Rachel Maddow At Top Of List For Show On MSNBC

Posted by on July 17, 2008 at 1:19 pm. NO Comments :

The New York Times spoke with the newly named president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, about the prospects for rising star, Rachel Maddow:

“At some point, I don’t know when, she should have a show. She’s on the short list. It’s a very short list. She’s at the top.”

There were reports last year that Maddow had made a pilot with Bill Wolffe. And there was much speculation surrounding the inevitable departure of the network’s biggest loser, Tucker Carlson.

As it turns out, David Gregory got Carlson’s spot. It seemed to me at the time that Gregory’s program, Race for the White House, had a built in expiration date. There wouldn’t be much appeal in such a show after the election. I surmised that:

“Gregory, as Senior White House Correspondent, knows there will be little happening on that beat for the remainder of the year. So he’s settling in to cover the campaign and he can return to the White House with the new president. Then maybe Maddow or David Shuster will get another shot at a show.”

Since then, Shuster has become a featured daytime anchor and Maddow a frequent guest on several network programs. Maddow could be a breakout personality for MSNBC. Especially if they let her express herself with the insight and humor that she has in abundance. MSNBC has an opportunity to produce a compelling and innovative program. Let’s hope they don’t blow it.

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Brit Hume Not Stepping Down From Fox News Program

Posted by on July 15, 2008 at 1:36 pm. NO Comments :

Actually, Brit Hume is stepping down from his fox news program, Special Report. I just thought it would be nice if the headline of this article served as a tribute to Hume’s journalistic record:

Brit HumeFrom Howie Kurtz at the Washington Post:

“Sources familiar with the situation say that Hume, 65, will give up his job as Washington managing editor and anchor of “Special Report.” They say he is near a deal to continue with Fox in a senior statesman role, not unlike that of Tom Brokaw at NBC, for roughly 100 days a year.”

Kurtz notes in his column that Hume’s chummy relationship with the Bush White House helped him snag some exclusives. For instance, Hume got the only interview given by Dick Cheney after he shot a hunting companion in the face. What Kurtz didn’t say was that Hume and Fox News censored the interview to hide the fact that Cheney had been drinking that day.

No replacement has been named yet for Hume. One possible candidate is Jim Angle, presently the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News and a regular guest host on Special Report. Angle’s reporting is at least as slanted as Hume, so he would be able to slide right into the new role. But who know, maybe they’ll go with Sean Hannity or Karl Rove. At Fox News, journalistic credentials are not a prerequisite.


Comic Relief From The Right

Posted by on July 15, 2008 at 11:41 am. 1 Comments :

Cliff Kincaid is an editor at the rabidly conservative Accuracy in Media and the president of America’s Survival, an anti-United Nations group. He is also the author of one of the most dementedly hilarious articles I’ve read all year.

The article in question is a complaint that Matt Drudge and the Washington Times have refused to publish his advertisements. [Note to Vast Right-wing Conspirators: When Drudge and the WashTimes reject you, it’s time for in-patient care] The ads themselves are complaints that the Rightist Media is ignoring his allegations that Barack Obama was indoctrinated as a Communist while growing up in Hawaii (a fiction that Kincaid has been peddling for five months). But that’s not even the funny part. This is:

“…our $5000.00 ad buy was rejected by Drudge himself. This appears to be part of a leftward drift on the part of Drudge, who has a rather idiosyncratic background and links to the homosexual community and Hollywood.”

…and…

“At the same time, we have to draw attention to the continuing leftward drift of Fox News. Fox News sent a camera crew to our May 22 news briefing in Washington, D.C., where we released our two reports. But not one word has appeared on the channel about what we uncovered.”

Perhaps the reason that even neanderthal news nets like Fox won’t touch this stuff is because it doesn’t even rise to their sunken standards for journalism. Nah, that can’t be it. It must be because they’re all Islamo-fascists rooting for Obama.

The wheels are coming off the bus. When uber-conservatives like Kincaid start attacking the cornerstones of their own Rightist Media, you know that a severe psycho-mechanical failure is imminent. Next thing you know they’ll be denouncing Ann Coulter as a radical, pinko, feminist for telling Sean Hannity that she would support Hillary Clinton over John McCain. I hope they have their seat belts fastened.


The New Yorker’s McCain Cover

Posted by on July 14, 2008 at 5:36 pm. 7 Comments :

After generating much scorn for publishing an over-the-top satire of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on the cover of the magazine, I thought I would help the New Yorker out by offering them this artwork with John McCain for the cover of next month’s issue:

John McCain on the New Yorker

I’m sure they will be more than pleased and will take no offense. After all, editor David Remnick responded to the Obama controversy by saying…

“It’s clearly a joke, a parody of these crazy fears and rumours and scare tactics about Obama’s past and ideology. And if you can’t tell it’s a joke by the flag burning in the Oval Office, I don’t know what more to say.”

This McCain cover is also a parody and a joke. Well, it’s a parody – McCain is the joke.


On The Passing Of Tony Snow

Posted by on July 12, 2008 at 11:16 am. 13 Comments :

Tony Snow, former Fox News anchor, radio talk show host, and press secretary to George W. Bush, has succumbed to the cancer that he has been battling for many years. He was 53 years old.

I have written about Snow extensively over the years, with little positive to say. But this is not the time to dwell on that. Snow leaves behind a wife and three small children, and this is surely a tremendous loss for them, as it is for his many friends, colleagues, and fellow travelers on the Right.

But it is also a loss for our nation and for the pursuit of truth. Snow was the consummate insider. He was there as a speech writer for George Bush Sr. He was there at the birth of Fox News. He has had unique exposure to the twin powers of government and media – an interdisciplinary complex that I believe is far more dangerous than the military-industrial one that Eisenhower warned us about.

When it comes time to wax autobiographical, press secretaries and journalists are often the source of astonishing revelations about the inner workings of their fields. If Scott McClellan’s recent book purports to tell us “What Happened,” just imagine what Snow might have revealed if he had the opportunity to express himself without the constraints of his professional service. Whether he ever would have done so completely and candidly, we will never know. But he has been rather blunt on occasion in the past. ThinkProgress had compiled some commentary by Snow prior to his appointment at the White House that refers to the president as “an embarrassment,” “impotent,” and more.

In his career, Snow has exhibited a reliably rightist tone to his pronouncements in both the public and private sectors. As press secretary, he stubbornly affirmed the lies and misrepresentations of the White House. But he has also ventured off the plantation to deliver unexpected truths about the people and places he’s observed. We need much more of the latter. That’s the sort of forthright expression that can be truly beneficial politically, historically, and culturally.

With Snow’s untimely passing we can only wonder what might have happened; what might have been.


Bush Nominates Clifford May To Propaganda Board

Posted by on July 12, 2008 at 4:50 am. 1 Comments :

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is the federal agency responsible for all U.S. government and government sponsored, non-military, international broadcasting. Its affiliates include the Voice of America, Alhurra, Radio Free Europe, and Radio and TV Martí. If its mission was not originally intended to be a purveyor of propaganda, the Bush administration has seen to it that that is what it has become.

Now President Bush has made his latest attempt to further mire the agency in disgrace by nominating Clifford May to the Board. May is a former Republican National Committee communications director and the President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, whose list of directors and advisors reads like a who’s who of neocon warmongers. He is an advocate of torture abroad, the suspension of civil liberties at home, and always the supremacy of America by virtue of its military might. As a writer for the National Review and a frequent guest on television news programs, he has a record of deliberately inflammatory and partisan rhetoric. Here are a few examples:

On coddling terrorists: “[Democrats] demand that foreign terrorists abroad be given the same privacy protections enjoyed by American citizens here at home.”

Actually, Democrats were demanding that Americans be given the privacy protections they are promised by the Constitution.


On the success of the surge: “…the threat of an Iraqi civil war has diminished and there is no ‘resistance’ movement to speak of.”

Since May made this claim, 236 more American troops died in Iraq, along with 4,591 Iraqis.

On the Left as traitors: “…some of those on the left who would like to see America defeated in Iraq as a demonstration exercise that U.S. power never, never can be used for good.”

Setting aside the repulsive assertion that the Left is rooting for defeat, May erroneously implies that there is some good in BushCo’s occupation of Iraq.

This isn’t the first time Bush has used the BBG for blatantly political purposes. He had previously installed the utterly corrupt Kenneth Tomlinson as chairman. Tomlinson, thankfully, didn’t last long.

The circumstances proximate to May’s nomination further illustrate Bush’s purposeful mission to staff the BBG with faithful cronies. To make way for May, Bush had to withdraw his previous nominee, Mark McKinnon. McKinnon himself is a loyal Republican who worked on both Bush presidential campaigns. He was also a sitting member of the Board, having received a recess appointment from Bush in December of 2006. McKinnon’s fate was sealed, however, when earlier this year he resigned his post as the lead media consultant for John McCain saying…

“I just don’t want to work against an Obama candidacy. [Electing Obama] would send a great message to the country and the world.”

Despite insisting that he remains a “friend and fan” of the McCain campaign, whatever loyalty and qualifications he had that justified his prior service and nomination were null and void as he no longer displayed sufficient unquestioning partisanship. The Bushies require greater obsequiousness than that.

May still needs to be confirmed by the Senate to take a seat on the Board. With less than six months remaining in Bush’s term it would be idiocy for the Senate to do so. That obviously doesn’t rule out the possibility that they will. The FISA bill that the Senate passed last week was fully in line with May’s position on the issue. And it passed with Barack Obama’s vote. That should be an indication of how much we can rely on the Senate to do the right thing.

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Jesse Jackson Learns About Fox News

Posted by on July 9, 2008 at 7:05 pm. 6 Comments :

Politics in the Age of Information is markedly different from past eras. There is almost no expectation of privacy, and practically nothing can be said in confidence. What’s more, everything, no matter how astute or embarrassing, is preserved in perpetuity. Just ask former Senator George “Macaca” Allen, or President George “major-league asshole” Bush, or now, Jesse Jackson. Jackson was unknowingly recorded making disparaging remarks about Barack Obama to another guest while waiting to be interviewed for a segment on Fox & Friends:

“Obama is talking down to black people…I want to cut his nuts off.”

Jackson apologized for the comments even before they were broadcast. But the larger issue here concerns the nature of public dialog in the 21st century. These developments can have both positive and negative consequences. It certainly introduces a new level of transparency into campaigning and governing. And it requires a greater degree of attention be paid to extemporaneous remarks. Unfortunately, it will also inhibit the sort of candid commentary that often tells us more about someone than canned speeches will. But are there limits to what can be ethically revealed in situations where the speaker presumed the conversation was private? If there are, you can be sure that Fox News will ignore them.

In most of the instances of loose-tongued public speakers, a third party in attendance produces a personally made recording of the controversial moment. Barack Obama’s comments on bitterness, faith and guns, were made at a closed meeting of donors. President Bush, in the example above, was speaking privately to Dick Cheney. The difference between these events and today’s slip by Jesse Jackson is that Jackson’s remarks were recorded in the studios of Fox News.

Television news studios are not places where recordings are made accidentally. It is, of course, what they are designed for. So people invited inside for appearances ought to be aware that tapes are rolling and mics are hot. But they should not be expected to keep their mouths shut from the time they enter the building until they drive off the lot. They ought to be permitted to have private conversations without fear that they will end up on the evening broadcast.

Jackson was speaking in an obvious whisper when he was waiting to be interviewed. But Fox News chose to record and release the comments that were so unmistakably intended to be private. Since it is impossible to walk into a studio that has no recording devices, Fox has just declared that anything you discuss with anyone while in their facilities is fair game. You could be talking to your mother on your cell phone and see it later that day on Hannity and Colmes.

By setting this standard, Fox is, in effect, daring people to come into their studios and not get caught on tape. Can you stay utterly silent before and after your conversations on the air? Can you refrain from speaking to colleagues or telling them something important while waiting on the set?

I have long advocated that Democrats and progressives should stay off of Fox News simply because there is no benefit to appearing there. But now there is another reason to stay away. The ethically deficient so-called journalists at Fox will screw you over if you give them the opportunity. And that is exactly what happened today. In a brazenly obvious play for ratings, the recording of Jackson’s statement was even held as an exclusive for Bill O’Reilly’s O’Reilly Factor.

In his Talking Points O’Reilly boasted that he would not speculate as to what was on Jackson’s mind, as others might do. Then, in the following segmented, he proceeded to speculate as to what was on Jackson’s mind (saying that Jackson was probably referring to Obama’s speech on fathers in African-American families). Even worse were the implications he floated as he ostensibly bragged about how fair he was being:

“I want to tell the audience, and I want to tell you, that we held back some of this conversation, and we did that because we didn’t feel it had any relevance to the conversation this evening. We are not out to get Jesse Jackson. We are not out to embarrass him and we are not out to make him look bad. If we were, we would have used what we had, which is more damaging than what you have heard.”

Although O’Reilly is not out to make Jackson look bad, he wants you to know that he has even juicier ill-gotten eavesdroppings that he is just too virtuous to reveal – but not so virtuous that he won’t tell you that he has it, so your imagination can start churning. O’Reilly once threatened Democrats who declined to appear on Fox News by warning that…

“If you dodge us, it is at your peril.”

It seems that engaging them is at least as perilous. This is exactly what can be expected from O’Reilly and Fox News. And anyone who ventures there and winds up pulling knives from their back, gets what they deserve.

Update: As it turns out, it was a staff member of Fox & Friends that found Jackson’s remarks and sent them to an O’Reilly producer. The Fester then jumped at the chance to hype this for his show.


Gonzo – The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson

Posted by on July 8, 2008 at 3:50 pm. 2 Comments :

Hunter S. Thompson was one of this country’s most original and inspiring writers. He lived his life as if it were a work of art – an honest, dynamic, gut-wrenching volume of jungle prose. He was both a journalist and a creative force of nature.

There will never be another like him.


Howard Wolfson, ex-Clinton Aide, Joins Fox News

Posted by on July 8, 2008 at 10:59 am. 2 Comments :

Howard Wolfson was the communications director and a lead strategist for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. He is now the latest in a flood of post-campaign Fox News contributors. Wolfson is giddily following in the footsteps of Karl Rove, Mike Huckabee, and Lanny Davis.

This should not come as much of a surprise when you factor in the fact that Clinton was the Democratic candidate with the coziest relationship to Fox News. She asserted that she got fairer treatment there than on MSNBC. But then again, Rupert Murdoch had contributed to her campaign and held fundraisers for her. She appeared regularly on Fox while other Democrats pointedly stayed away. And her campaign chair, Terry McCauliffe, praised Fox so enthusiastically that they put him in an on-air promo for the network.

Now Wolfson joins the network that routinely bashes his party and is still repeatedly hosting representatives of so-called grassroots Hillary supporters who insist that they will vote for McCain in November.

In addition to his duties at Fox News, Wolfson will resume his post at his old lobbying firm, the Glover Park Group. It was from that position that he helped Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) in his efforts to kill Network Neutrality.

I’m sure we will be able to count on Wolfson and his pals at Fox News to provide a voice for Democrats who hate their fellow Democrats.


The Fox News War On News

Posted by on July 7, 2008 at 3:31 pm. 3 Comments :

David Carr of the New York Times seems to finally have noticed what has been obvious for years to any objective news analyst. Fox News has a long-standing scorched Earth policy when reacting to other media who dare to report on Fox News.

In his column titled, “When Fox News Is the Story,” Carr confesses that just the thought of having to deal with Fox News as a subject in a story makes him and his peers nervous:

“Once the public relations apparatus at Fox News is engaged, there will be the calls to my editors, keening (and sometimes threatening) e-mail messages, and my requests for interviews will quickly turn into depositions about my intent or who else I am talking to.”

The key tactic in Fox’s PR strategy is to intimidate reporters and editors, and by Carr’s own admission, it’s working. Carr goes on to profile the Fox news PR machine as an operation modeled on political warfare, as directed by CEO Roger Ailes, a veteran of campaigns going back to Richard Nixon. He describes it as “a kind of rolling opposition research” effort intended to cause material harm to their perceived enemies. Carr cites the recent example of the hosts of Fox & Friends taking out their revenge on two Times reporters who wrote about how the competition is gaining on Fox. Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy displayed altered photographs of the reporters that were at best unflattering, at worst anti-Semitic.

While Carr’s revelations are interesting, they don’t go nearly far enough to provide an historical context for Fox’s behavior. This is not a recent phenomena. Three years ago David Folkenflik wrote about how Fox bears its fangs when it doesn’t like what’s being said. And the AP’s David Bauder documented what has become known as Fox’s “Wishing Well,” a back-handed slap at anyone who says anything about Fox News that isn’t complimentary:

  • Because of his personal demons, Keith [Olbermann] has imploded everywhere he’s worked. From lashing out at co-workers to personally attacking Bill O’Reilly and all things Fox, it’s obvious Keith is a train wreck waiting to happen. And like all train wrecks, people might tune in out of morbid curiosity, but they eventually tune out, as evidenced by Keith’s recent ratings decline. In the meantime, we hope he enjoys his paranoid view from the bottom of the ratings ladder and wish him well on his inevitable trip to oblivion.
  • Ted [Turner] is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind. We wish him well.
  • Tim [Russert]’s sour grapes are obvious here, but at least he’s not using his father as a prop to sell books this time around. That said, we wish him well on his latest self-promotion tour.
  • We are disappointed that George [Clooney] has chosen to hurt Mr. O’Reilly’s family in order to promote his movie. But it’s obvious he needs publicity considering his recent string of failures. We wish him well in his struggle to regain relevancy.
  • We wish CNN well in their annual executive shuffle. We wish Jon [Klein] well in his battle for second place with MSNBC.
  • We can understand David [Shuster]’s disappointment in being let go by Fox News Channel, but he’s too young to be so bitter. We wish him well in getting his career back on track.

It’s not just PR flacks volleying in this debate. The big dogs at News Corp. are fully engaged. Rupert Murdoch’s spokesperson delivered an ultimatum to GE, saying that if they reined in Keith Olbermann, Fox would call off Bill O’Reilly. Roger Ailes stepped into the fray personally, threatening…

“…that if Olbermann didn’t stop such attacks against Fox, he would unleash O’Reilly against NBC and would use the New York Post as well.”

In the weeks that followed, Ailes made good on his threat. Bill O’Reilly, Steve Doocy, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, Gretchen Carlson, and others at Fox News all laid into NBC/GE with renewed vigor. O’reilly even has his own Media Hall of Shame. The New York Post’s gossips on Page Six initiated a week-long assault on Olbermann’s personal life, alleging tax evasion, calling him unstable, and even publishing his home address – a vile act whose only purpose could be to cause him harm.

The risks faced by reporters who merely want to do their jobs is very real. Fox News will throw whatever they can at you to derail your reporting and/or tarnish your reputation. Carr relates horror stories from his colleagues who have dared to cross Fox News:

“…they have received e-mail messages from Fox News public relations staff that contained doctored photos, anonymous quotes and nasty items about competitors. And two former Fox employees said that they had participated in precisely those kinds of activities but had signed confidentiality agreements and could not say so on the record.”

~

“…few were willing to be quoted. In the last several years, reporters from The Associated Press, several large newspapers and various trade publications have said they were shut out from getting their calls returned because of stories they had written. Editors do not want to hear why your calls are not being returned, they just want you to fix the problem, or perhaps they will fix it by finding someone else to do your job.”

That’s an old tactic practiced by political operatives and office holders. They know that if they deny you access, your editor is going to have to get someone else who doesn’t have that problem. In effect, they get you fired. It is unprecedented, however, for a media company to employ such hardball tactics against other media companies. But that is the way Fox does business, and their peers had better develop strong stomachs if they hope to endure.

The impression left by Carr is that many in the media have already given up fighting. They will either decline to report on anything having to do with Fox News (if it’s critical), or they will simply adjust their reporting to be more positive. That is the danger of letting bullies get away with their bad behavior. Once again, it will be up to the people to insist that they get honest, responsible journalism from the Conventional Media. It is up to us to force them to do their jobs. If we succeed then it won’t matter what Fox’s attack dogs do. Their vacant yelping will disperse like a fading echo. We wish them well as they collapse from the fatigue of chasing their own tails.

Gawker has more on Fox News PR Priestess, Irena Briganti.