AP Propaganda Corps provides Journolistas with guidelines on Ground Zero Mosque "reporting"

From Robert McCain, on a directive from the AP Propaganda Corps Headquarters staff:

AP Standards Center issues staff advisory on covering New York City mosque

Associated Press Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production Tom Kent sent the following note to the staff about covering the New York City mosque story:
Aug. 19, 2010

Colleagues,

Here is some guidance on covering the NYC mosque story, with assists from Chad Roedemeier in the NYC bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington:

1. We should continue to avoid the phrase “ground zero mosque” or “mosque at ground zero” on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” ground zero, or two blocks away.
WE WILL CHANGE OUR SLUG ON THIS STORY LATER TODAY from “BC-Ground Zero Mosque” to “BC-NYC Mosque.” ...

Read the rest at either of the links above. Gotta make sure any rogue news reporters conform to the News Collective's "standards", er, propaganda mission. It's not the "Ground Zero Mosque", it's merely the "NYC Mosque". Helpfully, the Propaganda Corps guidance also includes a summary of Dear Leader Obama's position on the mosque.

One wonders why we need reporters distributed in the field at all -- the Propaganda Corps / Ministry of Truth Headquarters could simply write the story for them. That way there's no chance that any wayward dissenting opinions might sneak in and muck up the official party line.

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, in pictures

Go to I Own the World to see the faces of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy's JournoListers, a veritable who's-who of the left-wing media. View it here.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Democrat

Much ink and airtime has been expended in the Democrat Propaganda Corps (DPC), i.e., the "mainstream" media on the Tea Party supporters inciting violence (to hear the DPC tell it). Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black:

From James Simpson writing in American Thinker: The Left's Ludicrous Accusations against Tea Partiers (article has a long list of examples of the Left's violence and vandalism against the Right):

Forgive the obscene photo of "Politically Incorrect" show host Bill Maher, but it serves as a stark visual testimonial to the Left's true nature. Every day, the Left shows us with their own actions that they are exactly what they accuse conservatives and tea partiers of being.

It is astonishing that they have the gall to accuse anyone of anything. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But then we remember that the smear and the lie are all they have. As a post at Powerline relates, "It is liberals, not conservatives, who rely on ad hominem attacks, outrageous allegations and violent imagery." The accusations of racism and threats of violence put forth by congressional Democrats since Saturday are straight out of the Alinsky playbook. They probably made the calls themselves.

Thank God for talk radio and the internet. Thanks to the New Media, Democrats can no longer do these things with impunity. As Andrew Breitbart says, "The emperor has no clothes." The Left is being exposed for the empty fraud of a movement it is, and as that happens, they are getting increasingly desperate. Yes, we do have to worry about violence. From them. But this is nothing new, either. ...

And from Naked Emperor News, via Common Cents, comes this video of Dem-Hypocrite Maxine Waters [NSFW - foul language warning]:

More media bias?

From and Investors Business Daily op-ed on the recent University of Alabama mass shooting:

Media Bias: A gun-toting Obama extremist shoots six at the University of Alabama, killing three. But the media are curiously silent about the politics. Think it would be the same if the shooter were right-wing?

Buried in a report in the Boston Herald, a "family source" connected to Amy Bishop, the disgruntled Harvard neurobiologist accused of methodically gunning down several biology professors at Huntsville last Friday, said the woman "was a far-left political extremist who was 'obsessed' with President Obama to the point of being off-putting."

No media outlet other than the Herald noted that detail in its coverage. But you can bet that if Bishop were a right-wing gun nut and native of Alabama, the press would be all over it.

Bishop's politics are relevant because of growing evidence that left-wing Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., then a prosecutor, may have let her get away with a fatal 1986 shooting of her brother by declaring it "accidental" and halting charges.

Bishop's mother reportedly had the right political connections, raising the prospect that if Delahunt was loud about loving "social justice," he was selective about real justice.

Because the media lean left, the incuriosity about Bishop's political obsession is noticeable: Move along, nothing here but a psycho crime. ...

...

Did any of the media find similar dangers in the elite liberal Massachusetts background of Amy Bishop? Any racism to be inferred from her choice of victims, not one of whom was white? ...

Read it here. I'll have to take the op-ed writer's word that the mainstream media hasn't covered this, as I myself haven't been paying much attention to the mainstream media of late.

Flowchart of the day

Today's mainstream media flowchart, a journalist's guide to racism (click on chart to enlarge):

Journalists' Guide to Firearms Identification

Today's firearms ID chart, mainstream media edition (click on image to enlarge) [Hat tip: Gregg]:

Quote of the day

From the New York Post, on the New York Times reporting (or lack thereof) of the firing of "Green Jobs" czar Van Jones last week, and the Times' excuse that it was short-staffed:

Granted, the Times must devote a lot of personpower to its vast corrections column. But if it is so flush that it can afford to hire, like the boy with the shovel who follows the elephant in the parade, a personal fact checker for TV critic Alessandra Stanley, surely it can scrounge up an intern to report that there’s a communist truther working as the president’s green jobs czar, or that a congressman was demanding his resignation (Sept. 4).

Jill Abramson, the managing editor, admitted only to being “a beat behind” the story but added that the paper had caught up — after the saga was over. The EMS equivalent of this statement would be, “Sorry I didn’t take your 911 call for four days. At least I was in time for the funeral.” ...

Article here.

MSNBC and the Liberal Narrative

Via The Anchoress, comes this exposition by Pajama TV's Bill Whittle on how the Leftist media keeps the liberal narrative alive. [Video, about 13 minutes]

And here's yet another example of media bias from the WSJ's James Taranto, as noted by Howard Portnoy at Hotair.

Domestic violence myths

From an article exposing some of the myths propagated by the media and advocates with a vested financial interest in the "domestic violence" industry:

... Above all, the ideologues will never admit that partner violence is more common among lesbians than heterosexual couples. Just consider the case of Jessica Kalish, the 56-year-old Florida woman who was stabbed 222 times last October with a Phillips screwdriver wielded by ex-girlfriend Carol Anne Burger. But no one dared call it "domestic violence."

Once you begin to play tricks with the truth, you need to invent ever grander prevarications. So sit back and get ready for a good chuckle, because there's not a shred of truth to any of these claims regularly put forth by the domestic abuse industry:

1. A marriage license is a hitting license. (Truth is, an intact marriage is the safest place for men and women alike.)

2. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women. (The leading causes of female injury are unintentional falls, motor vehicle accidents, and over-exertion. Domestic violence is not even on the list.)

3. The March of Dimes reports that battering is the leading cause of birth defects. (The March of Dimes has never done such a study.)

4. Women never make false allegations of domestic violence. (That's the biggest whopper of all.)

5. Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for violence against women. (Will the abuse industry never tire of its demagoguery?)

These are just five of the 50 domestic violence myths documented in the RADAR report. As former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once deadpanned, "You're entitled to your own opinions; you're not entitled to your own facts." Hopefully the $4 billion partner abuse industry will begin to pay attention.

Article here. Read the RADAR report on domestic violence myths here.

Obviously, this is not to trivialize the real cases of domestic violence and spousal abuse that do occur, but understanding that media hype and false or misleading information is part and parcel of the portrayal of the problem. Such a misleading perspective can have deleterious effects on the legal rights of those accused of such behaviors. As I wrote almost a year ago with regard to the abuse of restraining orders in D.V. cases (see my post here),

The problem of domestic violence is real, and many women (and some men) undoubtedly live their lives in fear of their spouses or significant others. The ease with which the legal protections afforded by restraining orders can be abused by spouses or significant others, however, is also a real and growing problem. As the first article shows, the problem is exacerbated by judges who rubber-stamp restraining order applications, even in the face of evidence suggesting that the person seeking the order is doing so not out of real fear for her safety, but as a tool to punish the other party or gain tactical advantage in divorce or child custody proceedings. In such cases, the ones who typically suffer most are the children, who often become pawns in the divorce and/or custody battle, and who are deprived of their father's ability to see them.

From a gun rights perspective, the promulgation of falsehoods and the inherent bias against men have led to such flagrant infringements as the Lautenberg amendment, which bans gun possession for those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors, in effect placing them on the same level as those convicted of violent felonies such as rapists, robbers and murderers.

CNN: You just might be a gun lunatic ... if you listen to Fox News

From CNN's Rick Sanchez, who slams all those loonies over at Fox News for "fear mongering" to all those gun owning militia members:




Of course, the folks at CNN might be feeling a little glum, given that Fox News is kicking the pants off of the competition. Indeed, Fox's prime-time audience is more than that of CNN and MSNBC combined.

Media bias 2008 awards

From the Media Research Center, comes a roundup of this year's thrill-up-your-leg compendium of media bias:

Co-anchor Chris Matthews: “I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My — I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.

Co-anchor Keith Olbermann: “Steady.”

Matthews: “No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event. He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment.”

— Exchange during MSNBC’s coverage of the Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. primaries, February 12.

See the whole list here, or click on the image below:

Book-lover Bush

Who knew? From a Karl Rove op-ed in the Wall Street Journal:

With only five days left, my lead is insurmountable. The competition can't catch up. And for the third year in a row, I'll triumph. In second place will be the president of the United States. Our contest is not about sports or politics. It's about books.
...
By coincidence, we were both reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals." The president jumped to a slim early lead and remained ahead until March, when I moved decisively in front. The competition soon spun out of control. We kept track not just of books read, but also the number of pages and later the combined size of each book's pages -- its "Total Lateral Area."

We recommended volumes to each other (for example, he encouraged me to read a Mao biography; I suggested a book on Reconstruction's unhappy end). We discussed the books and wrote thank-you notes to some authors.

At year's end, I defeated the president, 110 books to 95. My trophy looks suspiciously like those given out at junior bowling finals. The president lamely insisted he'd lost because he'd been busy as Leader of the Free World.
...
A glutton for punishment, Mr. Bush insisted on another rematch in 2008. But it will be a three-peat for me: as of today, his total is 40 volumes to my 64. His reading this year included a heavy dose of history -- including David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter," Rick Atkinson's "Day of Battle," Hugh Thomas's "Spanish Civil War," Stephen W. Sears's "Gettysburg" and David King's "Vienna 1814." There's also plenty of biography -- including U.S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs"; Jon Meacham's "American Lion"; James M. McPherson's "Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief" and Jacobo Timerman's "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number."

Each year, the president also read the Bible from cover to cover, along with a daily devotional.

The reading competition reveals Mr. Bush's focus on goals. It's not about winning. A good-natured competition helps keep him centered and makes possible a clear mind and a high level of energy. He reads instead of watching TV. He reads on Air Force One and to relax and because he's curious. He reads about the tasks at hand, often picking volumes because of the relevance to his challenges. And he's right: I've won because he has a real job with enormous responsibilities.

In the 35 years I've known George W. Bush, he's always had a book nearby. He plays up being a good ol' boy from Midland, Texas, but he was a history major at Yale and graduated from Harvard Business School. You don't make it through either unless you are a reader.

There is a myth perpetuated by Bush critics that he would rather burn a book than read one. Like so many caricatures of the past eight years, this one is not only wrong, but also the opposite of the truth and evidence that bitterness can devour a small-minded critic. Mr. Bush loves books, learns from them, and is intellectually engaged by them.

Op-ed here. Not exactly the picture of "incuriousity" that the mainstream media paints, is it?

Charlie Gibson: "Are we fighting a Holy War?"

Another look at ABC News' Charlie Gibson's interview with Gov. Sarah Palin, where he took a quote from a speech she made out of context, and asked "are we fighting a Holy War?":



Don't you just love the Internet? I'll bet Charlie Gibson doesn't.

[Satire] "Sarah Palin's murderous web of death"

Greg Gutfeld, host of Fox News' late, late, late night talk show Red Eye, writes a satirical piece parodying the Leftie media's desperate attempts to smear Governor Palin with anything they can think of, no matter how ludicrous. Ironically, his piece is published over at the left-leaning Huffington Post, site of much Palin-smearing:

It has been alluded in many places that Sarah was captain of the school's basketball team, playing point guard - a position that might have been filled by an African American had there been an actual African American in Alaska. Palin is said to have hit a last-second free throw to win the game. Tracking down witnesses to this event proves difficult - because there are so many.

"It's a lot of work," says my intern, who is currently unpaid.

Palin's nickname at the time was "Sarah Barracuda" perhaps because with barracudas, hand-feeding is discouraged. The same could be said of someone like Sarah, who - while eating - was rarely seen without a knife or fork. "It's what she does," says one observer, to the welcoming nods of other observers - who were nearby, observing.

One must wonder if George Orwell would have seen the irony in Palin winning the Miss Wasilla Pageant, for it happened, of course - in 1984, only a few miles from a local animal farm. Eerily, this is the same year that Richard Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker, claimed his first victim. Whether Palin was in contact with Ramirez at the time cannot be verified, but when Palin finished second runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, it is unlikely that the outcome sat well with either of them. Few experts know what drives serial killers to kill serially - but later, Palin winning the "Miss Congeniality" award, must have been icing on the cake.

Article here. Funny stuff.

The sins of Sarah Palin

Howie Carr, writing an op-ed in the Boston Herald, points out the things that make the Angry Left Media hate Governor Palin:

The trust-funded Beautiful People of the mainstream media and the Democratic Party are unanimous. Sarah Palin is a bad person. A very, very bad person.

Here is a list - a very partial list - of the reasons that the governor of Alaska is not qualified to be vice president of the United States.

She has never been on “Meet the Press.”
...
She’s not just a member of the National Rifle Association - she’s a life member.
...
She goes to a little Assembly of God church with one of those little message boards out front with a new Biblical verse on it every weekend and a minister has never once shouted from the pulpit, “God damn America!”

Of course, attacking the children of politicians should be off-limits - as long as they’re named Al Gore Jr. or Patrick Kennedy or Chelsea Clinton.
...
Didn’t you read what they said about her in the National Enquirer - you know, that supermarket tabloid that you simply can’t believe a word of when they write about fine liberal Democrats like John Edwards.

She’s shrill, shrewish, bossy, brassy - you know, all those adjectives that are sexist if you apply them to Hillary Clinton, but brilliantly insightful if used against Sarah Palin.

Her husband was arrested for OUI, and so what if it was in 1986, there’s no statute of limitations on mentioning alcohol arrests, unless you’re talking about Bill Moyers, a member of the Kennedy family or some other liberal Democrat, in which case it’s a cheap shot to bring it up.
...
She would pronounce “faux” as “fox,” only if she saw something that was “faux,” she’d call it for what it was - fake.

And the final reason the liberals can’t stand her: She’s not “faux,” but she is a fox.

Read the op-ed here.


Former NRA President Sandy Froman weighs in on the sexist media:

Would anyone dare ask these questions if the candidate were a man? Evidently not because they haven't with Barack Obama. The freshman senator has only four years in office and half that campaigning for president, so really only two years foreign policy experience and has never handled national security. He has young children, but no one's suggesting he'd be a bad father.

The comparison is worse when you consider their experience and their jobs. She [Palin] runs a state several hundred times bigger than Joe Biden's Delaware and has roughly as many constituents as Biden. And while Obama and Biden talk for a living, Governor Palin daily makes dozens of decisions and is commander-in-chief of the fiercely-independent Alaska National Guard.

In addition, Palin's an NRA member and hunter. Barack Obama has never hunted wild game or field-dressed an animal. Frankly, Barack Obama should not welcome a comparison with Sarah Palin as to who is more rugged.

And Victor Davis Hanson's take on the media hate-fest:

There is something ignoble about these elite, affluent, and well-connected observers in smug fashion savaging Palin, when — especially in the case of the sneering power-women — we should all at least grant that Palin is intrinsically bright, energetic, savvy, and independent to have come this far at all, given the slanted and insider rules of the game she’s in.
...
When we consider, in contrast, the latticed background of careers of successful contemporary female role-model politicians, such as a Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Mary Landrieu, or Hillary Clinton — or pundits like Sally Quinn, Eleanor Clift, Andrea Mitchell, Campbell Brown, Gail Collins (the list is depressingly endless, in which marriage or lineage provides either the necessary capital, contacts, or insider influence — or sometimes all three) — then surely, whatever one’s politics, there should be some concession that what outsider Palin has accomplished, given where she began, is nothing short of remarkable.

In short, Sarah Palin is the emblem of what feminism was supposed to be all about: an unafraid, independent, audacious woman, who soared on her own merits without the aid of a patriarchal jumpstart, high-brow matrimonial tutelage and capital, and old-boy liaisons and networking. [emphasis added]

I expect the simmering hatred emanating from the Left (and their publicity machine, the mainstream media) towards Sarah Palin will continue, as the mainstream media seem congenitally predisposed to attacking anyone and their family, regardless of the merits, who doesn't share their leftist views.