NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

Network News Chiefs: The Future's So Bright

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

- By Rory O'Connor - Sep. 11 (Opinion) - While celebrating Murrow and citing Cronkite, network news chiefs remain in deep denial about "meeting the industry's challenges."

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Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz -- How MSNBC Became a Liberal Mecca

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Jun. 01 (Opinion) - Despite the startling success of Maddow and the recent addition of Schultz to an increasingly liberal lineup that also includes MSNBC’s first breakout star Keith Olbermann, getting anyone other than on-air talent like Schultz and Maddow to admit the obvious — that the rising cable net is in the process of re-branding itself as the left-winged equivalent of right-leaning industry leader Fox News – can be difficult.

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Media Torture

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - May. 12 (Opinion) - After all, defending torture — and the torturers — is now a long accepted practice in American journalism, one that brings you much acclaim and access to power, bylines, headlines, prestigious awards, and lucrative contracts. Plus there are all the reader benefits to consider as well!

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Babes in TortureLand

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - May. 05 (Opinion) - "If the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

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Time to Think About Torture

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - Of course, “We can’t legalize physical torture,” Alter opined, as “It’s contrary to American values.” Still, “we need to keep an open mind” about other torturous measures – “and we’ll have to think about transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies, even if that’s hypocritical. Nobody said this was going to be pretty.”

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Why Brands Can’t Be Trusted

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Mar. 19 (Special Report) - Internet users put considerable trust in search engines as the online equivalent of traditional gatekeepers. But most are not even aware that sponsors pay for their links or that most search engines do no verification whatsoever of the information links they offer.

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Brands, Cesspools and Credibility

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Mar. 10 (Special Report) - Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes the Internet is a “cesspool” of false information, and that filters are needed to help sort through the muck and mire... Predictably, corporate executives like Schmidt offer their corporate “brands” as the answer. “Brands are the solution, not the problem,” Schmidt told a collection of top American magazine editors last fall. “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

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Public Displays of Connection

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Mar. 04 (Special Report) - A still-growing body of academic research supports the notion that online networks (such as Facebook or Slashdot, to name just two) actually make finding and sharing credible news and information more possible than it was in the previous era of legacy media.

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Ponzi Democracy

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - Who was Ponzi, what exactly did he do – and why, nearly a hundred years later, does he and his eponymous scheme still resonate?

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Beating the Press - Literally

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Sep. 05 (Opinion) - only in America could a man who has called the corporatized, in-the-tank, mainstream media his "base" -- the media that made him its darling and hailed him for his supposed "straight talk" -- run against that very same media, bashing it figuratively while "peace officers" were doing so quite literally in the streets of St. Paul, in a manner unseen since the Sixties and the Chicago days of Daley and the subsequent Nixonian "nattering nabobs of negativity" era.

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Big Media, Big Politics and Change We Can Believe In

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Aug. 29 (Opinion) - After seeing an unknown Illinois senator electrify the 2004 Democratic convention floor with a keynote speech, I then wrote: "Last night, while the networks slept, the cynics wept and the future revealed itself."

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The Truth, Jon Justice... and the American Way?

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Aug. 20 (Opinion) - After threatening those he terms "Left Wing activists and Pendejo Thugs" that he will "draw my weapon and blow your freaking heads off," of late Warden has warned that he might "turn their skulls into red mush" in an attack that "will make the Shootout at the OK Corral look like a Sunday school picnic."

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Ambushed

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Aug. 20 (Opinion) - After Jenna Kern, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, decided to write an Op-Ed piece for Newsday questioning whether shock jocks and hate speech contributed to the recent murderous shooting spree in a U-U church in Tennessee, the haters started to come after her as well.

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The Shock Jock Racket

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - Angry citizen reaction to the latest cynical, cyclical outpouring of hateful speech over the public radio airwaves - top-rated talk show host Michael Savage's despicable attack on autistic children as "brats, morons and idiots" - has once again injected America's talk radio problem back into the mainstream news cycle. But why did it take a full week of protests, pressure, pickets, pullouts by advertiser, and stations dropping the program - Savage's remarks occurred on the July 16 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show -- before the mainstream media finally responded to the latest outrage? Is it because they are part of the racket?

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Talk Radio's Last Stand?

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Jun. 12 (Opinion) - Leading hard-right conservatives, led by their talk radio "shock jock" shock troops, have been worrying aloud about the supposed return of the long-defunct Fairness Doctrine ever since their stunning success last year in defeating bi-partisan immigration reform. The latest salvo is the Newsmax report, headlined "Battle for Talk Radio: Powerful Foes Want to End the Gabfest," which cleverly combines the usual talk radio tropes of pugnacity and victimization.

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Laura Ingraham: Right-Wing High Priestess of Hate

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Jun. 09 (Opinion) - Laura Ingraham is ... different. Not only is Ingraham younger than many other conservative radio personalities (at 45, she's more than a decade from Limbaugh's cohort), and the only female among them, but she also brings to the airwaves a snarky brand of aggressive humor fused with an attack-dog sensibility that she expresses with a chalk-on-gravel voice. Her goal is not to assert her own glory, but to rip apart her enemies, which include everyone from liberals and "elites" to, from time to time, even President George W. Bush and presidential hopeful John McCain.

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The Most Savage Shock Jock of Them All

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor with Aaron Cutler - May. 23 (Opinion) - Who is Michael Savage? On its surface the answer seems obvious: he's a 66-year-old nationally syndicated conservative talk radio host whose program, The Savage Nation, airs five days a week from its home base of KNEW in San Francisco. He's the founder of the Paul Revere Society, which, according to its mission statement, aims to "take back our borders, our language, and our traditional culture from the liberal left corroding our great nation." He's a former MSNBC cable television talk host who was fired after four months on the job after he told a phone caller, "You should only get AIDS and die, you pig." He's also the third most popular radio talk show host in America, whose weekly audience of more than eight million listeners is surpassed only by Limbaugh and Hannity.

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Limbaugh Wins As Election's Biggest Manipulator

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - May. 13 (Opinion) - With Democratic enthusiasm waxing, Republican energy waning, and more than four out of five voters convinced the country is now on the wrong track, one would think hard-right wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh would be near-suicidal. But no! As it stands, Limbaugh - now in his twentieth year as the universally acknowledged "Grand Poobah" of talk radio, with an estimated weekly audience of about 13.5 million listeners -- looks to be the biggest winner thus far in the ongoing Presidential primary sweepstakes.

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Bush's War-And Our Own

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media is a Plural - By Rory Oâ€™Connor - Mar. 24 (Opinion) - ... fewer than thirty percent of Americans polled now say they are following events in Iraq "very closely." Although leading media executives cite any number of excuses for the decline in attention -- the danger and expense in covering Iraq, shrinking budgets and a presidential campaign that is also straining their resources, a national economy in crisis - the bottom line for concerned citizens has been a severe drop in coverage of the war. The three broadcast networks' nightly newscasts now spend half as much time on Iraq as earlier in the year - and far less than in 2003 or even 2004.

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Working the Refs

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Mar. 05 (Opinion) - Hillary won this week by working the refs. By constantly complaining about coverage, and relentlessly focusing on charges that the news media has favored Barack Obama and treated him far more gently than herself, Hillary was finally able to staunch the bleeding and stage a desperately needed, last minute comeback that will keep her in the game. By mocking the media, quoting Saturday Night Live, and "practically browbeating reporters," her campaign lived to fight another day.

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The Best Reason to Support Obama: Mark McKinnon

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Feb. 20 (Opinion) - If you're a Democratic primary voter in Ohio, Texas or Pennsylvania, and are still torn between Obama and the Clintons, here's the best reason I know to throw your support to Obama: Mark McKinnon.

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The Not-So-Great Debate

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Feb. 01 (Opinion) - Hillary won by not losing - and Obama lost by not winning. Simply appearing presidential--he certainly has grown into at least looking the part -- wasn't, and isn't, enough to put him over the top. In order to continue his momentum and vault into the lead, he needed to show that there are large differences between him and Hillary on crucial issues - and other than on Iraq, he failed to do so.

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First Black President?

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Jan. 28 (Opinion) - Remember back in the last century, when Toni Morrison playfully dubbed Bill Clinton our first "Black President," adding that Clinton "displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas?" Back then, it was considered cool to have a "black president"--as long as he was really white, of course!

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They Report, They Decide?

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - Jan. 02 (Opinion) - Should Big Media decide for the rest of us who is -- and more importantly who is not -- a viable candidate for president

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Time for a Coverup?

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Dec. 21 (Opinion) - Is Time magazine's "full" and "complete" transcript of its "Person of the Year" interview with Vladimir Putin a fraudulent cover up? It appears so. A glaring factual error was apparently edited out of the transcript in an attempt to spare top executives embarrassment over an exchange at the beginning of the recent chat between the Russian leader and Time.Inc editor in chief John Huey, Time managing editor Richard Stengel and deputy managing editor Adi Ignatius.

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