Ask and ye shall receive

NewsBusters h/t:

  • Ex Google lobbyist Andrew McLaughlin working as the No. 2 tech policy guy in the White House discussing net neutrality with Google lobbyists (registered and unregistered) while Google stood to profit from the administration’s Net Neutrality rules.
  • Former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson taking a job as Treasury Department chief of staff within 9 months of his work for Goldman.
  • Former H&R Block CEO Mark Ernst being hired by Obama’s IRS and then writing new regulations on tax prep — regulations that H&R Block has endorsed, and that will help H&R Block.
  • Obama officials meeting off campus for official business for the sake of avoiding the Presidential Records Act.
  • And this nugget from the same NYTimes piece: “Two lobbyists also cited instances in which the White House had suggested that a job candidate be “deregistered” as a lobbyist in Senate records to avoid violating the administration’s hiring restrictions.”
  • The firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin. As my colleague Byron York has explained: “The method of Walpin’s firing could be a violation of the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice, plus an explanation of cause, before firing an inspector general.”
  • Giving a car company (Chrysler) to a political entity that spent millions to get you elected. This deal involved alleged threats by a since-indicted car czar to knee-cap investors who didn’t want to agree to the White House’s deal.

…(read more)…

MSNBCs Odd View of what is extreme talk

A great HotAir h/t:

That’s what makes this clip from Dylan Ratigan’s MSNBC show even more interesting. Ratigan gives six minutes of air time to Ted Rall, the cartoonist last seen shark-jumping by insulting the late Pat Tillman for dying in service to the country. Now Rall has a new idea for improving the country, and Ratigan seems very interested the the proposal (via Verum Serum and Directorblue):

Ironically, it was only about a month ago that Sharon Angle was excoriated by several MSNBC talking heads for making a reference to “2nd amendment remedies.” Is Chris Matthews going to call out Ted Rall and/or Dylan Ratigan for letting him promote this? Rachel Maddow wanted to know if Angle’s language was finally too extreme. Well is it still extreme when it’s coming from the far left over your own TV channel, Rachel? If so, maybe you should poke your head down the hall and say something.

…(read more)…


FoxNews Election Coverage more fair [and watched] than MSNBC and CNN

 

So my question is this then, considering the below examples (old and recent), if one who watches MSNBC cannot see the liberal bias in MSNBC… what does that say about their cognitive skills? BigJournalism has the ratings from the election night, and FoxNews trumps the liberal media… here is what the cable networks drew on average From 8-11 PM ET:

  • FNC: 6.957 million total viewers, 2.43 million A25-54
  • CNN: 2.423 million total viewers, 1.03 million A25-54
  • MSNBC: 1.945 million total viewers, 669,000 A25-54

Fox gets a better mix of watchers compared to other news outlets — a more even mix of political watchers in other words:

The elitism and disdain at MSNBC was palpable. For instance, take the snickering and liberal elitism on display when Chris Matthews “interviewed” Michele Bachmann, or when Chris Matthews says Palin hasn’t read a thing. This is blatant non-journalism.

And it is why Fox slams MSNBC in the ratings daily! We find others agree (Media’ite) with the idea that Fox’s coverage was superior:

  • “Fair and Balanced” is a tag line for Fox News that often gets derided by its critics (and sometimes most deservedly.) But that does not mean that they don’t deserve credit when credit is due.

Writing for Time’s Tuned In blog James Poniewozik seemed to agree that Fox News was fairer than the lot:

To be fair, NBC did join coverage earlier, after an all-new Biggest Loser.) Fox News, for all its image as the Republican-friendly network, actually seemed to have the most reserved coverage in tone of the three big cablers, going with a more reserved set and less flashy graphics (granted, by cable news standards) than its competitors. A whiteboard was even employed.

Credit where due, Fox also had a more, well, balanced panel much of the night than its competitor MSNBC. Holding forth from left of center for Fox were the recently-high-profile Juan Williams and Democratic political guru Joe Trippi. MSNBC’s main lineup, on the other hand, was basically its center-to-left lineup of nightly hosts: Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.

Politico also drew a similar distinction between the coverage and analysis provided by MSNBC and Fox News:

Although Fox News took the most criticism during this campaign season for its alleged bias, it was MSNBC — whose new “Lean Forward” tagline inspired CNN’s promo — that wore its point of view most on its sleeve Tuesday night.

MSNBC’s election coverage was led by a panel comprised mostly of its opinionated prime-time hosts (Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, along with frequent contributor Eugene Robinson), with nary a conservative voice in the mix. In contrast, Fox News’s was provided by two anchors from its straight-news dayside, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier, along with a panel that included conservatives like Karl Rove as well as liberals like Juan Williams. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity stopped by only briefly.

Verum Serum adds to the mix with the following stories:

Mediaite’s round-up did not include this similar conclusion from left-of-center NPR:

On MSNBC, however, the voices vied to dominate. From left to right — visually, not ideologically — the channel’s analysis was handled by Lawrence O’Donnell Jr., Eugene Robinson, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. (O’Donnell waited his turn to talk, but the others didn’t stand on courtesy.) They made up a lively liberal bunch, but hardly a varied one, with nary a feint toward balance.

And the same from US News:

Fox is at least making a pretense of maintaining the traditional separation between news and commentary. Then there’s MSNBC, which is being anchored, more or less, by liberal yakker Keith Olbermann…Occasionally they bring in the hyper-aggressively liberal bloviator Ed Schultz, setting up the image of the left quizzing the far left.

The Washington Post offered a pox-on-all-their-houses approach, which nevertheless criticized the biased MSNBC coverage. And sure enough the biased anchors at MSNBC provided plenty of far-left insight. Rand Paul’s victory speech was an occasion to predict the end of global civilization (no really). Marco Rubio’s win in Florida immediately led to a discussion of ethnic authenticity. Chris O’Donnell asked Michelle Bachmann if she’d be “hypnotized” to laughter from the panel. Lawrence O’Donnell warned Rachel Maddow not to compare any “human being” to Glenn Beck. And so it went.

Fox News Does Better Even Among Democrats


News Busters posted something that goes well with an old graph I post often… sort of like a “rub in your face fact” I like to put on the screen to irk passerbys. Here is the NB post followed by the graph:

According to a recent poll, likely voters get their political news primarily from cable television. Among cable channels, 42 percent, a plurality, watch Fox News for its political coverage. Only 12 percent said they watched MSNBC. What’s more, most likely voters don’t like or have never heard of MSNBC’s prime time talent.

The poll, conducted by Politico and George Washington University, used a sample split evenly between political parties – even slightly favoring Democrats in some areas: 41 percent of respondents identified as Republicans, while 42 percent said they were Democrats. Forty-four percent said they usually vote for Republicans, while 46 percent answered Democrats. Forty-eight percent voted for Obama, while only 45 percent voted for McCain.

Even among this group, Fox News is by far the most popular cable outlet. CNN comes in at second, with 30 percent. A sorry MSNBC brings up the rear.

MEDIAite goes further with the stats:

Also not surprising: Fox News hosts wield a great deal of influence over the political discourse in this country:

Bill O’Reilly was rated as having, by far, the greatest positive impact, with 49 percent of respondents rating him positively, and 32 percent negatively. Glenn Beck was the second most-positively rated personality, with 38 percent of respondents saying he had a positive impact, and 32 percent saying he had a negative impact.

Rush Limbaugh meanwhile is losing steam and far more people dislike him than like him (36%-52%). Here’s the surprising part however: Very few people polled had heard of Rachel Maddow.

MSNBC’s personalities were largely ranked as unknown by respondents: 70 percent said they had never heard of Ed Schultz, 55 percent said they had never heard of Rachel Maddow and 42 percent said they had never heard of Keith Olbermann…

…(read more)…