Posts by DonIrvine:
Gun Control Advocate Rachel Maddow Says “Shooting is Fun”
May 19th, 2016By Don Irvine.
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, an admitted gun control advocate, shocked her fellow liberals this week when she told CBS News’ Rita Braver that she thinks “shooting is fun.”
Braver accompanied Maddow to a gun range, where she watched Maddow shoot a few rounds.
Maddow: This is a beautiful gun.
Braver: So maybe you wouldn’t expect the woman wielding the Colt .45 pistol or the AR-15 rifle to be unabashedly left-leaning Rachel Maddow.
Maddow: Like, I’m a real liberal, even on, like, gun safety and gun control issues. That said, I think that shooting is fun, and I think that shooting ranges are an excellent place to both learn about guns and to freak your friends out!
Maddow is correct that gun ranges are an excellent place to learn about guns. But apparently she hasn’t learned enough to realize that her desire to shoot—and perhaps own—a gun is predicated on the Constitution and laws that allow citizens to own a gun, not those that restrict their rights to do so, which is what she advocates.
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Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg to Meet with Conservative Media Figures
May 17th, 2016By Don Irvine.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to meet with a group of conservative media figures tomorrow after a report in tech blog Gizmodo reported that the social media juggernaut’s Trending Topics section routinely suppressed conservative news.
The group will include Glenn Beck, CNN’s S.E. Cupp, Fox News’ Dana Perino, Mitt Romney’s former digital director Zac Moffat, Donald Trump adviser Barry Bennett and GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, plus a few others.
Notably absent—besides anyone from Accuracy in Media—will be American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, who declined the invitation and blasted Facebook for its bias.
Schlapp issued a press release in which he listed six reasons that he wouldn’t be attending the Facebook confab:
1) Facebook staff has admitted to suppressing content about CPAC.
2) Facebook rejected ACU’s overtures for Facebook to play a meaningful role at CPAC.
3) The deck is stacked: CPAC content egregiously underperforms on Facebook compared to Twitter and other platforms, by factors of 10.
4) The Facebook Trending News Chief, Tom Stocky, is a maxed-out donor to Hillary Clinton.
5) Of the 1,000 political donations from Facebook employees, 80% have gone to liberals.
6) Facebook holds liberal positions on important issues such as privacy, property and priests.
On the other hand, Cupp told CNN that she is going to the meeting with an open mind.
“Conservatives and Silicon Valley actually come down on the same side of many issues and share some common concerns. I’m sure we’ll find plenty to talk about, and I’m honored to have been included,” Cupp said.
Zuckerberg addressed the issue in a Facebook post last Thursday:
This week, there was a report suggesting that Facebook contractors working on Trending Topics suppressed stories with conservative viewpoints. We take this report very seriously and are conducting a full investigation to ensure our teams upheld the integrity of this product.
We have found no evidence that this report is true. If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it.
I don’t expect much to come out of this meeting, as it only includes a few conservative social media influencers and looks like more of a public relations ploy than a genuine effort to reach out to the conservative movement.
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Cook Political Editor: Women Voters More Anti-Trump than Pro-Hillary
May 16th, 2016By Don Irvine.
Women voters aren’t crazy about Hillary Clinton, but according to Cook Political Report editor Amy Walter, they plan to vote for her because they dislike Donald Trump more.
Walter made her comments on Fox News Sunday with host Chris Wallace while discussing Trump’s reaction to a New York Times story that detailed how the billionaire businessman and presumptive Republican nominee treated women in the past.
Trump issued a tweet responding to the story, calling the media “totally dishonest.”
Wallace: “Amy, do you think that this adds to the problems that Trump already has with women voters?
Walter: I don’t think it helps him, but when I sit and I talk with women voters, I just sat in a couple focus groups this past week in Pennsylvania, the women there—not happy with many of his past statements about women. But what they were the most concerned about was the issue of his overall judgment, where I heard woman after woman saying, ‘I worry that he is going to get us in trouble,’ meaning with the rest of the world…What is it going to mean if he is Commander-in-Chief and the President of the United States?”
Wallace said he was curious if the focus groups were asked about the Clintons and not just Trump.
“Look I think the perceptions of Hillary Clinton, let’s be really clear, these women even though some of them were swing women voters, some of them were Democrats, they’re not in love with Hillary Clinton. Right now, their vote for Hillary Clinton is much more a vote against Donald Trump than it is a support of her,” Walter said.
Even though neither Trump nor Clinton have officially sewed up their party’s nomination, they will undoubtedly be facing each other in November, leaving voters to choose between two candidates with historically high unfavorability ratings. Clinton has the edge at this point as her net favorability ratings is -12 versus Trump’s at -24, which makes this race look more like a choice between the lesser of two evils than one befitting the presidency of the U.S.
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Facebook Defends Itself Against Charges of Bias Against Conservatives, but Questions Remain
May 13th, 2016By Don Irvine.
Facebook, which has come under heavy criticism after a story last week in Gizmodo accused the social media giant of bias against conservatives in its Trending Topics, is fighting back.
Tom Stocky, VP of search for Facebook, posted this on May 9 about the bias allegations:
“My team is responsible for Trending Topics, and I want to address today’s reports alleging that Facebook contractors manipulated Trending Topics to suppress stories of interest to conservatives. We take these reports extremely seriously, and have found no evidence that the anonymous allegations are true.
Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics.
Trending Topics is designed to showcase the current conversation happening on Facebook. Popular topics are first surfaced by an algorithm, then audited by review team members to confirm that the topics are in fact trending news in the real world and not, for example, similar-sounding topics or misnomers.
We are proud that, in 2015, the US election was the most talked-about subject on Facebook, and we want to encourage that robust political discussion from all sides. We have in place strict guidelines for our trending topic reviewers as they audit topics surfaced algorithmic: reviewers are required to accept topics that reflect real world events, and are instructed to disregard junk or duplicate topics, hoaxes, or subjects with insufficient sources. Facebook does not allow or advise our reviewers to systematically discriminate against sources of any ideological origin and we’ve designed our tools to make that technically not feasible. At the same time, our reviewers’ actions are logged and reviewed, and violating our guidelines is a fireable offense.
There have been other anonymous allegations — for instance that we artificially forced #BlackLivesMatter to trend. We looked into that charge and found that it is untrue. We do not insert stories artificially into trending topics, and do not instruct our reviewers to do so. Our guidelines do permit reviewers to take steps to make topics more coherent, such as combining related topics into a single event (such as #starwars and #maythefourthbewithyou), to deliver a more integrated experience.
Our review guidelines for Trending Topics are under constant review, and we will continue to look for improvements. We will also keep looking into any questions about Trending Topics to ensure that people are matched with the stories that are predicted to be the most interesting to them, and to be sure that our methods are as neutral and effective as possible.
Admittedly, bias is hard to prove, and for all we know the former employees that spoke to Gizmodo could have been trying to seek some type of revenge against Facebook. But an article in The Guardian based on leaked documents about the trending news operation shows that human intervention plays a key part in what winds up as a Trending Topic, and that blacklisting is indeed possible.
The bottom line is that Facebook needs to be more transparent in how news is curated on its site. Stocky’s post is a step in the right direction, especially if it leads to a more balanced Trending Topics.
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Marco Rubio Criticizes Media on NATO and Trump Coverage
May 12th, 2016By Don Irvine.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) took the media to task for what he felt is their reluctance to tell the public anything important.
Rubio made his remarks during a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday:
It’s a lot easier to say, for example, why do we give all this money to NATO and these other people that we’re protecting do not. And it’s easier to say that than to explain what would happen if you didn’t. And so that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. I just think it takes time and, quite frankly, to be fair today’s press that covers this process is not interested in covering any of that.
Rubio was referring to the media’s coverage of GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump repeatedly saying that NATO is “obsolete,” and that the U.S. should pull out of the 28-nation alliance because it costs us a fortune, with little direct benefit.
The former Republican presidential candidate, who has yet to endorse Trump, is clearly frustrated that the media are willing to report on Trump’s NATO remarks without explaining the ramifications of what a withdrawal would mean to the U.S. and other members of the alliance.
Rubio added that in his opinion, the reason that the media have failed to explain this issue in detail is that they don’t know either.
This sounds a lot like what deputy national security adviser for strategic communication Ben Rhodes told the New York Times Magazine about the media when he said that the average reporter in Washington “literally knows nothing.”
Frankly, I can’t disagree with that assessment.
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Washington Post Fact Checker Wants Media to Challenge Trump’s Inaccurate Statements, but Ignores Similar Treatment for Hillary
May 11th, 2016By Don Irvine.
The Washington Post Fact Checker column, which has analyzed the accuracy of both Republican and Democratic politicians’ public statements for the past eight years, is puzzled at the media’s reluctance to challenge presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump over the numerous inaccurate statements he has made since declaring his candidacy for the presidency last year.
According to the Fact Checker, Trump has made 26 Four-Pinocchio statements—the highest rating that can be earned—which represents 70 of his statements that have been fact-checked by the Post.
The Fact Checker’s Glenn Kessler laments the fact that despite the numerous inaccurate statements, the media let Trump go unchallenged on most of what he says.
Kessler cites Trump’s statement that he was against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and that the White House sent a delegation to tell him to tone it down, when in fact Trump had expressed his support for the attack. Kessler considers this to be one of the more egregious examples of the media allowing Trump to go unchallenged for misstating the facts.
Other Four-Pinocchio claims include, “ISIS has the oil [in Libya]. ISIS is making a fortune now in Libya;” “There are scores of recent migrants inside our borders charged with terrorism;” and Russian President Vladimir Putin “called me a genius.” These are just a few of the 26 examples the Fact Checker has compiled to date.
Kessler thinks that TV hosts should have a list of Trump’s repeated misstatements so that he can be challenged on them should he repeat them. But Kessler doesn’t say that the same should be true of likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who has repeatedly lied about Benghazi, her private email server, contributions to the Clinton Foundation, etc., often without being challenged by the media despite ample evidence to the contrary.
If the media are going to challenge Trump on his misstatements, as they should, they will also need to apply the same standard to Hillary Clinton, which may be difficult since it would mean that they would have to actually try to be unbiased.
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White House Denies it Duped Media to Sell Iran Nuclear Deal
May 10th, 2016By Don Irvine.
The White House is in full damage control mode after deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes told the New York Times magazine that he used the media and “beltway insiders” to create an “echo chamber” to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the public.
On Friday White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the White House didn’t purposely mislead the public, and that reports to the contrary are just “sour grapes” from opponents of the Iran deal:
“I haven’t seen anybody produce any evidence that that’s the case. I recognize there might be some people who are disappointed that they did not succeed in killing the Iran deal and maybe these unfounded claims are the result of sour grapes. The truth is, the administration, under the direction of the President, engaged in an aggressive campaign to make a strong case to the American people that the international agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon enhanced the national security of the United States.”
That “aggressive campaign” apparently included taking advantage of what Rhodes said was an inexperienced press corps:
“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
Earnest was still in denial mode during Monday’s White House press briefing as he defended Rhodes:
“I recognize that there is an attempt by those who either lied or got it wrong to re-litigate this fight. But time and time again, the critics of the deal have been wrong. I think that is an indication that our attempts to protect the agreement were rooted in fact. And that’s what Ben wanted to reiterate in his piece.”
All of Earnest’s defense of the White House’s tactics seemingly came undone when he had the following exchange with Fox News White House correspondent Kevin Corke:
Corke: Can you state categorically that no senior official in this administration has ever lied publicly about any aspect of the Iran nuclear deal?
Earnest: No, Kevin.
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White House Falsely Claims Obama is the “Most Popular Politician in America
May 6th, 2016By Don Irvine.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claimed Thursday that President Obama is the “most popular politician in America.”
Earnest made that claim in response to a reporter’s question about whether the ongoing battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will be an impediment to gaining ground on GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump:
“Based on what the President has said before, I think he feels quite confident that Democrats will come together around a set of values that he himself has been advocating for for the last seven years. There’s a reason that the President is the most popular politician in America, particularly among Democrats, that his approval rating is higher and his unfavorable rating is lower among Democrats than anybody else in the country.
That is a strong endorsement of the work that this President has done over the last eight years or so, and that certainly is going to enhance the President’s ability to make an argument to those very voters about the stakes in the election, about the need to elect somebody who will look to build on that progress..”
While Obama’s 51 percent approval rating, according to Gallup, is higher than either Clinton or Sanders, it pales in comparison to the 70 percent approval ratings of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker—two Republican governors in very Democratic states. It proves the White House is wrong yet again when it comes to defending Obama and his policies, and it shows how the liberal media let them get away with making false statements.
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Conservative News Sites and Topics Blacklisted by Facebook
May 5th, 2016By Don Irvine.
Conservatives who have long suspected that social media behemoth Facebook leans to the liberal side of the political spectrum now have some more evidence to back up their suspicions. The tech blog Gizmodo revealed that Facebook blacklists certain topics from appearing in its Trending Topics section, and stories from certain conservative news sites from showing up in its users news feeds:
“The trending news section is run by people in their 20s and early 30s, most of whom graduated from Ivy League and private East Coast schools like Columbia University and NYU. They’ve previously worked at outlets like the New York Daily News, Bloomberg, MSNBC, and the Guardian. Some former curators have left Facebook for jobs at organizations including the New Yorker, Mashable, and Sky Sports.
According to former team members interviewed by Gizmodo, this small group has the power to choose what stories make it onto the trending bar and, more importantly, what news sites each topic links out to. ‘We choose what’s trending,’ said one. ‘There was no real standard for measuring what qualified as news and what didn’t. It was up to the news curator to decide.’
They were also told to select articles from a list of preferred media outlets that included sites like the New York Times, Time, Variety, and other traditional outlets. They would regularly avoid sites like World Star Hip Hop, The Blaze, and Breitbart, but were never explicitly told to suppress those outlets. They were also discouraged from mentioning Twitter by name in headlines and summaries, and instead asked to refer to social media in a broader context.
News curators also have the power to ‘deactivate’ (or blacklist) a trending topic—a power that those we spoke to exercised on a daily basis. A topic was often blacklisted if it didn’t have at least three traditional news sources covering it, but otherwise the protocol was murky—meaning a curator could ostensibly blacklist a topic without a particularly good reason for doing so.”
Rather than being the open forum for discussion that Facebook claims to be, it is instead censoring the topics and news sites that aren’t favored by the curators who mostly attended liberal colleges and universities, and who worked for liberal news organizations before coming to work for Facebook.
Social media sites like Facebook have an obligation to protect its users from objectionable content like pornography, but if it truly wants to be the news source for millions of people, then it should make sure its curating team is fair and balanced and that all points of view have an equal opportunity to be seen on its site.
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Left-Wing Protesters Fail to Prevent Trump from Speaking in California
May 4th, 2016By Don Irvine.
Hundreds of left-wing protesters who gathered in front of the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency on Friday failed to prevent GOP frontrunner Donald Trump from speaking at the California Republican Party convention, despite shutting down most access to the hotel.
While there were already a number of people protesting Trump with signs reading “Make America Native Again,” “Trump=Nazi,” and other such slogans, they were joined by Black Lives Matter activists and other left-wing groups. I saw one older woman carrying a sign that read, “We Need Socialism, Capitalism Kills.”
The protest was mostly peaceful until a group broke through the barricades and rushed towards the hotel, but police quickly stopped them.
Trump managed to enter and exit the hotel through a back door, unbeknownst to many protesters who just kept on demonstrating well after Trump had left the hotel. Trump even joked about it.
“My wife called and said there were helicopters following you,” he said. “Then I went under a fence, and through a fence. It felt like I was crossing the border, actually. I was crossing the border, but I got here.”
The support for Trump was very strong at the convention, which bodes well for him heading into the June 7 primary in California.
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DNC Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz Dodges CNN Question on Hillary Clinton’s Trustworthiness
May 4th, 2016
By Don Irvine.
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who has the unenviable task of defending Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, dodged a question about Clinton’s trustworthiness during an interview on CNN’s New Day on Tuesday morning.
The issue came up because Clinton was asked by a retired coal miner during a town hall on Monday night how she can act like a friend to coal miners and West Virginians after saying in March that she was going to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” if she becomes president.
Clinton said that her earlier remarks were taken out of context and that it was a “misstatement.”
CNN host Alisyn Camerota asked Wasserman Schultz if she thought it was the right tact for Clinton to apologize for her earlier remarks.
Wasserman Schultz said that Clinton was right and that she wasn’t backtracking on the substance of what she was saying.
Camerota then asked if it was a problem when the retired miner said that they don’t know if Clinton can be trusted.
Rather than address the question she was asked, Wasserman Schultz chose instead to attack GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, saying that he will cause the implosion of the Republican Party and that the Democrats have enthusiastic voters who are energized about the party’s candidates. She conveniently left out the fact that she has been doing everything she can to stop Bernie Sanders and ensure that Clinton will be the nominee.
A number of polls have shown that well over half of all voters think that Clinton isn’t honest and trustworthy. Those numbers are unlikely to improve as long as she is dogged by her numerous scandals.
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The Bias Buzz Podcast- Trump Inches Closer to Nomination, Actor Cries Voter Fraud in Dem Primaries, Target Boycott Petition Reaches 900,000
April 30th, 2016
By Don Irvine.
This week we discuss Donald Trump’s victories in the Northeast primaries, Ted Cruz’ path to the nomination, actor Tim Robbins charging voter fraud in Democratic primaries, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s corruption conviction appeal to the Supreme Court and Tom Brady’s suspension.
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Former CNN Anchor Blames TV Networks for the Rise of Trump
April 29th, 2016
By Don Irvine.
Donald Trump’s rise to the top of the GOP presidential field can be blamed on TV news, according to former CNN anchor Campbell Brown.
Brown, who spent 14 years as a correspondent and anchor for NBC News and CNN, calls out the media for its obsessive coverage of Trump in a piece she penned for Politico:
“I really would like to blame Trump. But everything he is doing is with TV news’ full acquiescence. Trump doesn’t force the networks to show his rallies live rather than do real reporting. Nor does he force anyone to accept his phone calls rather than demand that he do a face-to-face interview that would be a greater risk for him. TV news has largely given Trump editorial control. It is driven by a hunger for ratings—and the people who run the networks and the news channels are only too happy to make that Faustian bargain.”
All the networks spend an inordinate amount of time covering Trump, especially the cable news networks, which have been tripping all over themselves to air almost everything Trump says. MSNBC has been one of the worst panderers as the liberal network has pre-empted its regular programming several times to cover Trump rallies across the country, even though hosts like Chris Matthews are clearly supporting Hillary Clinton.
Brown also bemoans the decline of TV news since the time that she was reporting:
“The 800-pound gorillas of TV news are gone. When I was the White House correspondent at NBC and Tom Brokaw was anchor, the reporters were protected. Great TV journalists like Tom had enormous influence; they could and did push back on commercial decisions that affected our coverage. When another one of those powerhouses, Meet the Press host Tim Russert, was alive, he used to tell us: ‘Beware the pamphleteers.’ By that, he meant avoid a story that’s presented to you fully baked. Now that’s impossible; there’s no way to allow TV reporters to apply the filter of their journalism to a story like Trump. And more to the point, there’s little genuine interest in letting them.”
All this coverage is great for Trump. Brown points out that The New York Times estimated that he has received close to $2 billion in free media as of March, and is probably well over that by now, and growing. She said no campaign advertising budget can compete with that, which is sad but true.
Brown calls Trump a “chronic liar,” and says that while journalists may not be able to cover him less, they can cover him better by abandoning the “laziness that too often comes with just playing referee.” She argues that they should also use their knowledge and experience to get to the truth and expose misrepresentations.
The media have loved covering Trump as he bashes his Republican opponents and the GOP establishment. But their enthusiasm is likely to wane as he steps up his attacks on Hillary Clinton in the battle for the presidency.
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Donald Trump Thanks the Media
April 28th, 2016By Don Irvine.
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, who won another five primaries last night, increasing his commanding lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, thanked the media during his long-winded victory speech.
“I want to thank the media. The media’s covered me fair for the last two hours,” Trump said to laughter from the crowd. He then got a little more serious and added that “They’ve been really very fair over the last few weeks.”
Trump’s poke at the media was similar to last week when in the same speech he called them “the most dishonest people in the world,” only to turn around and call them “wonderful,” thanking them for making his candidacy possible.
As long as the media focus on Trump’s positives and downplay or ignore his negatives, he will love and praise them. But as soon as they cross the line, all bets are off on what he may say or do.
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Truce? Megyn Kelly to Interview Donald Trump
April 27th, 2016By Don Irvine.
There certainly has been little love lost between GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and Fox News’ Megyn Kelly for the last seven-plus months. But it looks like the long running feud is over with the announcement by Fox News that Kelly will interview Trump as part of her primetime special on May 17.
Trump, who took issue with Kelly’s line of questioning at the first GOP primary debate last August, stopped attacking the anchor after they met earlier this month at his office.
“Mr. Trump and I sat down together for a meeting earlier this month at my request. He was gracious with his time and I asked him to consider an interview. I am happy to announce he has agreed, and I look forward to a fascinating exchange—our first sit-down interview together in nearly a year,” Kelly said in a statement.
Kelly is a sharp interviewer, but she may be partially chastened by her experience with Trump after the primary debate last August. She may not come to the interview with her sharpest knives, but it still promises to be a good interview nonetheless.
The interview should be a win-win for both parties. Trump will appear in primetime on the highest rated cable news network, and Fox gets a guaranteed large ratings win for the evening
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Suit Alleges Al Jazeera America Lost $585 Million in Two Years
April 26th, 2016By Don Irvine.
Al Jazeera America, the ratings-challenged cable news network that shut down two weeks ago, and which was owned by the Qatari government, was hit with a lawsuit by one of its former employees who alleges among other things that the network lost $585 million in 2013 and 2014.
According to The New York Times, Anand Gupta, the former executive vice president of finance, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan charging the network with denying him a promised promotion and salary increase because of racial discrimination.
Gupta’s suit alleges that former chief executive Ehab Al Shihabi had promised to promote him to chief financial officer, but that Al Shihabi’s successor, Al Anstey, reneged on that promise and pushed him out of his job.
Citing tax returns, Gupta also laid out details of Al Jazeera America’s financial struggles, saying that it had a net operating loss of $250 million in 2013 and $335 million in 2014. Gupta also asserts that the network is on the hook for another $800 million if it is required to pay out its contracts to cable operators in full.
“We strongly disagree with the allegations made in Mr. Gupta’s complaint, which contains many factual inaccuracies, and we intend to vigorously defend the company’s position,” Molly Morse, a spokeswoman for Al Jazeera America, said in a statement on Friday, according to the Times.
Al Jazeera America was launched with great fanfare after the Qatari government bought Al Gore’s Current TV in 2013 for $500 million and spent an estimated $100 million in establishing news bureaus around the world, including hiring personnel. But it was never able to gain any traction in the ratings, rarely averaging more than 10,000 viewers a night in a cable news universe where the audience is normally measured in the hundreds of thousands, or in Fox News’ case, the millions.
As a result of the low ratings, Al Jazeera America was unable to attract advertisers in large enough numbers to help cover their expenses. And once oil prices collapsed, the oil revenue-dependent Qatari government decided to stop throwing its money away on the hapless network.
Conservative cablers expressed an interest in taking over Al Jazeera’s cable network distribution, but as of now the channel remains dark and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future.
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Newspaper Reporter Still the Worst Job in America
April 25th, 2016By Don Irvine.
For the second year in a row, and third out of the last four, being a newspaper reporter ranks as the worst job in America.
The Jobs Rated Report has been compiled by CareerCast since 1988, and ranks 200 U.S. jobs based on a wide range of criteria that includes income, outlook, environmental factors, stress and physical demands.
Just ahead of newspaper reporter is the job of logger/lumberjack, which finished at number 199 for the second straight year after being dead last in 2014.
Another media-related job—broadcaster—came in at number 198, with an equally glum outlook for the future.
For some people leaving the news business was a sigh of relief, according to CareerCast:
‘The news business has changed drastically over the years, and not in a good way,’ says former Broadcaster Ann Baldwin, president of Baldwin Media PR in New Britain, Connecticut. ‘When people ask me if I miss it, I tell them ‘I feel as if I jumped off of a sinking ship.’’
Baldwin’s time in the media, working at TV stations in the Rocky Mountains as well as Hartford, Connecticut, helped prepare her for her new career—providing public relations solutions and crisis management for businesses.
Even though job losses in the print and broadcast news business have generally slowed from a few years ago, both groups are still under intense pressure to rein in costs and improve profits.
CareerCast’s outlook for both newspaper reporters and broadcasters predicts negative growth of 9% through 2024, which means that these high stress, low paying, jobs are likely to remain among the worst jobs in America for the foreseeable future.
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Donald Trump Calls the Media “Dishonest;” Gives them Credit for Helping His Campaign
April 23rd, 2016By Don Irvine.
In one of the most bewildering moments of the presidential primary race, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump showed both hate and love for the media during a rally on Wednesday in Indiana:
So they criticize me for being too tough the first day. The second day they said, ‘Donald Trump’s not as tough as we thought,’ can you believe it?
You can’t win with these people. Look at all those cameras zooming. They are the most dishonest people in the world. The media. They are the worst. They are the worst. They are very dishonest people. They are terrible.
Honestly, and I don’t mean all, but I mean like 75, 80 percent. And they know it, they know.
These are not stupid people, but they’re very dishonest people, in many cases.
Trump then asked the crowd if we like the media, which brought a resounding “no.”
He then asked if we hate the media, and the crowd shouted “yes,” as Trump gestured with his hands in an upward motion:
Okay, no, I don’t hate anybody. I love the media. They’re wonderful.
I guess we wouldn’t be here, maybe, if it wasn’t for the media, so maybe we shouldn’t be complaining.
Trump has had a love/hate relationship with the media since he began his campaign, with a lot of his vitriol being directed at Megyn Kelly and Fox News after she asked some unexpectedly—for him—tough questions at the first GOP debate in August and continued until recently when the two had a face-to-face meeting.
Yet, at the same time, the media have fallen all over themselves to cover Trump and his quest for the GOP nomination, giving him hundreds of millions of dollars in earned media—defined by The New York Times as “news and commentary about his campaign on television, in newspapers and magazines, and on social media”—ensuring that his campaign remains front and center, and causing it to last longer than just about everyone thought it would.
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Hillary Clinton is Puzzled as to Why Voters Don’t Trust Her
April 22nd, 2016By Don Irvine.
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton doesn’t understand why voters don’t trust her, considering that she was elected twice as a senator from New York and served as secretary of state in the Obama administration.
Clinton made her remarks Thursday during a town hall meeting on Good Morning America moderated by George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts.
The subject first came up from a supporter in Philadelphia who told Clinton that her brother is supporting Bernie Sanders because he doesn’t trust her, and she wanted to know what Hillary would say to change his mind.
Clinton responded by saying that she works hard to do whatever job she is given and that she isn’t a natural politician. She said that “it sometimes is more difficult to navigate through the politics and the campaigning than I wish it were.”
“I served for eight years as a senator from New York. The people here trusted me—they voted for me twice and then again in the primary.” Clinton added, “So I think it’s a difference between the give and take of politics because for whatever reason, I do attract a lot of attacks.”
Stephanopoulos then told Clinton that the trust issue is a problem for her going forward and he wanted to know what was behind it.
“George, I don’t know,” Clinton responded, adding that “other than the fact that for 25 years, when I worked on health care as you well remember, I was subjected to an enormous wave of attacks and it hasn’t stopped.” She added that she was grateful that New Yorkers and people in the United States—as if New York wasn’t part of the U.S.—have seen right through the attacks.
What she left out, of course, were the real reasons that the public doesn’t trust her—Benghazi, classified information on her private email server and her refusal to release the transcripts of the speeches she gave to Wall Street, to name just a few. These issues have led to a record net-negative rating for a Democratic presidential frontrunner, and doesn’t bode well for her in November.
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Conservative Female Media Members Ask Trump to Fire Campaign Manager Over Assault Charge
April 4th, 2016
Sixteen conservative female members of the media have issued an open letter demanding that GOP frontrunner Donald Trump fire campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he was charged with simple battery against former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields.
Here’s the release:
Female Media Members Ask Trump Campaign to Fire Corey Lewandowski
Sixteen signatories respond to the “inexcusable, unprofessional” behavior of campaign manager
The press is to have an adversarial, yet civil approach to those in, or running, for elected office. Never in this line of work is it acceptable to respond to reasonable and legitimate questioning with use of physical force. The photographs, audio, videos, and witness accounts documenting the treatment of Michelle Fields by Corey Lewandoswki, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, are inexcusable and unprofessional. Donald Trump should immediately remove Lewandowski from his campaign. The Trump campaign has stated that Lewandowski will not be fired even if convicted, however unlike the Trump campaign, we believe in making a statement on the record to clearly highlight the difference between right and wrong.
Signed,
Dana Loesch, Radio America, Blaze TV, @dloesch
Katie Pavlich, Townhall, Fox News, @KatiePavlich
Meghan McCain, America Now Radio, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Fox News, @MeghanMcCain
S.E. Cupp, NY Daily News, Glamour Magazine, CNN, @secupp
Mary Katherine Ham, CNN, The Federalist, @mkhammer
Christine Rosen, The New Atlantis, Commentary Magazine
Christina Hoff Sommers, The American Enterprise Institute, @CHSommers
Bethany Mandel, The Federalist, Acculturated, @bethanyshondark
Emily Zanotti, American Spectator, @emzanotti
Elisha Krauss, Radio Co-Host, AM 870 The Answer, @ElishaKrauss
Karol Markowicz, NY Post Opinion, @karol
Kirsten Soltis Anderson, Kolumns with, DC Examiner, @KSoltisAnderson
Mona Charen, Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center (not Institute), Creators Syndicate, @monacharenEPPC
Sarah Rumpf, Freelance journalist, @rumpfshaker
Brooke Rogers, National Review, @BrookAnglnRogrs
Mary Chastain, Breitbart News, @mchastain81
Trump has vigorously defended Lewandowski and called into question the video evidence of the altercation, only adding to the perception that he treats women poorly.
While I am no Trump fan, it isn’t clear to me from the videos that I’ve seen that the incident occurred exactly as Fields has described it. Reporters know that when covering a candidate, there is a good chance that there will be a lot of jostling around, especially when the candidate is on the move. That was the case with Trump in this incident, and the campaign staff has a duty to protect their employer.
Even though I personally know many of the above named signers and respect their right to voice their opinions about the Lewandowski situation, I think that by sending this letter out they have only contributed to the media sideshow that has engulfed the presidential campaign.
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