An Affair To Remember-er,I mean-Forget

Editor’s comment – A 67-year old man has nearly open affairs all over Harrisburg. Fine. But two problems here, aside from the affairs. Number One – the blatant hypocrisy of the media. If Rendell had been a Republican, imagine the front page headlines in the NY Times, LA Times, all over CNN and MSNBC. Think Mark Sanford. Number Two – Ms Snow was on the public payroll, in a very public position. Yet the national media still ignored the blatant nepostism of a Democrat Governor giving his “alleged” Mistress a high-profile, high-paying position.…(read more)…

An Example of Media Bias~38th Annual March for Life vs Immigration Protest

CNN devoted three and a half minutes of coverage on Monday’s Newsroom to a protest by “two dozen, maybe three dozen” people who were against two proposed laws targeting illegal immigration in Arizona. The network showed live and taped footage of this liberal protest. By contrast, CNN spent a mere 11 seconds to the March for Life in January and showed no footage from the pro-life demonstration. (NewsBusters)

Thank you for making the 38th annual March for Life the biggest and most enthusiastic ever! The number of marchers who made the journey to our nation’s capital once again exceeded the record number of participants that attended the previous year. Some estimaters pegged the number at approximately 400,000, about the same as 2010. But other experienced observers thought that the crowd was much larger than last year, especially considering that tens of thousands of marchers got a jump start and reached Capitol Hill before the main contingent even left the staging area! (March for Life Site)

So you have all these members of Congress, plus about 400,000 people, not to mention the many elsewhere — for instance, most capitals and or major cities had marches. And while these were not as large as the Washington march… they were still more than dozens of people giving Arizona another “black eye.”

The BBC Culture

(This is posted due to a conversation started on my LiveLeak account.) I have talked about the bias embedded in NPR previously, but few are aware of the embedded bias at the BBC. And so, I wanted to get a critique of their biases into the anals of PapaG. I often talk to people who see to think they are in am elite class of people when they mention they listen to the BBC. Don’t get me wrong, they bring stories about world events other news orgs miss. However, many people are not trained to get the bias behind their headlines. The Daily Mail, a UK newsdaily, has an interesting article from a while ago:

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

‘Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’

…(read more)…

While the BBC admitted their bias and have tried to correct it, they still do not know what impartiality is — not to mention political correctness and multi-culturalism. Someone who worked at the BBC for some time (Peter Sissons, a 20 year veteran of BBC News) wrote in his memoirs about some of this culture of progressiveness at the BBC, to wit NewsBusters wrote on:

While liberal media bias is often easy to spot, it’s rare to see veteran journalists come clean on the biases of their own news outlets. But when one does, it’s hard to dispute the first hand account of the newsroom’s consistently leftist politics.

In his new memoirs, veteran BBC news anchor Peter Sissons details the startling depths of leftist politics that pervade coverage at Britain’s state-owned broadcaster. Leftism is “in its very DNA,” Sissions claims of the BBC.

In excerpts from the memoirs, titled “When One Door Closes”, published in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, Sissons details the groupthink mentality at the BBC:

At any given time there is a BBC line on everything of importance, a line usually adopted in the light of which way its senior echelons believe the political wind is ­blowing. This line is rarely spelled out explicitly, but percolates subtly throughout the organisation.

Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC ­people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.

All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both.

Trade unions are mostly good things, especially when they are fighting BBC managers. Quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically. The Royal Family is a bore. Islam must not be offended at any price, although ­Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.

In short, pick the default leftist position on any issue, and odds are it is the position held and espoused on air by the BBC.

And while leftist politics color the news at the channel, they also dictate its corporate structure and inner workings, according to Sissons. One’s politics, he writes, can dictate one’s success or failure in climbing the Company’s corporate ladder.

If Human Resources — or Personnel, as it used to be known — advise that it’s time a woman or someone from an ethnic minority (or a combination of the two) was appointed to the job for which you, a white male, have applied, then that’s who gets it.

But whatever your talent, sex or ethnicity, there’s one sure-fire way at a BBC promotions board to ensure you don’t get the job, indeed to bring your career to a grinding halt. And that’s if, when asked which post-war politician you most admire, you reply: ‘Margaret Thatcher’.

…(read more)…








In fact, there are whole blogs that deal with the bias at the BBC. Biased BBC for instance. In one forum this was posted in relation to the memoirs of Peter Sissons being released:

Very interesting complete article, I encourage you to read it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti…r-Sissons.html

Originally Posted by Andrew Marr

“The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias”

Originally Posted by BBC Drama Commissioning Controller

“We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”

Ben Stephenson. BBC Drama Commissioning Controller

Guardian, July 16th 2009

Originally Posted by BBC Internal Report

“An internal report from 2007 said it had to make greater efforts to avoid liberal bias. That report criticised the BBC for coming late to several important stories including euroscepticism and immigration, which it described as ‘off limits in terms of a liberal-minded comfort zone’.”

“BBC programmes are being undermined by the liberal culture of its staff”

BBC report on the BBC report on biased BBC reporting

Which is funny, as the BBC spends 86% of its recruitment budget on advertising in one unashamedly left-wing newspaper – The Guardian.

BBC spent a colossal:

1. Guardian £231,944

2. The Telegraph £32,535

3. The Times £6,159

The Guardian on itself: “…a quality national newspaper without party affiliation; remaining faithful to its liberal tradition.” The Guardian is also has a miniscule readership, Telegraph is read by more than twice as many people, and the Times more.

…(read more)… (emphasis and stylization added)

A round table. Take note that the point Carol makes is one I make about NPR:

For instance, NPR: 18,321 words in pro-Arab only segments, 4,934 words in pro-Israel segments. Bias in number of Arab-only vs Israeli-only segments: 63-percent Palestinian/pro-Arab only segments, 37-percent Israel/pro-Israel segments. (SOURCE)

Read more: RPT What “Is” Fascism (Two Posts Combined & Imported from Old Blog)


 


A Growing Nail in the Global Warming Coffin


(HotAir) The reasons people see global warming alarmists are less credible is not limited to the “Climategate” fraud or cold winters. Better scientific studies are turning the tide from faith-based politics and toward — dare I say it — a more reality-based position (via memeorandum).

Researchers have discovered that contrary to popular belief half of the ice flows in the Karakoram range of the mountains are actually growing rather than shrinking.

The discovery adds a new twist to the row over whether global warming is causing the world’s highest mountain range to lose its ice cover.

It further challenges claims made in a 2007 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the glaciers would be gone by 2035.

Although the head of the panel Dr Rajendra Pachauri later admitted the claim was an error gleaned from unchecked research, he maintained that global warming was melting the glaciers at “a rapid rate”, threatening floods throughout north India.

What’s more, the new study, which included almost 290 glaciers, showed that global warming isn’t the chief reason a glacier melts, but terrain and how much debris covers the glacier’s surface. That makes sense, if you take a few moments and noodle it through.

…(read more)…

The Hammer (read here: The Krauthammer) Strikes Again

NewsBusters h/t:

Here is a portion from NB:

Moments later:

KRAUTHAMMER: Colby.

KING: Sir.

KRAUTHAMMER: Colby said it was a good speech. We really have to talk about the quote-unquote “investments,” which of course is what Democrats say when they want otherwise to say spending but they won’t use the word. And then he said it was okay on that, except that it didn’t address spending, which is a bit like saying, “Yes, but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

KING: Cranky, cranky, cranky.

KRAUTHAMMER: Spending and debt is the issue of the day. That is the President’s own deficit commission had said, and I thought all of you un-cranky liberals had approved their conclusions.

Indeed they had, which raises another interesting point.

Totenberg said the electorate is not serious about trimming the budget. She later commented that the cuts being discussed are trivial because discretionary spending is a small part of the budget, and no one wants to talk about reducing entitlements.

We’ve been hearing this a lot lately from liberal media members. Now that the Republicans control the House, folks that came out en masse against any plans to reform Social Security in 2005 are now teasing this subject again.

As such, it is really the press that want entitlement cuts generically but are going to balk and balk loudly at the specifics. This is important because what we saw in 2005 is how powerful the media can be in impacting public opinion and preventing legislation.

George W. Bush was re-elected with a strong mandate having been the first President since Roosevelt in 1936 to win back the White House while expanding his Party’s majority in both chambers of Congress.

The public was ready for significant Social Security reform, but the media wasn’t having any of it. Instead, so-called journalists – led by minority leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid – went on a full-court press to shamefully convince the American people the program was fiscally sound for decades to come, and Bush was lying about its imminent insolvency to scare the public into supporting his agenda much as he did with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now, six years later, these same folks are mocking any attempts to cut spending by ridiculing Republicans for not going after Social Security and Medicare.

It makes you wonder not only how they sleep at night, but also how they so effectively manage their hypocrisy instinctively knowing which side of an argument they need to be on when it fits the prevailing template.

Gotta hand it to ’em – this takes talent.

…(read more)…

(Emphasis Added)

Leftist Vitriol and the Call for Civility Debated (Colmes and Kelly)

The debate centers around a post on a blog here, “Civility, Just A Rouse To Neuter Republicans.” This wouldn’t be a “conspiracy,” as Alan Colmes mentions. It is smart political play that the progressive left has gotten use to sine the late 60’s. Here is the video found on HotAir’s post via this topic:

Take note that I am also posting links — similar the ones below — to two Michelle Malkin compilations on the hatred of the Left.

DisgustingDNC-Map

See the middle column, I will add compilations as I find them.

No To Muhammad Cartoon-Yes To Ants on Crucifix

NewsBusters h/t:

New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman was granted the front page of Wednesday’s Arts section for a snobbish chiding of uncouth American conservatives who helped squelch a video some found sacrilegious, by a featured artist in a Smithsonian gay art exhibit: “In Britain, Separation of Art and State.” (“Separation” except for when it comes to actually subsidizing the art, which Britain does.)

The Times even ran a large photo of a clip from the controversial video by artist David Wojnarowicz, “A Fire in my Belly,” showing ants crawling over a crucifix. This is the same newspaper that proudly refused to reprint newspaper cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad after radical Muslims instigated an uproar back in February 2006.

[….]

Kimmelman was convinced that conservative outrage against the art was politically “orchestrated.”

“There was also ‘Sensation,’ ” Mr. Serota added, an exhibition that caused a ruckus here in 1997, although for reasons different from those creating a stir at the Brooklyn Museum two years later. In the United States Mr. Donohue and Rudolph W. Giuliani, New York’s mayor at the time, in the role that Representative Cantor plays now, went through much the same paroxysm of orchestrated grief over a work combining an image of the Virgin Mary with elephant dung.

Kimmelman skipped over the fatal outrage stirred up by radical Muslims over cartoon images of Muhammad that appeared in a Danish newspaper, perhaps because he led off a February 8, 2006 article by refusing to defend them, calling them “callous and feeble cartoons.” Apparently Kimmelman finds some anti-religious art more appealing than other kinds.

…(read more)…

Baltimore Sun Lays Into Rachel Maddow

NewsBusters h/t:

Some on the left have been crying foul at CNN’s decision to air live Rep. Michele Bachmann’s response to the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. None have been more vocal than MSNBC libtalker Rachel Maddow.

One media critic had enough. On Thursday, the Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik laid into Maddow’s criticism, saying it derives from “the mentality of a lockstep party member, not a journalist.” Zurawik’s gripe was Maddow’s insistence that because Bachmann was not officially representing a political party, her speech should not have been given comparable treatment to the president’s or to Rep. Paul Ryan’s Republican response.

Journalists “don’t let political parties tell us who we should and shouldn’t cover,” Zurawik added. “I have a West Highland terrier named Bugsy who has better journalism credentials and chops than you do,” he quipped.

…(click here to see video of Maddow)…

Here is the portion of the Baltimore Sun article that I think sums up the corrupted thinking at MSNBC and specifically Rachel “Madcow.” Take note “Z on TV” references the video, which can be seen in the link above:

….The essence of my critique: The Tea Party has played a major role in shaping the new Congress, and it has already had a significant effect on American life. Given that, if you aren’t sure about whether or not to cover, you err on the side of inclusion — not exclusion. Provide citizens with as much information as you can so that they can make the best decisions about their lives.

But check out the video MSNBC thinks I should see and note that Maddow’s argument boils down to this: Bachmann should not have been covered because she was not “ordained” by the Republican Party as its official responder.

This is the mentality of a lockstep party member, not a journalist. Unless the party “ordains” someone to speak, they shouldn’t be covered by the press, in Maddow’s thinking.

Memo to Maddow: That’s not the way journalists think. We bring citizens as much information as we can whether THE PARTY ordains it or not. Just like we don’t let the executive branch tell us which news operation is a “legitimate” journalistic enterprise, and which isn’t, we don’t let political parties tell us who we should and shouldn’t cover. Journalism 101 at Goucher College where I teach.

CNN was right in covering Bachmann. And by the way, there are interns at CNN’s Washington bureau who have better journalism credentials than you do, Ms. Party Operative Think. In fact, I have a West Highland terrier named Bugsy that has better journalism credentials and chops than you do….

…(read more)…

So easy a child should get it.


ABC-NBC-CBS Agree~Obama Reaganesque

NewsBusters has this story about the main three news orgs mentioning that they thought Obama sounded like Reagan:

I just want to point out that the media hated Reagan, thought he was a dummy, believed him to be incompetent, and the like (search through these videos for examples). One comment left on the NewsBusters story is this:

So Obama sounds like someone the media Hated……………………HMMMMMMMMMMMMM?

Very funny.