A

s the liberal Boston Globe, which always can be counted on for favors by John Kerry, struggles on the brink of insolvency, the Massachusetts Dem has suddenly become concerned about the nature of news sources, and the peoples’ ability to find the sort of news they like.

A Senate panel is looking at the plight of struggling newspapers in the digital era.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Wednesday’s hearing on the future of journalism comes as many papers falter and new ways of delivering information multiply by the day.

Kerry said steps must be taken so the news media can stay diverse and independent. (USA Today)

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, D-Natch!, jumped on the bandwagon, saying it would be cool if the feds could ease the liberal news media into a new non-profit sort of entity, to ensure that they could blather at will without having to worry about offending readers.

Isn’t this all interesting?  Here’s John Kerry’s position on diverse and independent media in June 2007:

Senator John Kerry is calling for reimposition of the fairness doctrine.

In a radio interview on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, excerpted on YouTube, Senator Kerry said he thought the doctrine should return. Calling it one of the “most profound changes in the balance of the media,” he said conservatives have been able to “squeeze down and squeeze out opinion of opposing views. I think it has been a very important transition in the imbalance of our public dialog,” he said. (source)

And here’s Ben Cardin:

The government “has the responsibility” to make sure there are a “variety of opportunities for people to get information,” said Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) when asked about the Fairness Doctrine at the Democratic Senatorial Committee election night party on Tuesday. (CNS)

So they want to legislate liberal media in at taxpayer expense (non-profit status would relieve newspapers of tax burdens), while legislating conservative media out (the fairness doctrine would destroy their appeal, driving away advertisers).

Isn’t it funny how the same goal - the desire for multiple voices in the media - can look so different in the eyes of a big-government, anti-free market liberals?  It’s more evidence of the Dems’ refusal to learn lessons from history.

Until a few decades ago, cities in America were served by multiple newspapers: Liberal, conservative, trashy, Catholic, black, suburban, capitalist, socialist, all touting the news in their own voice, appealing to subscribers who liked that voice. There was no call for fairness, because the free market provided enough choice.  And when this model started evolving into the next, there were no calls from Congress save newspapers.

The second model, one prevailing newspaper per city, occurred primarily because the market determined it.  The evening news on TV killed afternoon papers, and the morning news and rising production costs left room for only one print vehicle. Again, Congress sat back and watched it happen.

The third model was the consolidation of these papers into national chains.  Congress saw nothing to complain about; in fact, with each transformation, the conservative voice of print media became more muted, so the big government, interventionalist Dems in Congress sat back and enjoyed the show.

It’s time for the next model, and all indications are that it will be much more difficult to control, and not as favorable to one (liberal) party:  online journalism, citizen journalism (think Michael Yon), the return of small-circulation, single voice print papers, talk radio, live webcasts of government agency meetings, and other options are all in the wings, ready to replace (for better or worse) the big newspapers.

John Kerry, Ben Cardin, Nancy Pelosi and other fans of neutering talk radio could just sit back and let America choose what media it wants without their meddlesome fingers in the mix.  But that’s not why they got themselves elected.  They know what you need better than you do, and they’re out to prove their right … despite what history tells us.

C

an anyone explain this, the lead photo on AP’s feed to Yahoo?

Miss. woman gets shot in head, but makes tea (AP)

FILE - In this Feb. 19, 2009 file photo, Lee Henderson, of Alvarado, Texas, directs an instrument panel into a waiting GM vehicle during assembly at the General Motors Assembly Plant in Arlington, Texas. Two people briefed on the plan say General Motors Corp. will close most of its U.S. factories for up to nine weeks this summer because of slumping sales and growing inventories of unsold vehicles. The people did not know exactly when the shutdowns would occur, but both say they will include the normal two-week closure in July to change from one model year to the next. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, file)

I

n another sign that the media is deciding to get a bit sour on Obama in a CYA move following their pre-election adoration, AP just moved a story about a “free and open” public forum Obama  held in Los Angeles two weeks ago.

The timing is either because it took time to research and fact-check the piece, or because editors fretted endlessly about running something negative.  I’ll go with the latter, but it’s still a nasty and insightful piece.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - President Barack Obama’s appearance two weeks ago before 1,100 people at a downtown school was advertised by the White House as free and open to the public.It was free. But it wasn’t exactly public.

Far from being an open-doors forum, hundreds of tickets never made it into the public’s hands. Instead, they were distributed to Democratic officeholders and their staffs, community leaders, people connected to Obama’s 2008 campaign, Democratic fundraisers and others invited by the White House.

When Obama took the stage to cheers, he assured the audience the deck wasn’t stacked in his favor.

The story goes on to point out that the first woman Prez-O called on said she was very thankful he was president, and the first man (possibly this guy) thanked God for His Obamaness. Another said he had been a volunteer for Obama, and other volunteers were all around him. And in LA, where unemployment is at 10%+, at the peak of public outrage over the AIG bonuses, the Prez-O was cheered, applauded and basically slobbered all over.

The story also notes that Prez-O’s team lied to AP the first time around about the number of tickets available to the public. When Mayor Villaraigosa’s office countered with a much lower number, the White House fessed up that more tickets indeed had been held back for friendlies.

Now here’s my question: Is the president at all aware of the efforts his minions make to protect him with a blanket of dyed-in-the-wool supporters, so he never has to face an audience of real people, or does he think he really is that wonderful, that popular, that wise?

I deeply fear it’s the latter.

Rod Blagojevich was arrested seven days ago today, and the Obama camp is still struggling to get control of what should have been a simple two-handed layup.  There’s one clear target of blame for the miserable performance of his staff over the last week:  the media.  If reporters had been more honest in covering Obama during the campaign, his staff would have been better conditioned, and the flabby, sloppy response of Obama and his staff is testimony to just how biased the media was up until Nov. 4.

Today, when this whole matter should have been three or four days behind him, Obama looked worse than ever - so bad, in fact, that the headline on the afternoon homepage of the NYT - the New York Times! - was a shady nasty:  Obama skirts Blagojevich questions.

But in a somewhat tense moment during his few minutes with the press, he cut off a reporter who asked him to reconcile his earlier statement that he would take a “hands off” approach to finding a replacement for himself and a report that his top adviser, Rahm Emanuel, had presented the governor with a list of possible replacements. (There has been no suggestion of wrongdoing.)

Stopping the reporter midsentence, Mr. Obama told him he didn’t want him to waste his time asking a question he wouldn’t answer. Mr. Obama said, as he had yesterday, that he had done a “full review” of the situation but at the request of the United States attorney, he would not comment on the matter until next week.

If Obama thinks the MSM will allow this sort of behavior, he’s falsely convinced the fairy tale will continue indefinitely.  Imagine Bush doing what Obama did today:  He cut off a reporter.  He refused to answer a question. He further delayed a report that he earlier promised was to have been delivered two days ago.

Look, this whole thing would have been a no-brainer if Obama had just handled it with his promised transparency from the outset. Remember “Bush lied/People died?”  I’m not saying Obama lied (yet), but his actions have kept this story alive long after it should have died.

Here’s all he had to say last Tuesday:

Of course we [an undefined "we"] have been talking to Gov. Blagojevich and his staff about my seat, just as we have been talking to Gov. Paterson about Sen. Clinton’s seat and Gov. Minner about Sen. Biden’s seat.  I intend to have a very active first 100 days, and I would like to have all the Senate seated as quickly as possible.

Gov. Blagojevich’s alleged behavior, if true, is reprehensible.  I condemn such behavior, which opposes everything my campaign and I stand for.  I am directing my staff to report all communications we have had with Gov. Blagojevich and his staff since my election and will report it once we are assured of its accuracy.

That wouldn’t have stopped the media hounding (well, puppying) completely, but it certainly would have spared him the abuse he’s taking now.

S

am Zell’s madcap scheme to become a newspaper mogul is coming apart at the seams, leaving him (figuratively) without two bucks to rub together.

Zell earned his considerable real estate fortune by buying and turning around distressed properties and thought he could do the same with the similarly distressed Tribune Company, purveyor of news in Chicago and LA, and owner of the Cubs.  But his papers continue to hemorrhage money and today a $70 million payment is due.  TribCo says it has the money to make the payment, but may not:

Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. is working with bankruptcy advisers at investment bank Lazard and law firm Sidley Austin to weigh financial options, including a possible restructuring for the heavily leveraged media company, sources said Sunday.

“It’s an uncertain and difficult environment,” Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman said Sunday night. “We haven’t made any decision. We’re looking at all of our options.” …

Sources said Tribune Co. has cash and could draw on an existing line of credit with its senior lenders to pay Monday’s bill. But the sources said the company was undecided late Sunday as to whether that made sense or if the company would be better off negotiating with senior lenders to restructure its debt. (source)

The company has $13 billion in debt - a bad place for a newspaper company to be in this day and age.  Look for a sale of the Cubs and more beating of the dying newspaper horses. Hundreds of reporters have been canned at both papers already, along with hundreds more in various support positions. They still crank out a paper every day and keep up a good Web presence - and according to this morning’s Trib, they are “cash flow positive” - a tortured and suspect way of saying they’re making money.

Look for the Cubs to be sold and quite possibly a BK today, in order for Zell to work with his banks to restructure his debt.  The banks he’s working with -Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch - have all been recipients of government handouts, so it’ll be interesting to see how generous they are with Zell.

W

hile watching the Mumbai terror attacks on Fox last week, I heard a Fox anchor, safely ensconced in NYC, interview a frightened Indian man who was hiding in the Taj hotel. He was like a golf announcer, all whispers, and she was the soccer announcer, loudly leading the terrorists to their GOOOAAAL. It went something like this:

He (whispering into his cell phone): It’s very frightening, but I think I’m safe.

She: Are you safe? How? Where are you?

He: I’m in my room.

She: How terrible. Are you sure your safe? Where are you?

No kidding. She actually asked twice where he was, as if it never occurred to her that the terrorists might be monitoring the media to find more hostages people to torture and kill. And, it turns out the terrorists were doing just that, and Fox was hardly alone:

A SOUTH Wales couple caught in the Mumbai terror attacks claimed last night that CNN put their lives at risk by broadcasting where they were.

Lynne and Kenneth Shaw, of Penarth, warned that terrorists were listening in to the media to pinpoint Western victims.

Mrs Shaw claimed the American cable TV channel had broadcast details of where they were at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. …

From her home in Penarth yesterday, Mrs Shaw said: “We have been asked by the British terror police not to talk to the press.

“But the reason I would not want to talk to anyone is because our safety was actually compromised by CNN, which broadcast where we were.

“The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on television. For that reason I would appeal to the media to be very careful about what they broadcast.

“When we left Mumbai there were still around 100 people trapped there.” (Wales Online)

The great war correspondents of WWII understood war and enemies and good guys. They were, by and large, discrete when it was important to be discrete, and honest journalists the rest of the time. With Vietnam, we got a new kind of war correspondent, becoming more anti-war as the war moved along, until they became a powerful force for our abandonment of the war. Their reporting may also have helped the North Vietnamese understand our troop movements and strategies.

Now we have a new generation of war correspondents, many of whom never leave their air conditioned suites, few of whom accept that we really are at war. They’re reporting incidents not battles, and they proved last week that they’re not to be trusted with sensitive information.

CNN, of course, denies the Shaw’s claim and I’ve heard no discussion whatsoever of Fox’s dangerous foible.

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n this week’s Sunday Scan, I’ve looked at how the news media, which has had an unusually large role in this election, is handling the last big readership day before the election.  You’ll see what The LA Times, the SF Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and the New York Times chose to feature - or not feature - at the culmination of their reprehensibly pro-Obama election coverage.

New York Times: Living On The Edge Of One Sided Seats

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he NYT’s pre-election Sunday feature is The Year of Living on the Edge of Our Seats, a title that implies a nail-biting story line of two conflicting sides. But this nail-biter only has one side: Obama.

In the 39-paragraph story, 19 paragraphs are neutral, either mentioning both candidates or neither of them. Twenty mention Obama.

Math experts: How many paragraphs mentioned McCain? Correct. Zero.

The edge of the seat to the NYT is all about how Obama threaded the needle to defeat his Dem primary opponents and position himself against the candidate they describe as, should he win, “the oldest American ever to win a first term,” vs. Obama who is, of course, “the first black-American” who would be president.

Here’s a typical Obama passage:

Think back. When Mr. Obama took the stage in Iowa after his victory in the state’s caucuses last January, he was not yet the favorite for the Democratic nomination, and he was a long way from becoming the general-election frontrunner.

In videotape from that night, you can see and sense an astonishment and exhilaration — in him, around him — that seem almost quaint just 10 months later.

“They said this day would never come,” he tells a euphoric Iowa crowd, and not just his eyes but the whole of him twinkles, gleams. “They said our sights were set too high.”

While he’s talking specifically about himself and his campaign troops, it’s impossible not to hear in his words a statement about all minorities in America, for whom the week-by-week, month-by-month advance of his candidacy would hold an especially powerful message.

Shall we interject a little race into the campaign? And shall we interject a little GOP-bashing?

How will some younger voters react if Mr. McCain prevails? Or some older ones if Mr. Obama does? In recent weeks, the ire and ugly catcalls of some supporters of the McCain-Palin ticket have suggested a division in this election that goes well beyond tax policy or Iraq strategy.

What of the calls of “Rape Palin!” that broke out at an Obama rally without so much as a “Tsk, tsk” from The One? Or what about Palin hanging in effigy, a bit of misogyny that didn’t merit BHO’s attention?

In short, the article is the perfect exclamation point on a political season that showed the NYT and its MMM brethren (that’s”Mainly Marginalized Media”) to become vile house organs for Obama, content to co-opt any journalistic ethics that are clinging to survival in order to influence the election.

H

illary’s communications director, Harold Wolfson, has an interesting theory:

Sen. Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee if John Edwards had been caught in his lie about an extramarital affair and forced out of the race last year, insists a top Clinton campaign aide, making a charge that could exacerbate previously existing tensions between the camps of Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

“I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee,” former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

“Our voters and Edwards’ voters were the same people,” Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. “They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama.”

Two months before Iowa, Edwards lied his brains out denying the affair, and the Dem-happy media let the story end with that denial, choosing not to follow the National Enquirer’s story, believing that a trail lawyer turned Dem politician was the more believable source.

I don’t think Wolfson’s right. If Edwards had fessed up, I think it would have tilted the voting public towards the “new” politician, and at that point, Obama’s new facade was unblemished. But if Wolfson is right - and we’ll never know, so let’s play with it - the media would be at much at fault as Edwards, since they shirked their First Amendment responsibility to dig.

We’ve been telling you all along the MSM want Obama elected.

Was Jimmy Carter Right After All?

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ow there’s a question I bet you thought you’d never be asked, but it’s official: Historian Joseph Wheelan asks it on History News Network in a little piece he titled Is it Safe Now to Admit Jimmy Carter Was Right?.

No, of course he’s not alluding to Carter’s flaccid stand on Iran and terrorism; it’s his 1979 “Crisis of Confidence” speech that’s got Wheelan all hopped up on Karter Kool Aid.

We admirers have long endured ridicule whenever we dared to defend Carter’s prescient plan for reducing U.S. dependence on oil.

But today, after all the abuse and scorn heaped on Jimmy Carter and his supporters, we find ourselves paying more than $4 a gallon at the pump to fill our hulking gas guzzlers.

It turns out that Carter was right after all.

He was?! Let’s review the list of Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” recommendations:

• Requiring auto manufacturers to deliver by 1995 an auto fleet that tools along at 48 miles per gallon. The Smart Car, which gets very unstable at high speeds, gets 36 mpg. The Prius does get 48 mpg, so we’d need an all-Prius fleet to achieve Carter’s goal. Oh. Boy.
• Asking Americans to turn down their thermostats. Conservation is always a good idea, but the amount of energy saved if all Americans had donned dorky cardigans is a pittance compared to what we now save with energy-efficient systems brought to us not by government mandate as much as free market demand.
• Establishing a tax on “windfall” oil profits to finance a crash program to develop affordable synthetic fuels. Yeah, those synthetic fuels have fared wonderfully. And taxing corporate profits is always a great way to encourage business innovation, which explains all the technological innovation coming out of France.
• Setting a goal of 20 percent solar by … eight years ago. He apparently never computed the cost, which would make $4 a gallon gas seem like a gift, nor amount of acreage that would be required for solar farms, nor the protests of the environmental movement against any such idea.

Wheeler is just another historian who refuses to learn from history and still thinks that somehow government knows better than the free market. Besides being utterly unrealistic, Carter’s ideas are as bad today as they were in 1979. So of course Barack Obama pretty much did a Carter cut-and-paste to come up with his energy policy.

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t took a total of seven - count ‘em seven - writers to put together AP’s 4th of July gift to us, America’s Unhappy Birthday, a gift right up there with a flaming bag of dog poop left on your porch. Here’s the tone-setting paragraph:

The nation’s psyche is battered and bruised, the sense of pessimism palpable. Young or old, Republican or Democrat, economically stable or struggling, Americans are questioning where they are and where they are going. And they wonder who or what might ride to their rescue.

And here’s the accompanying photo:

The depression-fest goes on and on, nagging about gas prices, unemployment, our inability to control our lives, the stock market, the price of food and on and on and on.

It’s’ not an America I recognize … but it sure is a media I recognize.