NewsTrust - Ethics in Journalism - Most Recent Stories

The Memory Scrub About Why Ft. Hood Happened Is Almost Complete ... If It Weren't for Archives

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Mark Ames - Nov. 24 (News Analysis) - Reading through these credible accounts now, you can see how everyone from the PR flaks in the military to the rightwing machine would want somehow distract people from all the accounts of their pigheaded refusal to exempt or discharge Maj. Hasan, and you can then start to imagine how a lot of editors and viewers wouldn't put up much of a fuss if the story changed to something more palatable to the American public. So with no one interested in protecting Maj. Hasan's motives, and everyone interested in protecting the Army's behavior, the story gets changed from one of "it could have been prevented if Army bureaucrats/officers weren't such raging assholes to Maj. Hasan" to a barrage of leaks from unnamed Army officials, who argued that Maj. Hasan never said peep to anyone about wanting out of the service

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Danger lies in threat to Fed independence

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Alan Blinder - Nov. 19 (Special Report) - H.R. 1207 seems innocuous enough. The overall question it raises sounds fair: After all, why should the Fed be immune from audit?

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Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Nov. 11 (Comedy News) - Sean Hannity and his team did more than cover the event. They not only inflated the number in attendance with their words, but actually used footage from a heavily-attended protest this summer to make this health care rally appear more popular. Hannity even pointed out that this was a huge crowd for a Thursday, when the protest footage they used was from a Saturday.

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API's Partnership With Newsweek Raises Ad Cash and Ethics Questions

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Anne C. Mulkern - Nov. 05 (News Analysis) - Newsweek and API have teamed on four forums so far and are planning another -- "Climate and Energy Policy: Moving?" -- for Dec. 1, when the Senate could be holding a floor debate on climate legislation. An invitation sent yesterday to lawmakers' offices said Gerard again would be a panelist and that requests to speak were "currently pending confirmation with notable members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate." Lawmakers receiving invitations included Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

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Why Keep Geithner?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

MSNBC - By Dylan Ratigan - Nov. 02 (News Analysis) - A year ago it was revealed to the American people that our banking system was a legalized Ponzi scheme in which bank and insurance CEOs paid themselves billions of dollars in personal compensation to lend and insure assets with money they didn't have

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'Fairness' in talk radio

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Carol Costello - Oct. 22 (News Report) - CNN's Carol Costello looks at the idea of a "Fairness Doctrine," being pushed by some Democrats, for political talk radio.

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War Fever at the Times: A Five-Day Log

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By David Bromwich - Oct. 20 (Comment) - These things occur by stealth, but not by chance. Plenty of reports of the Afghanistan war, the jihadists in Pakistan, U.S. bombing and efforts at rebuilding and the uncertain morale of our troops have appeared on the front page and elsewhere in recent

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Why Fox News Is Un-American

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Jacob Weisberg - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox's model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn't just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.

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Axelrod, Emanuel Criticize Fox News: "It's Not Really News" (VIDEO)

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By The Huffington Post News Team - Oct. 18 (News Report) - White House senior adviser David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel continued the Obama administration's criticism of Fox News during their interviews this morning on ABC and CNN, respectively. Both Axelrod and Emanuel cautioned that one of their main concerns is that other news organizations not follow Fox's lead in coverage, which the White House does not see as 'fair and balanced.'

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Ted Turner's Quixotic Quest to Retake CNN

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

theatlanticwire.com - By John Hudson - Oct. 18 (News Report) - Ted Turner, the Fortune 500 billionaire and founder of CNN, has caused a stir saying he wants to takeover his old company again. After a decade in retirement, Turner said CNN needs to focus on "less talk, more news" and offer better coverage of international events.

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CNN Can't Have It Both Ways: It Can Either Broadcast Hateful Lou Dobbs or Have a Latino Audience

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Roberto Lovato - Oct. 15 (News Analysis) - Latinos across America are intensely concerned about CNN's hypocrisy: Broadcasting Dobbs' anti-immigrant extremism while running a Latinos in America special series.

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Obama Vs. Rupert Murdoch: Fox News' Blatant Transition into GOP TV

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Eric Boehlert - Oct. 14 (Opinion) - Rupert Murdoch's cable cabal is now, first and foremost, a political entity. Fox News has transformed itself into the Opposition Party of the Obama White House, which, of course, is unprecedented for a media company in modern-day America.

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'Daily Show' Destroys CNN For Fact-Checking 'SNL' But Not Their Guests

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Oct. 13 (Comedy News) - Jon Stewart began his show last night by skewering CNN for fact-checking a "Saturday Night Live" skit in which Fred Armisen (playing Barack Obama) claimed to have done "nothing" since taking office. In this hard-hitting report, CNN found that while many of the president's initiatives have not moved forward, he has in fact done "something" since taking office. Take that, comedy show.

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Iraq All Over Again?

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

FAIR - By Editors - Oct. 08 (News Analysis) - There have been recent discussions (e.g., New York Times, 9/29/09) about whether the press is doing a better job covering allegations about Iran's nuclear program than they did during the run-up to the Iraq War. But in some crucial and very basic ways, many in the media are performing just as poorly as they did in 2002 and 2003

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Fox: a news source in name only

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Leonard Pitts Jr. - Oct. 04 (Opinion) - Fox is in a class by itself. In its epidemic inaccuracy, its ongoing disregard for basic journalistic standards of fairness, its demagogic appeals and its blatantly ideological promotions it is, indeed, unique — a news source in name only. That's not just an opinion: a 2003 study found Fox viewers more likely to be misinformed than those who get their news elsewhere.

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ACORN Loses Its Funding From Big Foundations

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Susan Kinzie - Oct. 02 (News Report) - The liberal political organizing group ACORN, battered by the release of embarrassing videos and allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud, has also been losing support from several major foundations

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US Press Corps Fails Again on Iran

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Sep. 30 (Opinion) - the most dangerous parallel between the misreporting on Iraq and the current hysteria about Iran may be that major U.S. news outlets, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post, continue to paint the disputes in black and white and leave shades of gray out of the frame. In doing so, these news organizations again are casting aside their own rules about objectivity and balance.

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The Public Editor: Tuning in Too Late

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Clark Hoyt - Sep. 27 (Opinion) - By stressing the politics, the article irritated more readers. “A suspicious person might see an attempt to deflect criticism of Acorn by highlighting how those pesky conservatives are at it again,” said Albert Smith of Chatham, N.J.

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A welcome message for the NYT’s new “opinion media monitor”

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Michelle Malkin - By Michelle Malkin - Sep. 27 (Opinion) - "Insufficient tuned-in-ness."

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-- Yes Men Say No to Corporate Greed

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Jacques Servin, Igor Vamos - Sep. 25 (Opinion) - We are the Yes Men, two guys who dress up as powerful businessmen, propose horrible things to audiences of actual powerful businesspeople and film them cheerfully applauding our most outrageous -- and often illegal -- ideas.

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Banish the Cyber-Bigots

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Michael Gerson - Sep. 24 (Opinion) - The Internet could represent a flourishing of democracy. Instead it amplifies hate. The brutality of public debate on the Internet is due to one fact above all -- the option of anonymity

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WaPo Reporter Misleads In Claiming Interrogation Double Standard

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Scott Horton Read more at: - Sep. 18 (News Analysis) - This suggests that the message that torture enablers really draw from the West experience is this: Political cards played deftly will foil the impartial administration of justice every time. They may even win you a seat in Congress. Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/18/pincuss-double-standard_n_291801.html

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Porn, Glenn Beck and Nudie Pics: Is Our Mass Culture Turning Kids Into Sex Crazed, Right-Wing Automatons?

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Branwyn Lancourt - Sep. 16 (Opinion) - The new generation is a different breed altogether. Kids today are being made to process an insane amount of sex, violence and stupidity in the form of reality TV, internet porn, and World Of Warcraft. In addition they’ve got all the Limbaughs, Hannitys and Becks aggressively spouting their righteous faux morality across the nation’s airwaves. This strange dichotomy must be far more stressful to try and make sense of, than what previous generations have had to contend with. It can only stand to reason that what might be waiting for us at the finish line could be a pretty mixed up bunch of sick puppies.

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US Hypocrisy Astonishes the World

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

Vdare.com - By Paul Craig Roberts - Sep. 11 (Editorial) - Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard is dead because the US government and a significant percentage of the US population believe that the US has the right to invade, bomb, and occupy other peoples who have raised no hand against us but are demonized with lies and propaganda. For the American War Secretary it is a photo that is insensitive, not America’s assertion of the right to determine the fate of Afghanistan with bombs and soldiers.

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The Story Behind the Story

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Mark Bowden - Sep. 09 (Special Report) - With journalists being laid off in droves, savvy political operatives have stepped eagerly into the breach. What’s most troubling is not that TV-news producers mistake their work for journalism, which is bad enough, but that young people drawn to journalism increasingly see no distinction between disinterested reporting and hit-jobbery. The very smart and capable young men (more on them in a moment) who actually dug up and initially posted the Sotomayor clips both originally described themselves to me as part-time, or aspiring, journalists.

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