Thread: How Liberal Bias Shapes the MSM - and Our Views

MSNBC really is more partisan than Fox, according to Pew study
How does Comcast allow such wretched bias in presidential coverage?
By David Zurawik - The Baltimore Sun - 2:38 p.m. EDT, November 2, 2012

In writing about the Pew study released today, I was struck by the big story of how negative coverage on several levels of presidential politics had become.

I think this is big trouble for democracy, especially the hostile level of discourse in social media. And that it's something the media need to address collectively after the election. But here's one of several fascinating smaller findings of the study that are kind of stunning -- even if they seem obvious and ho-hum to some of my more jaded, postmodern, aren't-we-cleverly-ironic colleagues:

ON MSNBC, the ratio of negative to positive stories on GOP candidate Mitt Romney was 71 to 3.

That's not a news channel. That's a propaganda machine, and owner Comcast should probably change Phil Griffin's title from president to high minister of information, or something equally befitting the work of a party propaganist hack in a totalitarian regime. You wonder how mainstream news organizations allow their reporters and corrdespondents to appear in such a cauldron of bias.

I thought show host Sean Hannity of Fox News defined party propagandist. But while his channel was bad, it wasn't as bad-boy biased as MSNBC.

The ratio of negative to positive stories in Fox's coverage of President Obama was 46 to 6.

Check out the full Pew study here. http://www.journalism.org/analysis_r..._campaign_2012 It's a good one, and there is much food for thought in its findings as we approach the end of an election cycle marked by poor media performance.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertai...,7266571.story

Piers Morgan, Chad Myers drag CNN into the mud with false Sandy report
No one confirms 'incredible' news about New York Stock Exchange before airing it
By David Zurawik ~ The Baltimore Sun ~ October 30, 2012

A day's worth of some excellent storm coverage by CNN was all but shredded during the Piers Morgan show Monday night when meteorologist Chad Myers reported that the New York Stock Exchange was under three feet of water and the hip-shooting host ran wild with the report that turned out to be false.

What a shame for all those CNN correspondents in places like Rehoboth Beach, Ocean City and Asbury Park who spent the day and night standing in cold ocean water and rain doing such a fine job of reporting the story.

I had the recorder going on CNN all night, so I have the screw-up by Morgan and his producer. It only gets worse in replay.

Erin Burnett, who to her credit spent all night standing in brackish water in lower Manhattan as she hosted her show and reported for others, was explaining a panorama shot her videographer had of the darkened Manhattan skyline, when Morgan interrupted her.

"I'm going to go to Chad Myers who has some breaking news that he wanted to tell me, which I think will interest you, so stay with us," he said to Burnett.

Then to Myers, "... Chad tell us about the stock exchange."

"According to the National Weather Service, through broadcast media, there's three feet of water on the trading floor on Wall Street," Myers said.

"Wow," Morgan said.

"Three feet of water on the New York Stock Exchange, and Erin has spent a lot of time on that floor," Myers said.

"Let's go back to Erin straightaway," Morgan says. "Erin, you heard that: three feet of water on the Stock Exchange floor. What is that going to do to the ability of the floor to open again? Surely, they can't open tomorrow, probably not the day after, maybe the rest of the week. What does that do to the financial system?"

"... Piers, that is an incredible thing. It hasn't happened before," Burnett said. "It means it's going to be closed for a long, long time. The last time the New York Stock Exchange was closed just by making its own choice was back on Sept. 11, 2001. The last day it was closed for two days because of a natural storm was back in 1888. So, you're talking about a record-breaking moment, something people around the world have got to be shocked when they hear about tonight."

"Absolutely amazing," Morgan says.

Yes, it would be if it were true. And if the host had any news judgment, he would have tried to ascertain that. But Morgan wasn't about to let the fact that it was unconfirmed ground his flight of tabloid speculation.

"Chad, we're hearing the stock exchange hasn't been closed since the early part of the 19th Century," Morgan continues, as if he didn't hear Burnett say 1888. "... Quite extraordinary."

Before it's over, Morgan speculates what that three feet of water could mean to the presidential election and then goes to Ali Velshi, who is up to his hips in water in Atlantic City, to get even more speculation from him.

"...This will have an effect worldwide on peoples' wealth...," Velshi says.

Meanwhile, on the screen, under a banner that says "BREAKING NEWS" is the headline: "3 FEET OF WATER ON FLOOR OF NYSE."

And on it went until about 15 minutes later when Morgan and Myers had this exchange:

Piers Morgan: "You have an update on the stock exchange situation. Do we still think that three feet of water got into the exchange? There seem to be conflicting reports now."

Chad Myers: "Oh, is that right? You know, I got that from the National Weather Service chat bulletin board. It was right on there, it said three feet of water on the floor. I don't know if there’s conflicting reports or not."

Piers Morgan: "It's a lot of chaos out there, a lot of reports flying around."

Chad Myers: "Of course, power's out, lights are out; phones are probably not working. I don't know. I will clear it up though, I will figure it out whether that happened or not."

Memo to Morgan: Yes, there's a lot of "chaos out there," and your job is to bring fact-based clarity to the situation -- not add to the chaos with another false report.

Julie Moos, at Poynter, has the social media trail nailed down. Read it here.

What you will see are the tweets from Piers Morgan and his producer, Jonathan Wald, first reporting the three feet of water. The trail of journalistic malfeasance is fascinating. I urge you to use the link and note all the folks who propagated the misinformation.

CNN is too good to be the source of such misinformation being fed to an already rattled American public. Much of New York was without power Monday night while an unpredictable storm was claiming lives, and here's this false tabloid report fed to residents along with all kinds of crazy speculation about what it is going to do to the presidential election and "peoples' wealth."

And nowhere along the chain from Myers to Morgan to Wald to Burnett to Velshi, did anyone ask if this "quite extraordinary" and "incredible" report had actually been confirmed to the satisfaction of CNN's usual standards before putting it on the air.

For the record, here's a statement CNN sent when I asked about the false report: "Chad Myers referenced a National Weather Service report that turned out to be incorrect. We quickly made an on-air correction. We regret the error."

And here is CNN's transcript of the way Morgan addressed the mistake at the start of his midnight show:

Piers Morgan: "Chad, you've been tracking this all day, all night at CNN Weather Center. Lots of crazy stuff going on, crazy rumors flying around. Bring me up to speed with where we are with it all."

Chad Myers: "Well, you know, the one thing that I’m focusing on now is that report from the National Weather Service, an official report that said there was three feet of water in the New York Stock Exchange. That would have been devastating to have those people out of work for so long. It turned out to be a false report. It was a National Service Report and I reported it and I completely regret that error on your show earlier Piers, but I don't question when they say there's fourteen inches of snow in West Virginia. I believe their report when the weather service says something. I believe them, but anyway… (he goes into the weather report)."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertai...,4420340.story

comments

CNN went to the dogs five years ago starting with Rick Sanchez and his adolescent preoccupation with Twitter. When I started hearing CNN say "let's see what the Twitterverse is saying" every 10 minutes I knew they were done as a network.

Meanwhile - I actually started liking CNN again after the first debate - but ever since the Candy Crowell debacle and the network circling the wagons around her massive muck-up of a Presidential debate, I now hate CNN again, officially.

You had me and many many others for about a week, but you have returned to your liberal bias once again - ignoring Libya, the ineffective response of FEMA to Sandy and other Obama malfeasance and have returned to status quo - mucking up the facts in favor of sensationalism.

..

Kinda reminds me of when CNN called the election for Gore in 2000. I'll even cut them some slack on that one, but something that should have been verified from a source other than a tweet? Some day, there's going to be a monumental screwup caused by reckless journalism and twitter.

..

This is the one I was trying to remember, it wasn't that long ago that CNN and Fox news both reported incorrectly on the Supreme Court ruling. I think you had an article on that story too Z. Interesting, fast pace of journalism, maybe facts are getting left behind.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/t...ss-journalism/

SHOCK: Journalists Found Donating Heavily To Obama Campaign
http://bit.ly/Qi82Te




Here in the waning days of this campaign for the White House, Politico reports that many journalists, editors, and news personnel have donated thousands to Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

Politico gives us a long list of Obama supporters in the news biz. The first noted is The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Levy ($225), who calls Romney a “dangerous religious freak whose election will cripple America.”

Also supporting team Obama are the New York Daily News’ deputy managing editor for news Dersh Kuntzman ($250), ESPN Sportscaster Stuart Scott ($25,000), Reuters editor Joseph Graf ($250), Newark Ledger-Star photojournalist John Munson ($182.50), MediaCity editor Veronica Combs, Slate’s Katherine Goldstein ($252), Cyndi Stivers, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and Columbia Journalism School faculty member ($250), and Bloomberg reporter Edmund Lee ($2,000).

This is, of course, just a tiny list. There are thousands of folks in the news and information business that consistently donate to Democrats and liberal causes.

Politico also notes a relative few who also donated to team Romney. That list includes Matt Walsh of The Observer Media Group, Don Madison who is a sports editor for ABC ($250), and Washington Times editors Brett Decker and Richard Diamond.

By Editorial Staff /// November 5, 2012

Shocked? Who with a sane mind is shocked? The MSM’s credibility was lost a long time ago.

November 5, 2012

Erin Brown

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journal...Obama-Campaign

Worse part of this ... this person likely has the right to vote ...

The awkward moment for NBC reporters
posted at 9:17 pm on November 5, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

This comes pretty far down into a pox-upon-both-houses piece from the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/us...gewanted=print on shrill partisanship at Fox and MSNBC during the election cycle. The article starts by hitting Fox but quickly notes that MSNBC is even worse, and at least Fox has been forcing other media outlets to cover the questions about Benghazi that they seemed happy to ignore. The NYT doesn’t even credit MSNBC for any news value at all, and describes the apparent embarrassment of their network colleagues across the virtual hallway:

MSNBC, whose programs are hosted by a new crop of extravagant partisans like Mr. Bashir, Mr. Sharpton and Lawrence O’Donnell, has tested the limits of good taste this year. Mr. O’Donnell was forced to apologize in April after describing the Mormon Church as nothing more than a scheme cooked up by a man who “got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it.”

The channel’s hosts recycle talking points handed out by the Obama campaign, even using them as titles for program segments, like Mr. Bashir did recently with a segment he called “Romnesia,” referring to Mr. Obama’s term to explain his opponent’s shifting positions.

The hosts insult and mock, like Alex Wagner did in recently describing Mr. Romney’s trip overseas as “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” — a line she borrowed from an Obama spokeswoman. Mr. Romney was not only hapless, Ms. Wagner said, he also looked “disheveled” and “a little bit sweaty” in a recent appearance….

Such stridency has put NBC News journalists who cover Republicans in awkward and compromised positions, several people who work for the network said. To distance themselves from their sister channel, they have started taking steps to reassure Republican sources, like pointing out that they are reporting for NBC programs like “Today” and “Nightly News” — not for MSNBC.

If NBC reporters recognize that MSNBC hurts their credibility as journalists, why can’t the NBC News division figure it out?

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives...nbc-reporters/

If – Heaven forbid – you’re ever interred in a concentration camp, and the only “news” sources available to you are propaganda, ignore the headlines and the first and last few paragraphs.

The middle of an article is called the “graveyard,” that’s where where they bury the critical stuff that proves their meme wrong. If anybody questions them they can always draw big red arrows pointing to it, but it’s never presented in a way that will ever penetrate the skulls of their target audience.


..

Because MSNBC embodies exactly what the NBC News division believes in – everyone from Brian Williams to Matt Laurer to Chuck Todd. Credibility be damned – MSNBC is a part of Comcast’s worthless “trash TV” cable net division, alongside E! and Bravo.

Even Microsoft saw how poisonous the MSNBC brand is, and forced NBC News to re-brand msnbc.com to nbcnews.com earlier this year. They want no part of 30 Pravda Rock.

MSNBC's Bashir apologizes to young viewers 'frightened' by Krauthammer’s face
By Noel Sheppard Published November 09, 2012

The childish unprofessionalism on display at MSNBC is becoming breathtaking.

Anchor Martin Bashir on Wednesday jokingly apologized to young viewers who might have been “frightened by” Charles Krauthammer's face in a video clip that was aired on his show.

While speaking about the election with GQ’s Ana Marie Cox and the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, Bashir asked, “Do Republicans understand what has happened? Let’s listen to the great Charles Krauthammer.”

This evoked laughter from Cox and Capehart.

After playing a Fox News video clip of Krauthammer commenting about Tuesday’s election results, Bashir said, “Now I need to apologize to any young viewers who may have been frightened by that face.”

This again evoked laughter from Cox.

Honestly, is this what MSNBC considers journalism today?

Krauthammer is a Pulitzer Prize-winner whose columns are syndicated to more than 275 newspapers and media outlets.

He received a medical degree from Harvard in 1975 completing his residency in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1984 he was certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

While at Harvard, he was involved in a diving accident that left him paralyzed but didn’t prevent him from finishing his studies and completing his degree.

He received a Pulitzer Prize in 1987, and is considered one of the nation’s leading conservative voices.

Yet Bashir, who commands virtually no respect from his peers given his consistent unprofessionalism and sophomoric behavior, has the nerve to ridicule Krauthammer for his appearance.

And the folks at MSNBC wonder why nobody takes this so-called “news network” seriously.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/...#ixzz2BlYUNwTZ

Your Guide To Understanding the Media for the Next Four Years
by John Nolte13 Nov 2012

Last week, as the Petraeus sex scandal broke, The Mighty Charles Krauthammer said something that got a lot of play in New Media. He seemed certain that "sex" and the fact that Barack Obama was safely reelected would be the tipping point that drove the media to cover what's become known as "BenghaziGate." http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-T...nally-cover-it Normally, if I disagree with Krauthammer I just assume I'm the one who's wrong. But I knew that wouldn't be the case here. And it hasn't been.

The media did exactly what I predicted it would. https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/267247641547644928 The sex scandal has been compartmentalized by the media and even used as a distraction to avoid the Obama Administration's dreadful handling of the situation in Libya -- from security failures to cover-up. Moreover, we're now seeing The Narrative move even further away from the White House and Libya, as the scandal is used to tarnish Petraeus' achievements in Iraq (a war the Left will always hate and still hopes we lose) and the military as a whole.

There's no question we have a long four years ahead of us, and the fact that we're going to have to fight the mainstream media every inch of the way is only going to make those years feel longer. But if we're going to fight the media, we at least have to understand what we're up against and what the media's over-arching goal is.

First off, you have to keep in mind that the media identifies and sees itself in Obama: a radical Leftist, an urbane, intellectual metrosexual, and, yes, a celebrity. Obama is also everything the media has always wanted in a president: an unapologetic and uncompromising leftist who punches back twice as hard. In other words, this time it's personal with the media, and should Obama fail or be rejected in any way, everything the media sees in itself and believes will have failed and been rejected.

To ensure this doesn't happen, from day one, the media's become a vital part of the Obama campaign and administration. They've propped Obama up, protected him, lied for him, and attempted to marginalize any threat to his power or electoral success. Yes, it's been and will remain trench warfare, but there's a much bigger goal the media has in mind that will help those of us in the trenches better understand exactly what it is we're up against.

Put simply, we have to get our minds around the fact that the media's over-arching goal is and always has been "History." For the media to affirm everything about itself, Obama must be remembered as One Of History's Great Presidents. Everything the media's done since Obama climbed onto the national stage has been geared towards exactly that.

Obviously, this meant the media had to first get Obama elected to the presidency. This meant stabbing their beloved Clintons in the back, refusing to vet Obama, screaming racism at any kind of criticism, and snuffing out the first female GOP vice presidential candidate.

Once Obama became president, the incompetence of the BP oil spill wasn't allowed to define him, the divisive partisanship was ignored, as were legitimate scandals such as Libya and what happened with the Secret Service. Obama's enemies in the form of the Tea Party and Mitt Romney were targeted for assassination. But the worst part is that the media created a New Normal so that chronically high unemployment, anemic economic growth, an explosion in poverty, a wasted billion dollar stimulus, green energy cronyism, crushing deficits, and an explosion of social welfare spending could be defined as successful.

These were all battles in a Long War that's only half over – a war to ensure Obama and his leftist policies end up on the historical equivalent of Mt. Rushmore. And this is why we're in for four more years from the media that will look exactly like the last four years.

Regardless of Obama's failures in the Middle East, with our economy, and the devastating effects of ObamaCare; regardless of how dirty the Administration played when it came to Libya, the media will do whatever is necessary to ensure nothing is allowed to tarnish his legacy.

Naturally, this won't end with Obama leaving office in 2016. For the media will then write the first draft of history with a flood of books proclaiming Obama's greatness -- regardless of the actual results. And if this first draft of history is based on what we've seen throughout his presidency, Obama will be graded on a curve so steep it will require a guard rail.

So, no, Libya will never be properly investigated. Furthermore, no matter how bad the economy gets, Obama will always be credited for saving us from "Bush's Depression."


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journal...ext-Four-Years

NBC’s Brian Williams & Andrea Mitchell thrilled to think Obama’s presser imitated movie The American President
By Doug Powers • November 15, 2012 10:25 AM



NBC’s Brian Williams and Andrea Mitchell were in full “my dad can beat up your dad” mode yesterday after President Obama’s chivalrous defense of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. Williams has a thing for wanting Obama to emulate Michael Douglas in the movie The American President http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-b...ican-president http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-dr...ovie-president and this time Andrea Mitchell got in on the fantasy.

Transcript from Newsbusters: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-b...ican-president

BRIAN WILLIAMS: And Andrea, there couldn’t be more going on right now. There was talk of the fiscal cliff. We have no CIA director. Benghazi’s still around. The Israelis took out the head of Hamas today. And then, John McCain said that if the President puts up his U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, she will be blocked, they’ll do everything in their power. That’s where the President today almost conjuring the wording of Aaron Sorkin from the movie American President, as will be pointed out all day, really decided to throw down.

ANDREA MITCHELL: This was President Andrew Shepherd really coming through in the East Room of the White House. Because this was President Obama saying, “If you want to pick a fight with my U.N. ambassador, and blame her for something that was not her responsibility on Benghazi, then you come after me, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Don’t come after Susan Rice.” It was dramatic. He is angry. I know from talking to the White House that they are very angry, they feel Susan Rice is being unfairly blamed, that she was working off of talking points from the intelligence community. And that in her Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, she should not be blamed for what she said about Benghazi.

It’s even funnier when keeping in mind that this is the anchor of the NBC Nightly News and NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent. If the segment had been a little longer I’d have expected Williams to go on and say, “dude, Obama today totally reminded me of that scene in The Terminator when Schwarzenegger was like ‘I’ll be back’ and the cops were like ‘whoa.’”

Williams and Mitchell were too busy cleansing their objective spirits in the bath salts of Sorkinicity for there to have been any hope that these “journalists” would have been inquisitive enough to consider a question Charles Krauthammer had previously asked: Why would the White House have sent Rice out to be the voice of the administration on Benghazi if A) She didn’t know what was going on, and B) they didn’t want her held responsible for the explanation she gave? Maybe that’s a question Sorkin wouldn’t have asked, so Williams and Mitchell thought it would be inappropriate to stray from the script.

Click play to fire up the action on the Toady-Tron: http://www.mrctv.org/embed/118378"

Dennis Miller: Justin Bieber fans are less fawning than White House reporters. http://twitchy.com/2012/11/15/zing-d...-lib-boycotts/


**Written by Doug Powers http://michellemalkin.com/2012/11/15...can-president/


ABC's Terry Moran Raves Over President's Press Conference: 'An Obama Smackdown'
By Scott Whitlock | November 15, 2012 | 16:22

Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran on Wednesday couldn't be bothered with spending much time on the scandal in Libya that left four Americans dead. Instead, he thrilled over the President's performance during a White House press conference. "An Obama smackdown," proclaimed the unabashed fan of the Democratic president. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Moran enthused, "The 44th President, today, was ready to rumble. You heard and saw it most emphatically when he leapt to the defense on Susan Rice." Moran explained that the United Nations ambassador is "under fire for claiming the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya was not a terrorist attack but a riot sparked by outrage over an anti-Muslim film." But the journalist quickly moved on to the battle between Senator John McCain and Obama. Declaring a winner, he cheered, "Today, an Obama smackdown."

"http://www.mrctv.org/embed/118410

After briefly discussing the scandal enveloping David Petraeus, Moran declared, "But the real takeaway from the White House today? There's nothing like a re-election to give the President a jolt of confidence."

Oddly, after highlighting the President's "smackdown" of Republicans, the journalist closed by lecturing, "Bridging those differences, or even just beginning to heal them, that's the real task ahead for President Obama." http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-w...rs-rush-has-co

Just last week, the reporter snarled at Rush Limbaugh for "slandering" Obama's voters, claiming the conservative has "contempt" for them.

On November 5, Moran wistfully announced, "Looking at Barack Obama today, on the last day of his last campaign, it is impossible not to think back to what seemed a hinge of history." http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-w...over-hinge-hi-

A partial transcript of the November 14 segment can be found below:

TERRY MORAN: But the real takeaway from the White House today? There's nothing like a re-election to give the President a jolt of confidence.

BARACK OBAMA: I've got a mandate to help middle class families and families that are working hard to try to get in the middle class. That's my mandate.

MORAN: Gone was the lackluster, stumbling Obama of the first debate in Denver.

OBAMA: Well, ah, ah, ah.

MORAN: And gone, too, was the grimly determined campaigner of the final stretch.

OBAMA: The status quo in Washington has fought us every step of the way.

MORAN: The 44th President, today, was ready to rumble. You heard and saw it most emphatically when he leapt to the defense on Susan Rice, his ambassador to the United Nations. She's under fire for claiming the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya was not a terrorist attack but a riot sparked by outrage over an anti-Muslim film.

SUSAN RICE: What this began as was a spontaneous, not a premeditated response to what had transpired in Cairo. Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated.

MORAN: Rice is now a leading candidate to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Top Republicans led by Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, they vowed to block her nomination.

LINDSEY GRAHAM: I don't trust her. And the reason I don't trust her is because I think she knew better and if she didn't know better, she shouldn't be the voice of America.

MORAN: Today, an Obama smackdown.

OBAMA: If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America, in the capacity of the State Department, then I will nominate her.

MORAN: But wait. Isn't this supposed to be a moment for bipartisanship? As the country approaches the fiscal cliff, steep tax hikes and spending cuts at the end of the year unless Washington can do a deal, what kind of leadership will the newly emboldened Barack Obama bring to those old, bitter debates?

OBAMA: So, I will, you know, examine ways that I can make sure to communicate my desire to work with everybody. There are probably going to be still some very sharp differences.

MORAN: Bridging those differences, or even just beginning to heal them, that's the real task ahead for President Obama.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-w...#ixzz2CL9S2IUD

Take this job and shove it: Fed-up Bangor TV anchors quit on air
By Andrew Neff, BDN Staff ~ Posted Nov. 20, 2012, at 10:16 p.m.

BANGOR, Maine — Citing a longstanding battle with upper management over journalistic practices at their Bangor TV stations, news co-anchors Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio announced their resignations at the end of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. newscast.

Michaels and Consiglio, who have a combined 12½ years’ service at WVII (Channel 7) and sister station WFVX (Channel 22), shocked staff members and viewers with their joint resignations Tuesday evening. “I just wanted to know that I was doing the best job I could and was being honest and ethical as a journalist, and I thought there were times when I wasn’t able to do that,” said Consiglio, a northeastern Connecticut native who broke in with WVII as a sports reporter in April 2006.

Not everyone was shocked by the on-air resignations. “No, that was unfortunate, but not unexpected,” said Mike Palmer, WVII/WFVX vice president and general manager. “We’ll hire experienced people to fill these positions sooner rather than later.”

Neither reporter had told anyone of their decisions before Tuesday’s newscast. “We figured if we had tendered our resignations off the air, we would not have been allowed to say goodbye to the community on the air and that was really important for us to do that,” said Michaels, the station’s news director, who has spent six of her 15 years in Bangor’s radio and TV market at WVII.

Both Michaels, 46, and Consiglio, 28, said frustration over the way they were allowed or told to do their jobs — something that has been steadily mounting for the last four years — became too much for them. “There was a constant disrespecting and belittling of staff and we both felt there was a lack of knowledge from ownership and upper management in running a newsroom to the extent that I was not allowed to structure and direct them professionally,” Michaels explained. “I couldn’t do everything I wanted to as a news director. There was a regular undoing of decisions.”

While choosing not to respond to individual complaints or charges, Palmer did take issue with the former anchors’ characterization of management’s role. “Upper management is not involved in the daily production of the news. Period,” said Palmer, who had just finished posting online job opening ads in his office at 10 p.m. Tuesday. “We’ve made great changes over the last few months and are not slowing down.”

Michaels said there were numerous things that contributed to their decisions. “It’s a culmination of ongoing occurrences that took place the last several years and basically involved upper management practices that we both strongly disagreed with,” she explained. “It’s a little complicated, but we were expected to do somewhat unbalanced news, politically, in general.”

Neither Michaels nor Consiglio would say what specific political leaning they were expected to adopt. Consiglio, who also was executive producer, said the balanced journalistic approach they use for all their stories was sometimes frowned upon.

Both reporters said they do not have anything lined up in terms of jobs in the media. “This is one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made. This is my career and I love doing it,” Consiglio said. “I’m looking at some options, but whether they’re in this industry or not is something I’ll find out.”

Both said they were of similar mindsets and the idea to resign is something they had talked about for a long time, so they felt it was right to make it a joint decision. “Broadcasting is a love for both of us,” said Michaels. “We definitely will miss not being able to come into folks’ living rooms and I hope there’s no hard feelings from the community for this decision we’ve made, but we felt we had to do it.”

And as for Michaels’ future plans? “I’ve started freelance writing, but I don’t know what I’m going to do either,” she said.

Palmer said the station held an impromptu staff meeting, which everyone attended despite it being nonmandatory. “Everyone came in, even if they weren’t working,” said Palmer. “Everyone volunteered to do whatever had to be done to keep things moving forward.”

Palmer pointed out the stations’ expansion effort, which began last year with the addition of staff, equipment and newscast programming. “Over the last 15 to 18 months, we’ve been a raging locomotive of change,” he said. “The capital improvements to the building, the technological changes. We have added 10 full-time jobs with benefits here to payroll. We had to expand the parking lot because of adding so many people. “The promise we’re making to everyone is this locomotive is not stopping,” he said.

Palmer pointed out his station is bucking an industry trend toward downsizing. “I’m very proud, given how things are going from here to San Diego, to add 10 jobs and grow the business,” he said.

He said the stations’ ownership already has seen its proactive approach pay off. “We’ve invested in the community and the community has rewarded us financially in the form of advertising revenue,” he said.

Michaels said there were a lot of shocked looks by staff when they closed their 6 p.m. newscast with their resignations. “I was scared to make this decision,” she said. “[News anchoring is] a great thing to do as well as a great place to do it in. I’ve been lucky to do this. We’ve had a great opportunity here and I will miss it.”

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/2...resign-on-air/

Worse than Obama lying: The media lying for him
Dan Calabrese on Monday January 14th, 2013

Rob's already dealt very nicely with the fact that Obama is completely lying in his assertion that, without an increase in the debt ceiling, the federal government will be forced to default on its obligations.

I know you're going to say that all politicians lie, but I for one remain bothered by it, especially when the liar is the president of the United States. But at least people expect politicians to lie and usually listen through a filter that understands this.

If you ask me, though, representative self-government is much more threatened when the mainstream news media - either out of complicity or sheer laziness - echoes the president's lies. That's when the media's sanctimonious rot about being "watchdogs" or whatever they claim to be not only rings hollow, but positively hurts the country because the people who rely on them (however unwisely) truly don't have the slightest idea what the facts really are.

So, not that I was shocked by it, but my heart sank a little when I saw this sentence in a piece on Obama's presser today by the AP's Julie Pace: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-demands-...-politics.html

Failure to raise the debt limit would put the United States into a first-ever default, a step that Obama said could "blow up the economy."

Quite simply, the statement Pace wrote here is a lie. It is totally false. If Congress refusees to raise the debt limit, it will not force a default in any way. Since, as Rob points out, interest on the debt is only $20 billion a month, and we take in $200 billion a month, it would simply force the administration to decide how to allocate the $180 billion that would remain. We would have 10 times the money we need to make our debt service payments.

Is Pace simply too lazy to check out Obama's claim? Maybe. The establishment media tends to coalesce around a groupthink-generated conventional wisdom on things, and they've accepted in all their groupthink wisdom that no debt ceiling increase means default. Actually running the numbers to see if it's really true - an easy thing to do - is almost seen as the action of a right-wing extremist infiltrator. C'mon. We all know Congress has to raise the debt ceiling or else we'll default. What's this checking-it-out nonsense? What are you, from Fox News or something?

Really, that's a pretty close approximation of the mentality of the media. Stand around a bunch of bored reporters waiting for a press conference to start. Or read the threads on Facebook where they all talk to each other. You'll see what I mean.

And here's why it's so dangerous: Congressional Democrats are actually pushing Obama to simply go ahead and borrow above the debt ceiling even if he doesn't get congressional approval to do so. They're openly encouarging him to break the law. How is it possible that they would even consider such a thing, and would not fear being absolutely ripped apart in the media for doing so? That's because they've pretty much convinced the media to see the issue the way they do, and that is simply an astounding development.

The media have embraced a narrative that says the Republicans want to "hold the economy hostage" and "risk default," where as the "adult in the room" Obama merely wants to honor the government's obligations to pay its bills. Obama is demanding that Congress raise the debt ceiling with no conditions whatsoever, and the media are joining him in painting any demands on Republicans' part as recklessly toying with the nation's fiscal standing.

It's hard to find the words to describe what rubbish this is. House Republicans have made it perfectly clear what they expect from Obama as the price for a debt-ceiling increase. He needs to agree to some serious, real spending cuts. If it's so important to raise the debt ceiling, why doesn't he do that? We're spending 25 percent of GDP and we need to get that number way down, so there's no harm in getting started on it.

Instead, Obama runs to the media and insists that this perfectly reasonable condition is the equivalent of Republicans asking him to cut off his left hand - and they report the news in exact synchronization with his preferred narrative.

He lies. They lie. And now a whole lot of Americans think that we'll default if the debt ceiling isn't raised, because they read that in an AP story that didn't quote anyone or attribute the statement to anyone. It simply stated it as fact. Which it is most assuredly not.

It's no wonder Obama won. People who rely on the media for their information have no idea what the hell is going on in this country.

http://www.caintv.com/media-dutifully-repeats-obamas

1/25/2013

The Media Is A Big Part of the Problem

Patterico @ 10:03 pm


Ace says we must do something about the media. http://ace.mu.nu/archives/336869.php

The media no longer hides it in their actions. They are fully fused with the Obama Administration and DNC. The only way in which they do hide it is by simply lying when confronted about it: They’ll issue a snide denial, then go about doing precisely what it is they were accused of doing.

This is dangerous and unhealthy. I keep banging this drum but honestly, some patriotic billionaires do have to band together to purchase or build a media outlet. The outlet would be founded upon a simple premise: that it is dangerous and ultimately fatal for democracy for media power to fuse with government power, that the adversarial press is vital.

If we have any hope of fixing the horrible crisis we are facing, the electorate must be educated. But any time someone tries, Democrats howl that they are trying to kill old people and children, and the media joins right in.

Obama gave a partisan inauguration speech and they tried to tell you it was Lincolnesque. Hillary shrugged her shoulders at Benghazi lies and they told you that she had won. As Ace puts it, media’s power is perfectly fused with government’s power. “This is dark, and dangerous, and will lead to horrors. It always has lead to horrors before.”

As with most things, I don’t have the solution. I just know that diagnosing the problem is the first step. National Democrats and the media are the primary problem, because they are lying about the severity of the crisis.

We should all keep thinking about the solution, because it is important.

Glenn Reynolds says: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/162220/

“[G]o full Alinsky. Buy stock and show up at shareholder meetings. Protest at executives’ homes, like ACORN did for bankers. Hound correspondents and anchors by name for unfair coverage. That’s how you do it.”

I’m not sure that will solve the problem, but I don’t see how it would hurt. We certainly have no obligation to make it easy for them to lie to the public.

One thing is to identify the honest ones who don’t have a big head, and support them. I don’t always agree with Jake Tapper, but he’s willing to talk to people like Ace and me, and he’s willing to ask tough questions. You guys might not like to hear this, but Jan Crawford is one of the good ones and she deserves the support of honest people. Using allies — not ideological allies, necessary, but people who care about truth — is important. And also can’t hurt.

Breitbart always said the media was the biggest enemy. I’m not sure they’re the only one or the biggest one, but they’re right up there. Don’t ever forget it.

http://patterico.com/2013/01/25/the-...f-the-problem/