In a stunning display of marketing ineptidude, General Motors has tagged Sean Hannity as its spokesman for a campaign/contest to give away 5 new cars. The “You’re A Great American Car Give-Away”, was conceived as a means to promote GM’s American-made vehicles. But the “great” American they chose as the public face of the promotion [...]
Monthly Archives: September 2006
Sep 28
Newsweek Covers Cover-Up News
The segregation of Americans from the rest of the world is graphically illustrated with this week’s issue of Newsweek. International readers of the magazine will see a cover that features a menacing jihadi and the headline: Losing Afghanistan. But U.S. readers will get a far more comforting cover featuring celebrity photographer Annie Liebowitz and her, [...]
Sep 27
Propaganda Is Its Own Reward
Last year, a PR firm called the Lincoln Group, was hired by the Pentagon to bribe Iraqi newspapers to carry pre-packaged stories that put the U.S. and the war effort in a positive light. But two unrelated articles published today demonstrate that their effort was less than successful, and for that they are being rewarded [...]
Sep 27
Stalking Points Memo – Bush Haters
Bush Haters In this Memo, Bill tackles a subject of which he is exceedingly knowledgable: Hurting America. The only problem is that, as usual, he gets all the facts wrong and arrives at the wrong conclusions. At least he’s consistent. (Click the pic here to go to Stalking Points Memo page, then click the pic [...]
Sep 25
Fox Pulls Clinton Video From YouTube
This weekend’s big interview was the Chris Wallace ambush of Bill Clinton. After promising to divide the time between Clinton’s Global Initiative and everything else, Wallace sandbags Clinton by asking why he didn’t do more to get bin Laden. Clinton wouldn’t take the bait, but did lay into the Fox correspondent, calling it a “conservative [...]
Sep 25
T-Warrior In The House
Bill O’Reilly’s new book, Culture Warrior, comes out today. OK, just sit your butt back down. There’s plenty of copies for everyone. I tried desperately to get a pre-release copy, but they had the distribution pretty locked-up. That didn’t stop Media Matters, who did get a copy and have published a comprehensive debunking. Here’s some [...]
Sep 22
Ted Turner’s Smackdown
The former CNN founder and reformed media mogul, Ted Turner, made some interesting remarks in a recent interview: “[The decision to invade Iraq] will go down in history — it already is going down in history — as one of the dumbest moves that was ever made by anybody,” Turner said, citing the Japanese bombing [...]
Sep 21
Net Neutrality Foes Rig Survey
Anyone that doesn’t have a flat EEG can recognize the deceipt built into this survey. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Verizon), is gleefully hawking a poll that claims that the public is opposed to Net Neutrality. The poll was conducted jointly by GOP pollsters, Public Opinion Strategies, and Dem lobbyists, Glover Park Group. This partnership has some [...]
Sep 20
Bill O’Reilly On Al Qaeda Death List
Bill O’Reilly will be interviewed french kissed by Barbara Walters on Friday’s episode of 20/20. In the course of the cooing, O’Reilly reveals that al Qaeda has issued a death threat against him. Personally, I think al Qaeda is just using this as a fundraising ploy. They may be evil, but they know a profitable [...]
Sep 19
Deep In The Heart Of Dixie Chicks
The Toronto International Film Festival recently screened the documentary, Shut Up and Sing, chronicling the travails of the Dixie Chicks after their righteous slap at Crawford’s Lost Idiot. In remarks at a post-screening news conference, the Chicks demonstrate their grasp of the hazards of institutional media: …the Chicks say they have absolutely no regrets about [...]
Sep 15
Top 25 Censored News Stories Of 2007
Project Censored has published its 2007 list of the stories most ignored by the media. Here’s the top 10 as a teaser: Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US High-Tech Genocide in Congo [...]
Sep 15
FCC Censors Itself On Local Ownership
A report written in 2004 by researchers at the Federal Communications Commission found that local ownership of broadcasters enhanced coverage of community issues. That conclusion directly contradicts prior arguments made by the Commission that claimed consolidation aided localism. The research analyzed over 4,000 hours of news programming and was conducted by veteran media professionals. Michael [...]
Sep 14
NewsBusters Speaks Ill Of The Dead
These scumbags cannot let even a single day pass with a respectful remembrance and a consolation for Richard’s family. The neo-Dark-Agists at NewsBusters are calling for the media to quit eulogizing Ann Richards and start smearing her. “For a media that likes to complain about the incivility and personal attacks that Republicans have supposedly injected [...]
Sep 13
The Hypocritical Patriotism Of George W. Bush
"What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?" [by Dread Scott] is an “installation for audience participation.”…In 1989, while on display at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, [it] became the center of national controversy over its use of the American flag. President Bush Sr. declared [it] “disgraceful” and the entire [...]
Sep 13
The News Corpse Film Salon: Update
I have added a couple of films to the Salon that deserve some attention. You can see the full list of 11 progressive-themed films that are scheduled to be released between now and election day in November at The News Corpse Film Salon. Al Franken: God Spoke The makers of “The War Room” turn their [...]
Sep 12
Mainstream Media Advances On The Internet
A new report finds that the usual suspects in big media are also the big winners on the Internet. The report also states that those same players will be growing faster than other sectors of the media industry. Anybody thinking that the Internet was going to rescue us from the stodgy, entrenched, and compromised press [...]
Sep 12
No Altercation At MSNBC.com
Eric Alterman, author, columnist, blogger, and media reformer, has been fired by MSNBC after 10 years. The website gives no reason for the termination and Alterman himself is typically gracious and respectful of his colleagues. However, he doesn’t ignore what many of us skeptics are thinking anyway: “Whether my termination is, in fact, a product [...]
Sep 11
In Defense Of The Pre-9/11 Mindset
9/11 was undoubtedly an unwelcome milestone in American history. But the idea that everything changed on that day is shallow and puerile. In September of 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney, in a sinister demonization of Democrats, warned that… “if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, and we’ll [...]
Sep 08
U.S. Paying Reporters For Stories (Again)
They will say and do whatever they want to achieve goals they know could not be secured legally. The criminal and moral recidivism of this administration never ceases to amaze. After having been caught paying pundits like Armstrong Williams to plant puff pieces for the Department of Education, and paying advocacy groups to pimp administration [...]
Sep 07
Path To 9/11 Propaganda
The Disney-ABC croc-udrama, Path to 9/11, is starting to get the treatment it deserves in the blogosphere and even some of the cable news nets. But I wanted to tie this hit piece more securely to the description of what it really is. So I thought that I would initiate a Google bomb effort to [...]
