The Associated Press attacks bloggers for telling people what’s going on

Maybe if old media like the AP did their job better we wouldn’t need to rely more and more on blogs. Check out the irony of this "article" by Ben Feller of the AP:

Bush Cites Upbeat Bloggers From Baghdad

Mar 28 04:31 PM US/EasternBy BEN FELLERAssociated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - To back up his point that pulling out of Iraq would be a disaster, President Bush has quoted opinions from the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top U.S. general in Iraq—and now, two bloggers from Baghdad.

Bush made a surprising reference to the blogosphere during a spirited defense of his war strategy on Wednesday. The mention seemed even more unusual because the president didn't identify whom he was quoting, so he seemed to be leaning on anonymous commentary.

"They have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we've got here," Bush told the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Then he began to quote: "Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed."

His point was that Iraqi people are seeing signs of progress—and what better example of their unbridled expression than blogs.

It turns out, the White House made clear hours later, that he was quoting two brothers, Mohammed and Omar Fadhil. They write an English- language blog from Baghdad called IraqTheModel.com. Both of them got to meet Bush in the Oval Office in 2004.

In his speech, Bush was pulling select lines from an op-ed that the brothers wrote. It appeared in The Wall Street Journal on March 5.

Blogs are Web sites that tend to be narrow in focus and directed at a niche audience. Most operate without editors and give instant reaction to the news. Their freewheeling, open nature makes them popular but also ripe for unverified statements.

###

HOLD ON! “Narrow in focus”? “Ripe for unverified statements”? Excuse me, Mr. Feller but wasn’t it CBS News during the 2004 election that aired unverified information regarding President Bush’s National Guard service? Isn’t the New York Times being “freewheeling” when it publishes classified information and cites unnamed sources?

Unbelievable. Is Ben Feller saying that the American people are too stupid to understand unfiltered information? That only the holy priests – I mean “editors” in the media can help us understand what’s going on in the world?

By the way, isn’t this supposed to be a news article that Mr. Feller wrote? It reads like an opinion piece but as with many “reporters” these days, they can’t tell the difference between the two.

What the media doesn’t tell you or show you about the so-called “anti-war” crowd

Apparently this protester in San Francisco this month isn't aware of the war radical Islam is waging on us.



"Peace" protest in San Francisco, March 2007.



Concerned citizens in Portand, OR. All we hear from the old media is that these people just want to bring the troops home. Because they care about them or something like that.

Old Glory burned at a "anti-war" rally in Portland, OR in March of 2007

The old media loves protests especially when they are “anti-war” protests against the U.S. military in Iraq. It provides newspapers the opportunity to print front page photos of people holding signs bashing President Bush in one form or another.

And ALWAYS the people at these protests are described as being normal, regular folk who simply disagree with American policy in Iraq and who are “concerned” about the well-being of our troops.

But somehow it always escapes the eye or the interests of reporters covering these protests that the protesters are not really so ordinary or well-meaning. Do you know anyone who belongs to a Communist organization? Are you a big fan of Che Guevara? Do you think America is the greatest threat to humanity today? No, probably not. Normal people don't think that way. But lots of people who fit that description do attend these protests. And you know what other characteristic they have? They are hateful, deranged people and many of them hate America.

Thanks to the new online media people have easy access to the truth. Many thanks to Michelle Malkin and ZombieTime for making these photos available on their sites.

I did a online search for media in Oregon to see how they covered the recent incidents of America-bashing in Portland. Not only was the American flag burned but at least one person defecated on one. In addition, a U.S. soldier was burned in effigy. Photos of this happening can be found on Malkin's site.

As for the results of my search, I couldn't find much. What a suprise. There is this one article on OregonLive.com which implies that these incidents are no big deal and that right-wing blogs are distorting what happened. Apparently a photograph of something happening is not enough to prove that it happened: "Portland war protest photos light a fire on the Internet" by Joseph Rose.

A grudging but barely contained admiration for the terrorists?

Jules Crittenden has this item on his blog about an AP story which seems typical of old media coverage in Iraq:

The AP’s Stephen R. Hurst proclaims the resilience of Sunni insurgents!

BAGHDAD (AP) - Sunni insurgents, resilient despite the five-week security crackdown in the capital, killed at least six more American troops over the weekend. A Sunni car bomber hit a largely Shiite district in the capital Sunday, killing at least eight people.

I’m getting a warm and fuzzy Pravda kind of feel off that, the ”resilience.” Stalwart insurgents resiliently marching forward! You have to troll the North Korean web to find that kind of thing these days!

The next three paragraphs are devoted to American death, spiced up with phrases like the one about Anbar being “controlled by the Sunni insurgency.” I’m concerned that might be somewhat overbroad, when you consider the significant influence of both the U.S. and Iraqi military and pro-government tribes have over what goes on in Anbar. But that’s what good propaganda is all about! Then we get to this:

While U.S. and Iraqi troops have flooded the Baghdad streets and a heavily armored American column was sent north to adjacent Diyala province, attacks on American and Iraqi forces have been robust.

The resilient enemy is also robust! Strangely, no mention of the “dozens” of resilient, robust insurgents who were granted martyrdom in that action in Diyala. But let’s not dawdle about the trivial details. We’ll get to those, the whole “violence down” thing later. We’re following AP’s game plan, and AP is playing gotcha! Any action or reaction by terrorists who have been severely set back is a sign of surge failure, and must be played high, resiliently and robustly. All American statements must be buried, carefully selected and couched to suggest futility. Like this one:

“The issue that we’re all trying to figure out is how best do you get the Iraqis to reconcile their differences - because after all, this is not going to be solved by the military. It has to involve political reconciliation in Iraq, among Iraqis,” Mr. Gates said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“We’re basically buying them time,” he said.

Obligatory U.S. death count follows. The AP wisely avoids applying this standard to the enemy, despite the availability of dead insurgent/terrorist numbers. Counter-productive. Counter-revolutionary!

You can read the rest here at Insurgents Resilient!

Liberal media uncomfortable with 300?

I haven't seen "300" yet but by most accounts I've heard it is a spectacular film.

In case you don't know what it is, "300" is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel, which concerns the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, where the King of Sparta led his army against a much larger, invading Persian force.

In short, "300" is a tale about about heroes, bravery, courage and defending your nation...all the things that modern-day liberalism seems to despise. This probably no film for moral relativists is what liberals are. Note the comments in these reviews I came across:


Christy Lemire of the AP: "Despite their comparatively small numbers, the Spartans are a model of unity and organization. That stuff about duty and honor and dying a beautiful death -- they buy into all of it."

Boston Globe review by Wesley Morris: "Otherwise, the movie is busy trumpeting such abstract principles as Glory, Duty, and Destiny, in speeches roared by the cast as though Herodotus himself had written them....Much has been made of the allegorical potential of "300." Could Leonidas be some President Bush stand-in?"

San Jose Mercury News review by Bruce Newman: "Leonidas devised the idea of going to war with fewer troops than it takes to get the job done long before it occurred to anyone at the Pentagon."

Claudia Puig of USA Today: "Nothing about 300 is intended to be subtle. It's a quasi-mythical tale of valor and sacrifice, but it has undertones that for some observers might bring to mind the Iraq war: The Spartans, like U.S. forces today, were focused on taking down a tyrant and fighting for freedom. That the Spartans knew they couldn't win the battle is all the more intriguing when seen through a contemporary lens."

A.O. Scott of the New York Times slammed "300" in his review. If the NY Times doesn't like "300" then that's a good sign that it must be a really good film and will probably be a big hit. I can't wait to see it.

More reporters embrace an 'advocacy role'

Advocacy is not reporting:


From USA Today:

By Peter Johnson, USA TODAY
The "social journalism" that made Oprah Winfrey an international fairy godmother is the new rage in network and cable news, and it's expanding to other media.

Increasingly, journalists and talk-show hosts want to "own" a niche issue or problem, find ways to solve it and be associated with making this world a better place, as Winfrey has done with obesity, literacy and, most recently, education by founding a girls school in South Africa.

Experts say the competitive landscape, the need to be different and to keep eyeballs returning, is driving this trend, along with a genuine desire from some anchors and reporters to do good.

Link to story: http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-03-05-social-journalism_N.htm

Boston Globe reporter suspended for plagiarism

BOSTON, March 6 (UPI) -- A Boston Globe sports writer was suspended for two months and barred from TV appearances for allegedly plagiarizing a Tacoma, Wash., reporter's work."Ron Borges has been suspended for two months without pay because he plagiarized from a reporter at another news organization in a notes column published in Sunday's Sports section," said Globe Editor Martin Baron in a statement.

Link to story: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/03/06/upiUPI-20070306-115416-9058R.html

NY Times reporter reporter paid for information

The New York Times acknowledged Tuesday that a reporter who wrote an acclaimed 2005 article about a teenage Internet pornographer helped gain the boy's trust by sending him a $2,000 check.

Former Times staff writer Kurt Eichenwald made the payment in June 2005 to Justin Berry, who at the time was an 18-year-old star in a seedy network of child-porn sites.

Six months later, Berry became the leading figure in Eichenwald's expose on Web sex sites run by teenagers. The Times investigation prompted congressional hearings, led to arrests and fueled reforms in the way Web-hosting companies screen their clients.

The story also garnered attention for the unusual relationship between Eichenwald and his primary subject.

In the months before the story ran, Eichenwald persuaded Berry to quit the porn business, stop using drugs and become a law enforcement informant.

The Times outlined the unorthodox nature of the intervention in a sidebar accompanying its original report and in a follow-up column by the paper's public editor, Byron Calame.
Times editors, however, said they were unaware that Eichenwald had also given the teen money.

"The check should have been disclosed to editors and readers, like the other actions on the youth's behalf," the paper said in a note published Tuesday.

Link to story: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/03/06/D8NMRRRG0.html

Network news continue to lose viewers

According to this NY Times article, Brian Williams at NBC has lost 570,000 viewers over the past year and Katie Couric has 120,000 viewers since becoming CBS anchor:


Mr. Williams had led the news ratings virtually every week since taking over for Mr. Brokaw, the longtime leader, in December 2004.

Mr. Williams’s broadcast remains the most-watched among viewers this television season, drawing about 9.3 million each night, compared with 8.8 million for Mr. Gibson and 7.5 million for Ms. Couric, according to Nielsen Media Research.

But for the four-week period that began Jan. 29 and ended last Friday, Mr. Gibson’s broadcast was seen by an average of 9.69 million viewers a night, about 43,000 more than the 9.65 million who watched Mr. Williams’s newscast. (Ms. Couric’s CBS program trailed at 7.6 million.)

More notable has been the erosion in Mr. Williams’s lead over the last year. Erosion is not uncommon for the network newscasts, which have been steadily losing viewers. Still, Mr. Williams has lost an average of a little more than 570,000 viewers over the last year; Mr. Gibson’s audience has grown by just under 60,000 viewers.

Ms. Couric’s CBS newscast, which remains a distant third, has lost about 120,000 viewers from the program that was led last year at this time by Bob Schieffer. Asked yesterday whether any changes were in the offing for the CBS newscast, Sean McManus, the president of CBS News and Sports, said: “As we’ve said all along, this is a very long process that takes many months, if not years. We’re not losing any patience.”