17 posts tagged “media”
Because people pay attention. Seen at the corner of 14th Street and Valencia, Mission District:
My favorite movie of the year was the one about the heartless con man who's obsessed with finding oil.
Its called No End In Sight.
-- Bill Maher
Seriously. Who knew that Jerry O'Connell was this funny?
I was watching Hillary's victory speech last night, and her campaign graphics caught my eye. Specifically the poster on her podium:
His time is now:
FOX News is holding a Republican debate on Saturday, January 6th-- just 2 days before the crucial New Hampshire primary. They've invited five candidates-- but not the five that are most popular. Anti-war libertarian candidate Ron Paul is being excluded from the debate. Here's the AP story:
NEW YORK (AP) -- ABC and Fox News Channel are narrowing the field of presidential candidates invited to debates this weekend just before the New Hampshire primary, in Fox's case infuriating supporters of Republican Rep. Ron Paul.
Fox News says it has limited space in its studio, which leaves Rep. Ron Paul out of a weekend debate.
The roster of participants for ABC's back-to-back, prime-time Republican and Democratic debates Saturday in New Hampshire will be determined after results of Thursday's Iowa caucus become clear.
Fox, meanwhile, has invited five GOP candidates to a forum with Chris Wallace scheduled for its mobile studio in New Hampshire on Sunday. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee received invites, leaving Paul of Texas and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on the sidelines.
The network said it had limited space in its studio -- a souped-up bus -- and that it invited candidates who had received double-digit support in recent polls.
In a nationwide poll conducted December 14-20 by The Associated Press and Yahoo, Thompson had the support of 11 percent of GOP voters and Paul was at 3 percent. Paul's support is at 6 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted in early December.
Paul was tied with Thompson for fifth in New Hampshire in the most recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, each with the support of 4 percent of likely voters. Among all New Hampshire voters, Paul led Thompson 6 percent to 4 percent, but that was within the poll's margin of error.
Jesse Benton, Paul's spokesman, said it was a "big mistake" not to include Paul, especially given Paul's recent success in fundraising. He said the campaign has been trying to reach Fox News to get an explanation for the decision, but its calls had not been returned.
"There very well might be some bias," Benton said. "Ron brings up some topics that aren't very popular with Fox News, as in fiscal responsibility and withdrawing from the war in Iraq ... that does leave us scratching our heads a little bit about whether it was deliberate. Based on metrics, I don't see how you can possibly exclude Dr. Paul."
There haven't yet been any new polls released out of New Hampshire following the Iowa Caucuses, but the most recent one, a Reuters/C–SPAN/Zogby Poll, puts Ron Paul at 7%-- more than triple what Thompson is at.
FOX is claiming limited space, but still has room for a guy in low single digits who practically isn't raising any money, instead of the candidate that raised $20 MILLION in the 4th quarter of 2007. And they justify it by citing polls that are 3 weeks old.
Let that be a lesson to future candidates: If you want to be included in a network's coverage or debates, it matters little how much money you raise, or how popular you are compared to other candidates. It matters only that you adhere to the ideological guidelines of that network's management and political allies.
UPDATE (2:37 PM): ThinkProgress just put up a big post on this subject, including comments-- even from prominent conservatives-- criticizing FOX's censorship. Money quote:
“Fox News itself apparently wants to limit the GOP discussion to variations on a neocon theme of perpetual war for perpetual big government.” [Conservative author Richard Viguerie]
"Homicide Bomber" is another name for a suicide bomber, used only by FOX News in their quest to
become more "fair and balanced." In fact, FOX is so "fair and balanced" that they decided to "balance" out the Associated Press-- which everyone knows is totally biased-- by changing the headline and lede of the actual wire story.
Calling the perpetrator a "suicide bomber" informs us that someone wanted to bomb a target so badly that they were willing to die in the process and that, in fact, dying along with the victims was part of the point.
The term "homicide bomber" was first used by-- you guessed it-- the Bush Administration. This is, of course, not the first time FOX News has altered an AP story to fit their the White House's ideological needs:
Since April 2002, FOX News has consistently doctored Associated Press articles featured on the FOX News website concerning terrorist attacks in the Middle East to conform to Bush administration terminology. Without any editorial notation disclosing that words in the AP articles have been changed, FOX News replaces the terms "suicide bomber" and "suicide bombing" with "homicide bomber" and "homicide bombing" to describe attackers who kill themselves and others with explosives. In at least one case, FOX News actually altered an AP quote from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) to fit this naming convention, and then revised it to restore the quote without noting either the original alteration or its correction.
The Associated Press noted in April 2002 that FOX News first began using the term "homicide bombing" in its own reports immediately after Bush administration officials -- such as then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer -- adopted the term. While other news organizations continued to use the term "suicide bomber," the AP reported, "Dennis Murray, executive producer of [FOX News'] daytime programming, said executives there had heard the phrase ["homicide bombing"] being used by administration officials in recent days and thought it was a good idea."
Just an excellent way to start the new year:
