Spare Me Your Praise of Jake Tapper

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So, Jake Tapper got a bunch of praise for his reporting from Ferguson last night.

Twitter was waxing lyrical about him.

Why? Mainly because he described what he was witnessing.

It struck me that when we start commending any member of today’s MSM for simply reporting what their eyes are seeing, it’s a hell of a sign of how little we expect from them.

In fairness, he editorialized too, which was the main reason for the praise:

“Nobody is threatening anything. Nobody is doing anything. None of the stores here that I can see are being looted. There is no violence.”

“These are armed police. With machine – not machine guns- semiautomatic rifles, with batons, with shields, many of them dressed for combat. Now why they’re doing this, I don’t know. Because there is no threat going on here. None that merits this.”

“There is nothing going on on this street right now that merits this scene out of Bagram. Nothing. So if people wonder why the people of Ferguson, Missouri are so upset, this is part of the reason. What is this? This doesn’t make any sense.”

Good.

Very good.

Yes, we’ve been hearing and reading reporting similar to – and often way more powerful than this – mainly of the citizen kind, since the day Michael Brown was murdered, but better late than never from someone in the MSM.

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Are you sensing a but?

It’s a big one, too.

CNN’s coverage from Ferguson all last night was intermingled with repeated references to Tapper’s Woodward and Bernstein-esque scoop: that a NEW version of events, that differed from that of the witnesses, had emerged!1!1!

(ie Darren Wilson’s version of events – Well, blow me down! – although they chose not to highlight that inconvenient snippet of info)

CNN kept reminding us, all through the night, of this ‘bombshell’:

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It wasn’t a scoop, of course. Tapper had simply picked up on a call by a ‘Josie’ to Dana Loesch’s show (that ‘Josie’ chose to call Loesch says it all, really) when she said she was a friend of Wilson and had his version of events.

So, that’s all it was – repeat: a friend of the cop who shot an unarmed Michael Brown six times, twice in the head, was passing on what he himself said had happened.

 But this is how Tapper hyped it on Twitter:

No mention of the caller being a friend of Wilson who was simply passing on his version of events.

Chat Away – And A Little Reminder

Time for a little reminder after Martin Bashir’s firing from a post I wrote not too long ago.

We can be angry. We can be saddened. But what we mustn’t be is surprised.

One can argue that there never was a “liberal media”. But it’s safe to say that there used to be a more balanced media, one in which factual reporting and accurate analysis were the linchpins of the industry. If the reporting on Vietnam was rosy at first, by the end of the war its full horrors were being reported on honestly.

But that was also in an era when media ownership was far more diffuse. NBC and MSNBC are owned by Comcast, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. ABC is owned by Disney Corporation. Fox News is owned by News Corporation. CNN is owned by Time Warner. CBS has remained “independent”; but it too is a large multinational.

Corporations may be many things. They may be the most efficient means to organize economic activity. They may give their employees a somewhat remunerative working environment. But one thing for which they can never be mistaken are altruistic institutions acting for the public good. 

Chat away and keep on fighting. It’s the only way anything has ever changed.

The MSM’s campaign

‘Tension in Obama marriage?’

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‘Obama looking increasingly downbeat and stressed’

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‘Bidens snub Obamas’ Portsmouth event’

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‘Obama not connecting with youth this time around’

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‘Enthusiasm Gap: Spirit of 2008 is gone’

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‘Gallup: African American children find Michelle Obama less inspiring than four years ago’

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‘Frosty reception for Obama in Nashua – campaign in crisis?’

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‘Obama makes Mentor man cry – campaign in crisis?’

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‘Ugly confrontation between Obama and 95-year-old World War II veteran’

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‘Obama pals around with musical terrorists’

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‘Angry exchange between Obamas in Des Moines’

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‘Lukewarm campaign climax for Obama in Des Moines’

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‘Obama snubs Chicago campaign workers on election day’

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‘Mitt Romney: Truth Teller’

Sssssh…..

Gallup

The MSM usually adooooooooores Gallup.

Today? Crickets.

(Whisper it …. Gallup say unemployment has fallen from 10% to 7.3% in 2 years)

PS I have absolutely no clue how accurate Gallup’s unemployment figures are, they’re an organization I don’t trust very much – the point is that Gallup are taken very seriously by the media when it suits, but there’s not much reporting of this today. Hey, go figure 😉

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Meanwhile…. Fountain, Colorado today:

Thank you Donna

Let’s stay together 😉

the liberal media….

Pew Research: Rick Perry received the most favorable coverage of any candidate for president during the first five months of the race, but now Herman Cain is enjoying that distinction, according to a new survey which combines traditional research methods and computer algorithmic technology to code the level and tone of news coverage.

…. One man running for president has suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment of all: Barack Obama. Though covered largely as president rather than a candidate, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4-to-1. The assessments of the president in the media were substantially more negative than positive in every one of the 23 weeks studied. In no week during these five months was more than 10% of the coverage about the President positive in tone.

Full article here

Thank you amk

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Original video here – Thank you Meta

“mystified”

Steve Benen: Yesterday afternoon, the lead story on Mark Halperin’s “The Page” was the White House’s mild rebuke of Paul Ryan’s Republican budget plan. Halperin’s headline: “Obama Pans Ryan – Without Alternative.”

This was one of those cases in which the media establishment had accepted the Republican line before Republicans had even offered it. Ryan wants to eliminate Medicare and gut Medicaid; the White House disapproves; and the media is already demanding an “alternative”….

This morning, Halperin’s lead story was a GOP endorsement of yesterday’s lead story. The headline: “Boehner Asks For Bam’s Budget ‘Alternative’.” … I have two follow-up questions for the duo.

First, what kind of “alternative” is the White House expected to offer, exactly? If the political establishment is waiting for the administration’s plan to use unicorns to reduce unemployment to 2.8%, and Obama’s “alternative” to eliminating Medicare, I suspect Halperin and Boehner are going to be waiting a long time.

Second, if the request is for an “alternative” budget, I might remind them that the White House already presented Obama’s alternative. Mid-February really wasn’t that long ago, but that’s when the administration presented a budget plan for the next fiscal year. They put it online, and it generated a lot of discussion. Halperin and Boehner might have heard about it.

“The president is certainly entitled to disagree with our budget, but what exactly is his alternative?” Halperin seems to like the question, but Obama’s alternative was sent to Congress nearly seven weeks ago.

I’m often mystified by our discourse. This is one of those times.

More here

‘that iraq feeling’

Cartoon from here

Paul Krugman: I don’t watch cable news, or actually any kind of TV news. But I gather that there’s a virtual blackout on the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin, except on Fox, which portrays them as thuggish and violent.

What that makes me think of is January-February 2003, when anyone watching cable news would have believed that only a few kooks were opposed to the imminent invasion of Iraq. It was quite spooky, realizing that hundreds of thousands of people could march through New York, and by tacit agreement be ignored by news networks whose headquarters were just a few blocks away.

And it’s even more spooky to see it happening all over again.

fair and balanced?

Steve Benen (Washington Monthly): We talked a few weeks ago about the very different ways in which the media responds to court rulings on the Affordable Care Act. Those upholding the constitutionality of the health care law get very little attention, while conservative rulings against the law are literally treated as front-page news.

Now that there’s a new federal court ruling – Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in support of the law on Tuesday, becoming the fifth to rule on the merits – let’s take a moment to reevaluate this.

Three federal district courts have said the Affordable Care Act meets constitutional muster; two have reached the opposite conclusion. Here’s how four major media outlets have covered the rulings, in the order in which the decisions came down: See here for statistics

…the discrepancy is overwhelming. In every instance, conservative rulings get more coverage, longer articles, and better placement ….  the Washington Post couldn’t bother to run a single article – not one – about the Kessler ruling…

…it seems very likely the public has been left with the impression that the health care law is legally dubious and struggling badly in the courts because that’s what news organizations have told them to believe.

Read full article here

‘how the white house approached egyptian turmoil’

Marc Ambinder (The Atlantic): A few months after Barack Obama took office, CIA analysts monitoring the Middle East received an unusual request from the National Security Council. The president had appreciated the in-depth country profiles the intelligence community had prepared for him to read. But there was something missing. The white papers all assessed what various groups within each country didn’t like about the United States – but there was very little about what they admired. So that’s what Obama wanted to know: What do Yemenis, Qataris and Egyptians like about the U.S.?

The answer, in the case of Egypt, was the American education system. The competition for visas to study inside the U.S., particularly among those with a bent toward the hard sciences, was fierce. And it was considered a point of pride for a family member to brag about his brother studying overseas.

The National Security Council and the State Department turned this nugget of insight into policy: Obama would expand the number of educational visas available to qualified Egyptian students. The State Department would increase its direct outreach to Egyptians; it would hold entrepreneurship and science summits, and would convene gatherings of Egyptians to meet with visiting American scientists. 

As the White House’s focus turned to Egypt late last week, the aspirations of young Egyptians were very much on the president’s mind … After Tunisia, the intelligence community, the diplomatic community and the White House all anticipated that protests would spread …. Egypt was simply the most logical candidate for unrest….

Full article here

BWD posted this article on The Only Adult In The Room – and if you read it you’ll see why ‘The Only Adult In The Room’ is so appropriate. It’s absolutely fascinating, a real insight in to how the President is dealing with this crisis as carefully and thoughtfully as possible.

Meanwhile, the media bleats cluelessly, completely ignorant of just how delicate this situation is, or how far-reaching the consequences might be in the Middle East. Unless the President announces he’s nuking Mubarak and/or the Muslim Brotherhood they’ll conclude he’s not being pro-active enough. Aw, sounds, like they’re lonesome for Bush.

Did you hear them whinging today at Robert Gibbs’ press conference? The President isn’t being made available to them to answer questions on how he’s responding to the crisis! So, the most critical thing here – more critical than the future of Egypt! – is that the President reveal to Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd and their buddies the nature of the careful work being done behind the scenes? Right.

‘He’s doomed: In 52 weeks, Obama’s approval rating is down 4 points’

Media Matters:

No wonder the chattering class can’t stop talking about Obama’s polling woes, and why it won’t get off its beloved narrative about this presidency being in free fall. I mean, the man has had four entire points shaved off his approval rating over the last 52 weeks. (That’s .08 points per-week.)

Stick a fork in Obama, because he’s done, right?

And where does the latest bout of devastating polling news come from? From the NBC/Wall Street Journal results. But for some reason in their write-ups, both news organizations forget to mention that over the past 52 weeks, Obama’s approval rating in the very same poll is down a grand total of four points.

And oh yeah, the poll has a margin of error of three points, so it’s possible Obama’s approval rating has remained essentially unchanged for the last year.

Could his standing get any worse?