"The worst line I ever wrote as a pundit... was... 'If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling.'" https://althouse.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-worst-line-i-ever-wrote-as-pundit.html
Samantha Bee’s ‘Full Frontal’ Canceled in Latest Late-Night Cutback https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/samantha-bee-canceled-full-frontal-1235324772/ unfunny shows get what they deserve
Media Hacks Pout As Republicans Treat Them Like the Trash They Are The media is our enemy and it is wonderful to finally see Republicans treating reporters as what they are – digital vermin whose sole function is to shrimp the toes of the regime. There has been a rash of media handwringing because GOP superstars like Ron DeSantis are not allowing the media access to candidates or events. At the Sunshine Summit the other week in the Free State of Florida, Ruthless Ron and his superstar comms staff simply refused to allow the mutants in. Dave Weigel, apparently back on the job after his utter humiliation at the hands of some fussy girls at WaPo, was rejected and ejected and sat outside the velvet rope away from the action. Good. Our boy Brian Stelter – who is a potato – was tweeting about how the GOP was not talking to reporters or coming on their shows. We can assume it is probably another attack on democracy or something. This tuber tirade should make us smile. Republicans are getting it. Finally. {More at the link}
NEW AllSides Media Bias Chart™ Version 7: Updated Ratings for AP, Forbes, Politico, and More https://www.allsides.com/blog/new-a...7-updated-ratings-ap-forbes-politico-and-more chart: more at the link
CNN management intent on changing perception of the network https://apnews.com/article/new-york-brian-stelter-4ad9041d8f31028f13e107cb8e32a19d excerpt: Being seen as a liberal alternative to Fox News Channel isn’t an issue for a news outlet that plays up partisanship. But for a company that has sold itself as an unbiased news source for more than 40 years — to viewers, to advertisers, to cable or satellite operators — that presents a problem. Since Licht took over, morning anchor Brianna Keilar’s occasional takedowns of Fox coverage have disappeared. Although Licht hasn’t commented publicly on Stelter’s exit, the media reporter’s criticism of Fox was a regular feature of “Reliable Sources.” It received little notice at the time, but cable news executive John Malone, now a member of the Warner Discovery board of directors, said in a CNBC interview last November that “I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.” Similarly, Warner Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said at a company town hall in Aprilthat CNN should set itself apart from a cable news industry that is dominated by “advocacy networks.” CNN needs to be about reporting, truth and facts, he said. “If we get that, we can have a civilized society,” said Zaslav, who appointed Licht. “And without it, if it all becomes advocacy, we don’t have a civilized society.” Licht has given few interviews to outside journalists since taking over, and a CNN spokesman turned down a request for this article. Licht has taken steps toward the goals his bosses have elucidated. He wants CNN anchors to be conscious of a perspective that they sometime talk down to people. He wants panel discussions to be informative, not dominated by extreme points of view. He wants to resist “outrage p*rn.” He ordered that the on-air “breaking news” banner be reserved for real breaking news. more at the link
Election denial doesn't refer to legitimate challenges to election administration. The term is accurate and appropriate.
Murdoch’s news outlets extend their criticism of Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/1...ection updates&index=0#trump-fox-news-murdoch excerpt: For a second consecutive day, the recriminations about Republicans’ unexpectedly weak Election Day performance played a prominent role on the pages and over the airwaves of Rupert Murdoch’s media properties. And the consensus wasn’t kind to former President Donald J. Trump. “Trump is the Republican Party’s biggest loser,” declared the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial on Thursday, which accused Mr. Trump of having “flopped in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022.” The cover of the New York Post on Thursday was just as scalding, if slightly more tongue-in-cheek. It had an illustration of Mr. Trump depicted as Humpty Dumpty. “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall — can all the G.O.P.’s men put the party back together again?” the headline read. Inside, the Post ran an opinion piece by the conservative writer John Podhoretz, a frequent critic of the former president, that called Mr. Trump “the most profound vote repellent in modern American history.” Fox News spent all day Wednesday featuring commentators who blamed Mr. Trump for dragging the entire party down, and the criticism continued into prime time. Laura Ingraham, who was one of the former president’s biggest boosters in conservative media during his four years in office, took what appeared to be a swipe at him. more at the link
bad news for all you TDS news junkies New CNN chief: ‘We are not going to be a 24/7 Trump news network’ https://thehill.com/homenews/media/...re-not-going-to-be-a-24-7-trump-news-network/
apparently not having Trump to kick around is bad for business CNN makes massive staff cuts as news industry prepares for a dark winter Both the cable news giant and the Gannett newspaper chain are laying off staffers this week. Other cuts are expected at other major news organizations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/01/cnn-staff-cuts-layoffs-gannett/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...-must-fight-internal-liberal-bias-groupthink/ BBC chiefs agree they must fight internal 'liberal bias' and 'groupthink' BBC chairman Richard Sharp says staff will undergo anti-bias training ByLiz Perkins 3 December 2022 • 11:45pm The BBC chairman yesterday indicated “the BBC does have a liberal bias” but added “the institution is fighting against it.” Richard Sharp, in an interview in the Sunday Times, said he and Tim Davie, the director-general, had drawn up a ten-point plan on impartiality, anti-bias training along with reviews of news output in a drive to tackle the issue. He indicated the decision to transfer departments into the regions, including the north of England, Scotland and Wales, by Davie will help the BBC become less Londoncentric, “which can create groupthink”. The BBC was taken aback by Brexit. Mr Sharp said: “I’ve got Bloomberg TV on in here for a reason. It’s excellent. We have to raise our game.” He added: "The BBC’s correspondents and editors are “first rate”, but across the institution business and finance “are not as well understood as they should be. We need to do a better job of explaining them, especially when inflation is forcing the government and the opposition to make very difficult choices.” The challenge facing the BBC remains around funding, with calls to axe the abolition of the £159 licence fee, which generates £3.7 billion a year and accounts for 74 per cent of the BBC's revenue. A knock-on effect of the freeze in the licence fee is that the corporation's income has dropped by 30 per cent compared to a decade ago. Mr Sharp, who previously worked for Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, underlined the licence fee was "good value" for money – the equivalent of 43 pence a day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/06/ndaa-jcpa-newspapers-fail/ Congress drops media bargaining bill amid Facebook, industry blowback Facebook threatened to block news in the U.S. over the measure, which was under consideration as part of a defense package By Cristiano Lima December 6, 2022 at 10:33 p.m. EST Lawmakers on Tuesday ended what had been an effort to allow media organizations to band together to negotiate revenue sharing deals with tech giants, leaving the provisions out of a massive spending bill amid intense pushback from industry and advocacy groups. The measure, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), was omitted from a bicameral agreement on Congress’s sprawling defense-spending legislation, according to the bill’s text released late Tuesday. The JCPA provisions had been considered for potential inclusion, according to two people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. The move came a day after Facebook said it would “consider removing news from our platform” if lawmakers moved ahead with the measure, a threat that publisher groups denounced. The proposal would have created a temporary carve-out in antitrust law allowing news publishers and broadcasters to collectively push for more favorable distribution terms for their content online. The effort, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), had been billed by its proponents as a temporary lifeline for reeling news publications whose advertising revenue has plummeted over the past decade amid rapid growth of digital ad titans Google and Facebook. “Continually allowing the big tech companies to dominate policy decisions in Washington is no longer a viable option when it comes to news compensation, consumer and privacy rights, or the online marketplace.” Klobuchar said in a statement Wednesday after the defense bill was released. “We must get this done.” Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook parent Meta, blasted the bill Monday as “ill-conceived” and said the company would rather scrub news from its products than “submit to government mandated-negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets.” The remarks echoed warnings the giant issued against similar regulations globally, including a high-profile bout in Australia. NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, two trade groups that count Google, Meta and Amazon as members, on Monday announced that they were taking out six-figure ad buys online and in broadcast to oppose the legislation amid reports that it was under discussion. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) A slew of consumer advocacy groups and think tanks had also lined up against the measure, arguing in a letter Monday that it could force tech platforms to carry extreme or harmful content and that it would disproportionately benefit large media conglomerates. Klobuchar disputed those criticisms in an interview this year, saying smaller publishers would get a seat at the table in the discussions. “I know the small newspapers in my state are huge fans of this bill,” she told The Washington Post. “I think that what this does is allow for the potential that content is going to be paid for appropriately and that journalists’ work will be compensated for instead of stolen.” The bill had been endorsed by numerous media organizations, including trade groups like the News Media Alliance, newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, broadcast giants including the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp. and conservative digital outlets like the Daily Caller. The Post is a member of the News Media Alliance (NMA). Shani George, a spokesperson for The Post, previously said in an email that The Post is “aware of [NMA’s] efforts around this legislation and we have not taken a public stance.” The bill split progressives and conservatives alike, forming unlikely alliances on both sides of a years-long political fight over the future of news online. Critics on the left say it could force tech companies to take a more hands-off approach to content moderation, and critics on the right say it could enable major news outlets to “collude” with the tech giants to silence conservatives. Meta’s threat followed a familiar playbook for the giant, which last year blocked news in Australia in response to similar legislation aimed at forcing tech companies to pay publishers for content. The company issued the same warning last month in response to parallel efforts in Canada. The U.S. push came as broader efforts to rein in the tech giants over allegations of anti-competitive conduct have stalled in Congress, with time ticking away in its legislative session. Tony Romm contributed to this report.
