Month: November 2007

Stop Big Media – Support Dorgan/Lott

Posted by on November 10, 2007 at 2:03 am. 1 Comments :

The FCC’s proposed new rules aimed at advancing the interests of Big Media conglomerates, and permitting them to get even bigger and more powerful, now face a legislative hurdle courtesy of Senators Byron Dorgan and Trent Lott. The bill will force the FCC to move forward with localism and diversity initiatives and to give the public at least 90 days to review the new rules that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants to adopt.

The legislation is being introduced to keep Martin from rushing through regulations favorable to his corporate benefactors. Dorgan and Lott deserve credit for serving the interests of the public. A new poll illustrates precisely where the public stands on the matter of media consolidation.

“The survey found 57 percent of respondents favored laws against a company owning a paper and TV station in the same market. That level of support was roughly the same among the political liberals, moderates and conservatives surveyed […] The survey also showed 70 percent of respondents described media consolidation as a problem.”

This fight is a replay of one that the people thought they had won in 2003, when 3 million citizens forced the Congress to rollback regs rammed through by then FCC Chair Michael Powell. They were backed up by the courts who ordered the regs to be withdrawn and revised. Now we have to assert our will again as the same powerful interests attempt to write their own ticket.

And once again FreePress.net is leading the fight for media reform, independence and diversity. Visit their site to add your voice to those already speaking out against this power grab by Martin and the Corporate Media. Your message will be forwarded to the FCC and your representatives in Congress. And you can send your friends and family links to this vital information so that they can do the same.

The contact page is at Stop Big Media.

Don’t put it off. Martin and his masters are trying to push there agenda through before Christmas.

Join A Fox News Focus Group

Posted by on November 8, 2007 at 12:52 pm. NO Comments :

Republican pollster and message crafter, Frank Luntz, is seeking participants for a series of focus groups that will be held around the country. The purpose appears to be to study public opinions on presidential politics. Fox News will likely be the client for these studies as Luntz promoted the project yesterday on Hannity and Colmes.

Here’s the fun part. You can be a member of the focus group. Luntz is soliciting participants on his web site with an application form. Fill it out and, in a few days, you will know if you have been accepted. The pitch for subjects says that they “want to know what you think,” and that you could “potentially see your comments aired on national television.”

So let’s tell them what we think. Sign up and see if you can secure a place for yourself on a panel near you. The application form asks a range of questions that include political viewpoints. I don’t know if they are looking for righty sycophants or if they are going for a “fair and balanced” sample. You might try different approaches to see if one is more likely to get approved than another. I would also suggest that you not access the application through this link as they may check the referrer sites and reject those that come from a blog such as this. Instead, simply cut and paste this URL…

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=_2bQOeRHWezhssEBctA6YCIA_3d_3d

…into your browser from Google.com or Foxnews.com or something else non-controversial.

The site encourages you to “FORWARD THIS EMAIL to friends, family or colleagues who you think may be interested,” so they should not mind if we do so. I think it would be good for Fox News to start getting opinion data that more accurately reflects the nation’s view of politics, government and the world. Here’s our chance to help them see the light.

Tucker Carlson Flips/Signs Off MSNBC

Posted by on November 8, 2007 at 4:11 am. 2 Comments :

Last Friday Tucker closed his show by saying:

“That does it for us. Thank you for watching as always, we mean that sincerely to all eight of you.”

That sounds ominously like a farewell. This will come as no surprise to News Corpse readers who are well aware of the train wreck that Tucker’s show is on MSNBC’s schedule. I published my analysis of his subterranean ratings last August, and followed up with a prediction of his demise in September.

Now Jacques Steinberg at the New York Times is citing a source at MSNBC as saying that Liar Tuck “…is in real danger of being canceled.” Thanks for the news flash, Jack. What gave it away? (The remainder of the article is a pile of nonsense that posits a leftist tilt at the network, supplying as evidence the liberal contributions of Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and Dan Abrams. They’re about as liberal as Limburger is fragrant).

FTVLive has an explanation for why Tucker has lasted this long. He allegedly agreed to cut his salary in half in order to save his worthless program and persist in dragging the rest of the schedule down with him. Why MSNBC would think that that is a good deal is beyond me. FTVLive also elicited a response from Tucker himself, saying that reports of his show being quietly canceled are, “complete and utter bullshit.” This is reminiscent of his response a year ago to the same speculation when he said that…

“It’s bullshit. It’s total bullshit. I talked to Abrams last night. I’ve got another year on my contract. That’s my comment: Bullshit.”

Well that was a year ago and now the chickenhawks may be coming home to roost.

Jonah Goldberg’s Stench Of Humor

Posted by on November 7, 2007 at 6:39 pm. NO Comments :

In another classic example of the wanker’s prose, Jonah Goldberg has penned a column for the Los Angeles Times that proves he can’t tell reality from satire.

The column begins with a quotation from Saturday Night Live’s news spoof about the the recent news conference held by FEMA wherein they planted agency stooges who pretended to be reporters asking real questions. Any ethical journalist would be appalled at such a fraudulent tactic designed exclusively to deceive. But Goldberg, of course, is not an ethical journalist. He actually dismisses the deceit by saying that…

“There’s no such thing as fake questions, after all, only fake answers.”

What the HELL does that mean? If there are no fake questions then there are no fake answers either. There may be false answers or lies, misrepresentations, obfuscations, or diversions. But all of those are as real as 90% of the answers that come out of the present White House.

If anything, Goldberg has it bass ackwards. There are indeed fake questions. They come from people who are fake reporters or reporters who have surrendered their independence to powerful figures in government. For examples of fake questions see Armstrong Williams or Jeff Gannon.

Goldberg goes on to excuse FEMA’s deception by asserting that all of the media is guilty of the sort “foolishness” FEMA was caught committing. I can’t really argue with the notion that the media is rampantly foolish, but Goldberg supports his claim, not by citing instances of media failures, but by citing comedy shows that mock the media. He points to Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart as evidence that the media is fake. Somehow it has escaped him that Colbert and Stewart are comedians and not journalists. The fact that they are more informative, relevant, and honest than most news enterprises is just a coincidence that delivers a sad commentary on the state of the news media.

Ultimately, in a fit of classic dementia, Goldberg declares that Murphy Brown is to blame for the problem of parsing fact from fiction. That’s right, the same sitcom character that vexed Dan Quayle. Goldberg says the show is…

“…about a fictional TV newswoman who talked about real newsmakers as if they were characters on her sitcom. When Brown had a baby out of wedlock, Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the writers of the show. Liberals then reacted as though Quayle had insulted a real person.”

Not exactly, Jonah. It was Quayle who insulted a fictional character as if it was real. Liberals just laughed at him for doing so. (By the way, he was also insulting every real, unmarried woman who chose to carry a baby to term). And now we laugh at you for ascribing all the flaws of modern journalism to the same figment of a TV scripter’s imagination.

It is Goldberg, however, who is the joke. His attempt to compare the inexcusable dishonesty of the FEMA event with the antics of comedy programs would be hilarious if it weren’t so depressing. Whatever his opinion of political satirists, he ought to be able to tell the difference between them and government agencies whose mission is to protect real people from real disasters.

I’m Baaack…

Posted by on November 7, 2007 at 4:02 pm. NO Comments :

Look out media overlords – News Corpse is back. I took a vacation to recharge although I’m not sure it had that effect. My two week visit to Europe may have been more exhausting than my routine existence here at home. Plus, I still have to recover from jet lag.

My trip began in Barcelona where I was greeted by this warm tribute to tourism. This message was strategically placed on a rooftop that is visible to the many visitors to the Gaudi-designed Park Guell.

We hopped on a train north to Figueres, the site of the Salvador Dali Museum. The taxi driver that took us up to the museum neglected to inform us that the museum was closed on Mondays until after he had dropped us off and collected his fare. As it turned out, it was a pleasant scam. We decided to spend a night in Figueres so that we could see the museum the next day and it turned out to be one of the best stops on the trip.

From there we went by car to Avignon and Nice in the south France. Avignon was exactly the charming and historical town we had expected. We also drove through Arles with its Roman-style Colosseum and Van Gogh landmarks. Nice was somewhat more of a commercialized tourist trap than we had expected. But all of it was fun and enriching.

The final stop was Florence. I’ve always considered Florence the Mecca for artists (if you are an artist you have to visit at least once in your lifetime or you won’t go to Heaven). It was astonishingly beautiful with art literally around every corner. As an extra added bonus, I badly sprained my ankle at the Uffizi Museum. If you’re going to injure yourself, you might as well do it at one of the world’s great repositories of art.

I apologize for not posting more while I was on the road. I intended to but there just wasn’t time. I noticed that during my absence, Glenn Beck’s hordes discovered a post I wrote last August that featured a rather repulsive Photoshop satire of Helen Thomas. Beck’s childish minions descended on News Corpse demonstrating that they couldn’t get a point if it was on the top of their little heads. But it was nice of them to boost my traffic for a few otherwise non-eventful days.

Now it’s back to the work of bringing down the corrupt and compromised Corporate Media. The fight continues…