Three Takes On Fox News (Of The World) Coverage

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

It’s old news that Fox News Channel has hardly covered itself in glory covering the News of the World rumpus. But the takedowns of FNC are instructive in their various forms.

• The Daily Show (via Mediaite)

• The Project for Excellence in Journalism report. Sample graphic:

• Alessandra Stanley’s New York Times TV Watch. Representative sample:

After Mr. Murdoch and his son were excused, the Fox anchor Bill Hemmer gave a brief, stilted summary, then segued to a bit of good news, noting that News Corporationshares “went up 5 percent” during the testimony.

And that gingerly restraint was all the more noticeable at a channel known for its brio and lack of nuance. Perhaps accordingly, rival cable shows gleefully reveled in the News Corporation’s fall from grace: a Bloomberg News analyst on CNN likened Mr. Murdoch to King Lear; on Current TV, Keith Olbermann, who once worked at Fox Sports, said Mr. Murdoch was closer to the evil Emperor Palpatine in the “Star Wars” films.

The CNN correspondent Richard Quest noted that James Murdoch seemed “out of his depth,” while his father appeared “out of touch.” The British documentary filmmaker Michael Cockerell agreed, announcing that “the emperor has no clothes.”

Corrections (as they always do with Ms. Stanley) to come later.

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Let The $4 Billion Rumpus Begin! (American Crossroads Edition)

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

The Roveniks are now chasing Hispanics.

Via ABC’s The Note:

The Republican National Committee and independent pro-Republican group American Crossroads are simultaneously airing ads in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, slamming President Obama on the economy.

The RNC ad, which hits the president on unemployment, taxes, federal debt and deficit, will air on Hispanic radio in the three states, according to a committee statement.  It’s expected to run concurrently with a small English-language TV buy in select media markets highlighting a similar message.

American Crossroads, a group with ties to GOP strategist Karl Rove, says it will spend more than $158,000 this week to air a Spanish-language TV ad in the same states, as well as Florida, Texas, and Washington, D.C.  The ad is part of a $20 million campaign, blasting Obama on the deficit and debt.

Just to review:

American Crossroads is a Super-PAC (unlimited spending, unlimited contributions, but must identify donors . . . eventually).

Its spinoff – Crossroads GPS – is a 501(c)(4): unlimited contributions, unlimited spending (but political campaigns can’t be primary activity), never has to identify donors.

(Hardworking staff Crossroads GPS coverage here.)

Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy election.

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Let The $4 Billion Rumpus Begin! (Bachmann-Iowa Overdrive Edition)

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Michele Bachmann (R-Death Ceiling) wants Iowans to know she really really really will not vote to raise the nation’s debt limit (via ABC’s The Note).

Migraine Michele is hoping this new ad flight in the Hawkeye State might divert attention from the health-related news stories giving her such a headache, but in the hardworking staff’s experience, the fiscal rarely trumps the physical.

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All The News Of The World That Fits, We Print

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

After Tuesday’s foam-filled appearance by the House of Murdoch (in father-and-son matching outfits) before the British House of Commons, the New York Times filed a relatively restrained eight pieces in its Wednesday edition.

Begin with the bad news front-page story:

Murdochs Deny That They Knew of Illegal Acts

LONDON — It was riveting theater, a newly emboldened parliamentary committee facing off against the 80-year-old Rupert Murdoch, the world’s most powerful media mogul, in a series of exchanges designed to get to the bottom of the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed not just Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, but also Britain’s political and law-enforcement elite.

In two hours of intense questioning broken only by a bizarre incident in which Mr. Murdoch was accosted with what appeared to be a foil pie plate filled with shaving cream, both he and his son James declared repeatedly that they had been shocked to discover something that has become increasingly apparent: that phone hacking and other illegal behavior were endemic at their News of the World tabloid, which is now defunct.

Then there’s the good news story on A11:

Murdochs Caught a Break at Hearing, Stock Analysts Say

After days of intense anxiety over their appearance before a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, there seemed to be consensus inside the company and out that the Murdochs and the News Corporation had finally caught a break.

Instead of finding a signal that this was the beginning of the end of Rupert Murdoch’s run at the helm of his company, analysts stressed that there was no single revelatory moment during the proceedings. If the Murdochs seemed at times distant, even oblivious, to what was going on in their own company, there were no obvious admissions of wrongdoing or glaring contradictions in their testimony, analysts said.

From there you have the requisite Key Figures in the Phone Hacking Case graphic, the requisite Ninja Wendi Deng feature, and etc.

Just another news day at Renzo Piano Plaza.

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News Corp(se) Dodge o’ the Day®

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

It’s a tie!

Winner #1: Bret Stephens in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal:

News of the World vs. WikiLeaks

Only one placed at risk ‘the lives of countless innocent individuals.’

How does this year’s phone hacking scandal at the now-defunct British tabloid News of the World—owned, I hardly need add, by News Corp., the Journal’s parent company—compare with last year’s contretemps over the release of classified information by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks and his partners at the New York Times, the Guardian and other newspapers?

At bottom, they’re largely the same story.

Seriously?

Winner #2: Robert L. Pollock in Tuesday’s WSJ:

The Murdoch Empire: An Inside View

If you want an example of editorial independence at News Corp., look at how often ‘The Simpsons’ mock their broadcasters at Fox.

Seriously?

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The Proper Pronunciation Of ‘The’ Before A Vowel Is Literally Disappearing

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Thuh Boston Globe’s Christopher Muther got two full pages of Tuesday’s G section to rail against thuh non-literal use of “literally” in virtually every area of American society.

But thee umbrage at thuh Global Worldwide Headquarters is aimed at a different linguistic transgression:

The Vanishing Pronunciation of “The” Before a Vowel Sound.

From thee EnglishClub.com:

How to Pronounce “the” in English

Normally, we pronounce “the” with a short sound (like “thuh”). But when “the” comes before a vowel sound, we pronounce it as a long “thee”.

vowel sound we write we say
A the apple thee apple
E the egg thee egg
I the ice-cream thee ice-cream
O the orange thee orange
U the ugli fruit thee ugli fruit

Okay? If the hardworking staff hears one more NPRnik refer to “thuh end of an era” in the network’s coverage of the News Corp(se) scandal, we’ll officially reach thee end of our rope.

P.S. What’s with the pronunciation of News Corp. as News Core? It’s not a branch of the military.  Which, not to get technical about it, is spelled Corps.

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Let The $4 Billion Rumpus Begin! (Crossroads GPS Edition II)

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Crossroads GPS – the media militia mustered by Karl Rove and underwritten by God only knows – has released another wave of attack ads, this time on Democratic House members.

Via RealClearPolitics:

Crossroads Ad Campaign Targets House Democrats

Crossroads GPS launched its third round of summer television advertisements Monday, this time targeting 10 vulnerable Democratic House members. The ads are the latest in a $20 million series hitting Democratic lawmakers and President Obama on government spending and the economy.

The conservative group said it paid $1.4 million for the 30-second spots, which will air for two weeks in the districts of Reps. Mike Ross of Arkansas, Lois Capps of California, Jerry Costello of Illinois, Leonard Boswell of Iowa, Ben Chandler of Kentucky, Bill Owens and Tim Bishop of New York, Heath Shuler of North Carolina, Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Jim Matheson of Utah.

Some of the ads use a sort of doubletalk visual:

Others go for the iPaddle:

As far as the hardworking staff can tell, this flight of ads brings Crossroads GPS’s spending so far this summer to about $20 million – 12 on ads whacking Barack Obama, 8+ whacking Democratic lawmakers.

Considering that the group has said it will spend $20 million alone on ads targeting Obama and his record, there’s still plenty more to come in the next six weeks.

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All The News Of The World That’s Fit To Print (II)

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

A week ago the hardworking staff noted the New York Times’ glee in reporting on the News of the World/Rupert Rumpus currently embroiling the News Corp(se) empire – five pieces two days in a row.

Make that a double.

Today’s Times features nine – count ’em, nine – pieces on the Murdoch Meltdown, from the front page Murdoch Aides Long Tried to Blunt Scandal Over Hacking piece to Joe Nocera’s The Tables Are Turned on Murdoch op-ed column to a handy Statements by Top Figures in the Hacking Scandal feature.

Very handy indeed.

No wonder the Murdoch sock puppets at the Wall Street Journal are whining on the editorial page about criticism from rival media outlets:

We also trust that readers can see through the commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics. The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur. They want their readers to believe, based on no evidence, that the tabloid excesses of one publication somehow tarnish thousands of other News Corp. journalists across the world.

New York Times: They mean you.

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Jason Gay And The Dignity Of Defeat

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

During the past couple of weeks, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay has written a couple of terrific pieces about the losers of major sporting events.

Exhibit A:

A Loser’s Winning Moment

Rafael Nadal’s Grace Helps Him Shine in the Shadow of Wimbledon Champ Novak Djokovic

Winning is easy. Everybody adores you! Soak in that cheap applause, hold that trophy high, blow a smooch to your agent, your manager, your stylist, your chef, your landscape architect and even your own parents. Sign that multimillion-dollar endorsement deal; buy a cheesy new suit and make Letterman chuckle; get linked to a woozy starlet; make a B movie with a has-been action star; record a vanity album with melodies that make dogs hide under tables.

But do you really want to prove yourself, to be all-time and great? Learn to lose. Lose beautifully, with class and humility. Lose like Rafael Nadal.

You should read the whole column, but here is Gay’s conclusion:

“Today wasn’t possible,” Nadal said. “I tried my best, as always. Today, one player played better than me. I will try another time, next year.”

Nadal did it perfectly. He made it about Djokovic and not himself. He didn’t sulk or remind everyone that the next morning they would wake up with the same lives and same problems. It was the type of postgame interview that made you want to turn to an impressionable young athlete and say, “See that? Hear that? That is how it is done.”

That’s also how a postgame column is done.

Exhibit B:

A Year’s Worth of Nerves in a Day

The U.S. Women’s Team Falls to Japan, but No One Can Deny the Thrill of the World Cup Final

Nut graf:

It had everything. It lifted you and crushed you and wore you out. Over 90 tense minutes of regular time and 30 tenser minutes of extra time it went. Anxiety, exhilaration, jubilation, despair. Every emotion bloomed and bottomed. The nerves of an entire sports season felt compressed into a few hours on one July day.

Gay notes that the U.S. women’s soccer bandwagon formed in just a week, then turned into a roller-coaster ride:

Every premature celebration was extinguished. Celebrate? There was hardly a second to breathe. This World Cup final gave as much as a game can give. Because the U.S. women captivated so many of us, because they brought us in and thrilled us, the pain from this one will linger. The U.S. team wasn’t perfect. Mistakes were made, defensive lapses were punished. And the shootout: Three misses in a row? Really?

Again, read the whole piece. But again, Gay’s conclusion:

[E]ven in a loss, we got something indelible. Sunday’s game will stick with everyone who watched. It won’t be as iconic and joyful as Chastain’s shirt-tossing victory celebration in Pasadena, but it’s just as vivid.

We will remember this team for what it left on the field. That wasn’t the dream, but that’s all anyone can ask.

Can’t ask much more from a sports column, either.

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NYT Flirts With Outing Marcus Bachmann

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

The rumors about anti-gay Michele Bachmann’s probably-gay husband Marcus just keep getting stronger.

From The Daily Beast:

Bachmann Rumor Grows Louder

If you aren’t yet familiar with the growing whispers about Michele Bachmann’s campaign—the uncorroborated speculation that the candidate’s profoundly antigay hubby, Marcus, is a closeted gay man—you will be. The chatter has already made its way from the blogs and Twitter (Cher tweeted that Marcus has tripped her exquisitely tuned gaydar) to the alternative press to The Daily Show, where Jon Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld left each other in stitches this week taking shots at Marcus Bachmann’s effeminate manner and “center-square gay” voice. (Anyone out there old enough to remember Paul Lynde?) As Stewart joked, the guy is “an Izod shirt away from being the gay character on Modern Family.” Clips of the comedians’ faux “comedy repression” session promptly popped up on the websites of such stodgy outlets as The Washington Post and The Atlantic.

Now comes the New York Times, which nibbled around the edges in this Sunday piece by Sheryl Gay (!) Stolberg:

Mrs. Bachmann’s strong stance on homosexuality — she once likened it to “personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement” — and her anti-abortion views have appeal for some Republican primary voters. In Iowa this month, she delighted conservatives by signing a pledge opposing “any redefinition of marriage.” (Her fellow Minnesotan and presidential rival, Tim Pawlenty, a former governor, was left explaining why he did not.)

Yet her position has also become a distraction for her campaign, drawing critics and subjecting her family to the kind of scrutiny once reserved for the relatives of nominees. It has exposed a longstanding rift between the congresswoman and her stepsister, who is a lesbian. It has also raised questions about whether her husband, Marcus, who runs two Christian counseling centers, practices “reparative therapy,” or gay-to-straight counseling, derided by critics as an effort to “pray away the gay.”

For the Bachmanns, the issue is entwined with faith. Until recently, they were members of Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which holds that “a believing member” cannot “remain a practicing homosexual in defiance of God’s word.” Friends say they now attend services at another evangelical church, Eagle Brook, closer to their new home in another Stillwater neighborhood.

Got that? Sure sounds like Michele and Marcus can no longer be “believing members.”

The Times so far doesn’t have anything new today, but the Gaydar Patrol is on the case.

It’s just a matter of Times.

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