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Media and Technology
Thuggish Cops Get Physical with ABC Reporter in Denver
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 29, 2008 at 8:27 AM.
As Jane noted yesterday,
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.
... Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.
See for yourself. Ugly stuff.
Is the Love Affair Over? McCain Gets Combative With Reporters
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on August 28, 2008 at 2:54 PM.
John McCain became a media darling by offering extraordinary access to campaign reporters. The candidate and the journalists would spend hours hanging out on a bus, enjoying the gabfests, on and off the record, about any subject that came to mind. The media ate it up, and rewarded McCain with the kind of fawning, sycophantic coverage most politicians can only dream of.
Asked during the primaries if he'd maintain his signature style if he got the Republican nomination, McCain told reporters, "You think I could survive if I didn't? We'd never be forgiven." McCain even had a sofa installed on his plane, in order to make his chats with the media more relaxed.
That was, of course, before Karl Rove's team took over the McCain campaign operation. Howard Kurtz recently had a good item detailing the remarkably curtailed access the senator now offers reporters, and the ways in which McCain replaced "straight talk" with stale talking points. To see just how dramatic a transformation this has been, take a minute to read this fascinating interview between McCain and Time's James Carney and Michael Scherer:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
With the Dem Nomination in Hand, Time Portrays a Darker Image of Obama
Posted by Michael Shaw, BAGnewsNotes on August 28, 2008 at 9:02 AM.
As the convention pivots, turning its attention to the nominee, I'm concerned in advance as to how the traditional media will frame (poor choice of words, I hope) Barack Obama. If the cover of TIME's convention preview is any indication, however, we're in trouble. (By the way, I have examples in hand of three more convention-related publication covers that will really trouble you. I just need to find a scanner from the middle of the media/blogging beehive I'm in to bring them to you.)
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Why are the Police Protecting Big Money from Public Scrutiny in Denver?
Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake on August 28, 2008 at 4:00 AM.
Hillary Rosen, who does commentary for CNN, told me yesterday that despite the fact that cable news has decided the war between Clinton and Obama supporters is the story of the convention, they're actually having trouble finding delegates who reflect that.
From here on the ground, the real story is the unhealthy relationship between Democratic politicians and their bigwig donors, but woe to anyone who wants to look into it:
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.
Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Fox News Aired Only Two Minutes of Democratic Keynote Address, Discussed Ayers Instead
Posted by Jamison Foser, Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America on August 27, 2008 at 4:04 PM.
In its August 26 coverage of the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Fox News aired just over two minutes of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's nearly 20-minute keynoteaddress to the convention.
Rather than air Warner's entire speech, Fox News cut to commercial, then Fox News host Alan Colmes stated, "In other election news, an independent group supporting John McCain released an ad last week attacking [Sen.] Barack Obama's ties to former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers," and aired an ad from the Obama campaign responding to the independent ad.
Colmes and co-host Sean Hannity then interviewed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is supporting Sen. John McCain.
In contrast, both MSNBC and CNN aired the entirety of Warner's address.
(Watch it after the flip)
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McCain's Ad Scam: Why Pay For What the Media Will Do For Free?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on August 27, 2008 at 11:14 AM.
Just about every day, the McCain campaign releases a new "ad," which is released to the media along with a vague promise that the commercial will air somewhere, at some point. Cable networks, predictably, run the ad over and over again, for free, as part of their coverage of the campaign. This has been especially true this week, with a series of McCain campaign "ads" featuring Hillary Clinton.
The WSJ's Aaron Rutkoff noted that this is part of a well-executed scam that the news networks keep falling for.
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Maureen Dowd is Dishonest and a Very Bad Writer
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on August 27, 2008 at 7:06 AM.
If you're keeping score Maureen Dowd has now penned four of the thirty-three columns she will write between August 13th and the November election. Here is how Dowd stands after today's piece(which was helpful to McCain).
Columns helpful to Obama: 1
Columns helpful to McCain: 2
Columns helpful to no one: 1
If she keeps to form, she'll use her next column to make fun of Republicans. We'll see. Evidently, Dowd has found nothing inspiring in the first two nights of the Democratic convention. Her only comment on Michelle Obama's speech?
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Corporate Media Focuses on DNC as the World Burns
Posted by dday, Hullabaloo on August 27, 2008 at 4:00 AM.
Katie Couric puts on her serious face and talks to bloggers, who then post about her talking to bloggers, and the universe explodes on itself.
Meanwhile apparently this is the Hillary Clinton convention and the Democratic Party is at war, although none of us know it.
And oh by the way: Pakistan's government has collapsed (which is probably as it should be after Musharraf was dumped), Iraq's Prime Minister reaffirms the need for a hard timeline for all US troops to leave Iraq, the Prime Minister has also cut oil deals with China and Russia, the Russians have recognized independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and in the wake of yet another airstrike killing dozens of civilians in Afghanistan ...
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Jon Stewart Attacks Fox News: 'It's a F**k You to People With Brains'
Posted by Isaac Fitzgerald, AlterNet on August 26, 2008 at 1:53 PM.
Jon Stewart attacked cable news networks yesterday, taking the time to specifically call out Fox for its biased coverage and misleading slogan. As always, Stewart's analysis was as funny as it was true. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has the story:
DENVER, Aug. 25 -- Jon Stewart ripped the cable news networks Monday as a "brutish, slow-witted beast" and castigated Fox News as "an appendage of the Republican Party."
Wearing a gray T-shirt and a healthy stubble, the "Daily Show" host told reporters that Fox's fair-and-balanced slogan is "a (expletive) you to people with brains" and that only "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace "saves that network from slapping on a bumper sticker ... Barack Obama could cure cancer and they'd figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster."
"I'm stunned to see Karl Rove on a news network as an analyst," he said of the Bush White House aide-turned Fox commentator.
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Rachel Maddow Spanks Joe Scarborough
Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast on August 26, 2008 at 11:14 AM.
Joe Scarborough is already pissing and moaning about the promotion of Rachel Maddow. Oh, he's not using her name, but earlier this morning he was griping that he got only around fifteen seconds of face time during last night's convention coverage, and claimed it was because he ticked off "a certain person."
It's no secret who that "certain person" is, and why he's holding a grudge:
Grow the hell up, Joe. You were pwn3d, and you know it.
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McCain and Leno Yuk it Up on The Tonight Show
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on August 26, 2008 at 9:54 AM.
Another video, care of Petulant, who is now having a much-deserved rest after being up all night making videos for us! Here's my arch-nemesis John McCain on The Tonight Show with another of my sinister nemeses Jay Leno last night, yukking it up in a display that makes me want to throw up for ten thousand years. I've provided a paraphrased transcript (with some unavoidable commentary of my own) below.
Paraphrase of video:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Blind Punditry in Denver: Media Love Affair with BBQ McCain Continues
Posted by Eric Alterman, The Nation on August 26, 2008 at 9:14 AM.
In June, I wrote (with George Zornick) in Loving John McCain about the media's maddening blindness towards the extremism and/or crass political expediency of Senator John McCain:
On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of deception and distortion has helped to ensure that McCain's extreme positions and politically inspired flip-flops remain far from the consciousness of the average voter. Just as the media-promoted notion that George W. Bush was the kind of guy with whom one might enjoy a few beers managed to obscure the predictable catastrophes that lay in store for this nation once he became President, so too can the deep-seated media denial of McCain's extremist policies and addiction to political expediency mask the fact that his victory in November would result in a continuation--and even, in some instances, an expansion--of the very policies that have brought the nation to the brink of irreversible disaster.
I hope that, 7,000 words later, we proved our case. A few months later, we've seen many more examples of the media's transgressions in this regard--although perhaps none better than what Tom Brokaw offered up yesterday in Denver. (Halperin was a close second, also yesterday.
The Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy held a talk, moderated by Judy Woodruff, between the Sunday show honchos-- Brokaw, Bob Schieffer, and George Stephanopoulos. Discussing McCain's success in the Republican primaries, Brokaw attributed it to the candidate's "indomitable will," and opined that McCain won by simply being "the most authentic...he wasn't trying to reinvent himself."
This is not only wrong, but diametrically, screamingly wrong.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Veteran Republican Rep Shreds GOP at Dem Convention; Media Yawns
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on August 26, 2008 at 9:00 AM.
Last night, DDay asked a very reasonable question: "If a 30-year Democrat spoke at the RNC, excoriated his former party, and endorsed the Presidential candidate of the opposite party, would the media cover it?"
DDay was referring, of course, to former Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, a respected, long-time Republican lawmaker who not only endorsed Barack Obama, but appeared at the Democratic convention last night to urge others to follow his lead.
This development barely generated any attention at all. When Zell Miller appeared at the Republican convention, it was a key development. When Joe Lieberman, who isn't even a Democrat anymore, announced his own appearance at the GOP convention, this was a major story. Some former Democratic delegate in Wisconsin moved inexplicably from supporting Clinton to backing McCain, and her switch is treated as exceedingly important.
Leach, however, is getting the short shrift. He's a credible, serious guy, who was part of the House Republican caucus for decades, and this year, Leach concluded that Obama is the leader the nation needs.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
James Carville's Bitter Take on the Dems Convention
Posted by Steven D., Booman Tribune on August 26, 2008 at 8:36 AM.
I guess Mr. Carville's true colors (and one has to say they are very pale colors indeed) are showing. I have little respect left for Mr. Carville after the last few years of seeing him morph into a cartoon caricature of a human being, but his "critique" of the Democratic Convention;s first night hits a new low, even for him. He truly is a small minded, greedy and petty little man who doesn't give a damn for his own party, or for that matter for the millions of Americans, like my family and no doubt yours, who are suffering under the Bush Presidency. All he cares about apparently are the opportunities to make money he lost when Hillary Clinton stopped being his meal ticket:
On CNN this evening, Clintonista James Carville voiced his displeasure with tonight's proceedings as having no theme, no message.
"James Carville seems the least satisfied Democrat in here right now," noted CNN's Anderson Cooper. "What's going on James?"
"Well if this party has a message it has done a hell of a job of hiding it tonight I promise you that," Carville said.
"How do you mean?" asked the anchor. "You haven't heard about Iraq? You haven't heard about John McCain?"
"...George W. Bush, you haven't heard any of this," said Carville. "I mean we are a country that's borderline recession, 85% 80% wrong track country, people, health care, energy, I haven't heard anything about gas prices, I mean maybe we are going to look better Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but right now like I say we are playing hide the message pretty good."
"David Gergen said this a short time ago, that in the first two hours what is the message?" said Cooper.
"And you know what? David didn't get to where he was in life because he's stupid He was exactly right. I look at this and I am about to jump out of my chair...There's no message coming out of here, there is no sense that the party has a sense of urgency, and we've only got four nights this is 25% of the whole thing."
For a man to watch the speeches that were given by Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama and not be moved by them in even some small way is sad. Yet Carville, ever the attack dog for Bill Clinton, can't stop himself from going after Obama. He's like one of those Japanese soldiers left alone on some small island in the Pacific who never got the news that the war is over, that his side lost, and that a new reality has emerged. All I can say is thank god Hillary Clinton lost, if Carville was part of the baggage she would have brought to the Presidency.
As for Carville's criticism, I think the first night of the convention did exactly what it was intended to do: rally the base of the party, and promote two very important messages: one of unity, unity among Democrats and unity among Americans, a unity achievable only if Obama is elected. Second message, to show that Obama and his family, are not the bizarre creatures which the media and Republican partisans (i.e., McCain's Rovian attack dogs) have portrayed them to be, i.e., as elitists and as leftist extremists, but as Americans just like the millions of viewers watching them, with a story just like the millions of Americans watching them, and with a values regarding country and family that are shared by the millions of Americans watching them.
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Shock Jock Encourages Listeners to Waste Energy to Wipe Out DNC's Green Efforts
Posted by Matt, Think Progress on August 25, 2008 at 5:17 PM.
In April, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) promised that the Democratic National Convention this week will be the “greenest, most sustainable” convention in history. The Democrats greening efforts include the use of biodegradable balloons and signage, an army of volunteers for recycling, and a calculation of the convention’s carbon footprint.
Responding to the Democrats’ efforts, conservative global warming denier Glenn Beck is mockingly calling on his listeners to participate in a “carbon ONset program” aimed at counteracting progressive efforts to offset the environmental impact of the convention. On his website, Beck is encouraging Americans to “use more energy for mother nature“:
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