Category: Media and society

Change we can believe in: Charge the media to cover your events

As if spending your tax cut early wasn’t enough cash for Mr. Obama, he is charging the news media big bucks to cover his hoped-for victory celebration.
The richest campaign in history will begin to educate the nation in how Chicago rolls on election night as follows:

FishbowlLA links to a memo sent to news organizations informing them they would have to pay for credentials to Sen. Barack Obama’s Election Night celebration.
It’s not cheap, either. According to the memo, “credentials will cost $715 to $1,815,” and campaign officials “will be available only in the ‘press file’ tent, to which an additional admission fee of $935 per person is being imposed.”
Maybe they’re trying to keep out the Mayhill Fowler’s of the world? Although we’re guessing at this point Huffington Post can easily foot that bill. Regardless, charging the media to cover election night? It certainly doesn’t seem like a smart PR move.
The negative headlines are already starting to pile up. Writes Chicago Business, “The best-funded political campaign in American history says news organizations will have to pay – in some cases almost $2,000 each – if they want to cover Barack Obama’s election-night celebration in Chicago.”

You gotta pay to play, babay.

CNN refuses to acknowledge mistake in Palin interview

Big media deal today; CNN’s Drew Griffin misquoted a National Review article as follows:

He seems to have misinterpreted Byron York’s statements on Palin. York said:

Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward or – well, all of the above.

York was referring to press coverage of Palin and not offering a negative assessment.
Watching Greta Van Susteren tonight, I see that CNN has not offered a correction. O’Reilly says he asked CNN how they were going to handle it and he got nothing from them. Van Susteren was pretty miffed about it and said so on her blog.

Pro-life Day of Silence

Today is the other Day of Silence – a day of silence to speak for the babies silenced via abortion.
The website supporting the day begins:

On October 21st, people from all over this nation will give up their voices for a day in solidarity for these children. Red arm bands and duct tape will identify them as taking part in the Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity. They will carry fliers explaining why they are silent and educate others about the plight of the innocent children we are losing every day.

This Day of Silence is promoted by StandTrue Pro-life ministry and claims over 4500 schools are taking part.

Shelly Mandell, head of LA chapter of National Organization for Women endorses McCain-Palin

Imagine Jim Dobson or Rick Warren endorsing Barack Obama. Imagine the headlines and news stories which would derive from such an endorsement.
Now imagine a major Democratic operative, who is heads one of the largest chapters of the National Organization for Women endorsing John McCain and Sarah Palin, primarily due to Sarah Palin’s place on the ticket.
Both would be big news, right?
One would think either scenario would be reported widely. However, when Ms. Shelly Mandell endorsed Sarah Palin in Carson CA, on Saturday October 4, it was not reported widely. Thus far, the stunning news has garnered one story that I can find in the mainstream press (two if you include Greta Van Susteren’s blog post).
The news that has been of interest to mainstream reporters is Palin’s comments about Barack Obama and William Ayers, and her quote of Madelyn Albright. You would think an endorsement from a major feminist leader would get a sentence or two.
You can watch the speech by Ms. Mandell here:

Mandell says she disagrees with Palin on some issues, probably life, but she believes Palin cares about fairness to women and will shake things up in Washington. Mandell is a former supporter of Hillary Clinton.
Why would mainstream media not report this?
UPDATE: Because I did not have the proper spelling of Ms. Mandell’s name, I missed some references, including this one in the LA Times blog. However, the only reporting I can find on this story is the MSNBC post and the local Southern California press. More interest has been given to Sarah Palin’s slight misquote of Madeleine Albright.

Dissecting the Palin Rumor mill – Pajama Media

Charles Martin, keeper of an extensive list of claims regarding Sarah Palin, put up a thoughtful article today regarding the Palin rumor mill. He lists a couple of debunkings from this site as well as distills some principles for evaluating rumors during the political season.

What it does teach us, though, is to watch out for people reporting these rumors as fact. The old newspaper adage was “if your mother tells you she loves you, get a second source.” So here are some new ones — useful any time, but especially useful on these political rumors:
Any time you hear about a budget “cut,” check the previous year’s budget.
Consistently, every rumor about Palin cutting a budget has turned out to be an increase that was smaller than someone asked for.
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
This applies to a lot of the rumors on both sides, frankly. “Obama is a secret Muslim.” “Palin was a member of a secessionist party.” “Obama wasn’t born in the USA.” “McCain wasn’t born in the USA.” This applies especially to stories that match your preconceptions.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”
The bigger the surprise would be, the less likely it’s true.
Applying these to most all the Palin and Obama rumors would have saved a lot of pixels over the last two years.

Given that I have investigated several of these Palin rumors, I am going to soon put the links all on one page so I can add and modify them as needed.