“No Faith Justifies These Murderous and Craven Acts”

Yesterday’s service at Fort Hood for the soldiers murdered last week was a haunting introduction to Veterans Day. These are trying times for our country, President Obama said in Texas. He’s trying to bring the Iraq war to an end, and trying to understand what path is best in the desperate mountains of Afghanistan.
At a [...]

Obama Wrong on Fox, Right on Journalists’ Shield Law

The Obama administration has gone one for two on issues with the media recently — and it’s gotten the most important one right.
I think they’ve muffed it on Fox — good lord, grow a thicker skin and don’t give those twerps the satisfaction of successfully picking a fight with you. Cable shows draw less than [...]

“Breaking” a News Story That’s Quivering in Plain Sight

A story in the StarTribune today made me think about how covering the health care debate the way we cover elections — as a horse race — results in such lame coverage and an electorate that knows very little about what’s truly going on.
The story is about a small young girl in Colorado who was [...]

Blame Blame

New York Times headline today:

U.S. Deficit Rises
To $1.4 Trillion;
Biggest Since ‘45
______________
Two Parties Trade Blame
A brushfire is about to torch your house, the wind is blowing and cinders are falling on your roof. You see two fire engines pull up — and the firefighters jump out of their trucks and start to argue, yell and point [...]

Truth as PR? Top Soldier & Some Colleges Say Yes

When I was with an intergalactic PR agency, “Reputation Management” became the next big thing. I thought it was mostly bullshit until I heard the guy who ran reputation management for our agency, and the guy who literally wrote the book on reputation management, talk about transparency. “You mean,” I recall asking them, “that a [...]

Journal (ists) and Lies, Part 2

Sarah Palin, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, exhumes the corpse of death panels again.
“Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the [...]

Senseless Censorship

I worry about our democracy when networks refuse to air ads expressing political or policy views. Though the logic and factual basis of this ad are ridiculous, how can NBC and ABC refuse to run it?

Sure, it’s inaccurate, hollow, tedious and poorly produced. But those aren’t good enough reasons [...]

What’s a Journalist to Do? Pass on a Lie, or Call it a Lie?

What’s the media’s role when someone says something that’s not true? And how can we know what’s true or not?
I think the media is not doing its job. Media way too often just transmit what someone says, with no research done or assessment made about whether the statement is true or not. It’s harder to [...]

Censored News Network (CNN)

CNN is labeled a liberal network by conservatives who prefer Fox, a conservative network by liberals who prefer MSNBC, and an inane network by tripartisan wonks who prefer PBS or C-Span.
But now there is a CNN descriptor that can unify us all. Gutless.
In the last few days, CNN has refused [...]

We Won’t Have Sarah to Kick Around Anymore. Oh?

No-longer-governor Sarah Palin had a wonderful suggestion for the news media as she stepped down — quit, boogied, ditched, lit out, her job unfinished — from the august power of the Alaska governor’s chair yesterday.
To the media, her you-apparently-gotta-run-away-before-you-run-again-ness said, “How about, in honor of the American solider, you quit makin’ things up?”
Another do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do moment.
In [...]