'Chickenshit' MSNBC Drops Olbermann, Matthews as News Anchors

By Howard Kurtz | Monday, September 8, 2008 | Washington Post Staff Writer

MSNBC is removing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as the anchors of live political events, bowing to growing criticism that they are too opinionated to be seen as neutral in the heat of the presidential campaign

Let's hear it for more corporate censorship! Another victory for the mindless Fox News assholes, and all of their clones!

Another sad day in the History of America.

Another loss of nuanced and intelligent reporting - Edward R. Murrow is turning over in his grave.

Not a day for pride!

zjm

Palin has party revved for victory

by Lisa Van Dusen | Sun Media | 9/7/08

The Republicans are, to swipe a phrase from that other campaign, all fired up and ready to go. They are more fired up than they've been since Ronald Reagan's Morning in America in 1980, only this time their hopes are pinned not on a controversial former California governor but a controversial Alaska governor.

The GOP, per its convention, is running a hiding-in-plain sight, anti-incumbent incumbent campaign that essentially has it running against itself, which isn't half as painful as its sounds and which, in many corners of America, may just work.

In St. Paul last week, Sarah Palin won the hearts and hopes of a party that had, six months ago, so resigned itself to losing this election that it was willing to hold its nose and run the bete noir of both the far-right opinionators and the party's Capitol Hill gang, John McCain.

But Palin, the 44-year-old cheerily telegenic, ideologically orthodox vice-presidential nominee, delivered a speech Wednesday night that was such an Obama-knocking stem-winder that, watching the ecstatic faces in the crowd as she spoke, you could almost hear what they were hearing: "Wah wah wah WIN...wah wah wah WIN..."

For McCain, who along with Obama had dangled the dreamy prospect of a post-partisan, issues-oriented campaign, Palin is more than a breath of fresh air, she's a sarcastic, bad-cop Scud missile aimed at the Obama caravan of hope, and that will mobilize the conservative base of the Republican Party more than any culture war flashpoint ever could.

For all of us who thought Wednesday morning that McCain had picked Palin on impulse, it was clear by halfway through her speech that we were wrong: If this was an impulse, it wasn't a reckless one, it was a tactical one that would relieve McCain of the burden of attacking the Obama/Biden ticket at the expense of his integrity brand.

In his speech Thursday night, McCain promised an end to partisan rancor, which, in the home stretch of a dead-heat campaign with a newly unveiled attack weapon, is the Rovian-reversal version of, "Let the rancor begin!"

The second flank of the Palin deployment is the pre-emptive demonization of the media to discourage drive-by hits against the national novice that might expose her inexperience on foreign policy and national security issues.

MEDIA BATTLE

That battle began in Palin's speech Wednesday night, when she established the fact that the media are against her for a Republican base that loves to hate the latte-drinking liberal elites of the Eastern establishment punditocracy.

"I've learned quickly, these past few days," Palin said, "that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone."

As a short-term tactic, running against the media may be as disingenuous as running against your own party and its own president, but it's a sure-fire crowd pleaser.

At the convention, the battle lines were already being drawn on the cable sets, with rattled Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman looking like he'd just been mugged as he recounted tales of intimidation tactics by Republican operatives against anyone questioning Palin's credentials.

The most vociferous complaints about coverage seem to be aimed at the reporting on Palin's pregnant daughter, a story which, if it had broken about a female Democratic running mate, would have been on a 24-hour loop on Fox News.

The celebrity glossies have had a field day, notably the "Babies, lies and scandal" cover of US magazine. If John McCain wanted to use "celebrity" as a political slur, he should have factored in potential push-back from the industry stakeholders.

As a long-term strategy, running against the media rarely works because sooner or later, even a Republican press secretary may want the New York Times to return his text message.

But the sudden possibility of snatching back the change tag and all the energy that goes with it can rewrite the rule book, even the white-out- filled rule book of the most tactical operatives around McCain.

As his campaign manager, Rick Davis, told an interviewer Friday morning about the likelihood of Sarah Palin doing Meet the Press, "We're going to do what we think we need to do to win. Access to the press is not directly related to success in politics."

From the campaign of the man who once cockily referred to the media as his base, them's fightin' words.

Barack Obama and the Corporate Media

by Joseph A. Palermo | April 29, 2008 | Huffington Post

Let's review what we've had to endure from the corporate media in recent weeks:

Corporate media shills inundated us with "commentary" about a "scandal" they called "bittergate" based on a single phrase Barack Obama uttered at a closed-door fundraiser. These same corporate media mouthpieces jawboned incessantly about whether or not "bittergate" would hurt the Obama campaign. (That's called a "tempest in a teapot" by the way.)

They amplified a non-story about a remark at a fundraiser and then sat around very nice tables in snazzy television studios "discussing" the effects on the Obama campaign of a media event they created. (That's called a "tautology" by the way.)

Even if Obama never said a word about people feeling "bitter" about any aspect of their perfect lives in America in 2008 the corporate media would have found something else to chew on. If "bittergate" didn't offer up the opportunity they would have created another flap.

The same process was in play with the non-story of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. Here's a prominent African-American pastor of a large and established church in a large and established African-American community (at least since the Great Migration) doing what he has done for decades. The corporate media then pluck him seemingly out of nowhere -- with ZERO effort to give any context to Reverend Wright's life or his public work in Chicago -- and boil his sermons down to a couple of sound bites. They then throw these sound bites in the face of white America on a perpetual tape loop, played over and over again. And then they sit around their very nice tables in their snazzy TV studios jawboning about whether or not the visual carpet-bombing they just unleashed is going to have an effect on the Obama campaign. (That's called "guilt by association" by the way -- and "propaganda.")

And then there is the even more desperate non-story of the former Weather Underground member, Bill Ayres, and his "associations" with Obama. This is an old Joseph McCarthy tactic where you take a person out of his or her context from an earlier period of their lives and then imply there are all sorts of nefarious relations and associations that took place that somehow discredit the targeted individual. No one really gives a rat's balls about what Bill Ayres did 38 years ago, not even the FBI, but the story is not about Bill Ayres, it's about sliming Barack Obama. This kind of McCarthyite smear is what you get when you allow an entire generation of Joe McCarthys to have their own television and radio shows. If McCarthy were alive today he'd have his own show on Fox News: "The McCarthy Factor" or maybe "McCarthy's America." I bet ole Tail Gunner Joe is rolling in his grave: "Damn! I was just 45 years ahead of my time!" (That's called "McCarthyism" by the way.)

So with all the "opposition research" and all of the digging and all of the traps set and the casting of the wide net trawling for damaging revelations the only things the corporate media came up with is a remark Obama made at a fundraiser, a black preacher who says some controversial stuff, and a few encounters with a former Weatherman? That's pretty pathetic -- and it won't work in the long run.

The bad news about our nutrient-starved, 24-hour media environment is that there will be more news cycles dedicated to destroying Obama or at least slowing the momentum of his campaign. It's inevitable. After "bittergate" and Wright and Ayres play out they will find new fodder. They will build up non-stories to boost ratings for as many news cycles as they can get away with and still rake in the cash from their corporate sponsors. But they know better than most of us that if the American people get bored with a "news" story they will change the channel. And nothing makes these corporate media outlets move on to the next story faster than deflated ratings. Their producers will be breathing down their necks: "To hell with Reverend Wright run the 'Girls Gone Wild' footage of Ashley Dupre!"

And that leads me to the good news, which is no matter how much the corporate media exploit a non-story to degrade or humiliate or damage Obama, the nature of the 24-hour news cycle militates against running it for too long. These "stories" have short shelf lives. One positive outcome of this terribly long election process is that by September "bittergate," Wright, and Ayres will be ratings dogs.

But you can count on Matt Drudge and the rest of them to concoct new "bittergates," and dredge up more scary black men and '60s radicals -- as well as a host of new and clever devices we cannot at this time foresee. (My guess is that one of their smears will mirror the racist ads the GOP ran against Harold Ford, Jr. in Tennessee that involved -- Gulp! -- a possible premarital hook up with a white woman.) I remember the GOP hatchet man, Lee Atwater, famously declaring that he was going to make Willie Horton so well known that voters would think he was Michael Dukakis's running mate. I wonder who Karl Rove will make voters think is Obama's running mate?

The trick for us is to find alternative sources of information and reject the frames and narratives the corporate media system imposes on our political discourse. It will require greater grassroots organizing and mobilizing and a lot of hard work among the citizenry, but it can be done.

Finally, we should all be very grateful for the work that Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) are doing keeping the shovels moving as fast as they can behind that big fat Republican elephant.

Assistant Professor, History, CSUS. Bachelor's degrees in sociology and anthropology from UC Santa Cruz, master's degree in history from San Jose State University, master's degree and doctorate in American history from Cornell University. Expertise includes political history, presidential politics, presidential war powers, social movements of the 20th century, movements of the 1960s, civil rights, and foreign policy history.