Remember Tim Russert

With Russert gone, Sunday will never be the same

Favorite son mourned

Our view: A father we all can be proud of

For Tim Russert, success began with lessons from home

Russert’s passion showed in religion, family, work, sports

The Gold Standard Tim Russert’s legacy—in politics and in life

Tributes To Tim Russert — and Questions For NBC

Tim Russert: A personal remembrance

A Video Tribute To Tim Russert, Dead Today At 58 a la Wonkette

Luke Russert, son of the late moderator of “Meet the Press” Tim Russert, touches the empty chair that was left behind by his father on the set of the show after a taping of “Meet the Press” in memory of Russert in Washington June 15, 2008.

Dan Rather sues CBS, Viacom for $70M

Rather’s complaint stems from “CBS’ intentional mishandling” of the aftermath of a discredited story about President George W. Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard.

Go Dan!!!

Remembering Mahad

We lost a courageous colleague yesterday in Mogadishu, Somalia. Mahad Elmi was a 30-year-old radio journalist who had become an invaluable freelancer for McClatchy’s Africa bureau over the past year.

Small Outposts of Besieged Values

Will Murdoch destroy the Journal? Will he undermine the paper’s values and call that “investment”?

Goodbye Tom Snyder

Late-night talk show pioneer Tom Snyder dies of leukemia The late-night talk show host whose free-form program and intimate interviewing style influenced a generation of broadcasters, died in his Tiburon home nearly two years after he announced he had chronic lymphatic leukemia.

We will miss you

Dahr Jamail, Iraq Reporter Schizophrenic in Disneyland

Iraq on My Mind

Thousands of Stories to Tell — And No One to Listen
By Dahr Jamail

“In violence we forget who we are” — Mary McCarthy, novelist and critic

The Cincinnati Post to say farewell Dec. 31

Owner Scripps cites market pressures, changes in announcing newspaper’s end after 126 years

Now we officially become a one newspaper town.

Helen Thomas: New Press Room

Same Old Answers?

Interpreter for news agency is slain in Iraq

An Iraqi interpreter for Reuters was shot to death in Baghdad, an apparent victim of sectarian death squads, the third Reuters employee killed in the Iraqi capital this week, the news agency reported Saturday.

Little outbursts of journalism — what causes them?

Various media outlets exercise the basic function of journalism by pointing out the deceit behind the President’s new Iraq rhetoric

Glenn Greenwald

In a Baghdad Killing, Questions That Haunt Iraq

by John F. Burns

At 8:45 a.m. on Friday, Khalid W. Hassan was navigating his car out of one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods on his way to work as a reporter and interpreter at The New York Times bureau here. “My area is blocked,” he wrote in a cellphone text message to the paper’s newsroom manager. “I am trying to find a way out.”

‘New York Times’ journalist killed in Iraq

By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil

An Iraqi journalist working for The New York Times was shot and killed in Baghdad yesterday, 24 hours after an Iraqi photographer and driver, working for the London-based news agency Reuters, were killed by fire from a US helicopter.

MSNBC’s David Shuster mops floor with Fouad Ajami

The worst days of my life …

‘like being buried alive’

Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter held captive since March, this morning told of his ordeal at the hands of kidnappers he described as ‘dangerous and unpredictable’

Editorials Hit Libby’s Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

The bloggers, politicians, and TV pundits weighed in quickly Monday after President Bush took the surprisingly sudden step of commuting Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s 30-month prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case. Now newspaper editorials are appearing, and nearly all of them have condemned the Bush act.

Wall Street Journal reporters protest possible sale

Wall Street Journal reporters skipped work Thursday morning to demonstrate the need for editorial independence as owner Dow Jones & Co. weighs a $5 billion offer from Rupert Murdoch, the employees’ union said.

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity

Remember that the Antioch College motto, taken from the great educator Horace Mann, is: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

Bob Fitrakis

A New Silent Majority

Our Lives as Atoms
May 23, 2007, 6:11 pm

By Mark Buchanan

Something seems a little out of whack between the mainstream media and the American people. Take the arguments of the past few days over former President Jimmy Carter’s remarks about the Bush administration and the consequences of its particular brand of foreign policy. Carter didn’t attack President Bush personally, but said that “as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history,” which can’t really be too far out of line with what many Americans think.

Your Local News – Dateline Delhi

The world may be flat, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has written, but I always liked to think I was standing on a hill. Now comes the news that pasadenanow.com, a local news site, is recruiting reporters in India. The website’s editor points out that he can get two Indian reporters for a mere $20,800 a year – and no, they won’t be commuting from New Delhi.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Three Newspapers Reverse 100-Year-Old Stand

Three established U.S. newspapers, two of them among the 10 largest in the country, in three different states have in the past weeks abandoned their century-old support of the death penalty and become passionate advocates of a ban on state-sponsored killing.

Woodward vs. Tenet

The new intelligence war.

by Jeffrey Goldberg May 21, 2007

[Thx SA]

Working the Truth Beat

April 30, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By BOB HERBERT

The initial feeling is shock, and then comes anger, the anger bursting through even before the inevitable sadness sets in.

Two people whom I respected a great deal were killed — one of them insanely and the other absurdly — in the past three weeks.

All the President’s Press

April 29, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By FRANK RICH

SOMEHOW it’s hard to imagine David Halberstam yukking it up with Alberto Gonzales, Paul Wolfowitz and two discarded “American Idol” contestants at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Before there was a Woodward and Bernstein, there was Halberstam, still not yet 30 in the early 1960s, calling those in power to account for lying about our “progress” in Vietnam. He did so even though J.F.K. told the publisher of The Times, “I wish like hell that you’d get Halberstam out of there.” He did so despite public ridicule from the dean of that era’s Georgetown punditocracy, the now forgotten columnist (and Vietnam War cheerleader) Joseph Alsop.

Bill Moyers’ Journal: Buying the War

How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?

Watch “Buying the War,” a 90-minute documentary that explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, which includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of Meet the Press; and Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN.

Two days later on April 27, BILL MOYERS JOURNAL airs at its regular timeslot on Fridays at 9 P.M. with interviews and news analysis of underreported stories across an array of beats, including: the environment, media, politics, the economy, arts and culture, and social issues.

David Halberstam, 73, War Reporter and Author, Is Killed in a Car Crash

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and tireless author of books on topics as varied as America’s military failings in Vietnam, the deaths of firefighters at the World Trade Center and the high-pressure world of professional basketball, was killed Monday in a car crash south of San Francisco. He was 73, and lived in Manhattan.

An Interview with David Halberstam: Not Allowed to Be Boring

David Halberstam: Coup in Saigon: A Detailed Account (Originally published in The New York Times, November 6, 1963)

WNYC public radio interview 10/10/2004

“If you’re a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong, that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring.“

Ordered back to Iraq

Soldier denied time to stay with dying mother
until his story got some attention…

and now,

After initially being denied an extra week of leave, Robinson told The Decatur Daily on Thursday he now expects that he won’t be returning to Iraq but will be at a U.S. base for his final five months in the Army.

Flying Solo Past the Point of No Return

For a few days, it seemed as if Don Imus would somehow pull out of the death spiral.

Either Imus Goes, Or Gonzales Goes

Imagine if the audience’s appetite for outrage extended to the dying of American democracy. Imagine if media bosses believed that we’re insatiable for information about the Republican attempt to rig the ’08 election by politicizing the Justice Department and prosecuting phony voter fraud. Imagine if the same kind of blanket coverage that’s currently conferred on loopy astronauts, bratty rehaboholics, and, yes, outrageously slandered basketball teams, were afforded instead to the slow-motion fascism now on the move in America. Would we watch it the same Pavlovian way we watch tits, twits and tornadoes?

Iraq: Why the media failed

Afraid to challenge America’s leaders or conventional wisdom about the Middle East, a toothless press collapsed.

Helen Thomas: President and Press Poke Fun at Each Other

Although the jibes are all in good fun, of course, the give-and-take during those glittering evenings is often marked by truth spoken in jest.

The Washington Back Channel

Leaks, backgrounders, favors, masked attribution: For decades, journalists and government officials have traded in a sort of information black market, manipulating one another and, to some extent, readers too. It’s not pretty — as the Libby trial revealed. But it’s crucial.

By MAX FRANKEL

Why the Cincinnati Enquirer Was Forced to Apologize

In 1998, the Cincinnati Enquirer published an 18-page expose of Chiquita’s dealings in Latin America. The paper found that Chiquita exposed entire communities to dangerous U.S.-banned pesticides, forced the eviction of an entire Honduran village at gunpoint, suppressed unions and paid a fortune to
U.S. politicians to influence trade policy. The Enquirer was later forced to issue a front-page apology and pay Chiquita a reported $14 million after it was revealed the lead reporter, Mike Gallagher, illegally accessed more than 2,000 Chiquita voice mails.

Tony Snow gets into it With Harry Smith at CBS over the Attorney Scandal

Snow said Harry sounded like a partisan which is one of the worst things a guy like Snow can say to a reporter.

Faiz Shakir has more… So does Steve Benen… And Digby says it’s all about Rove…

RJ Eskow: The Times Misleads On Prosecutorgate “News” And Presents Facts As Opinion

Is New York Times reporter David Stout incapable of performing basic research, or is he parroting Administration talking points in today’s article on Prosecutorgate? That’s not a rhetorical question. His article distorts the context for Congressional requests for testimony. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the the Times simple factual assertions are being presented as editorial opinion.

Hubris and Obscenity:Imperial Ambitions on Naked Display

Rarely has the imperial hubris that lies at the basis of U.S. foreign policy – the unspoken, unquestioned assumption of America’s right to global domination by force – been so nakedly revealed than in the recent Washington Post story decrying the degraded state of the Pentagon’s military preparedness. (“Military is Ill-Prepared for Other Conflicts.“)

After Confession: Lawyer Will Now Appeal Conviction in Daniel Pearl Case

“I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan,” Mohammed told a military panel, according to a Pentagon transcript released Thursday. “For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”

Plame-gate: Time to Fire WPost’s Hiatt

The Washington Post’s editorial page parroted George W. Bush’s lies in the run-up to the Iraq War and has continued to carry White House water in the years since. Even recently, the Post’s editorials have disparaged former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose CIA wife Valerie Plame was outed by Bush officials. Now with a congressional hearing establishing key facts about Plame’s CIA duties, the Post’s editorials stand fully exposed. Is it time finally to demand accountability from the Post and the firing of editorial page editor Fred Hiatt?

CNN Bars Candidate From Debate, Censorship Charged

US Senator Mike Gravel spoke at the DNC winter meeting standing next to Howard Dean and was at the Nevada candidate’s forum with Hillary Clinton, Edwards and the others and he’s been invited to ABC’s debates, but CNN has barred former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel from their New Hampshire debate, without giving a reason.

News War: What’s Happening to the News?

Frontline
Tuesday, February 27, 9:00pm

Lowell Bergman examines the economic pressures the news industry faces because of aging audiences and the Internet. Included: comments from “Daily Show” head writer David Javerbaum; Ted Koppel; former L.A. Times managing editor Dean Baquet.

The Most Honest Man in News

Keith Olbermann is mad as hell — and unlike Rush Limbaugh, he’s not faking it

Helen Thomas Moving Back After 46 Years Down Front

“I didn’t think I had a monopoly on that seat,” Thomas, 86, said in a telephone interview. “Since my peers have decided that I don’t belong there, I’ll bow to their – I’ll drink the – What did Socrates drink?”

Hemlock?

“I’ll drink it,” she said. “You have to submit to the will of the people, and apparently this is the will of my peers. It’s OK with me. I’ve had a good run in the front seat.”

Typical of Bushco. No class.

Barlett and Steele Are Back

Exposing SAIC in the Bowels of the Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair

Stop Killing Journalists

A Philippines journalist protesting killings of journalists in the country. International press watchdogs, including the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, have branded the Philippines the second most dangerous place for journalists, next to Iraq.(AFP/File/Joel Nito)

Did David Broder “prop up” the Bush presidency?

There are actually countless examples where previously unchallenged national journalists have been confronted by the work of bloggers, and one such incident occurred yesterday when The Washington Post’s David Broder hosted an “online chat” and one of the questioners read from a post I wrote critiquing Broder’s column yesterday.

Shame on the Washington Post, Again

Just days before the perjury/obstruction trial of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby goes to the jury, the Washington Post’s Outlook section published a bizarre front-page article by right-wing legal expert Victoria Toensing suggesting that the prosecutor and one of the chief victims in the case should be put on trial.

Wolf As Underdog: Indy Media Journalist Needs Protection

By Amy Goodman

Jailed journalist Josh Wolf has remained in prison so long because he lacks the backing of a large media organization that could agitate to protect his rights — so Congress should step in.

Michael Gordon, the administration’s best friend at the Times

Michael Gordon, one of the administration’s most enthusiastic press enablers in the lead-up to Iraq, shows no signs of slowing down in his Iran “reporting.”

Glenn Greenwald

Newswar

Secrets, Sources & Spin (Part I) started 4 minutes ago on PBS. You can watch it online if you miss it.

Robert Parry Investigates, Like a Real Reporter Should

Interview

… the Reagan people were using this phrase, “perception management.” They understood that if you could manage the perceptions of the American people through the information they got, making sure it was only your side of the story and that the facts from the ground were filtered out, then they could control the American population. They did not want to see Vietnam again. If they had to do foreign policy interventions, they didn’t want the American people to become an obstacle to them.

WPost Disses the Dixie Chicks

By Robert Parry

The smug Washington Post smirked its way through an article about the Dixie Chicks winning five Grammy Awards for the group’s heroic album “Taking the Long Way” and the defiant song “Not Ready to Make Nice.”