Hope Yen is an Associated Press writer. That’s as opposed to a "reporter", or a "journalist", or indeed anything at all except a propagandist for the Democratic Party and its friends.

Writing about the Census Bureau severing its ties with ACORN, Ms. Yen tells Associated Press readers that ACORN…

has been hit with Republican accusations of voter-registration fraud

Imagine that. Just a little partisan bickering, according to Ms. Yen. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

I guess she’s hoping that her readers have short memories, because it was only Wednesday that the Miami-Dade (Florida) State Attorney’s Office “issued arrest warrants for each of the 11 suspects, all of whom worked for the local chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN.”

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2006; Senator George Allen is running for re-election against former Republican Jim Webb. Despite the polls everywhere showing that the GOP was going to have a very unhappy Election Night in a few weeks, Allen was comfortably ahead and already planning his next six years in Washington DC representing the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Then he (as he says), derisively referring to a video stalker working for the Webb campaign’s mohawk style haircut, uttered one fateful three-syllable word; “macaca” - which supposedly was a racial slur in Morocco or French Tunisia sometime in the 1940s and ’50s.

Whatever the case, over the next few weeks until Election Day, on the basis of “macaca” George Allen found himself having to face charges on the front pages of Virginia’s newspapers, often leveled by anonymous “sources” or supposedly “neutral” witnesses that upon deeper investigation were revealed to be highly partisan actors that he was an unrepentant white supremacist who once stuffed a severed deer’s head in a black family’s mailbox and nicknamed college football teammates after KKK Grand Wizards.

Leading the charge was the Washington Post - the editorial board and reporting staff of which put out over a 100 articles and editorials, more than a dozen on the front page, in about half as many days on “macaca” - all very obviously deliberately calculated to plant the perception in the minds of the Virginia electorate that George Allen was a racist bigot just in time for the General Election - which Allen lost to Jim Webb by less than 1%.

The Washington Post had successfully swung an election to favor its chosen candidate … and three years later, it’s trying to repeat the same feat - this time in the upcoming Virginia Governor’s race.

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Not a single politically aware person does not remember John McCain’s surprise announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate on August 29, 2008. The Democrat National Convention was wrapping up, Obama had made his grand speech, but all the political world was abuzz over the impending selection of Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty as McCain’s running mate. The surprise and expertly choreographed announcement of Sarah Palin was one of a few grand McCain campaign moments.

The conservative world, conditioned by a generation of horribly biased media now enchanted by the charismatic Obama, was braced for the media onslaught that would immediately descend on McCain’s choice, no matter who it was.

And still, we were utterly unprepared.

John Ziegler takes us through the experience, and what a year has taught us about Sarah Palin, the media, and the political landscape we now find ourselves in. Ziegler, you will recall, famously exposed in the movie Media Malpractice the true extent of media complicity in the 2008 election of Barack Obama. Previously he helped sink John Kerry’s 2008 chances by bringing to the public eye Kerry’s silly “stuck in Iraq” statement in 2006.

Read the whole thing here:

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Please take a look at this interchange between John Ziegler and Contessa Brewer on Barack Obama’s MSNBC. (H/T: crippy)

John Ziegler just demonstrated the picture-perfect attitude to take towards the “reporters” and “anchors” at any and all of the Democratic networks; ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, etc.

Some variant of disdain, contempt or somewhere in between. No liberal-talking point assertion or premise should be left unchallenged. Openly and repeatedly question their honesty and integrity. Highlight their hypocrisy in their coverage. Change the subject when you feel like it or stay on a subject even if they want to move on. Ask them questions that they have to answer before the interview can go further.

Monday Morning Quarterbacking; Ziegler only made a few mistakes as far as I can see;

1. not directly asking Contessa Brewer if she thinks it’s fine that David Letterman attacked Palin’s 14 year old daughter and why she didn’t show that part of Letterman’s act? Why is she deliberately ignoring the attack on Willow Palin? As a mother, would she let it slide? Is she a mother? Why is she and her network trying to make the American people think Palin was only complaining about the attack on her while deliberately, dishonestly, keeping the creepy attack on her daughter off the radar?
2. when Brewer brought up the silly factoid about the poll showing Palin as not being seen as one of the spokesmen for the GOP, he should have pointed it out and dismissed it for the irrelevancy that it is, and pointed out that it’s only out-of-touch journalists who think it’s significant - Palin is the Governor of a vast state, with an environment tougher than any other state, she doesn’t have time to waste on such nonsense as an irrelevant poll.
3. when he touched on the fact of the media portraying the GOP as being solely comprised of old white men {NRSC endorsing Charlie Crist doesn’t help} Ziegler should have added that the only time the media covers Governor Palin is when they’re attacking her with knowingly false Democratic talking points (like Keith Olbermann on “plagiarism”) or from the fever swamps of the Left-wing blogosphere, so of course, the poll results will reflect that.
4. when Contessa Brewer (at 3:50) challenged Ziegler about asking Palin “tough questions“, he should have reacted, first of all, by letting loose with a long and hard laugh. And then he should have answered that the day any reporter at MSNBC stops swooning at Obama’s feet and actually asks Obama a question tougher than “Why are you so soooo dreamy? Can I have your autograph? On my chest?”, that’ll be the day MSNBC can question anyone else on asking tough questions.

But then, I wasn’t the one in the hot seat, I’m critiquing in hindsight, and even with all that Ziegler did very very well in that interview. He was properly mocking, disdainful, disbelieving and made it very clear that he considered Contessa Brewer and her network to be no more than Democratic mouthpieces.

Which happens to have the benefit of being the truth.

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If you would like a great example of how the Old Media takes a story that has no legitimacy at all and uses it as the basis for a smear job, the Associated Press offered a wonderful sampling of the tactic for you on June 8. From a headline that makes the issue seem more weighty than it is, to the lack of competent reporting from both sides of the matter, AP employed this favorite Old Media tactic by taking another swipe at Governor Sarah Palin with little by way of substantive evidence. It’s another “seriousness of the charge” story despite the complete lack of evidence as well as a lack of any gravitas on the part of the original source of the charge.

At issue is the false charge leveled by a Huffington Post blogger that Governor Palin “plagiarized” a section of her speech as she introduced talk show host Michael Reagan in Anchorage, Alaska on Wednesday, June 3. The HuffPo blogger charged that Palin lifted several sections of Newt Gingrinch’s work without attribution, and AP gleefully repeats the blogger’s claims despite that the truth turns out to be a far different case.

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Ed Frank created an interesting little video that serves as a stark reminder of how harsh the Old Media was on Bush’s “faltering” economy in comparison to today’s hearts and flowers style of reporting during the age of Obama, even though the stats are far, far worse under Obama than they ever were under Bush.

Frank’s video is shocking for its revelation of how Bush was slapped around and how every economic indicator during his tenure in the White House was deemed as obvious proof of the supposed though times we then faced. Yet now, every dismal indicator is celebrated as if recovery just around the corner. Under Bush the Old Media was sure the economy was a wreck, now the wreck proves we will surely be saved by Summer!

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‘Compelling life stories of minorities’ are apparently only compelling to Democrats if you end up bowing to the mindless twaddle of expansionist, racist, divisive rhetoric of the left. While the Democrats are running around calling anybody ‘racist’ that opposes small-minded, untalented, bigoted, leftist hack Sonia Sotomayor, let us remember these names: Clarence Thomas and Miguel Estrada.

Both of them had compelling life stories that make Ms. Sotomayor look like a rich young brat raised in the English manor with servants at her beck and call. Both of them worked extremely hard to achieve heights seemingly unattainable from their humble beginnings. Both are brilliant. Both are minorities. Yet both are to this day treated to the most vile and inhuman treatment that the left can levy, called horrible things in public and in print.

Why?

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Oh wait. I’m racist. I can’t ask that question
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But hey, since I actually *can* ask the question until Democrats make it illegal to be conservative, I shall.

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I hate to pull an “I told you so,” but… well, I told you so. Remember a few days ago when I showed how an unsubstantiated rumor becomes political “fact” in the Old Media? I reported that CNNs Peter Hamby found one woman that wondered if actor Gary Sinise might make a great GOP candidate and based an entirely fictional run for office on that wild conjecture. Also you’ll recall that at the end of my piece I said that it won’t be long until this one person’s rumination will suddenly turn into the “fact” that Gary Sinise is running for president. You may have laughed at that. But now I present to you this I told you so moment.

CBS channel 2 in Chicago gave us a May 13 report titled “‘CSI: NY’ Star Rumored To Be Eyeing White House.” I kid you not.

You might ask upon what basis this CBS report claimed that Gary Sinise is now running for president in 2012? Was it an interview with Sinise? How about a statement by any group representing Sinise? How about some statements from a PAC or fundraising group or other draft Sinise effort? Nope, none of those. It was the same ONE person that CNN’s Hamby used for his false claim that Sinise is a sudden candidate for office.

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Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik should check into a clinic somewhere to have his delicate mental balance checked. Maybe they might have some nice medication he can take to temper his Palin Derangement Syndrome? His is so bad he can’t even write about a little reality TV show without indulging unnecessary vitriol and hate.

It’s interesting that critic Zurawik gets so filled with hate in such a short space. In fact, the tiny four paragraph “review” spends more time name calling and attacking Governor Palin than it does in discussing the TV show on which she is about to appear; TLC’s American Chopper.

Certainly professor Zurawik’s contribution to society is above reproach, of course. Long known to be the bastion of American intellectualism and culture, TV has always been considered one of our most important institutions. So, Zurawik’s work as a critic is sure to have the sort of cultural staying power as that of the great philosophers, I am sure. And his review of Palin’s appearance on American Chopper is sure to remain a standout example of the sort of tour de force work he’s long been known for.

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The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz has let the cat out of the bag in the Post’s April 27 issue about a regularly scheduled secret media dinner attended by some of the top left-wing journalists in the country. But it isn’t just the lefty scribblers that have attended these secret, off-the-record dinners for these gatherings have each featured a guest. Rahm Emanuel, Sec. of the Treasury Tim Geithner, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have all recently had their chance to schmooze the press and guide them with the spin desired by the White House.

So, not only does Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have secret daily phone calls with which to program the media’s coverage of the White House, now it is revealed that Emanuel and other Obama staffers have been attending secret dinners to help the press “understand” what the White House wants reported? As Kurtz says, it all sounds “rather cozy,” doesn’t it?

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Looks like Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt sort of put his foot in his mouth — or his pen as the case may be — in an April 27 editorial where he as much as called America’s older workers “lumbering” and less talented than “younger, nimbler” employees. In a nation that has one of its largest blocks of citizens in the “older” category, those over 40, it seems like Hiatt just insulted the largest number of Americans. Not the best way to sell newspapers, eh?

In his headlined “600,000 Bad Hires? Making Federal Jobs Cool Once Again,” Hiatt seems to be urging The One to come to the rescue of the jobs market. Well, not real jobs, but government jobs, anyway.

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A few days ago Noel Sheppard brought to us the story of yet another example of how the star struck media is fawning over President Obama. But, when the story first broke of the photo of that lean, swimsuit wearing Obama gracing the cover of the next issue of Washingtonian Magazine, it wasn’t immediately realized that the photo itself was a photoshoppped image of the president and not in its original form.

But not soon after the image of the cover was released folks began to realize what had happened. It turns out that Washingtonian Magazine made several photoshop alterations to the Obama image to enhance it to make it more pleasing to look upon. So, the main question centers on whether it’s ethical to photoshop the image of the president for a news story?

I suppose, though, if you want your Obammessiah to look his best, why not use all the tools at your disposal… even if they are a tad unethical.

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Yael T. Abouhalkah is all excited to let the readers of the Kansas City Star know that he’s found another Republican politician that has had to grovel at the feet of Rush Limbaugh, apologizing to the radio giant for a slight cast his way. And to “prove” it Abouhalkah used a press release from the Democratic National Campaign Committee that said so. Yeah, nice unbiased source there, Abouhalkah.

Seriously, does Abouhalkah imagine that a Democrat Party press release is an unbiased source about what is happening between a Republican lawmaker and Rush Limbaugh? No wonder newspapers are falling on such tough times. If Abouhalkah is any indication, the definition of common words aren’t even any longer understood in the Star’s newsroom. Words like “source,” “unbiased,” “legitimate,” and “veracity” seem to be foreign to the folks at the Star. With such a failure to understand the very basics of journalism, its no wonder readers are abandoning newspapers in droves.

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Stockholder meetings are rarely dramatic events, but things got heated at Wednesday’s GE meeting of shareholders. GE CEO Jeffery Immelt and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker had to field about ten questions from from shareholders unhappy with the leftward bias of the company’s cable outlet MSNBC and a charge that it’s business channel CNBC is being pushed in the same direction:

First up was a woman asking about a reported meeting in which Immelt and.. Zucker supposedly told top CNBC executives and talent to be less critical of President Obama and his policies.

Immelt acknowledged a meeting took place but said no one at CNBC was told what to say or not to say about politics.

During the woman’s follow-up question, her microphone was apparently cut off. A short time later, Waters asked a question and his mic was cut, too.

“The crowd was very upset with MSNBC because of its leftward tilt,” one attendee said. “Some former employees said they were embarrassed by it.”

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Promoted by Caleb … Why aren’t Sheehan and the like called extremists for protesting but veterans are? GOOD QUESTION!

It’s really too bad that the media won’t cover this video from Midnight Blue.

But hey, it’s probably for the best with him being a “right-wing extremist” (translation-veteran) and all, right?

This diary is cross-posted on The Minority Report.

Promoted by Erick

Those old enough to remember the days when the grip the major networks had on news dissemination was firm and confident also remember the rise of upstart CNN. Ted Turner dared to challenge the network Powers-That-Be for market share and influence and won.

I remember being starved for information during the 1st Gulf War. I didn’t have cable TV and satellite TV was still in the SciFi stage. CNN did have some presence on the radio here and there but not in Nashville and satellite radio was further into SciFi than it’s video cousin. But I vividly remember some of the video shots that came out of Baghdad. CNN’s Bernard Goldberg Shaw from a blacked out, downtown hotel room broadcasting to the world as American war-planes bombed the city. Night-vision pictures of anti-aircraft fire directed at those same aircraft from the tops of Baghdad’s buildings. It was, perhaps, the pinnacle of CNN’s journalism.

Once established as a force in the field of journalism, it’s hard to get dislodged. But CNN has proven it is possible. Over the next 20 years, chinks and cracks in their persona allowed the world to look in and see what CNN felt it had to do to keep its place. Stories began to surface of questionable deals made with dictators and despots to keep CNN “reporting” when other news agencies were banned. CNN coverage of the 2nd Gulf War was so slanted it was common to hear those who had access to both CNN and the fledgling FOX News say, “If you watch both channels, it’s like they’re reporting on 2 different wars!” So much so CNN picked up its own insulting version of what CNN stood for. It became for many, the “Commie News Network”.

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My RedState.com colleague Jeff Emanuel provided a prime example of just how deep the drive-by media is immersed in the tank for Obama, as CNN’s Susan Roesgen gets in the face of an American citizen exercising his Constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly yesterday.

HotAirPundit has a fine example of Ms. Roesgen’s other side. She was all sweetness and light just three months ago when the protesters were left-wingers:

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The Hollywood Reporter’s (THR.com) James Hibberd is reporting that the TV networks are “reluctantly” shuffling their on air schedules to fulfill their “responsibility” to air President Obama’s important campaign speech… er, I mean address to the nation next week. The Nets are solemnly claiming the mantle of the patriotic American fulfilling their civic duty to air presidential addresses, it appears.

It is all well and good that they should do this, of course. Keeping the nation informed is one of those long-held, self-proclaimed charges of TV news organizations, of course. But, curiously enough, that same attention to a patriotic, civic duty to air presidential speeches didn’t seem so compelling to them while Bush was in office because they often refused to air his speeches to the nation. Or, as in at least one instance, they left the speech early to go on to primetime programing.

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Carol E. Lee of Politico had a short March 5 piece about President Obama’s singular inability to give a speech, even short ones, without the crutch of a TelePrompter in front of him to prod him about what to say next. This isn’t the only time the media has raised its eyebrow about the president’s TelePrompters (I even covered it myself not long ago), so the story isn’t a new one, but one little thing that Lee wrote reveals how the media goes out of its way to help Obama’s image by keeping the devices out of Obama’s photography.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face.

In other words, the Old Media puts in a herculean effort to make sure The One still looks like he is speaking extemporaneously by working overtime to make sure those speech prompters are NOT in the picture.

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Unfortunately, I have to disagree with EPU and everyone else that the Democrats picking Rush as their current target for destruction now that Dubya is back in Crawford for good “can’t possibly end well” for them. I personally think it can, and that actually, if things continue the way they’re going, we’re going to find ourselves talking about how to mitigate the damage somewhere down the line.

The main disadvantage of being a politics junkie interacting so often with other politics junkies is that you tend to forget that you’re far from the typical voter.

It’s not so much what Rush says, or the fact that he’s what the media and their menagerie of tame “Republicans” like David Brooks consider “controversial.” To me, those are all positives, especially when you add the fact that, unlike Bush, he bites back.

But ultimately the issue here is tactics and strategy. Rush hitting back, daring Barack Obama to debate him, taking Michael Steele to the woodshed, defending his “failure” comments, etc. is all well and good. Except that he’s doing it only on his show. Which, I suspect, is exactly what Rahm Emanuel and the rest of his crew were counting on.

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