Archive for news? what news?

VIDEO– How to stop the Koch Bros, take power back from corporations: “Reinvent the way media looks and acts.”

Posted by GottaLaff 
· Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at 1:09 pm 
· No Comments 

koch bros murdoch buying newspapers

In November 2012, I wrote BIG problem: Former News Corp. exec expected to head Tribune Co., Rupert Murdoch eyes LA Times, Chicago Tribune.

Back in April, I wrote The Koch Bros., who plan to buy up 8 major newspapers, “see the conservative voice as not being well represented.” Um…:

Think Progress:

Right-wing funders and business industrialists David and Charles Koch may purchase the Tribune Company newspapers, which include the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and the Los Angeles Times. The brothers are “interested in the clout they could gain through the Times’ editorial pages,” the Hollywood Reporter notes.

Under the circumstances, saying this is a serious concern is an understatement.

I’m an L.A. Times subscriber and if these corporate conservative monsters take over, it would be disastrous. I would immediately cancel my subscription and campaign for others to do the same.

Or I could introduce a lot of people to this. Via Free the Press, Buy the Tribune Company:

Corporate media is ruining the integrity of news. Winning the Tribune Company back might just start moving the tide in a different direction. Consider this an experiment that could have an enormous positive ripple effect for democracy.

Americans have said, time and time again, that they trust public and community media much more than corporate media. What if that extended not just to their radio or TV set but their local paper again?

Together we can make history. Really.

Can’t contribute? That doesn’t mean you can’t help take back the media!

Spread the word, tell your social network on Facebook and Twitter. We’re going to need as many people as possible to help out if we are going to meet our goal of raising $660 Million.

Also make sure to like The Other 98% on Facebook for even more opportunities to  bring down the corporatocracy.

Please watch the entire video and then link over, there is much more, including a bunch of cool graphics.

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Categories : Politics
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“The press reporting on the press is indicative of the very problem with the press”

Posted by GottaLaff 
· Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 at 9:00 am 
· No Comments 

President Barack Obama delivers remarks during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., April 27, 2013. First Lady Michelle Obama attended the dinner with the President. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Please welcome guest blogger Cathi Peyton Erman to TPC. She’s one of my favorite Twitter, Facebook, and Sulia pals, is a lifelong Baptist Christian who is Pro-Life, Pro-Gun and Pro-Death penalty.  She is also president of the Tea Party Patriots Intelligence Brigade.  Her political idol is George W. Bush and her religious idol is Rev. Pat Robertson.  She proudly receives her information from Fox’s News and also follows Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

But oddly, per her Sulia page, she’s a “Progressive, liberal Socialist Democrat who tries to find some humor  in the brain numbing Republican party.” Go figure.

She’ll contribute posts whenever she can while Paddy is recovering from surgery on her broken arm.

Here’s her take on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

Am I the only person to have ambivalent feelings about the White House Correspondents Association dinner, aka #nerdprom?

I have wondered for a long time now about how this dinner has changed through the years.  We no longer have very many true “journalists”.  “Infotainment News” has all but replaced hard-hitting news.

I don’t really blame the writers and journalists that much, because it seems our “news” is now a cross between flashy, attention grabbing three-minute segments and a reality show about the Kardashians.  The faster, more lurid scandals of the moment have replaced in depth journalism of the old days.

Also, it always struck me as odd that Hollywood celebrities attending the dinner are there at all.  I mean, really.  The press coverage that the dinner receives is pretty much all about the glitter – celebrities, red carpet and comedy routines.  Am I the only one who finds that the press reporting on the press is indicative of the very problem with the press?

Then it dawned on me.  Corporate sponsors!  They own the news!  I could go into a rant about that, but Charles P. Pierce wrote the perfect blog about all of this mixed bag of questions that have perplexed me.  Now HE’S a writer!

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Toilet Paper Will Be More Credible Than the Chicago Tribune Newspapers if Kochs Buy Them

Posted by GottaLaff 
· Wednesday, April 24th, 2013 at 4:42 pm 
· 3 Comments 
Via democurmudgeon.blogspot.com

Via democurmudgeon.blogspot.com

As I posted the other day, the Koch brothers are trying to take control of what we see, hear, and read in the Los Angeles Times and about seven other media outlets. They actually said that they want to “make sure our voice is being heard” and that “they see the conservative voice as not being well represented.” I wish I were kidding.

I’ve written about this a couple of times, and now my pal Mark Karlin has his own piece about it in Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout:

The creditors apparently want to sell the unprofitable newspapers but keep the lucrative television stations, radio stations, real estate and other profitable and potentially profitable divisions of the Tribune Company. [...]

Harold Meyerson writes in the Washington Post a virtual R.I.P. to the Los Angeles Times, in which he laments:

… Their purchase offer won’t be buttressed by a record of involvement in or commitment to journalism on their part. But it will come complete with a commitment to journalism as a branch of right-wing ideology….

The bankers’ men on the Tribune board likely view the sale of the papers as a financial transaction, pure and simple. But Times readers (and the Koch brothers themselves) would view a sale to the Kochs as a political transaction first and foremost, turning L.A.’s metropolitan daily into a right-wing mouthpiece whose commitment to empirical journalism would be unproven at best. A newspaper isn’t just a business; it’s also a civic trust. [...]

Indeed, the sale isn’t final. In fact, negotiations are in the hush-hush/leak-leak stage. [...]

Furthermore, like the News World Media Development (a Unification Church affiliate) corporation-owned Washington Times and the Murdoch-owned New York Post, the Kochs can afford to run the papers at a loss in order to achieve their political goals through public influence. [...]

But there will be no question that with at least four major US papers potentially under the control of the Kochs, the national discourse will move even further to the right. And the Kochs can absorb the further financial losses incurred by increased cancelled subscriptions and the likely continued hemorrhaging of advertising dollars. Think of it as their “Americans for Prosperity” of the Fourth Estate. [...]

Just look what Americans for Prosperity and the recently shaken-up FreedomWorks accomplished: They put the House of Representatives under the control of a radical posse of Tea Party zealots in 2010, who block any legislation that can move the United States forward. Uh, that’s about as big a return on investment as one can get – and the Kochs got it.

Please read the entire post here.

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Koch Bros., who plan to buy up 8 major newspapers, “see the conservative voice as not being well represented.” Um…

Posted by GottaLaff 
· Sunday, April 21st, 2013 at 10:46 am 
· 1 Comment 

nono

In November 2012, I wrote BIG problem: Former News Corp. exec expected to head Tribune Co., Rupert Murdoch eyes LA Times, Chicago Tribune.

I followed that up in March 2013 with If this report is true, I will cancel my subscription to the L.A. Times. That entry was in response to a report by Think Progress:

Right-wing funders and business industrialists David and Charles Koch may purchase the Tribune Company newspapers, which include the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and the Los Angeles Times. The brothers are “interested in the clout they could gain through the Times’ editorial pages,” the Hollywood Reporter notes.

Under the circumstances, saying this is a serious concern is an understatement.

Here we are a month later and Think Progress has a follow-up that has my stomach in knots. They’re reporting that Charles and David Koch are still trying to get their extremely wealthy, extremely right wing hands on up to eight (!) U.S. news outlets, per the New York Times, including including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

See, they want to “make sure our voice is being heard.” Note to Kochs: So do the rest of us.

They also have said that “they see the conservative voice as not being well represented.” We here at TPC beg to differ, or to put it another way:

bullshit alertThis proves that there is no such thing as a so-called “liberal media.”

New York Times:

Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, The Orlando Sentinel and The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.

As Think Progress notes, “The brothers also tried to influence the latest election by warning some 45,000 employees that there would be “consequences” if they didn’t vote for Republicans.” Yes, that’s exactly who should be running a big hunk of the media.

Freedom of the press is a right. Abusing it to spread their extremist propaganda would be reprehensible.

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Commercialized news does it again! Accuracy schmaccuracy.

Posted by GottaLaff 
· Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 at 1:27 pm 
· 2 Comments 

cnn most trusted

clusterfox

All day there have been ferocious flurries of reports about whether or not there has been an arrest in the Boston Marathon bomb case. I caught this tweet of a concise recap of who got it right and who got it wrong:

tweet boston marathon bad reporting

I tweeted this in response: It appears that lefty, commie Marxist socialist Obama-owned MSNBC had more accurate reporting than other news sources. #CommercializedNews

It's been an embarrassment of scrambling news sources trying to justify their erroneous reporting. CNN much? Commercialized news strikes again, where profit trumps accuracy, and infotainment trumps real news.

Hey, remember when the Daily Show hammered CNN and Fox for their erroneous “unconstitutional mandate hyperventilation” over Supreme Court decision? Me too!

Snarky, hilarious, harsh, and even poignant tweets have been flying all over the Twitterverses about how news outlets seemed to be more concerned about getting a scoop than about accuracy in reporting. Here are a few that I caught (one is a RT by me of another tweet):

Now check out this excerpt from an email from a TV industry executive, fresh from Politico:

It's not about getting to the truth or serving the public good, it's about who can make the wittiest joke to impress their friends. This is an important story for the nation, and reporters from organizations new and old are trying to cover it. People make mistakes.

Whatsamattayou? This isn't about getting to the truth!  Hey, people make mistakes! Even the so-called professionals who claim they're the ones who you can TRUST!

As you can see in the video, here's what the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Boston division had to say:

Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack. Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.

facts schmacts smaller

details schmetails

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VIDEO– Paul Krugman: “There’s a little bit of pig in all of us. I speak from personal experience.”

Posted by GottaLaff 
· Sunday, April 7th, 2013 at 2:06 pm 
· 3 Comments 

that's all folks

As I mentioned here, enough about President Obama’s “controversial comments” on Kamala Harris. He and she are friends, he made a quip in that context, and started out by saying how brilliant, dedicated and tough she is. Yes, it was bound to raise many an eyebrow, but it also didn’t deserve all the attention and air time it’s been getting.

Here is Paul Krugman on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” There’s a 4-second lag at the beginning of the video due to my continued ineptitude at grabbing segments.

George Will:

We’ve always from time immemorial had that guy at the end of the bar nursing his third beer and venting his opinions. Now they do it, thanks to progress, on the Internet. And it creates this echo chamber.

George Stephanopoulos:

You were the victim of a lot of free speech on the internet.

Paul Krugman:

… It was dumb. And it’s right to slap him for it. But you know, there’s a little bit of pig in all of us. I speak from personal experience. So there we are.

So there we are. Oink.

Did I mention how glad I was that Paul Krugman appears on these shows?

Here is the entire Roundtable segment:

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If this report is true, I will cancel my subscription to the L.A. Times

Posted by GottaLaff 
· Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 at 4:54 pm 
· 5 Comments 

noooooooo

In November 2012, I wrote BIG problem: Former News Corp. exec expected to head Tribune Co., Rupert Murdoch eyes LA Times, Chicago Tribune.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but something else did. Things just got worse.

Dear L.A. Times,

If you do what the report below says you may do, we will cancel our subscription, and we will suggest to everybody we know that they cancel theirs.

Sincerely,

Laffy

Via Think Progress:

Right-wing funders and business industrialists David and Charles Koch may purchase the Tribune Company newspapers, which include the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and the Los Angeles Times. The brothers are “interested in the clout they could gain through the Times’ editorial pages,” the Hollywood Reporter notes.

Because, you know, the Koch brothers just don’t have enough clout.

Via daromano

As I said back in November, feel free to contact the L.A. Times with a letter to the editor or their “convenient comment form.” For questions about journalistic standards, practices and accuracy, contact the Readers’ Representative Office by e-mail, phone (877) 554-4000 or fax (213) 237-3535.

help2

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