, mostly because many bloggers think the most powerful big-time news outlets are becoming more and more partisan. The Times may be on its way to becoming Exhibit A for this belief."

ORSON SCOTT CARD

nails America's leftist press corp -- the ins-and-outs of how the press distorts America's news. Ever see this news report? "Senator Hillary Clinton, making no mention of the $100,000 she once made by trading cattle futures with astonishing perfection, told a cheering crowd of activists that President Bush's globalist economic policy is hurting poor people in other countries and costing American jobs." Fat chance. But this sort of attack is a ho-hum everyday occurance in the press -- when the top is an enemy of the left. Quotable Card:

"The left-wing news media live in a tiny village of people who all think (or pretend to think) exactly alike. Therefore, to them any reporter or media outlet that rejects their premises must be insane or dishonest, and instead of seeking to refute them with actual evidence, they merely call them names and accuse them of venal motives. The fact remains that on Fox News, and only on Fox News, we get television reportage that gives us at least two sides of every important issue. On all the other TV news outlets--and "mainstream" newspapers--we mostly get coverage that is hopelessly biased. The madmen have taken over the asylum and now, dressed in white lab coats, they pronounce the rest of the world insane."

Michael Kinsley of the Times -- stupid or dishonest?

I vote stupid.

Crimes of the LA Times.

It's an LA Times blanket party over at Instapundit.

Glenn quotes Tim Rutten: "If the American news media are lucky, 2004 will be remembered as the year of living dangerously. If not, then this election cycle may be recalled as the point at which journalism's slide back into partisanship became a kind of free fall." And then adds: "Too bad some of his LAT colleagues have already shouted "Geronimo!""

Rutten's column is actually quite dishonest, advancing the standard leftist lie that Fox News is the great partisan devil in the press, while everyone else -- all those partisan Democrats in the big city papers and at ABC, NBC, CNN and CBS -- are dedicated to presenting objective news. Recent studies show exactly the opposite -- Fox actually is the least biased of all the major news outlets in America. It turns out that even Drudge is far less biased than are such folks as the NY Times and CBS News. But I guess that is setting the bar damn far low.

A dozen corrections a day at the LA Times ..

".. signals of a sloppy paper that under [John] Carroll's leadership has gone from hyper-partisan but accurate tip sheet for the Dems to hyper-partisan, sloppily edited and never fact-checked tip sheet for the Michael Moore left."

So opines talk host Hugh Hewitt.

WaPo spreads vile bigotry.

And Michelle Malkin reminds us we shouldn't be surprised. The left is full of racists and bigots as many of us have experienced first hand. Here's Malkin unloading on racist WaPo cartoonist Ted Rall and bigotted "mainstream" editors:

"Rall is not the far Left fringe. He gets away with this pen-and-ink-stained excrement because he reflects the closet thinking of mainstream media editors across the country and their mainstream liberal audiences. His work is reportedly carried in 140 newspapers. He and his ilk are everywhere. I grew up with his kind. I went to school with his kind. I work in the media with his kind. I have been getting contempt-filled, profanity-laced, "You-are-a-traitor-to-your-race/You banana/coconut/Aunt Tomasina/white wannabe" diatribes from his kind in my mailbox for the past 12 years."

Iranian agents prepare bombings in Iraq.

But hey, it just ain't news.

David Brooks defends the New Left Times.

"I'm loyal to my people."

Bill Buckley.

"Buckley was everything and more .. He was exactly what I wanted him to be, and more ..". More Rush Limbaugh on Bill Buckley.

Rush Limbaugh is not Michael Moore.

Jeff Jarvis thinks that "It's time to treat Michael Moore as the extremist that he is." Adding that Moore is "Simple-minded, simplistic, mean, venemous, a hate-monger who does nothing to advance the debate and aims instead to divide." So far so good. But then he adds this "And the same goes for Rush". Well, no, the same does not go for Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh does not trade in deceit, Limbaugh often does advance the debate in rather complex ways. Limbaugh isn't a hater, and he seeks to pursuade, which he often does, as countless thousands of phone calls over the years bare witness. And his show is full of information, often read from newspapers and magazines.

Jeff Jarvis simply doesn't have his facts straight here. He's showing his lefty journalist social cohort bias here, and he's not dealing off the top of the deck with the reader.

This is a meme which is floating around the center-left -- and its a false one. A real slander on Limbaugh. Time to kill it in the crib.

The Rush = Moore meme got a big bump from CNN's reporter Jeff Greenfield late last week:

"I think this is -- there's no pretense that this is a fair movie. To me, it's like a Rush Limbaugh rant. Rush Limbaugh takes facts and shapes them around his point of view. I also think that how you see this movie to a great extent depends on how you see the war. Jeff's blog, which a lot of us read, has been relatively looking for positive news, I think. You remind us that the media can sometimes be negative. People who look at this war and think it was a mistake from the beginning, or worse, are going to love this movie. But he doesn't pretend that it's fair.

Rush Limbaugh responds to Greenfield here.

I'll get back to this story over the course of the week.

Bill Buckley, 1955.

" Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word .. it is at this point that we steal the march. For we offer, besides ourselves, a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of Ph.D's in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town .. ". More "Publisher�s Statement, 1955".

Dot.com reporter decides fate of Iraq.

"Before major combat operations were over, [the WaPo's] Chandrasekaran was already quoting Iraqis proclaiming the American operation a failure .. ". More -- "The Untouchable Chief of Baghdad" by U.S. Marine & Iraq veteran Eric Johnson.

Buckley criticizes Bush, War -- hands over National Review.

"As for conservatism today, Mr. Buckley said there was a growing debate on the right about how the war in Iraq squared with the traditional conservative conviction that American foreign policy should seek only to protect its vital interests. "With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war." Asked whether the growth of the federal government over the last four years diminished his enthusiasm for Mr. Bush, he reluctantly acknowledged that it did. "It bothers me enormously," he said. "Should I growl?" MORE "National Review Founder Says It's Time to Leave Stage".

And I liked this: "By ironic periphrasis, arch understatement and surprising deployment of familiar and of course unfamiliar words, Buckley convinced his opponents that he knew something they did not, and what's more, that he intended to keep the secret from them," Mr. Bramwell said as he presented the award. "Thus did he waken their minds to the possibility that liberalism is not the philosophia ultima but just another item in the baleful catalogue of modern ideologies."

A letter to the Washington Post.

"I am a long-time subscriber and I like to read all points of view, but today's front page really troubled me. It contained two news-analysis articles, each of which read like a rally for opponents of President Bush .. I believe that the Post could do two things to remedy this. One is to simply drop the pretense of unbiased journalism, and simply say that the front page is used to promote the opinions of your reporters and editorial staff. Ultimately, I think that this is the most honest approach. If you wish to try to hang on to the myth of an unbiased front page, then I think you ought to hire a conservative to scrutinize the front page before it is printed. That way, some of the bias will be caught ahead of time, rather than leaving it up to the readers .. ". More ARNOLD KLING writes a letter to the Washington Post.

Michael Kinsley

comes out swinging like a cop with a baton as the new editor of the LA Times -- here, for example, is Sunday's smash-mouth anti-Bush editorial "The Disaster of Failed Policy".

Paul Krugman.

Columnista for the NY Times. Oh, and Krugman is at it again.

Patterico.

More lies from the Los Angeles Times.

Powerline vs. NY Times.

"As a news organization, the New York Times is illegitimate .. You simply can't believe anything you read in the Times .. ". MORE "Another Disgrace at the New York Times".

9/11 lies of Peter, Dan & Tom.

Call them the spokesholes of the Democrat Party: "The Republican Chairman and Democratic Vice Chairman of the 9-11 Commission on Thursday rejected the media�s widespread reporting that the commission�s report issued the day before had directly contradicted Bush administration statements about connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein�s Iraq. Yet on Thursday night ABC�s Peter Jennings declared that there �continues to be a discrepancy between the commission�s findings and the President�s on whether al-Qaeda has a link to Saddam Hussein,� and CBS anchor Dan Rather repeated how �the commission yesterday said it had found no credible evidence of a quote, 'collaborative relationship� between al-Qaeda and Iraq -- no plotting together against the United States,� but, he added in treating President Bush as out of step, without mentioning how Kean and Hamilton had corrected CBS�s mis-reporting, �President Bush insisted again today that there was a quote 'relationship� of some kind and defended his position.� NBC�s Tom Brokaw took a similar tack, repeating how the commission had found �that there was no 'collaborative relationship� between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.� But, Brokaw lectured, �despite that conclusion, President Bush insisted there was a relationship between the two.�

MORE "Media Suppress Hamilton�s Scolding of Misreporting of Iraq-Qaeda" UPDATE: The 9/11 lies of the LA Times -- Patterico has the goods.

Paul Krugman's double dishonesty.

"Intellectual honesty compels one to acknowledge two things: first, weaknesses in one's position; and second, controversial assumptions on which one's position rests. Paul Krugman, the economist-cum-columnist, is routinely dishonest in both ways .. ". MORE -- Paul Krugman's dishonesty.

The Wall Street Journal blackballs Michelle Malkin.

"The problem, an editorial-page staffer informed me, stemmed from two columns I had written (here and here) .. which had challenged the WSJ's advocacy of amnesty for illegal aliens. Were there factual inaccuracies in either of those pieces? No. In fact, the only errors in those columns were the ones I pointed out had been made by the WSJ editorial page when it mischaracterized the amnesty program it was championing. I was told by the editorial features staffer that I had antagonized the page's higher-ups. The bottom line is that my criticism of the WSJ's misleading pro-illegal alien propaganda caused me to be shut out of the esteemed editorial pages .. ". MORE -- Michelle Malkin: "WHY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS SNORT-WORTHY".

Michael Kinsley in ethical stumble.

Not a good way to start of your first day on the job at the LA Times. Patrick Frey has the details.

Patterico nails the LA Times - again.

How dishonest are the editors of the LA Times? Well, this dishonest. This isn't a newspaper, it's the local propaganda sheet of the Democrat Party in SoCal.

UPDATE: Patterico has more here.

Fair and Balanced.

According to a recent GMU study .. "the New York Times is twice as far from the center as Fox News� Special Report, to gain a balanced perspective, one would need to spend twice as much time watching Special Report as he or she spends reading the New York Times .. ". Horologium has the link & details.

Reagan -- "many think of him as religious".

That is the unbelievable headline for a story on Reagan and religion in the OC Register. Well, Ronald Reagan attended church services his whole life before he became President, and attended church regularly after he left the White House (before he was struck down by Alzheimer's). The full OC Register headline reads: "Worshippers found president inspirational -- Reagan skipped services, but his views and attitude make many think of him as religious". And the "news" story reads: "But unlike avid churchgoers George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Reagan begged off Sunday services .. Nevertheless his optimistic demeanor, combined with the support of religious activists and his position on social issues, left an impression of spirituality on many."

Note well, a mere "impression of spirituality".

The article never mention the fact that Reagan attended church his whole adult life, with the singular exception of the time serving in the White House after being shot in the first months of his Presidency. Indeed, the full story leaves the distinct "impression" that Reagan never attended church throughout his adult life -- a complete falsehood. In any case, whole books have been written attesting to Reagan's religious faith and practice -- an overwhelming theme of his life. But these books aren't cited -- although a book by Reagan hater Garry Wills does get quoted.

The unavoidable reality is that reporters are hired because they can write, not because they have any genuine depth of understanding about anything -- which, as we've just seen, can result in some truly embarrassing journalism.

(Sorry, the OC Register's truly horrible web site turned up zero search results for this story. If you know how to locate it, send me a note.)

PEW. Americans agree -- news sources stink.

"More than half [of Americans surveyed] agree with the statement "I often don't trust what news organizations are saying." Nearly as many believe people who decide on news content are "out of touch." .. ". "News Audiences Increasingly Politicized".

It turns out that Republicans are far less credulous than are Democrats when it comes to evaluating the honesty and credibility of such news sources as CBS News and the NY Times. Only a meager 15% of Republican trust the believability of CBS News, while a full 34% of Democrats "believe all of most" of what CBS says. And only 14% of Republicans trust "all or most" of what appears in the NY Times, but more than double as many Democrats -- 34% -- believe "all or most" of what the NY Times prints.

These facts may help explain why a full 35% of Republicans regulary get their news from the Fox News Channel, while only 13% of Republicans bother to tune in the broadcast of "Rather Bias" CBS News -- a favorite news source for Democrats.

Tucker Carlson.

The Alan Colmes of the Right.

Bush is Hitler, Republicans are Nazis.

Words of wisdom from The OC Weekly -- i.e. the Village Voice Orange County edition. Quotable: "I�m adding my voice to the other hysterical-seeming Americans who are likening the current White House administration to Germany�s grim men in gray." so writes the OC Weekly's lead writer Jim Washburn under the headline "The NASCAR Nazi." Perhaps Washburn is angling for a position with the Washington Post.

Tenured bigots blackball job applicants.

Prof. Mike Adams -- "It didn�t take long for me to realize that religion was used against some applicants seeking employment at UNC-Wilmington. In the fall of 1993, just a couple of months after starting my job, a social work professor dubbed an applicant �too religious� during an applicant screening meeting in the faculty lunch room. When I heard the remark (as I was seated at the table where the screening was taking place) I was shocked. This was despite the fact that I considered myself an atheist. But it wasn�t my place to speak up as I was not officially on the committee. Over the next few years, I did manage to serve on a number of hiring committees .. During those first few years, I heard and recorded a number of instances of direct and indirect religious and political discrimination ..

*In 1996, the label �too religious� was attached to an applicant who had graduated from a religious institution.

*In 1996, the label �too conservative� was attached to an applicant who had written an article for a conservative publication.

*In 1996, the label �too much of a family man� was attached to an applicant who was married and had several children before the age of 30.

*In 1997, a feminist objected to another female candidate after having dinner with the applicant and her husband. She specifically complained that the applicant�s husband played �too dominant a role in the marriage.�

*In 2001, a job candidate was asked the following question during an interview: �Who did you vote for in the 2000 election?�

.. A tenured UNCW English professor recently tried to convince me that the absence of a single Republican in their department of 31 full-time faculty members was just a coincidence. Thanks to David Horowitz and others, the public now knows better. .. Instead of speaking out publicly, I would love to work towards an internal resolution of these problems. But that can�t happen until the university admits that the problems exist. Besides that, I haven�t served on a university committee in years. But I�m sure it�s only a coincidence .. ". MORE Mike Adams -- "Fear and loathing in faculty recruitment".

Roger Ailes on John Carroll.

"John S. Carroll, the editor of the Los Angeles Times, recently gave a speech at the University of Oregon, in which he attacked Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel and me, the chairman of Fox News. However, Mr. Carroll obviously did not feel particularly restricted by facts, truth or sources .. the Fox News Channel today has 53% of the audience share of cable news .. According to Mr. Carroll, that proves most Americans are therefore stupid and gullible. It's that elite, arrogant, condescending, self-serving, self-righteous, biased and wrongheaded view of Americans that causes viewers and readers to distrust media people like John Carroll." MORE Roger Ailes on John Carroll.

Captain Ed on Howell Raines.

This -- as they say -- is must reading. Quotable: "Howell Raines writes an editorial in tomorrow's London Guardian expressing serious concerns about John Kerry as a candidate, and in the process exposes the obvious bias he inculcated into the New York Times as editor-in-chief .. Does the Gray Lady's performance over the past few years come into clearer view now? .. It's amazing that a representative of the American media can write such a bitter and cynical column."

WMD's & the NY Times -- Bruce Barlett:

"You [Donald Luskin] missed the real story behind the New York Times' WMD coverage. It is precisely because the paper has been so relentlessly negative about Bush that its support for the administration's view on WMD's stood out. People like me figured that if the Times thought there were WMDs in Iraq, then they had to be there. Because, given the paper's biases, it would have done everything in its power to refute the administration's evidence if it could. Therefore, to the extent that the invasion of Iraq was wrong because of a mistaken belief that it had WMDs, the Times is as responsible as anyone. link.

John Leo: Tomorrow's newsroom -- a closed Leftist shop?

"Why does the news business keep hiring more and more people who disagree sharply with the customers, many of whom are already stampeding out the door for a variety of reasons? One explanation is that national journalism is now an elite profession, staffed by people� -- black and white, female and male -- �who went to elite colleges and who share the conventional social views of their class. This was not true a generation ago. When I was at the New York Times, the leadership was full of people who had gone to the wrong schools and fought their way up with brains and talent. Two desks away from mine was McCandlish Phillips, a born-again Christian who read the Bible during every break, no matter how brief. Phillips was a legendary reporter, rightly treated with awe by the staff, but I doubt he would be hired by most news organizations today. He prayed a lot and had no college degree .. The big deal is that media workers are becoming [increasingly leftist] at a fairly rapid pace� -- up from 22 percent nine years ago to 34 percent now, according to Pew. It would be a bigger deal if the hiring of [leftists] reached the point (as it has in the academic world) where [non-leftists] don�t bother to apply for jobs .. ". More JOHN LEO.

The press -- leftists and

lying about it.

WoPo -- how far left will it go?

"People ask whether the media is "liberal"? They should be asking how far left it will eventually become. The recent appointment of Harold Meyerson -- an obscure radical and quaint believer in working class radicalism -- to one of the most coveted jobs in American journalism provides a troubling answer. Meyerson, a political editor for The L.A. Weekly, a leftist throwaway tabloid, and Editor-at-Large for Bill Moyers� ideological journal, The American Prospect, has been made a regular columnist for the Washington Post .. ". MORE "The Washington Post's New Leftist".

Oh, That Leftist News Media.

That's right they are leftists.

LA Times editor John Carroll.

Fisked by Catherine Seipp. Who is Jill Stewart anyway?

Calling Greg Packer.

"An Editor's Note reveals the dirty little secret about where the New York Times finds those ordinary citizens sprinkled throughout public policy pieces to complain in homespun fashion about the dire effect of this budget cut or that government initiative: they are handed to the Times on a platter by ([leftist]) advocacy groups .. two of its non-random surveyees on a Medicare drug story had actually also appeared in a video for an advocacy group, Families USA .. ". MORE Mickey�Kaus.

Patterico fisks LA Times editor John Carroll

and his "you're an idiot" speech.

Who's more ignorant?

The average Fox News viewer or leftist newsie John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times.

Kick & punch party.

"If ever there was a group that should understand adults losing control in a group setting, ganging up on weakened individuals and then humiliating them gratuitously, it is journalists .. ". More Debra Saunders.

Patterico - more NY Times lies.

"Once again, the [leftist] media is presenting a fabricated history of the California energy crisis. A New York Times editorial praising Arnold Schwarzenegger revives the myth of "deregulation" in California:

Last week, in an announcement barely noticed outside the state, the governor offered a comprehensive energy plan that dealt the final blow to the unfettered deregulation that helped cause a series of blackouts in 2000, bankrupted a major utility and marked the beginning of the end for Mr. Davis.

What was "unfettered" about a system of deregulation that maintained price controls on the prices that utilities could charge consumers? The idea that "deregulation" caused blackouts in California is a falsehood, perpetuated by [leftists] who don't understand economics -- or do, but choose to engage in dishonest rhetoric nevertheless. What caused the problem, for the most part, was not "unfettered deregulation," but rather half-assed deregulation -- a "deregulation" that lifted controls on the prices that suppliers charged utilities, but which fixed the prices charged to consumers .. And, of course, you had the spectacle of politicians spending all sorts of money on advertising begging people to conserve -- because they refused to do the one thing that could actually cause conservation: lifting the caps on prices charged to consumers. And when this soft-headed strategy failed -- a result which was pre-ordained -- what do we do? Blame "deregulation." "Unfettered deregulation," no less. The editors at the New York Times certainly know that true deregulation never had a chance in California. Yet they use the word "unfettered" to describe a "deregulation" that deregulated only one end of the power equation. This characterization is dishonest. But, it does help the editors fight their war on deregulation in general. And we know what happens when facts get in the way of a pet position of editors at a major newspaper: facts be damned .. ". MORE Patterico's Pontifications: More Media Lies About Energy.

LA Times -- Lying for the Greater Leftist Good.

Patterico gives it good once again to the truth distorting LA Times.

Quotable Seipp.

"these fish don't know they're wet, which makes shooting them in a barrel especially irresistible .. ". More Catherine Seipp.

The Lies of the LA Times.

Patterico nails the LA Times again.

LA Times readers want to know ..

"Why did the original [LA Times] story [on Antonin Scalia] have so many errors that made Scalia look bad?" Patterico has the juice.

Richard Clarke.

Voted for Gore, not a Republican. Never trust that the partisan Democrat press will get the facts straight. They didn't this time. And they haven't before.

FRAUD -- USA TODAY stories were Pure Fiction.

A five time Pulitzer Prize nominated writer for USA TODAY has been charged with repeatedly fabricating news reports for USA TODAY.

MRC's Lefty Press Awards.

"Our greatest accomplishment as a profession is the development since World War II of a news reporting craft that is truly non-partisan, and non-ideological .. ". more TAKE A GUESS, and dozens of other lefty press boobs.

Scalia vs. LA Times.

Justice Scalia body slams the LA Times -- PATTERICO has the story.

Alistair Cooke.

The BBC has a great "Letter From America" page in tribute to the retiring Cooke, age 95.

S. Dakota.

So how does a natural "red" state like South Dakota end up with two Dhimocrat senators? Oh, That Biased Media.

NY Times Op-Ed Whoppers.

It's a war between the NY Times and the blogosphere. Guess who's winning.

New book editor at NY Times.

English major and Whittaker Chambers biographer Sam Tanenhaus has been named the new editor of the NY Times Book Review. Tanenhaus, a former NY Times editorial page hack, has for some years has been at work on a biography of William Buckley.

Anti-leftists like Friedrich Hayek have been blackballed by the NY Times book review for generations. We'll see whether or not Tanenhaus reforms the appalling editorial behavior of the NY Times BR, given his background as a left sympathetic NY Times editorial pagie with a special interest in the political history of the American anti-left. It will not count as an improvement if a dishonest political hack like Paul Krugman is given the review of a book like Bruce Caldwell important Hayek's Challenge. If that's the sort of thing we get, then we'd be better off if the Times simply went back to its time honored little black balls.

For some perspective on Tanenhaus read this piece by Jonah Goldberg or this Tenahaus editorial in the NY Times.

Patterico - named editor at The LA Times.

Read this posting by Patterico, then click back and scroll down and read a headline I've posted from today's LA Times. Then laugh yourself silly.

Oh, by the way. The story comes to the Times via the very same Patterico. And don't miss this update. Enjoy.

"Ginsburg Has Ties to Activist Group. The justice lends her name to a legal fund's event on women's rights. Critics see a conflict."

NY Times - Pravda on the Hudson.

Former NY Times reporter Jayson Blair: "I believe that "The New York Times" newsroom does have a social change agenda, and it's very [leftist], it's certainly anti-conservative. You could make the argument that it's a pro-[leftist], anti-conservative social change agenda, and Howell didn't just push it, but he made it obvious. It's normally more subtle and more hidden and... O'REILLY: OK. So they wanted... BLAIR: ... masked and cloaked. O'REILLY: So they wanted a new society, more secular society, more liberal society. Is that fair to say? BLAIR: That is fair to say. O'REILLY: And if you didn't buy into that, what would happen? BLAIR: I can't think of anyone there who didn't buy into that. O'REILLY: All of them -- all right. Let me give you ... a real simple question. BLAIR: All right. Go. O'REILLY: If you walk into the newsroom and you said that "The O'Reilly Factor" is my favorite program, I love that O'Reilly guy... BLAIR: Well, look at what... O'REILLY: ... what would happen to you if you were a "New York Times" reporter? BLAIR: I'd be laughed out of the newsroom. I mean, people would brand me as a neo-con, and, you know, they'd stop talking to me. They would... O'REILLY: Really? BLAIR: It would hurt my stories. People would say that I -- you know, there are a handful of people who have conservative... O'REILLY: Yes, they've got a couple of token -- Safire and these guys. BLAIR: Right. But they're outcasts .. O'REILLY: So the prevailing wisdom inside the nation's most powerful newspaper, all right, is... BLAIR: It's not open to middle America, let's put it that way, Bill. O'REILLY: Right. It's a very sharp agenda that they push, not only in their editorial pages, but in their news pages. BLAIR: Unfortunately yes. O'REILLY: OK. And if you don't tow that line ... then your career at the "Times" is hurt? BLAIR: Yes, yes. O'REILLY: Are you telling me the truth, because they're going to say this guy lies -- this guy Blair lies about everything. He's trying to get us. BLAIR: Look, Bill, you know, the first step for me -- you know, I lived a life of lies, I lived a double life. The first step for me in changing on the in -- I mean on the outside is changing on the inside, and that means coming clean. I'm telling... O'REILLY: So you're telling me the truth. BLAIR: ... you the truth. I mean, Bill, I am [leftist] to moderate personally. It does nothing for my political views to lay this point out, but it is the truth... O'REILLY: Why does the publisher and all of -- why do they tolerate this kind of a -- you know, "The New York Times" has a proud tradition -- I mean has a proud tradition... BLAIR: I mean... O'REILLY: .., and now it has become an ideological hack. Why do they tolerate it? BLAIR: Well, I mean I think that the new publisher -- there's a book being done right now about the years -- by Bill McGowan (search) who wrote, "Coloring the News" (search) about the years of Arthur Salzberger, Jr., as the publisher of the paper, and he has a [leftist] agenda that he wants to push, and... O'REILLY: So it comes right down from the top. BLAIR: ... and he thinks the fact that it's -- the newspaper is respected by so many other media outlets, it doesn't matter what they print .. ". more BILL O'REILLY INTERVIEWS NY TIMES REPORTER JAYSON BLAIR.

Crap Journalism.

"So why are you reading about what "some say" in the paper? Obviously, the reporter and/or the editors think it's important for you to hear this particular opinion. Often, words like "some" or "many" can be replaced with the phrase "Times editors" with no appreciable change in meaning .. ". more PATTERICO.

Will there be anything left of the LA Times when Patterico is done with them?

Global Lying. "There has been quite a bit of talk recently about the "suppressed" report commisioned by the Pentagon that discusses potential consequences of climatic change, after an astonishingly stupid article in The Observer grossly misrepresented the contents of the report, and news organizations across the globe reported the story in the Observer without bothering to read the original report .. ". more Horologium.

Bias -- at NBC News. Bob Arnot is fired by NBC, perhaps the best reporter working the war beat for any broadcast network. A huge loss for journalism and America.

Bias -- at the LA Times. Who would have guessed? Patterico reports on the spiking & spinning of the Kerry-Fonda photos.

Bias -- at the LA Times. Who knew?

Want to write an op-ed for the NY Times? You might want to read this first.

Set yourself up as a Democrat party propaganda sheet rather than a serious newspaper and lose 10,000 paid subscribers -- as the LA Times now admits it lost during the California recall election.

Paul Krugman's work is consistently full of falsehoods. This sort of thing has become so common that few take much notice. Still, it's more than a bit remarkable to witness Krugman as he reaches for the Noam Chomsky rung of loony bird crazy dishonesty.

UPDATE: Luskin gives Krugman the fisking he deserves.

John Stossel's Give Me a Break : How I .. Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media is out. I've used Stossel videos in my philosophy classes, which have proved helpful in getting students engaged in the process of thinking for themselves, and appreciating how different people might understand things in different ways. You can read the beginning of his book here. (thanks to Liberty Lover).

KFI 640 Los Angeles -- the #1 talk radio station in America. Congratulations guys. A highlight of the station is the John and Ken Show in the afternoon. The talk hosts have been simply brilliant on the state overspending mess, immigration, Michael Jackson and about every other interesting story coming down the pike in California. These are the men who've led successful tax revolts in two major states (New Jersey and California). Their #1 target now is Bush's new open borders plan, and if this blows apart in George Jr.'s face John and Ken will be as responsible as anyone. Believe it or not The John and Ken Show now has more listeners than The LA Times has readers, and the boys are mobilizing this massive listener base against the Bush plan to flood the country with cheap illegal labor. Already Congressmen are feeling the heat go up -- and are lining up to appear on the John and Ken show to voice their stand against the President and his open borders immigration plan. Got to love it.

The last word on "media concentration". (via Patterico).

The worst of the NY Times -- The Top 10 NY Times Lies, Deceptions, Blunders of 2003

The LA Times completely and utterly sucks -- Patterico gives a blow by blow review of the terrible 2003 performance of this truly horrible newspaper.

The Worst of 2003 -- the Media Research Center is out with its awards for the worst reporting of the year .. with lots of fun quotes from the boneheads who dominate the major media. Idiotic stuff like this:

When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao�s Little Red Book on every official�s desk, omnipresent and unread. But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American....I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don�t have to make it....I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us.

-- the unmatchable Bill Moyers, still trying way too hard to cover for his ignoble role in the immorality of Lyndon Johnson administration.

Mark Steyn looks at the year just passed. A taste:

Seven months ago, there was so much hooey in the papers about Iraq that I decided to see for myself and had a grand time motoring round the Sunni Triangle. Lovely place, friendly people, property very reasonable. Why were my impressions so different from the doom-mongers at CNN or the New York Times? Well, it seems most media types holed up at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad are still using their old Ba'athist minders as translators when they venture out. That would, at the very minimum, tend to give one a somewhat skewed perspective of the new Iraq.

But it only works because the fellows on the receiving end - the naysayers in the media and elsewhere - are so anxious to fall for it. One Saddamite pen-pusher at the museum could only peddle his non-existent sack of Baghdad to the world because, thanks to chaps like Jenkins, it was a seller's market.

And this:

Wolfowitz is a demonic figure to the anti-war types for little reason other than that his name begins with a big scary animal and ends Jewishly. But, if you want to know what he's really like, ask Ann Clwyd: "He was a very charming man, an intellectual," the Welsh firebrand told the Observer. Just so. I've been in his presence on a couple of occasions - he's very soft-spoken, thoughtful, not in the least bit lupine. He can reel off the names of gazillions of Iraqis he's been in touch with for years - Kurds, Shias, Sunnis.

Hastings mocks these contacts as "Iraqi stooges". But better a stooge than a vast anonymous tide of native extras, which is how Sir Max, whose Rolodex doesn't appear to be brimming with Ramadi and Mosul phone numbers, sees them. Where's the real "ignorance and conceit" here? No one who knows any Iraqis, as Ms Clwyd does, would compare Wolfowitz with the Soviets.

The real story of this past year is not Saddam, but something deeper, symbolised by the bizarre persistence of the "anti-war" movement even after the war was over. For a significant chunk of the British establishment and for most of the governing class on the Continent, if it's a choice between an America-led West or no West at all they'll take the latter. That's the trend to watch in the year ahead.

And here is 2003 as Steyn saw it, highlights and month by month. If you're new to Steyn -- or even if you're not -- don't miss it.

ASS TALK WATCH: "But the deepest insight of Niall's piece is the thought that circumstances in part forced Bush's hand. After the bursting of the Rubin Bubble, and worldwide deflation, a tougher fiscal stance might have led to a catastrophic global depression." -- Andrew Sullivan, talking out of his backside with all the pretention of someone who believes that his purely amateur economic speculations have all the cognitive standing of a simple statement of physical fact.

Fear of a Right planet -- more Brian Anderson on the how conservatives and true liberals have smashed the Leftist media monopoly.

Just an accident? When the news is concocted by a socialist institution is it any wonder that the news comes out deeply biased against America? Well, it's no accident if you're talking about the increasingly dubious BBC. David Frum reports. Quotable:

Before the three of us got to business, �Newsnight� broadcast an introductory video clip. It was that clip that was my perfect moment of news slanting. A reporter at the gates of Buckingham Palace told us that a small crowd was waiting for President Bush, and that its mood was mixed. Cut to clips from three members of that crowd: all negative. (One of the negative voices was American � that was apparently all the balance the broadcaster required.) Now here�s the punchline: I recognized one of the three � I�d seen him earlier that day at an anti-Bush rally in Lincoln�s Inn Fields. In the interim, he�d changed into casual tourist clothes � and the BBC was now presenting him as a representative of ordinary British opinion.

I pointed out this distorting selection bias in my first answer to one of moderator Jeremy Paxman�s questions. He was very impatient with me. But I persisted. How can you do a program that purports to study why British people are so hostile to President Bush � without taking note of the state broadcaster�s role in creating and magnifying that hostility? The BBC is not just reporting this story; it is in many ways the story�s most important actor.

The New York Times Review of Leftist Books.

The leftist press (e.g the NY Times) has a bad habit of stamping ideological labels on those it doesn't much like. David Brady and Jonathan Ma present a decades worth of data to prove it.

John Leo on the end of the leftist media near monopoly:

The [leftist] worldview still dominates the news business, the arts, the entertainment world, publishing, the campuses, and all levels of schooling. It�s the media and educational status quo. But five years ago, CBS probably could have gotten away with a cheap-shot miniseries on the Reagans. Now it can�t ..

[One] reason for the ditching of the Reagan miniseries is that the conservative media world is now good at gang tackling. From Matt Drudge�s Drudge Report (which framed the issue of the miniseries) to Fox, the bloggers, talk radio hosts, and the columnists, everybody piled on. New York Times columnist David Brooks touched on this point some time ago, writing that the new conservative media have �cohered to form a dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system that swamps [leftist] efforts to get their ideas out.� For liberals, this is an ominous development ...

I once asked a thoughtful [leftist] friend: �Why does the message of the left seem to penetrate the whole of pop culture?� His answer -- �We make the culture; you don�t� -- doesn�t seem so obvious now.

The showpiece of [antileftist] humor is one that appalls a good many conservatives: South Park, Comedy Central�s wildly popular cartoon saga of four crude and incredibly foul-mouthed little boys. The show mocks mindless lefty celebrities and takes swipes at the gay lobby and the abortion lobby. Some examples: Getting Gay With Kids is a homosexual choir that descends on the school. And the mother of one South Parker decides she wants to abort him (�It�s my body�), despite the fact that he�s 8 years old. The weekly disclaimer on the show says it is so offensive �it should not be viewed by anyone.� This is a new paradigm in pop culture: conventional [leftist thinking] is the old, rigid establishment. The [antileftists] are brash, funny, and cool ...

Some of the new conservative success is due to the rise of a large crop of commentators the left has not been able to match. Mostly young and often very funny, they include Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, Michelle Malkin, and Jeff Jacoby. But most of the conservative gains have been in new media. Fox News�s large audience skews young, and half its viewers are either [leftist] or centrist. So Fox isn�t just preaching to the choir. It�s exposing nonconservatives to conservative ideas.

As mentioned here several times, the �blogosphere� -- the world of Internet commentators -- tilts strongly to the right. Bloggers like Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, and Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit have a heavy impact. No excess of the [leftist] media seems to escape their attention. Among other things, they have mercilessly attacked Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and idol of America�s angriest [leftists]. It has been an amazing and, I think, largely successful campaign of informed detraction.

It was obvious that the democratization of the media would bring new voices into the field, but who knew that so many of those voices would be conservative, libertarian, or just cantankerously opposed to entrenched [leftist] doctrine? The conservative side is far from winning the culture wars, but the debate is broader and fairer now. The near monopoly is over.

As researchers have in the past, scientists at this meeting told Ms. Baron they had a simple solution to their problems with reporters. "I don't take their phone calls" was a common refrain. Their unwillingness to talk to us is not mysterious. Far too often, talking to reporters is a no-win proposition for scientists ...

The NY Times on challenge of reporting science -- -- including dealing with scientists who are distressed that reporters insiste on presenting "both sides", a concept foreign to most scientists.

"resistance fighters" "Resistance fighters"? -- not in the news pages of the LA Times. But it seems the editorial page writers at the Times have -- let us say -- a different sensibility.

In a classic fisking, Andrew Sullivan unmasks Andy Rooney as a completely dishonest hatchetman.

Roger Ailes of Fox News takes the NY Times and the LA Times to journalism school.

This is interesting. I've always believed that moral spankings lead often to improved moral behavior and character. And -- not so long after a good public moral spanking -- we find William J. Bennett now sharing his byline with his co-authors. As I say, interesting.

NPR's Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin on NPR -- yes NPR was unfair to Bill O'Reilly, yes NPR happily "carries the water" for leftwing kooks, and yes, NPR is a biased leftwing outfit.

The only surprise here is that someone at NPR is brave enough -- and honest enough -- to speak the truth about the elephant pooping in the livingroom (on the taxpayer's dime).

The LA Times gives a scoop away to NBC News -- so that NBC can tee-up a U.S. general for the LA Times to kick. Hugh Hewitt has the story.

Rush Limbaugh's statement on his addiction. Audio.

Eli Noam provides some facts for the media concentration debate.

And the distorted quotation of the year goes to ...

Your tax dollars at work:

As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to vote on the judicial nomination of William Pryor, Bill Moyers produces a one-sided segment for his "NOW" PBS program on the nomination. On the program, which aired nationwide last night (transcript here), Senator Schumer gets in all his licks, but there is no mention of Pryor's broad, bipartisan support in Alabama, the endorsements he's received from Democratic state AGs, or his efforts to end vestiges of racial discrimination in Alabama. Worse, for a purportedly "educational" program subsidized by taxpayers, there is absolutely no effort to explain or elucidate the legal reasoning behind Pryor's positions.

-- Jonathan Alder in The Corner. What needs to be said?

Bush's anti-free trade agenda not only damages America and the world economy, the policy is now in official violation of our signed treaty obligations. And the penalties will be in the billions of dollars. Here's a suggestion for a new law -- let the Congress make these penalties the personal obligations of Bush and his staff. Then see how quickly these illegal tarrifs are removed. The costs of bad and illegal policies need to fall where where the ultimate responsibility lies.

What was it like at the NY Times under Howell Raines? According to Vanity Fair's David Margolick, it was like this:

Raines would not let facts get in the way of a story he had ordered up or a point he decided to make. "Howell wanted a thought inserted high in one of my stories," says a metro reporter. "The only problem was, it wasn't true. Mind you, this was on my beat, a beat he didn't really know about. I said to the editor who was the message-bearer that it wasn't true, and it didn't belong in the story, period. A while later he came back to me and said, 'Well, you're right, but Howell wants it anyway.' It became clear that the editor had not fully conveyed my arguments to Howell, because he was afraid to. I said, 'F--- that -- I'll tell him myself.' And he literally seized my arm and said, 'You don't want to do that.' And ultimately the editor-intermediary and I compromised on a version of what Howell wanted that was just vague enough not to mean much, but still close enough to a falsehood to make my very uncomfortable."

David Horowitz on Coulter and "Treason".

NBC News has a new blog/daily memo called First Read with lots of links to the days breaking news stories.

We all know that Maureen Dowd is none too bright and not nice in the least. But it took Eugene Volokh to prove it mathematically (so to speak). Volokh is sitting in for the vacationing Glenn Reynolds.

When people are in a rush, they make mistakes. And they also sometimes let slip little truths about themselves that under ordinary circumstances get edited out. So it goes with bias in the media. When the press is in a rush, bias often pops out to the surface. Latest example (from Best of the Web):

CNN reported that Scalia, in dissenting from Lawrence v. Texas, a ruling declaring homosexual sodomy a fundamental constitutional right, had said he has "nothing against homosexuals." It turns out that although Scalia's dissent does contain this sequence of words, the network egregiously misquoted him. Here's what he actually wrote:

"Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means."

The object of the preposition against was not homosexuals but promoting. By presenting the fragmentary quote, CNN made it appear as if Scalia were issuing a defensive denial of personal prejudice, when in fact he was making a point about political philosophy. CNN has since corrected its story, and the original source of the error appears to have been an Associated Press dispatch that moved some 20 minutes after the court handed down its decision. The wire service has not issued a correction...

When the AP screws up, it reverberates around the world, as a Google search of today's news stories demonstrates. No one got it as wrong, however, as the New York Times' Joel Brinkely ... who explicitly falsified the quote (emphasis ours):

"Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissent and took the unusual step of reading it aloud from the bench this morning, saying "the court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," while adding that he personally has "nothing against homosexuals.""

The Media Research Center's DisHonors Awards are in. The event will be rebroadcast on C-SPAN Saturday night.

NBC labels agreement with Justice Scalia "on the extremes". Thanks guys.

The British government goes after the BBC over claims of doctored intelligence.

The Crushing of Dissent (I think that's what Instapundit calls it) -- AOL blocks the Heritage foundations daily email containing the ideas of folks like Thomas Sowell, Jack Kemp, Mona Charen, and Jonah Goldberg. It seems that complaints had been coming in from a handful of people about the contents of the emailing. AOL, of course, is the same outfit that puts pornography in the email box of the underaged on a regular basis. The Heritage Foundation emailing was blocked for two weeks.

The Greg Packer Story.

David Warsh has a long, interesting piece on Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.

Apparently, this is true:

Another average individual eager to get Hillary's book was Greg Packer, who was the centerpiece of the New York Times' "man on the street" interview about Hillary-mania. After being first in line for an autographed book at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, Packer gushed to the Times: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign." It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one -- but two -- New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games -- even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium. Are all reporters writing their stories from Jayson Blair's house?

Here is a story on the guy from July 2002. You can't make this kind of stuff up.

I love this. The owner of the NY Times is complaining about poor journalism. Well boo hoo.

The "flood the zone" strategy of the NY Times on the so-called "child tax credit" for those who don't pay taxes continues. The Times uses conventionally distorted language to well-hide the dirty little secret that the "child tax credit" for very low income workers has absolutely nothing to do with cutting taxes, and has everthing to do with increasing the size of an alternative form of the welfare check. The closest that the Times comes to spilling the beans is this short aside:

The majority leader's defiance of the White House reflected growing frustration among conservatives about pressure from the administration to provide a benefit to millions of minimum-wage families who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes.

Which can only leave the average reader bewildered, wondering what relation this discussion of a "benefit" has to do with the political battle between the forces of good and evil over the slam dunk issue of whether or not to give tax cuts for low income workers with children -- when rich folks with kids are already getting them. It's always a fixed game with loaded dice at the Times. Only now, in the post-Raines era, weirdly misplaced "fig-leaf" lines show up here and there in a desperate stab at "cover-my-***" objectivity-- so out of place that one has trouble making sense of their meaning in the context of the story the Times would prefer to be telling.

UPDATE: This is how Howard Kurtz intrerprets the meaning of the NY Times story:

"Now we find out who really runs the country � and his name may just be DeLay .. One gets the impression that low-income families are not part of his core constituency."

Which is exactly the impression the NY Times wished Mr. Kurtz to have. As I say, it works. And note well, Kurtz's quote from the story leaves the false impression -- like the Times -- that the fight is over a cut in taxes for the poor, not over a newly minted or much increased welfare check to lower income earners. This is where for all practical purposes you have a bold type lie passing for news -- something much beyond mere everyday partisan spin at the Times and the Post. Where are Sullivan, Reynolds and Kaus on this story?

Bruce Bartlett on the "tax cut" for non-tax payers and the power of the NY Times. One question, why can't Bartlett talk straight? Here he is on the so-called "tax cut":

the Senate included a provision that increased refundability of the child credit, which is being raised from $600 to $1,000. Under current law, the credit is refundable for those with an income tax liability less than the credit to which they are otherwise eligible. But refundability is limited to 10 percent of a taxpayer's earned income above $10,500. It is scheduled to rise to 15 percent in 2005, and the Senate would have speeded up that increase to this year.

This would give George Orwell headaches. Why not call a welfare check a welfare check?

BusinessWeek on blogs. The article is "ok", but I have to ask, how dumb are these guys? BusinessWeek writes:

InstaPundit's Glenn Reynolds .. rounds up conservative opinions from the world's editorial pages.

Has Instapundit ever done this? InstaPundit's beat is the blogosphere, guns, and international news, etc., not the editorial pages. And a better question, did a stringer phone in this report?

John Podhoretz laying it on the line about the New York Times:

The problem with the Times is that it's become a left-wing sheet .. The chief disgrace .. is that they have tried to lay claim to objectivity even as they have consciously attempted to manipulate public opinion. [for example] their paper has time and again spun its own poll data in shocking ways to distort results - and only people who went and studied the numbers closely on the Times' Web site could discern the truth. And when, time and again, they have gotten caught out doing so, they act as though those who have caught them out are the manipulators and deceivers.

Mickey�Kaus replies to Seth Mnookin on the Raines resignation -- and takes you inside the Newsweek sausage factory:

It's very Newsweekish to come up with some meta-commentary on the process ("everyone assumed the debate should focus on their concerns"), relieving the magazine (and Mnookin) of the need to decide whose concerns were accurate--a meta-commentary that also manages to squeeze in a sneer at "right wing ideologues" without having to admit that the right-wing ideologues were, in this case, largely right. I worked at Newsweek and know the imperative to come up with these seemingly "smart" Neutral Story Lines (e.g., "Is This Any Way to Elect a President.") I've written a few of them myself. They're almost always a cop-out of some sort, and in this case Mnookin's "all or nothingism" NSL doesn't even really fit the event. ...

Andrew Sullivan vindicated:

This really shouldn't be a sign of a revolution, but it is. In any other business, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd would have resigned weeks ago. And a few years ago, they would have been able to ride out the storm, using the Times' enormous media power to protect themselves. But the Internet has changed things. It means that the errors and biases of the new NYT could be exposed not just once but dozens and dozens of times. It means that huge and powerful institutions such as the New York Times cannot get away with anything any more. The deference is over; and the truth will out. And this is what this campaign was all about. It wasn't personal pique. I started to criticize the drift of the Raines Times months before he decided to purge anyone at the Times who dissented from his politics and his personal agendas. It was about stopping a hugely important media institution from becoming completely captive to the elite left and a mercurial, power-crazy Southern liberal. Of course, that battle isn't over. But the massive power-grab that Raines attempted was foiled in the end. And Lelyveld is the perfect interim choice. This is good news - for the media, the Times, above all for the blogosphere, which played a critical part in keeping this story alive - and lethal.

The idiot king of the Fourth Estate in New York now looks for a new toady from the Village:

"Arthur Hayes begat Arthur Ochs ("Punch") who was considered so dim by his mother and father that he was pushed out of the way for a sister's bright husband, and pushed in when the poor chap died young. Punch muddled through by listening to his much smarter editors, and begat Arthur Ochs Jr. ("Pinch"), who listened to no one. To give him credit, he did go through an apprenticeship, and tried hard to master the newspaper business.

Once installed, Pinch started to epater le bourgeoisie his great-grandfather had courted, trying to turn the paper of record into the Village Voice, or rather what the Voice would look like if it ran ads from Tiffany's. The motif of the Times became late-60s protest, bent on annoying the male and the white.

As a result, there were numerous reasons before the Blair rumpus to believe the Gray Lady was losing her grip. There was the coverage of the Augusta golf club as if it were the 1963 march on Selma, the gassy effusions of R.W. Apple, the "polls" that found trouble for Bush where no one else saw it, the endless forecasts of defeat. If you read the op-ed page of the Washington Post, you will in time find the best possible argument on all sides of all current political questions, and regular columns by people from George Will and Charles Krauthammer to Michael Kinsley and E.J. Dionne. In the Times, with one exception, opinions tend to range from Maureen Dowd to Paul Krugman, who go after the right with all the subtlety of a claxon horn.

It had gotten so bad that the Times was on its way to becoming a laughingstock before the Blair scandal: The paper even accomplished the amazing feat of losing readership during the Iraq war, with circulation sinking by some 5.3 percent. If it is hard to imagine a scene in the real world in which Pinch Sulzberger would have gotten his job, it is harder to imagine one in which he would be keeping it after such a performance. But royalty tends to hang on.

Why is a great institution in the 21st century acting as if this were France in 1500, and it were the House of Valois? Most monarchies have long since dropped this system, disposing of kings, or making them figureheads--having realized that the genetic lottery is even riskier than the electoral one, and a lot harder to rectify. The Raines-Sulzberger dynamic is best seen as another example of the prince and court favorite, the age-old pattern of public disaster that has brought down so many regimes.

This is the trouble with dynastic endeavors: They may work for a time, but sooner or later comes an idiot child--Henry VI, Nicholas Romanov--who wrecks the entire regime. Pinch Sulzberger is doing to the Adolph Ochs Times what Edward VIII almost did to the Windsors and England. And there's no Mrs. Simpson in sight."

"Officials .. told me .. to .. $%&*#. But .. I don't .. let public opinion get in the way," writes Maureen Dowd in today's NY Times. More Dowdification fun found here.

More on the lies of Sidney Blumenthal. This time it's David Horowitz who's trying to set the record straight. Many of Blumenthal's lies were first published by the Washington Post while Blumenthal worked there.

America's only major truly liberal newspaper may sell out to Gannett. This is not a good thing. The paper will move from hand-on local family ownership to national corporate management.

Has Paul Krugman gone mad? Or is he just a crazed ideological flake completely outside of his area of competence? You decide.

Dynamist Blog on the Manhattan Times:

If you are going to adopt a strategy to be a national newspaper, you must add the capabilities to be a national newspaper. That doesn't mean parachuting in reporters from Manhattan to interview a few natives and report back on their peculiar habits. It means having lots of well-staffed bureaus and, if necessary, credited stringers. It also means breaking out of a worldview that considers Manhattan normal and every other place weird. The truth is that the NYT is not a national newspaper. It is the New York Times (more accurately, The Manhattan South of Harlem Times). It assumes its readers have the prejudices of well-educated, affluent Manhattanites, and it staffs, writes, and edits accordingly .. As a friend of mine said when serving as a southern bureau chief for a real national newspaper, New York editors tend to want only stories about "racism or eating dirt." Out of L.A., they want wacky California stories and Hollywood. Out of the Midwest, they apparently want Heartland nostalgia.

How stupid are the folks at the NY Times? Well, this stupid.

David Horowitz identifies one of the deeper crimes of the NY Times over the decades. Read the whole thing, but here's a money quote:

The Times is in hot water these days for protecting incompetent journalists who misreport the news. It should also be in the dock for years of libel against law enforcement officials and for endangering the lives of citizens by covering up the crimes of leftist thugs. The Panthers were gangsters who killed more than a dozen black citizens along with my friend Betty Van Patter. The murderers -- celebrated in the pages of the Times -- tour college campuses inciting new generations to hate their country and those of its citizens who are white. Articles like the one below, reinforce this homicidal incitement and will inexorably create future victims.

UPDATE: Sol Stern is also on the story. (via Instapundit)

Andrew Sullivan spots the Smoking Gun of institutionalized bad journalism at the NY Times:

One of the emails Mnookin unearths is particularly interesting. It shows that one reason many NYT scribes are mad at Raines and Bragg is that this scandal has severely dented the Times' ability to spin the news in a left-liberal direction while hiding behind the veil of the "paper of record." Once that reputation has been trashed, how can they keep that game up? They'll be seen as just another biased news outlet, if much bigger and better than many others. Here's the money quote from Tim Egan - yes the Tim Egan who lied on the front page about rising temperatures in Alaska:

"What will come of this infighting, cannibalism, and soul-searching? Hopefully, we'll go back to valuing what we have: people who care about the drift of this country, and are given the time and respect to tell it right."

Hmmm. What does he mean, "the drift of this country"? I think we know - it's headed rightward. And the job of the Times is not to give us all the news that's fit to print, but to haul it to the left.

The editor of the LA Times thinks he can shake the Leftist bias out of the reporting of his (well) leftist reporters. Good luck Mr. Carroll!!

As the curtain pulls back on America's newsrooms, Daniel Drezner wonders if we won't see some changes on the op-ed page:

It is common knowledge that op-eds and essays attributed to prominent people are usually not written by them, but rather by their minions/flunkies/research assistants (go to the chapter on intellectual life in David Brooks' inestimable BoBos in Paradise for the best description of this part of the knowledge economy). It will be interesting to see if more of these kinds of essays are now explicitly rather than implicitly co-authored.

Shark Blog explains why the problem at the LA Times is bigger than Sheer.

Mickey Kaus is inside the sausage factory at the NY Times. Choice quote:

Conventional journalists sometimes sneer at blogs because there's no way for a reader to know whether what a random, unknown person says on his Web site is true. But it sounds as if the Times is not so different from a blog after all--what you are reading is really the work of random, unknown "legs" and stringers. ... P.S.: Of course, in other ways the Times and the typical blog are very different forms of jounalism. One obsessively reflects the personal biases, enthusiasms and grudges of a single individual. The other is just an online diary! ...

And Kaus links to this John McWhorter quote:

"It's a slam-dunk case. The Times values black writers more for their contribution to a headcount than for whether they are truly top-quality reporters, and for all of Raines' good intentions, the result is as dehumanizing as good old-fashioned racism was.''

Worth quoting -- To The Point on one of my earlier postings:

Prestopundit makes a point that I've been thinking about for a while. Essentially, blogging has given me a perspective from insiders I never could have gotten before. So it's not that the media is necessarily worse (though I do think that), but also that my access to information on how the media and political process works has dramatically expanded.

Calpundit is blogging the Sunday LA Times. Cheer up Calpundit -- the LA Times wants you to feel like that! And better luck with the berry pie!

The NY Times on the Republican Party:

They have built their strength in the South by appealing to white resentment of civil rights policies, and sometimes by discouraging voting by blacks, as they did last year in Louisiana's Senate runoff, which the Democratic incumbent, Mary L. Landrieu, won anyway.. When it comes to hard-hitting campaign advertisements, they have used everything from Willie Horton's image to the suggestion that Senator Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, was unconcerned about national security.

Of course, if truth matters at the NY Times -- which is always a legitimate question -- the Willie Horton ad was not a GOP ad. This is one of those mythologies created by the Left / the Press which are just too good not to be "true", but turn out to be true only in the NY Times sense.

Is it just me, or do these Timees really loathe -- I mean loathe -- red state Repubicans? The bile as good as drips off the page.

"Googlewash" and the blogosphere examined.