Sleaze-noid News With two sides to every story - Local and Network

Geesh! Such a nitpicker! NewsBusters.org’s Warner Todd Huston took Reuters to task for wishful picking. Story: 71 year old had so many guns he had to sleep in a hotel. Fact: Had only 71 guns and his two story house was full of trash. Story: Pix shows a well stock personal arsenal. Fact: Well stock personal arsenal was a well stock GUN STORE! Story: Reuters reports news. Fact: If you had an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters, you would eventually come up with a more accurate news story than Reuters.

“Fitna” producer Geert Wilders is cleared of spreading hate. The Dutch Islamic Federation couldn’t convince da judge to throw the Dutch member of parliament into jail for comparing their Koran to Mein Kampf. Da judge told them that’s Wilders’ job - to have strong opinions and to express them even if provocative. For the Dutch Islamic Federation, Free Speech makes as much sense to them as wall to wall carpeting in a kennel.

• “Fitna” - The Video

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Dave Marash, former “Nightline” reporter can now add former Al-Jazeera reporter to his resume. Seem the Qatar based network not only wanted the news reported from a Middle East bias but the Brits who managed the English broadcast wanted an anti-American slant on everything as well. It “became so stereotypical, so reflexive” Marash quit. Dave, Al-Jazeera is a member of the Vitamin C News Club. You know vitamin C - the stuff you get from lemons.

The Middle East is all for free speech - just as long as they’re the ones talking. Everybody else better have their life insurance policy paid up. Muslim nations, the European Union and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are saying Dutch politician Geert Wilders’s 17 minute flick “Fitna” is just anti-Muslim rhetoric. However, the terrible things said in it are all surrounded by quotation marks - from the Koran and jihadist proudly displaying severed heads. It’s too dangerous for you to see it in a theater, so it’s currently flitting around on the web. Shut down here, threatened there, and hacked all over. Professor of Economics at George Mason University Walter Williams wrote in “Peace-loving’ Muslims foster terrorism” “Because those millions of peace-loving Muslims do not speak out and expose terrorists and don’t more fully cooperate with domestic and international authorities trying to stop terrorists, they become enemies of the West just as the peace-loving people in Germany, Italy and Japan became enemies of the Allied powers during World War II.” Listening to those condemning Wilder is very much like being a dentist. You see them opening their mouths - but only gibberish comes out.

• “Fitna” - The Video

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What if you gave a newscast and nobody watched? It’s getting to that point for network news. Gone are the days when NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report was a big cheese in pop culture. Now the 18-34 demography belongs to cable TV or the Internet. Fainting in the ratings are “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” down 21% from last year. ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” slipped 13.5%. And NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams” is off 10.1%. But let the good times roll for cable news. It shot up 31% during January and February. And then there’s the Internet. It serves as the primary source of news for 55% of 18-29s. One problem for network news could be their early hour broadcast time. Or it could be how they sandwich the news. You know. A little bit of substance at the beginning. A little bit of substance at the end. A lot of baloney in between.

BBC is really really sorry it got caught twice finessing the news and promises it’ll try not to get caught again. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) proved the BBC cooked the books on a recent story. The BBC fiction was “Hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his family home” supported by pixs of Israel bulldozers flattening the home of Ala Abu Dheim. The man who hunted - then gunned down eight yeshiva students. Fact was the dump still stood. As did a martyr’s tent for fellow terrorists to come and pay their “respects.” Second flight of fancy was caught by a Brit citizen from Manchester, England. He noticed the BBC taking a UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon quote out of time and context. Puppeteer like, they had Ban Ki-moon condemning Israel for defending itself against a terrorist rocket barrage launched from playgrounds and densely populated apartment complexes. These days, the BBC is as likely to report the truth as Marcel Marceau is to deliver singing telegrams.

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“If I only had a brain.” No it ain’t The Wizard of Oz’s Scarecrow singing that ditty. It’s media giant Tribune Co.’s new Chief Innovation Officer, radio consultant Lee Abrams. This rock-n-roller is gonna innovate the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel out of the circulation toilet ‘cause “NEWS & INFORMATION IS THE NEW ROCK N ROLL!” And that he can give the sinking old media “Soul. I hope I can bring that out in us.” And the will to “fight ‘junk culture‘.” Wonder if he plans to add “Just the facts, ma’am” to his list of cliches ‘Cause that’s what it’s gonna take to get people back to reading some newspapers. Facts not editorials masquerading as reporting. When you read old media these days, you’re not drinking from the fountain of knowledge but a bottle of Ripple.

Hey what’s okay for me - ain’t okay for YOU! Or so saith Associated Press. AP Director of Media Relations Paul Colford wrote blogger Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee that “Fair use does not give others the right to use AP content without paying for it, especially when the costs — and risks — of gathering news around the world continue to rise. As a result, the AP has been increasingly vigilant in protecting its intellectual property.” But if you’ve got a pix AP wants, like blogger Jules Crittenden’s copyrighted photos of Spitzer call girl Ashley Alexandra Dupre, hey - That’s a Horse of a Different Color. Associated Press director of photography Santiago Lyon explained why they lifted Crittenden’s pix from her MySpace page. “Given the news value of the photographs, we decided that these were images that the public needed to see.” AP believes in fair play, as long as they’re the ones making a buck off it.

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Let’s see. Iranian ‘Islamic Student Justice Seekers’ has created a Contract Killers Project offering cash prizes to anyone who kills Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak, Mossad Director Meir Dagan, or Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin. Wondered what they paid New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau to expose a CIA-Mossad operation aimed at undermining Iran’s nuke ambitions. Guess these two would rather we fight a nuclear war with this gulag poising as a country. Or maybe they’re just part of the Surrender Now Coalition. Anyway, a federal grand jury subpoenaed Risen to spill the beans on who he got the info from. Maybe they should subpoena the New York Times too. And ask ‘em why they only hire reporters who test negative for any trace of integrity.

It’s TRUE - every lying word of it. Or something to that effect. Seems Oprah’s been had again. This time her magazine gushed all over “Love and Consequences” “a startlingly tender memoir” of a biracial gang-banger who ran drugs for a South Central Los Angeles gang. One week, Margaret B. Jones was on top of the publishing world the next she was revealed as Margaret Seltzer, rich San Fernando Valley girl with a vivid imagination. Who done her in? Her sister. After sis read the author’s profile in the New York Times she contacted the paper about the fraud. This was the second fake memoir to be revealed in one week. The other was the 1997 memoir, “Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years” by Misha Defonseca. And it was numero duo for Oprah too. Her first one (that we know of) was James Frey’s memoir, “A Million Little Pieces.” That work of fiction became a best-seller after it was featured on Oprah’s talk show. But back to Margaret Seltzer. Seems Ms. Seltzer was pretty thorough in pulling the wool over publisher Riverhead’s editorial eyes. Riverhead checked what Seltzer gave them as credentials: bogus photos, letters and fake foster siblings but went no further. Bet they’re gullible enough to believe anything. They’d even buy a description of “The Young and the Restless” as a soap opera about the kindergarten set.

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CBS’s ‘Early Show’ has a new executive producer Shelley Ross. This Attila the Hun in a dress is gonna pull that show up from its dismal third place rating even if it kills the staff. Need a medical procedure - not during sweeps month you don’t. Need to have proof your story is fact and not fiction? Nope. Page Six’s source said co-anchor Harry Smith was ticked off when Ross hyped the heck out of “Second Life.” The sad tale of a woman PTA president posing online as a prostitute. “Never showed the woman… no evidence she actually exists.” Medical story producer Rob Foreman couldn’t believe the resistence he was getting for an story idea when Ross had aired one on lip balm addiction. “Since when did scientific evidence matter on this show?” Page Six’s insider said, “Shelley came by and heard [Foreman] and was so enraged he had questioned the value of her stories that she demanded he write a formal apology, and then made him read it to the entire newsroom before their editorial meeting.” Going away parties have become THE THING at the ‘Early Show.’ Twenty-one staffers have bailed since September when Ross got her stranglehold. But she maybe singing her swan song. She’s in a major tiff with ‘Early Show’ anchor Julie Chen - the boss’s wife, CBS Chairman Les Moonves. Ross defends her story choices ‘cause she produces only what she can see. Guess what she can see out of her NYC apartment window - is Bellevue.

A new Zobgy poll finds that 67% of respondents think old media is “Out of Touch.” Could they be reacting to the New York Times’ editorial mind set that labeled the fire bombing of three multimillion-dollar model homes in a Seattle suburb the work of “Anti-Sprawl Activists” and not eco-terrorists? Guess the NYT felt these arsonists’ pain. That rather than curse the darkness, it was better to light one small McMansion.

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The New York Time’s isn’t the only news media who likes to tell it like it ain’t. CBS “60 Minutes” did a hit piece on Karl Rove Sunday. See Rove had so much free time on his hands in 2001 during Bush’s first year in office, he decided to undermine Alabama’s Democrat governor Don Siegelman. How? By getting Jill Simpson in 2001 to snap dirty pictures of Siegelman doing it with an aide. No wait! Maybe it was in 2002 like she said the first time. Anyway Rove got Democrat Redding Pitt from Alabama’s attorney general’s office to hire Democrat Louis Franklin to put Siegelman in jail for bribery. Which is where Don is spending his time these days. And the smoking gun? None. Unless you believe “Republican expert” AG Grant Woods who hangs his hat in Arizona, not Alabama. And who in 2002 publicly threatened to leave the GOP for the Happy Hollywood Dems. So of course, he knows all about Alabama politics. Ahhh, yes. Breathes there a Network with soul so dead who never said - we can get away with this…

• The False and the Absurd
• CBS “60 Minutes” Hit Piece Transcript

It’s almost Easter, but it ain’t no Easter Bunny promising death and destruction. No, it’s Hamas’ gigantic rabbit wishing to murder the Danish cartoonist whose bomb turbaned caricature of Mohammad was recently republished in Denmark. Palestinian kiddy program, “The Pioneers of Tomorrow” had their big bunny raving on and on about it. “What do you have to say to the cartoonist who started all this, and affronted the Prophet by drawing him? Assud: He’s a criminal… Saraa: Yes, a criminal. Tasnim, by phone: I say to him, and to all of them, that no matter how much they try to hide him, we will manage to kill him, to assassinate him.” Problems in Hamasland though. Evidently the 72 virgins bit though isn’t turning the kiddies on. So they’re switching. Now every baby bomber’s grave will have its own doorman.

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Whistling in the dark. That’s what you’re doing now if you’re an UN whistleblower. ‘Cause pint sized City Press Web has been blacklisted by Google. And the dirt you dig up on UN malfeasance will never see the light of a Google search engine again. See Google, the “Don’t be evil” internet giant has to protect Communist China, Jihadist and the UN from ‘evil’. And Matthew Lee, editor-in-chief, Webmaster, reporter, and chief cook and bottle washer for City Press Web put his foot in it. He asked Google during their November 2007 press conference why they hadn’t also signed the U.N.’s anti-censorship compact. Silly Matthew. Even though Google had to admit doing China’s censorship dirty work was bad for business that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped. And the UN talking a good game isn’t the same as actually playing one. Matthew lamented, “I’ve been covering … U.N. stories, three to four a day, for two years, and for the last two years there’s been no problem at all… I think that Google got involved with the U.N. on these Millennium goals and thought, this is the United Nations, if they tell you some small Web site is a thorn in their side and there’s a credible reason you could remove them from your news service, you do it.” In fact Matthew has gotten so unpopular with Google that whenever somebody drops his name, the internet masters take turns stomping on it.

Freedom of thought ain’t a 7th century concept. 17 Danish newspapers dared to re-print the controversial cartoon of the prophet Mohammed wearing an about to explode turban bomb. It’s been a week and Muslims are still rioting in Denmark about it. One paper, Berlingske Tidende published an editorial defending their reprint. “Freedom of expression gives you the right to think, to speak and to draw what you like… no matter how many terrorist plots there are.” And urged “the Danish media to stand united against fanaticism“. What the editor doesn’t realize is that if the Muslim youths in Europe didn’t riot, they wouldn’t have any social life at all.

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Junk bonds & junk news? Maybe one explains the other. Tim Rutten of the L.A.Times didn’t like what Vice President Cheney actually said at CPAC. So he ‘fixed it’ by writing, “He told them that he was glad the administration had tortured people and that he’d do it again: “Would I support those same decisions again today? You’re damn right I would.” “ Fits the paper’s junk news standards better than what Cheney actually said. “The United States is a country that takes human rights seriously. We do not torture — it’s against our laws and against our values. We’re proud of our country and what it stands for. We expect all of those who serve America to conduct themselves with honor.” And the L.A. Times’ junk bond part? Standard & Poor’s Corp on Friday threatened to rate their junk-rated debt even further into the toilet ‘cause ads have “not improve appreciably and may worsen over the intermediate term.” Guess advertising in a work of fiction masquerading as a newspaper is a turnoff for businesses. Anticipating the future, the Tribune plans to replace all employee lounge vending machines at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times with ones that accepts food stamps.

Pimping for cash or just an example of more MSNBC news trash? The old media is aghast - AGHAST I say that David Shuster joined other MSNBC talking heads in trash talk when he said the Clinton campaign had “pimped out” Chelsea Clinton. The trash talk wasn’t the problem. The problem was who got trashed. MSNBC’s chief Doberman, Keith Olbermann last September said Bush was, “pimping General David Petraeus and in the violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years…” And snapping at the Bush twins’ heels on November 28, 2006 Olbermann barked, “lurid tale in the Argentine papers about the girls running naked down a hallway of their hotel, denied fervently by that hotel, by the way, ABC News reported the situation was so bad that the U.S. embassy asked the girls to leave, which the embassy fervently denies, by the way.” More and more the old media is resembling the Titantic - but with paid vacations.

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The oldest news agency in the world and the largest in France, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has a suggestion for the USA. Take the advice of the ancient Chinese warlord Sun Tzu and “know your enemy.” Considering the article this advice appeared in last Sunday, they must mean themselves. ‘Cause what the AFP was peddling as ‘news’ was a two year old Congressional subcommittee testimony that painted a bleak picture of Iraq. The current successful tactics of engaging the local sheiks in decisions and USA soldiers living locally rather than in barracks was of course not mentioned. Guess AFP’s crystal ball was broadcasting repeats. NewsBuster.com blogger, Bob Owens, suggests that since, “The information is so obsolete as to render the article itself as fraudulent in nature. Agence France-Presse should immediately retract this article, and explain how such “journalism” ever made it to press.” He also should have suggested that AFP’s office decor be changed to French - as in Early Bastille.

What’s the difference between AFP’s tilted reporting and reporting from the Middle East in general? Not much. The Committee to Protect Journalists released a report Monday saying, “Regimes from Egypt to Yemen touted cosmetic amendments to media laws that have long been used to control journalism.” Wanna be a journalist in the Middle East? Then get a license. “Licensing goes to those who are close to the governments. In those countries where the rules of law are weak, the private media cannot work independently.” Of course, even if everything was aces - it still doesn’t mean that reporting wouldn’t often be verging on propaganda - either in the Middle East, Europe or here in the good old USA. Yep, that’s right - the daily news. Often nothing more than poison penned deceits.

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