According to this Washington Post article, CBS is beating Dan Rather like a rented mule.

CBS executives have decided there is no future role at the network for Dan Rather, making it certain that the man who sat in the anchor chair for 24 years will depart by this fall.

These executives recognize Rather’s contributions over four decades and are not trying to boot him because of the controversy surrounding his botched story on President Bush and the National Guard, say network sources who declined to be named while discussing a sensitive personnel matter. But the executives concluded there was no room for Rather at “60 Minutes,” particularly with incoming anchor Katie Couric planning to report a half-dozen stories a year and the hiring of CNN’s Anderson Cooper as a part-time contributor.

This is absurd. If you look at who contributes to 60 Minutes, the main difference between Couric and Rather would seem to be Dan’s age and experience. But that can’t be the reason Rather’s being dumped because most contributors to 60 Minutes (Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Lesley Stahl, Andy Rooney, and Mike Wallace) are 65 or older and none of them have been forced out to make room for perky Katie and Anderson. So it’s not age and experience, hmmm.

Could it be that they haven’t screwed up in a big way and left CBS open to unanswerable criticisms of liberal bias? That’s my guess as to why Dan is being so publicly humiliated after 44 years of service:

In place of the swagger that had served him so well throughout his 44-year career at CBS News was an obvious sadness that his tenure at the network was ticking down to an inglorious end. Mr. Rather complained that since stepping down as anchor of the ” CBS Evening News” last year, in the aftermath of a reporting scandal, he had been ill used as a correspondent on “60 Minutes” and had been given virtually nothing at all to do for the previous six weeks.

If you have forgotten the particulars behind Rathergate, drop by LittleGreenFootballs and check out Charles Johnson’s proof that the memo broadcast by 60 Minutes 2 was a forgery.

So that’s what’s really behind Dan Rather’s downfall at CBS, here’s what we’ve learned from his fall from grace:

• Those who report for the major mainstream media news organizations have a liberal bias. I’m sure that Dan’s peers think his error wasn’t in manipulating the news, it was getting caught in the act.

• The content of news from CBS and the rest of the MSM is biased in favor of liberals. Rathergate made it harder for them to keep up the charade of impartiality.

• Most important, no matter how glaring the evidence may be that the MSM is biased, they will never ever admit it because their only remaining claim to legitimacy (bogus though it is) is the gravitas that comes from being “balanced.” If Rather had actually admitted to liberal bias that admission would done far more harm to CBS news.

So when Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were caught in the act trying to swing the 2004 election in John Kerry’s favor by broadcasting a story based on phony documents, they had to claim that the documents were valid, no matter how conclusive the evidence was that they were forgeries. Ordinarily they might have gotten away with the lies, but the blogosphere kept the story alive in spite of the MSM’s attempts to ignore it. (It helped that the evidence was so compelling that nobody with two synapses to rub together could believe they were authentic.)

There’s a saying about infidelity “when caught red-handed, deny, deny, deny.” When the trap you’re in is such that you can’t even tell the truth, denial is the only option left. Mary Mapes’s explanation as to why the 60 Minutes letters weren’t forgeries is a perfect example:

They claimed that CBS used forged documents and they repeated that lie so often that it stuck. The mainstream media picked it up, repeating bloggers’ criticisms without making any serious effort to investigate the story. But then that would have required real legwork, something that very few were willing to do on this subject.

As for document analysis, it is a mind-numbing and arcane discipline, an imperfect undertaking reserved for courtroom use, not for headlines or Internet political battles. Document analysis is certainly not meant to be done at 11 o’clock at night by someone with no training or experience sitting in front of a glowing computer nursing a grudge and spoiling for a fight. But that’s precisely how the right’s attack against Dan Rather and CBS News was launched.

That first anonymous analyst (who turned out to be a Republican activist lawyer) raised questions about the memo using only a single shot of a faxed document digitally transmitted to his computer screen. Those kinds of transmissions radically change the way a document looks. His analysis was worthless.

Neither Mapes or Rather are stupid (just bitterly partisan) and they know they look foolish by maintaining that the docs were legit. But the alternative is to confirm people’s suspicions by admitting they tried using suspect documents to harm President Bush’s chances for reelection, which would have been a calamity for CBS (Americans won’t tolerate a news organization trying to subvert an election). Not to mention what Congress might have done to CBS the next time broadcast licenses were up for renewal (election meddling does not qualify as broadcasting in the public interest).

So there you have it, Dan can’t tell the truth because he’d never work for an MSM news organization again, and being dissed by CBS has got to tarnish his reputation, so another job in the mainstream media is even more unlikely. He might land something with a liberal cable channel like MSNBC, but he’s used to having millions of viewers and everybody with cable watches Fox News, so what’s left?

Well, he could always try blogging. Working with the pajama-clad minions of the blogosphere could be a refreshing change, but after years in the MSM, I doubt he’d enjoy the relentless fact-checking scrutiny. You never know, he might fit right in!

 

Tags: blog | weblog | politics | journalists | rathergate | liberal bias | liberals | scandals | miserable failure

Today’s bit of nonsensical reporting on meaningless polls comes from the staff reporters at Editor & Publisher:

Gallup: In Shift, More Americans Now Call Themselves Democrats

In a (perhaps) historic shift, more Americans now consider themselves Democrats than Republicans, the Gallup organization revealed today.

Republicans had gained the upper hand in recent years, but 33% of Americans, in the latest Gallup poll, now call themselves Democrats, with those favoring the GOP one point behind. But Gallup says this widens a bit more “once the leanings of Independents are taken into account.”

Independents now make up 34% of the population. When asked if they lean in a certain direction, their answers pushed the Democrat numbers to 49% with Republicans at 42%. One year ago, the parties were dead even at 46% each.

This shift indicates, Gallup says, why its polls show Democrats leading in this year’s congressional races.

The latest poll was taken from January to March 2006, with a national sample of about 1,000 adults.

“Historic shift"? Um, no.

Gallup’s poll is supposed to indicate trouble for Republicans this November, but I think it’s extremely encouraging.

First, let’s take a look at previous statistics from Gallup:

The red dot indicates where things were in the 4th quarter in 1994 when the Democrats lost 54 seats in the House of Representatives, giving Republicans a majority of seats in the House for the first time since 1954.

They had nearly a five point lead in Party I.D. and still managed to lose the House!

Since then Democrats have seen their lead soar as high as 8.5 in 1997, only to fall and rise and fall again until, in the 4th quarter of 2000, they were holding onto a two-point lead over the GOP (twice what they have today).

President Bush won the election anyway.

Dem fortunes continued to dwindle until the numbers swung into Republican territory and stayed there for most of the next five years.

And now the numbers have swung 1 point in the Democrats’ favor. Hardly stunning and right at the ±1 point margin of error.

If there’s a pattern here, it’s that there is no pattern! When the Dems had a lead of 8.5 in Party I.D., they lost elections. When the Republicans had the lead, Democrats continued to lose elections.

At most, what we learn from Gallup’s numbers is that when they poll adults (as they did in the current poll) instead of registered voters or likely voters, the poll results never predict who will win the next election.

What about the swing in independent voters?

It’s supposed to be significant that, “independents now make up 34% of the population. When asked if they lean in a certain direction, their answers pushed the Democrat numbers to 49% with Republicans at 42%. One year ago, the parties were dead even at 46% each.”

I think it’s worthy of attention that those same independents wouldn’t declare themselves to be Democrats! Hardly a ringing endorsement for Dems, much less a stinging repudiation for the GOP! Gallup’s poll shows the GOP lost people who had identified themselves as “Republicans,” but evidently those people weren’t motivated to switch to the Democrats, which should worry Dem leaders.

Let’s wrap this up

When you consider the many factors that will determine which party wins in November, prospects look bleak for Dems:

• Economy: Definitely a positive for Republicans as consumer confidence is at its highest level in four years and we’re about to hit full employment

• Scandals: Another positive for Republicans in that President Bush and his administration have been nearly scandal-free for the six years that he has been in office (Plamegate’s the only one I can think of).

  Republicans in Congress have the Abramoff Scandal, but because Democrats like Harry Reid are also tarnished by their association with Abramoff and his people, the GOP hasn’t been hurt badly. Individual Republicans may lose based on their involvement, but the party in general won’t suffer from the “culture of corruption” charge being leveled by Dems.

• War on Terror: Yet another positive for Republicans. We haven’t been attacked again at home since 9-11, and President Bush looks to be on the verge of achieving historic successes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries now have democratically elected governments and their economies are growing quickly, and neither will be a base for Al Qaeda any time soon. It’s also good news that Coalition casualties in Iraq have continued to fall as Iraqis take on the task of protecting their countrymen from terrorists.

  Yes, polls show most Americans think the war is going badly, but I think those results are spurious, too. The real poll was the count of people who showed up in U.S. cities to protest the third anniversary of the war in Iraq. Democrats must have despaired when they saw the tiny numbers of protestors who managed to turn out, because if they can’t get their anti-war base to demonstrate, how can they get them to vote?

• Spending: A black eye for Republicans, but does anyone really think the Dems would spend less?

• Illegal immigration: Should be a negative for Republicans, but Democrats won’t secure the borders and go after the illegals because turning illegal immigrants and ex-felons into Democrat voters are the best chances they have to grow their base, so the issue remains a Republican strength.

• Supreme Court nominations It wasn’t a pretty process, but President Bush did finally name two extremely qualified, conservative justices to the court. For the first time we have a chance to stop the judicial activism that’s characterized the legal system for the last forty years. That’s an accomplishment that will have impact long after President Bush is out of office and will no doubt serve to remind the GOP base that their votes matter.

• Who has the most enthusiastic base? Things were looking grim for the Republicans’ ability to get their base out to vote until Senator Feingold started talking about censuring President Bush and liberals around the country began passing resolutions to impeach him.

  Bush derangement syndrome has again caused liberals to overstep themselves. In their hatred for President Bush, all they’ve done is motivate conservatives to go to the polls to keep Dems from gaining seats in Congress.

  Therefore the real question is, will the Democrat faithful turn out? The lackluster anti-war demonstrations show their base is tired, worn out from six years of fruitless struggle. They’ve had a string of unbroken defeats over the last six years, the latest being the failure of Democrats in the House to vote for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, the fizzle that was FitzMas, and their inability to prevent conservative judges from being appointed to the Supreme Court. It’s no wonder they’re depressed and are looking for scapegoats. Make sure you read the poll results from both stories here and here. One of the polls had over a thousand votes, which makes it enlightening and accurate, at least by the standards of polling these days.

Tags: blog | weblog | politics | democrats | republicans | polls | journalists

 

Things are looking bleak for the media elites in this country as 2005 movie and music numbers continued their downward slide. Last year, movie attendance fell by 8% (it fell about 1.7% in 2004) and music CD sales fell 3.5%.

The usual excuse from Hollywood as to why people aren’t going to the movies is that they’re renting videos instead. Well, today shares of Movie Gallery, the No. 2 North American movie rental chain, fell 13% in after-hours trading after they reported preliminary annual results that fell far below Wall Street forecasts. Movie Gallery shares have slid 90% since last June.

Meanwhile, Blockbuster is trading at $3.39, down from a high of $18 just two years ago. They’ve recently begun closing stores.

Netflix, the online video rental service that’s supposed to be where movie renters are turning, had 4 million subscribers in 2005. Not nearly enough to account for the customers Blockbuster and Movie Gallery have lost.

The obvious answer is that people in the Red States aren’t going to see movies and they’re not renting them because they no longer want to watch the stridently anti-American films Hollywood has to sell.

Remember what George Clooney said at the Oscars a few weeks ago? No? That’s OK, I didn’t watch it either. But I’ve read that he praised Hollywood for being “out of touch” with the maintream of American society:

“…I would say that, you know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it’s probably a good thing. We’re the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn’t really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I’m proud to be a part of this Academy, proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch.”

[Source: M&C Movies.]

Here’s how Charles Krauthammer assessed Hollywood’s out-of-touch condition:

Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is “Paradise Now,” a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is “Munich,” a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday’s fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.

But until you see “Syriana,” nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.

Krauthammer continues heaping scorn upon Syriana:

In my naivete, I used to think that Hollywood had achieved its nadir with Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” a film that taught a generation of Americans that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the FBI in collaboration with Lyndon Johnson. But at least it was for domestic consumption, an internal affair of only marginal interest to other countries. “Syriana,” however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world.

Most liberalism is angst- and guilt-ridden, seeing moral equivalence everywhere. “Syriana” is of a different species entirely – a pathological variety that burns with the certainty of its malign anti-Americanism. Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction.

And so, George Clooney, if your goal is to experience Hollywood in decline, keep on making movies like Syriana that sympathize with terrorists. You’ll sell tickets in Tehran, but there won’t be many in the Red States who’ll pony up the pence to watch Leftist propaganda.

Things aren’t any better for newspapers and news organizations either

Today, shareholders in media giant Knight Ridder forced management to accept a buyout offer from McClatchy Co. for 4.5 billion. Knight Ridder, owner of 32 daily publications and several other media assets including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, and The Kansas City Star newspapers, was sold because:

…At least one shareholder with substantial holding [sic], was unhappy with the media monolith’s declining power and profitability and wanted a change.

[Source: EarthTimes.]

That news, coming after the Washington Post’s announcement two weeks ago that it was planning to cut 80 jobs or 9% of its newsroom, and last September’s news from The New York Times Co. that it was cutting its workforce by about 500 employees, are indicators that the mainstream media’s customers, fed up with biased journalism, are turning to other, more balanced news outlets like Fox News.

The flight of TV news viewers and newspaper readers away from the mainstream media has caused advertisers to cut back on how much ad space and commercial time they purchase, hence the current financial quagmire for the MSM.

Better change your ways, guys! It’s not too late to start being Fair and Balanced – that or soon you’ll all be on the dole.

 

Tags: blog | weblog | mainstream media | journalism | politics | hollywood | movies | media bias | the left | journalists

Last Tuesday, Vice President Cheney gave a keynote address to to the U.S. Labor Department’s 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings at the Willard Hotel in Washington D.C.

Here’s a photo (hat tip: Drudge Report) that Reuters posted:

It looks like the photographer must have scrambled around the room until he had the perfect angle and then snapped the shot. A quick Photoshop session to crop the photo and voila!

Ha ha, Reuters, very funny – yet another example of biased photojournalism from the mainstream media.

At least, that’s how it looked at first. But when I tried to see the shot from a wider angle, things started to look decidedly odd.

Did you see the word “Retire” in that photo?

After some searching, I found a photo taken by a Dept. of Labor photographer that shows the scene from a distance. There’s the word “Retirement,” easily three feet or more above his head!

Look at this page where all three images are together, it sure doesn’t seem like the word “Retire” could appear behind Cheney’s head based on the angle it was taken (you’d be seeing mostly the underside of his chin and part of the podium at the correct angle). This comparison superimposes the two photos of Cheney’s head, they’re very similar and yet “Retire” only appears in one of them. So they’ve really manipulated this one. I think it’s worse than the Condoleezza Rice “demonized” job.

Already you can’t believe what you read in the mainstream media and now it’s getting so you can’t believe what you see either. Manipulating photos like that has got to be against some code of ethics isn’t it?

[Update] Welcome RightWinged and Michelle Malkin readers! Settle in and stay awhile. You might also want to check out this post on the “Just Kidding” Bandit (be sure to check out the comment).

[Update] So Reuters does have a code of ethics! They just don’t hesitate to ignore it. Michelle Malkin is also following this story and has posted the relevant section from Reuters’s editorial policy, but here’s the important bit:

…We do not take sides and attempt to reflect in our stories, pictures and video the views of all sides. We are not in the business of glorifying one side or another or of disseminating propaganda. Reuters journalists do not offer their own opinions or views.

Liar, liar
Pants on fire
Maybe it’s time that you “Retire”

[Update] Well that was fun while it lasted. I sent this story to James Taranto to see if he wanted to include it in today’s Best of the Web. His opinion (and he should certainly know) is that:

It was probably taken from long distance with a zoom lens.

So, it looks like the “Retire” photo, blatant bit of bias that it is, is also probably genuine, assuming the Reuters photog had the right equipment. Oh well, sorry ’bout the kerfuffle.

[Update] Closure Alert! For the first time on this blog, we’ve actually solved a puzzle! Thanks to help from commenters Howard and tbrosz, I think we’ve figured out how the Cheney photo was taken. In short, the effect the photog used was a form of perspective distortion called a “dolly zoom.” For details, read the comments.

 

Tags: blog | weblog | mainstream media | journalism | politics | scandal | bush | media bias | the left | journalists

Was it really just two days ago that lefty blogs like Daily Kos, Rising Hegemon, and MOsanthrope were doing the Ferret Happy Dance over the bad ratings for Fox News?

Well, as usual, they weren’t being Fair and Balanced! Yes, Fox News did drop about 5% in the ratings, and perennial losers MSNBC and CNN managed some big gains. But big is relative. For example, when only your Mom is watching your show, if your Dad starts watching too, you’ve doubled your ratings!

From MediaBistro:

On the news side, the smaller news outlets showed the greatest growth as CNN Headline News soared in prime, elevating its audience by 73 percent to 347,000 total viewers. MSNBC was up 24 percent to 357,000 total viewers, and CNBC jumped 37 percent with 164,000 viewers. CNN was up 3 percent with 657,000 viewers, while ratings king Fox News Channel was off 5 percent, averaging 1.49 million viewers.

In short, Fox has about the same number of viewers as CNN Headline News, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC combined. In fact, the top nine shows in February all belonged to Fox. Again from MediaBistro:

In the 25-54 demographic this month, O’Reilly was #1 with 454,000 viewers, way more than anyone else. Shep was #2, H&C was #3, Hume was #4, and Fox & Friends was #5.

FNC’s least popular programs among young viewers (Fox News Live, DaySide and The Big Story) still ranked higher than all but one of CNN’s shows.

CNN’s top program, Larry King Live, ranked tenth, with 228,000 demo viewers. Anderson Cooper was second with 207,000 and Lou Dobbs was third with 167,000.

But it gets better (if you’re not a liberal).

Air America Radio, notorious for their Robbin’ da ‘Hood scandal and mysteriously vanishing affiliates may be on its last legs according to this news scoop from Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer. It seems that AAR is likely to lose their flagship station, WLIB-AM in New York because of contract disputes.

While the network’s last day on WLIB isn’t known for certain, an internal source providing backing documentation points to the end of March. At this time, Air America parent Piquant LLC has no firm back-up plan for where in the nation’s largest radio market its programming will now air.

Some inside the firm are already referring to WLIB in the past tense.

Without WLIB, Air America faces an immediate, crushing blow. Worth perhaps 100 small markets combined, an on-air presence in New York City is absolutely vital to the company’s survival. If an immediate and suitable replacement isn’t found, the consequences would be dire.

[Hat tip: Michelle Malkin for the original link]

 

Tags: blog | weblog | schaedenfreude | air america | politics | limbaugh | rush limbaugh | miserable failure

 

According to the Tennessee Guerilla Women, President Bush is only polling at 34% in a recent CBS survey. Of course, being CBS (described by evil genius Karl Rove as “a network which is third in ratings and, if you look at the demographics of their consumers, it’s like 70 percent Democrat") they had to fiddle with the results to make it look worse for Bush. Wizbang has the details.

But no matter how you figure it, the numbers are definitely down for President Bush.

So who cares?! Certainly not Bush, because he can’t run again. It’s all about legacy now and I’ll happily take W’s over the miserable failure that is Clinton’s legacy!

[Update] John Hawkins at Right-Wing News explains how the MSM slants a poll and the correct way to read the CBS mess.

 

Tags: blog | weblog | politics | clinton | bush | democrats | republicans | media bias