Pew: CNN's base, running scared

More Pew study findings... When Pew examined partisanship and credibility, it found that CNN has the highest credibility rating among Democrats and FNC has the highest credibility ratings among Republicans.

32% of Democrats believe all or most of what CNN says while 22% of Republicans believe what CNN says. The numbers for FNC are the exact opposite, with 32% of the Republicans believing all or most of what FNC reports and 22% of Democrats "[believing] all or most of what they see on Fox."

But taking all this into account, this is what really jumped out at me:

There has been a 13-percentage point drop in views of CNN's credibility among Democrats in the past two years, significantly shrinking the difference in opinion across party lines.

In layman's terms, this is what's known as losing your base.

This is cool: Neil Cavuto has a sit-down interview with President Bush today at 4pm on Fox News...POTUS will be talking about the Mideast crisis.

Cry me a river: Pew study shows emotion doesn't translate into credibility for CNN

So the latest Pew Research Center study on trends in news viewership is out and surprise, surprise: CNN's emphasis on "Must-
Cry TV" isn't doing their credibility any favors. Specifically, CNN's credibility dropped from 32% in 2004 to 28% in 2006.

Pew also found that MSNBC's credibility decreased from 22% in 2004 to 21% in 2006. From the 2004 to the 2006 study, NBC News dropped from 24% to 23%, ABC News dropped from 24% to 22% and CBS News dropped from 24% to 22%. (If anybody cares, NPR dropped from 23% to 22%.)

But here's the stand-out data: Fox News Channel was the only major news organization NOT to lose crediblity with viewers since Pew's last study on credibility in 2004. In 2004, 25% of FNC's viewers believed all or most of what FNC said and in 2006 that figure remained at 25%. Yet FNC didn't spend $20 million to promote an anchor who can emote on cue, as CNN did, to stay credible. It's got to be enough to make Jon Klein cry.

MRC's Bozell: "Cynical hypocrite" walkout TV crix "don’t deserve to call themselves journalists"

The MRC's awesome Brent Bozell speaks truth to power once again: this time by writing a scathing open letter to the president of the now-infamous-by-reason-of-shockingly-unprofessional-behavior Television Critics Association:

Open Letter: TV Crix Owe FNC an Apology

The following letter was sent on Friday to Rob Owen, President of the Television Critics Association, in reaction to reports that about 100 TV critics walked out of a presentation by Fox News Channel Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, in protest of Fox’s "conservative spin."

Rob Owen, President
Television Critics Association

Dear Mr. Owen:

I was appalled when I read news accounts about the utter lack of respect that so-called "fair" and "balanced" members of your organization exhibited toward Fox News Channel’s Chairman Roger Ailes Monday night. Such open contempt for Fox speaks volumes about their personal intolerance and disdain for any point of view that doesn’t reflect their liberal ideology.

Sources at the meeting reported that two-thirds of the 150 attendees in the room walked out in protest of Fox’s "conservative spin." Can you imagine the uproar that would follow if even a fraction of those attendees walked out on Dan Rather or CNN’s Ted Turner? Ironically, the very people who promote "freedom of the press," "tolerance" and boast of "diversity of opinion" have demonstrated that they are nothing more than cynical hypocrites. Frankly, they don’t deserve to call themselves journalists.

Perhaps your members should familiarize themselves with the standards and ethics of their industry. Only then can they begin to practice what they preach: fair and balanced reporting.

Roger Ailes is owed an apology.

Sincerely,

L. Brent Bozell III
President, Media Research Center

FNC's Shep in the ME: "Crouched on the page of a history book 20 years before it's written"

Great Tim Cuprisin interview in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel with top-rated Fox News anchor Shepard Smith on the once and future historical perspective of the Middle East:

...For more than two weeks, Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith has been anchoring his 6 p.m. "Fox Report" from the war zone, and popping up throughout the day, more of a combat reporter than an anchor...

As for this ongoing story, Smith describes himself as "crouched on the page of a history book 20 years before it's written."

...The ratings show the effectiveness of having Smith on the scene. Nielsen Media Research numbers, supplied by Fox, show his "Fox Report" averaging 1.6 million viewers, more than CNN, Headline News, MSNBC and CNBC combined between July 17 and 25.

Smith said he doesn't think of those ratings as such.

"But we do say to ourselves, 'To what degree is the public still interested in this?' We watch the numbers closely and say, 'All right, when we're very heavy on Israel, are they paying attention, and when we're giving historical context or background and trying to put this in a place on a wider landscape, are they listening?'

"And if they are, which the numbers suggest they are, then I think we're serving a bigger purpose. The better the American public can understand this conflict, those who wish to, the better for everyone involved..."

More...

Steve Harrigan puts "If I don't get it, I will die" in perspective

Covering the first Gulf War, Rolling Stone foreign correspondent P.J. O'Rourke wrote about leaving Kuwait and collapsing in a hotel bed with his shoes on, insensate with fatigue and shock, and looking up to see Billy Idol on the televison screaming about something in a video. O'Rourke wondered what Billy Idol could be upset about that was as heavy as what O'Rourke had just witnessed in a war zone. It was a compelling rhetorical question, that contrast of war and what we treat as important in everyday life, and now Fox News' Steve Harrigan writes an equally affecting dispatch from Fallujah, Iraq:

I got on an elliptical machine in the gym...The Tyra Banks Show was on the Armed Forces Network on a big screen in front.

There was a large boom off to my left.

It may have been a controlled detonation, which is when the military regularly destroys captured explosives. It usually happens at the top of the hour, and it usually happens in the daylight. It may have been outgoing artillery; no cause for alarm. Or it may have been incoming. I glanced left.

The woman on the elliptical was not looking around, nor was the guy on my right, who had iPod headphones on. No one seemed to sense anything out of the ordinary, so I kept running. A few seconds later, there was another boom. It was hard to tell just what it was over the sounds of the machines and The Tyra Banks Show.

The Tyra Banks Show was following the standard format of choosing a model — all the models come up and one gets rejected in front of everyone.

There was another boom.

Each of the models had to act out one line that said, "If I don't get it, I will die."

Boom.

I looked at the elliptical counter. In seven minutes, there had been 11 explosions. I always counted them....

Boom.

"If I don't get it, I will die." The models were not convincing. Their black and white still photos looked good, but when they had to talk it all disappeared. They were nowhere near being able to say, "If I don't get it, I will die." Not like that Korean hostage they killed. They had him plead on the air first.

More here.

If I wanted cheap-shot cable news commentary like this, I'd watch Olbermann

Cable news is no place to be calling anyone "a total fag." But commentator Ann Coulter did just that on "Hardball," and the error in judgement was compounded by host Chris Matthews not calling her on it, and wrapping up the interview with "Well, thanks, Ann. You're great." Watch the video here.

The Today Show is stayin' classy post-Couric

NewsBusters blogger Mark Finkelstein catches a good one:

Can you imagine the Today show or other MSM program airing a segment offering advice to men on how to train their wives to display better behavior . . . by treating them like zoo animals? A segment illustrated with footage of hyenas, baboons and other members of the wild kingdom undergoing training? Don't bother to answer.

Yet, incredibly, that's just what the Today show did this morning. Oh, with one small difference. It was a how-to . . . for wives who want to train their husbands.

'Today' introduced the segment this way: "One woman discovered she could train her husband the way they train animals at the zoo. Does your husband act like a sea lion, or a baboon, or a hyena?"

...The segment, narrated by Matt Lauer, was done with a light touch and some sense of humor. And the advice was pretty harmless stuff: use positive reinforcement rather than nagging, take small steps in behavior modification, etc. But it was the very premise of the piece that would have been inconceivable had the roles been reversed.

True. But just like nobody ever said life was fair, nobody ever said "Today" was fair, either.

Delta passenger on Couric: "Using your celebrity in the post-9/11 age to stop a flight is diabolical"

Can you imagine the uproar if Lou Dobbs or Bill O'Reilly pulled a stunt like this? Page Six reports this morning that America's Sweetheart and CBS News anchor-to-be Katie Couric bullied her way into the cockpit of the Delta Shuttle out of Washington to delay takeoff so one of her producers could board late:

'...It was like, 'Who the hell does she think she is?' " fumed one passenger who observed Couric's diva-like antics. "If you or I attempted something like this, we'd be cooling our heels at Guantanamo."

The witness told Page Six that attendants on Wednesday's 6:30 p.m. Delta Shuttle flight out of Washington, D.C., had already closed the door and passengers were buckled in, when the soon-to-be CBS News anchor raced up the aisle with a cellphone to her ear and told an attendant she had to speak to the pilot right away. Couric was then allowed into the cockpit and convinced the pilot to delay the flight and reopen the door for her producer, Nicola Hewitt.

"One flight attendant rolled her eyes and told me, 'This is only the second time I've ever seen this happen - the other time was a sick passenger,' " the witness said.

A spokesman for Couric confirmed the perky newsgal intervened, but insisted, "Katie only spoke to the pilot after receiving permission from the flight attendant..."

Very classy. Empress Katie, we await your evening news debut with rapturous anticipation. Because we know otherwise you'd have us shot.

Oliver North's live look at Hezbollah

This Sunday, July 30 at 8pm, Fox News "War Stories" host Oliver North will be live with exclusive interviews with former hostages Terry Anderson and David Jacobsen. This is going to be a compelling show because Anderson was held hostage by a group of Hezbollah Shiite Muslims for SEVEN YEARS, Jacobsen for seventeen months. (If you're not familiar with Anderson's memoir of his captivity, "Den of Lions," check it out here.) Kudos to North for not forgetting what these men went through at the hands of religious fanatics. Watch a video preview here.

Keith Olbermann, you're no Woody Allen

Those who think the Keith Olbermann Nazi salute offends only certain in the media and the blogosphere, take note: mainstream America, in the form of the Virginian-Pilot op/ed page, is revolted too:

Woody Allen once said, “I can’t listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.”

Pretty funny guy, that Woody Allen. He’s one of the few comedians who could crack a Nazi joke and get a laugh, not a wince. Mel Brooks is another. (“Springtime for Hitler,” anyone?)

Keith Olbermann , take note.

Olbermann, the MSNBC host, has a running feud with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly . It’s pretty funny. The routine goes like this: O’Reilly says something outrageous, Olbermann lampoons him, then O’Reilly overreacts. It never fails, and O’Reilly never learns.

Recently, Olbermann appeared at a meeting of the Television Critics Association. He whipped out a Bill O’Reilly mask and gave a Nazi salute.

Not funny.

Here’s the rule of thumb: Whenever a political debate gets to the point where someone invokes Nazis or Hitler, it’s time to stop. There is no connection between Hitler and ... well, pretty much anything or anyone else. Maybe Pol Pot. Maybe Serbia. Maybe Sudan. But that’s about it.

But not Bill O’Reilly. Even Woody Allen wouldn’t go there.

From Miss Minnesota to Fox & Friends

Check out this cool profile of the very accomplished, talented and beautiful "Fox & Friends" morning anchor Lauren Green (a former Miss Minnesota!) in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Sitting in the front row for a beauty pageant with "Fox & Friends" news anchor Lauren Green is a lot like watching a baseball game from behind home plate with Johnny Kruk.

It's a hoot.

Throughout the Miss Minnesota ceremonies last month, she hooted for a family friend, grimaced through a poorly chosen piano piece, exalted the merits of the one-piece bikini and was visibly moved during one young woman's vocal performance of Puccini's "Nessun Dorma"...

...For those who didn't know her from her pageant days, the loosey-goosey Green was a bit of a revelation. "Fox & Friends," the most-watched cable-news morning show, may sometimes resemble an unsupervised detention room, but Green, as the news reader, almost always appears stoic and centered.

"It's easier for me to be the serious one, because that's who I am," said Green.

It says a lot about the newscaster that she avoids words like "cops" and "busted," because they're too disrespectful....

Read on...

WP's Kurtz: Garvin had it right; TCA critics not "fair and balanced"

Washington Post media writer and CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz sticks up for Miami Herald writer Glenn Garvin's report on the walkout by reporters before the Fox News session at the TCA:

...in a letter to Romenesko, Peter Carlin of the Portland Oregonian objects: "I have no idea what made him think that two-thirds of our colleagues left the room before the Fox News session with Roger Ailes. If some reporters left grumbling about FNC's politics they were a distinct minority."

Herald reporter Glenn Garvin stands by his observation: "I certainly heard several derogatory comments about Fox News before the session from critics who did not attend." One person who was there tells me Garvin had it right, which doesn't exactly make the critics look fair and balanced.

Great work by Olbermann Watch: OW gets AP reporter Beth Harris to issue a correction to her Olbermann-email-hacked piece.

And the cherry on top--a meticulously researched, rock-solid debunking/rebuttal to MSNBC host Olbermann's slanderous claims on sister network NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly "defended Nazis." (Watch the clip of Olbermann lying through his teeth to Leno here.)

Olbermann told Tonight Show host Jay Leno [Tuesday] night that [Brian] Williams told him "do something creative" so he came up with the idea of donning a paper cut-out Bill O'Reilly mask and giving the Nazi Salute. Later, Olbermann claimed that Bill O'Reilly "defended the Nazis from World War II on three separate occasions", a claim he had advanced earlier in the day in a letter sent to noted media blogger Jim Romenesko of the Poynter Institute.

And incredulous Leno asked "Oh, really?"

Olbermann replied "Yes, I wish I were making this up."

To his credit, Leno's instincts were right. Olbermann was making it up....

Read on...

You gotta laugh Dept.: Today's Borowitz Report:


FIGHTING BREAKS OUT BETWEEN CNN AND FOX

Anderson Cooper, Geraldo in Border Skirmish

Fears of a wider war in the Middle East were realized today as fighting broke out between CNN and Fox in southern Lebanon.

In the two weeks since the Mideast conflict began, camera crews and on-air personalities from the two cable news giants had been staring each other down, jealously guarding their territory in the fight to beam the most dramatic footage back home.

Diplomatic experts have worried, however, that the massive presence of both CNN and Fox in southern Lebanon was a powder keg waiting to explode -- worries that seemed particularly justified today.

While setting up a shot with his camera crew this morning, the Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera saw that another newscaster was clearly visible in the background of his shot: CNN's Anderson Cooper.

In a fury, Mr. Rivera dropped his microphone and ran over to Mr. Cooper, assaulting him with a barrage of verbal taunts.

"Get out of my shot, Hurricane Boy!" the unhinged Mr. Rivera reportedly shrieked, engaging Mr. Cooper in a fierce bout of slap-fighting.

Amid rising tensions between the two cable news behemoths, there were renewed calls for a third party to act as a buffer between CNN and Fox.

"What is needed is a neutral party who is not involved in the cable news ratings race," one insider said. "Like CNBC."

TV critics rush to CYA after TCA walkout

Oh, so now the critics who walked out of the Fox session at the TCA are realizing that maybe their elementary-school antics are making them look bad...so what do they do? Why, they employ the timeless passive-aggressive tactic of attacking the messenger! Example 1: the Oregonian's Peter Ames Carlin sends a letter to Romanesko calling Glenn Garvin a liar, liar, pants on fire:

I was sitting about four rows behind Glenn Garvin at Fox's Monday press conferences at the TV Critics Press Tour on Monday. I have no idea what made him think that two-thirds of our colleagues left the room before the Fox News session with Roger Ailes. If some reporters left grumbling about FNC's politics they were a distinct minority. The room remained crowded, there were plenty of questions, hardly any of them were confrontational. It was the end of a hot, long day near the end of a 3-week march. To say the room emptied is simply not true.

But Garvin responds and sends Carlin to his room with no dinner:

...Characterizing the atmosphere in the room Monday is necessarily subjective. But no other news organization that has appeared at the TCA meetings opened with a video castigating critics by name, and no other news organization has been accused during a session of maintaining an "enemies list," as Ailes was, or asked to promise that they would not imbue local local newscasts with their network's "attitude," as Ailes was. And it fairly boggles my mind to imagine that Ailes could have gotten an uproarious laugh from the critics by comparing the host of a rival network's show to Hitler, as MSNBC's Keith Olbermann did a couple of days earlier....

Read on...

Was there nap and cookie time for tantrum-y TV critics at the TCA?

USA Today puts FNC's success in short, sweet, stark black-and-white today in its Life section:

The conflict in the Middle East raised ratings for all cable news channels, but top-ranked Fox News Channel showed the largest growth. It averaged 1.9 million viewers in prime time, a 34% jump over the previous three weeks. CNN was up 23% to 1 million viewers, while MSNBC attracted 384,000 viewers, a 16% jump.

Which, of course, must make these overgrown toddlers referenced in Glenn Garvin's must-read Miami Herald piece on Fox chief Roger Ailes' address at the TCA even more in need of a nap and a bottle:

About two-thirds of the 150 critics left the room before Ailes took the stage, several of them openly voicing their scorn for what they say is Fox News' conservative spin....

Next year, the same critics are planning to take it up a notch with a promise to hold its breath and maybe jump up and down during the Fox session instead, maybe throw some Cheerios at the podium...

FNC's Ailes at TCA: "Be intense" or "go sell insurance"

In the Daily News today, more on Fox News chief Roger Ailes talk at the TCA, written by Marisa Guthrie with a kind of grudging fascination at what she calls FNC's "outlaw attitude":

Despite the bottom-line success, Ailes felt compelled to defend the journalism on Fox News and the network's "We Report. You Decide" and "Fair and Balanced" slogans, which in some circles remain punch lines.

"I actually think that Fox News is underrated in journalism," said Ailes, "and some people think that can't possibly be true. Fox News breaks a lot of stories. Brit Hume's work is unparalleled. Our UN Oil for Food story, which we sort of forced on the world, was fine work by investigative journalist Eric Shawn. Shepard Smith's Katrina coverage was terrific. This sort of journalism goes on day after day at Fox News."

Looking forward, Ailes said he has no major changes planned for on-air talent in the near future, although he stressed that nothing short of complete dedication is tolerated.

"Is there imminent change in talent coming? No," he said, adding, "but I'm looking all the time. I don't want anybody to get lazy and sloppy. You have to be intense about doing your job every day. If you don't want to do that, you should go sell insurance."

"C'mon, vogue..let your body move to the music, I mean news"

When did the news turn into a Madonna video? In a must-read piece in the New York Times today, Alessandra Stanley bemoans the posturing of CNN's Anderson Cooper:

However inured we have grown to anchors personalizing the news Edward R. Murrow-style — posturing on location and occasionally letting their emotions gush like Dan Rather or CNN’s Anderson Cooper — viewers expect anchors at least to feign objectivity...

Check out a Michele Greppi piece of note in TV Week, "Fox Reigns as News Heats Up":

The 20 most-watched cable news programs last week, when the escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah produced the biggest headlines, were on the Fox News Channel.

Leading the list were four installments of "The O'Reilly Factor," averaging from 2.68 million viewers to 2.45 million (Friday's "Factor" averaged 1.32 million viewers), according to data from Nielsen Media Research.....

Worth noting, perhaps, was the head-to-head breakdown at 8 p.m. last week. "The O'Reilly Factor" averaged 2.38 million for the week (631,000 of them in the demo), MSNBC's O'Reilly taunter, "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, averaged 494,000 viewers (196,000 of them in the demo). CNN's "Paula Zahn Now" was second in the time period with 871,000 total viewers (313,000 in the demo).

Can someone please tell me why Olbermann's still on the air? Is there a giant sociopath demographic just waiting to explode that only Dan Abrams knows about?

Call me old-fashioned, but I think news anchors should at least have a G.E.D.

Now, I'm not calling CNN "American Morning" host Miles O'Brien stupid, or uneducated, or unfit to anchor a national news show. Nope, not me. I would never do that. I'll just let ole Miles do it himself.

Witness the exchange O'Brien had with a U.S. Marine this morning. O'Brien asked--and I'm paraphrasing here--"How does it feel to be a Marine, being back in Lebanon? After all, it's right in the Marine Corps hymn: 'to the shores of Tripoli'--which is right near here, in Lebanon." Actually, no, Miles. There is a Tripoli, Lebanon, but there is also a Tripoli, Libya. And it was at that Tripoli, in Libya, that the Marines fought in 1805.

Then, a few minutes later, Miles was speaking with CNN correspondent Richard Roth, reporting on the accidental killing of the four UN observers in Lebanon. Roth said that the peacekeepers had been there since 1978. But after Roth signed off, Miles said, with a smug look, "Of course, they, the UN observers, have only been there since 2000." Once again, Miles was wrong. The UNIFIL contingent has, in fact, been there since 1978.

O'Brien apologized to Roth about an hour later, and Roth was nice, saying, "Of course, the anchor is always correct."

But of course, the anchor is NOT always correct. Back to you, Miles.

Roger Ailes on Cooper ad blitz: "I haven't spent $20 million marketing a star as one of our competitors has"

Check out Variety's (subscription) report, which I have very nicely reproduced for you here, on the Fox News session of the TCA on Monday. As always, if you want the real deal on what's what in the cable news industry, just listen to what Fox News chief Roger Ailes has to say. He's unquestionably a genius, but unlike most geniuses, he doesn't toil in obscurity--he's more like a living breathing E.F. Hutton commercial: you know, "When Roger Ailes talks, people listen." (Even his enemies, the better to try to anticipate his next move.) And he's very funny, too: the whole piece is worth reading. Oh, and Shep Smith spoke via satellite from Israel...

When you're No. 1 in the cable news ratings, it's easy to take shots at the competition.

Using the occasion of Fox News Channel's 10th anniversary, chairman-CEO Roger Ailes did just that Monday, lobbing zingers about the scandals that have hit rival news outlets.

"We haven't had to fire our reporters or anchors for making up the news," he proclaimed, meeting with reporters for the first time in several years at the TV Critics Assn. press tour.

Subtly referring to several skirmishes that have dogged his cable and broadcast rivals, he added, "We haven't been forced to eat our words."

But 10 years after Fox News Channel launched, the top-rated cable newser still isn't recognized for its journalistic chops, Ailes complained.

"Fox News Channel is underrated in journalism," he said. "Fox News breaks a lot of stories."

Fox News kicked off the session by flashing a series of quotes from critics and other TV reporters in 1996, soon after the channel's launch, predicting that it would fail.

Instead, the channel grew steadily and jumped ahead of CNN in late 2001.

"We held more of the audience after each news event," he said. "Over time we held more of the audience... People flip through and see who they like and stay with who they like."

A decade later, Ailes noted that Fox News Channel hadn't lost to CNN "in almost 60 months now." He added that Fox News had kept a stable primetime lineup while "our competition has canceled 54 shows" in the interim.

Ailes couldn't resist tweaking CNN, noting that CNN/U.S. prexy Jonathan Klein told the TCA critics two weeks ago that the cabler had met its three main goals.

"We're very happy about that," Ailes quipped.

Without naming names, he also took a stab at CNN's recent Anderson Cooper marketing blitz: "I haven't spent $20 million marketing a star as one of our competitors has --- even though it's not their top-rated star." (Later, he added, "I feel sorry for Larry King.")

Asked about MSNBC host Keith Olbermann's on-going on-air battle against Fox News and Bill O'Reilly, Ailes mostly held back.

"The truth is clearly he has no viewers except those he gets attacking Fox News," he said. "I don't believe in giving the guy any more oxygen."

Meanwhile, Ailes said Fox News continues to move slowly forward on a spinoff business channel but that he had nothing new to report.

"When we have the distribution in place, we'll go ahead," he said. "I've developed a business plan but have not pushed it further than that. Stay tuned."

Ailes said a business net wouldn't be launched before next year but that Fox was "in active negotiations" to start clearing distribution.

Asked about the channel's heavy coverage of Natalee Holloway and other missing young white women, Ailes noted that Fox News had covered at least two cases of missing minority women --- "but both stories ended tragically and quickly," he said. "We didn't get the same amount of email or traffic... As with everything else in society, some people have it more fair than others."

Asked about ongoing reports that a reporter and/or host shuffle was in the works, Ailes said "no imminent change" was expected...

CNN teams up with Hezbollah, rockets own credibility

NewsBusters' Rich Noyes goes to town on the Oopsie! Forgot to mention Hezbollah had control of the piece reporting of CNN's Nic Robertson:

On CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, CNN’s senior international correspondent Nic Robertson added all of the caveats and disclaimers that he should have included in his story last week that amounted to his giving an uncritical forum for the terrorist group Hezbollah to spout unverifiable anti-Israeli propaganda.

Back on July 18, Hezbollah took Robertson and his crew on a tour of a heavily damaged south Beirut neighborhood. The Hezbollah “press officer” even instructed the CNN camera: “Just look. Shoot. Look at this building. Is it a military base? Is it a military base, or just civilians living in this building?”

In his original story, Robertson had no complaints about the journalistic limitations of a story put together under such tight controls, and Robertson himself at one point seemed to agree with the Hezbollah propaganda claim that Israeli jets had targeted a civilian area: “As we run past the rubble, we see much that points to civilian life, no evidence apparent of military equipment.”

Challenged by Reliable Sources host (and Washington Post media writer) Howard Kurtz on Sunday, Robertson suggested Hezbollah has “very, very sophisticated and slick media operations,” that the terrorist group “had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath,” and he even contradicted Hezbollah’s self-serving spin: “There's no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.”

But the closest Robertson came to making any of these points in the taped package that aired last week was admitting that “we [he and his CNN crew] didn’t go burrowing into all the houses,” after pointing out (for the second time) that “we didn’t see any military type of equipment” in the area Hezbollah chose to let them tour....

Watch the video of Robertson's original piece, then continue reading Noyes' debunking of it with fresh eyes:

While some viewers undoubtedly deduced out that it was “a guided tour” from the numerous sound bites from the Hezbollah press officer, it’s not as if Robertson ever complained about his limitations or explicitly warned viewers that there was no way he could confirm any of the claims...

Check out the video of Fox News Channel's Shep Smith's outstanding field reporting from the Israel-Lebanon border yesterday. His interviews with returning Israeli soldiers on Studio B really speak to what it's like to fight in the fog of war. Some of those first voices off the line on the other side in Lebanon carried the undeniable authority of battle veterans, with the young soldiers saying things like “You don't know where to look. You don't know what to do...it's like what you see in the movies. It's actually coming true...I never saw things like that before.” One of the returning soldiers also told Shep why he’s fighting: “I fight to help my country. If I won't do it, who will? Who would protect our country? It's our country, we need to live here.” The authentic voices of those who fight is what makes war reporting like Shep's real war reporting, and not just sideline commentary.

Stalker Keith is Olber The Line

I'll say it again: it really looks like MSNBC "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann is approaching stalker status in his obsession with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly...

Fox News Channel Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes responded Monday to Keith Olbermann's shots at his network's Bill O'Reilly over the weekend...

"Clearly he has no viewers except those he gets when he attacks Fox News," Ailes says of MSNBC's Olbermann. "He's made himself committed to continuing to attack Bill and, therefore, his family and I really think that's over the line.... It seems like the use of corporate assets for personal vendettas."

Fox News chief Roger Ailes says the channel is beefing up its foreign coverage, and that the Fox biz channel will go forward when the distribution's in place...

Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes says his organization is beefing up foreign coverage as international conflicts continue to intensify, but he doesn’t see his proposed cable business network going forward in 2006.

“We are beefing up our foreign coverage, not cutting it back,” Ailes says.

Ailes also says he likes the idea of having anchors in the field as well as reporters.

“I am anxious to put all our anchors and reporters out there to cover it,” he says of the current conflict in the Middle East.

Regarding the business channel, he told reporters there was no update on its progress.

“It probably won't happen this year,” he says. “After that it could happen, and we are in active negotiations...”

How do you spell "Dead in the water at 4th place" at MSNBC? O-L-B-E-R-M-A-N-N

So Keith Olbermann wants to talk trash about the most-watched man in cable news, Bill O'Reilly, huh? Well, your mama, Keith, because the numbers don't lie, and here they are: fourth place. Yeah, I said it. Fourth place, people. MSNBC's tough-talking Keith Olbermann is floating belly-up in the cable news aquarium.

Let's take a closer look at who's bringing in the viewers during the breaking news out of Israel at 8pm. From July 12-20, the O'Reilly Factor has remained #1 at 8pm and #1 in cable news, with an average of 2,432,000 viewers. And Keith "Bad Idea" Olbermann has been the least watched show at 8pm, coming in FOURTH with only 454,000 viewers. Lord help him, Nancy Grace gets more viewers than Olbermann. Now that's embarassing. In the demo, Olbermann's third with only 180,000 viewers.

So now we know why Olbermann's been spreading that laughably obvious, rank lie about O'Reilly supposedly not being able to make eye contact whenever Olbermann looked at him. ("He never got within 20 feet of me," Olbermann told the Television Critics Association's summer meeting Saturday. "I swear to God, every time I looked up, he would suddenly look down.") Yeah, right. O'Reilly could turn Olbermann into a puddle of strawberry Jello with one fist tied behind his back, and everybody--especially Olbermann--knows it. But unlike Olbermann, O'Reilly has a real life and career to attend to, and he's certainly not going to spend any of it in a freaky little staring contest with an emasculated stalker like Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann, proud to be "unfairly favored"

How was this overlooked? Check out this part of the transcript from Keith "Inappropriate Doesn't Even Begin to Cover Me" Olbermann's press tour session this weekend that hasn't gotten much play:

Olbermann: "For every blog that there might be somebody criticizing me, of that one in particular [ Olbermann Watch ] is the one I know of, there's another one or two other ones where they're desperately and unfairly favorable to me."

So, who could these "desperately and unfairly favorable" pro-Olbermann bloggers be? Some say one of them is TVNewser, though he did post about Olbermann's abysmal ratings today and a lot of the entries in his Olbermann caption contest were hilarious...

Shut up and cook

You know, I love celeb chefs and cooking shows, "Top Chef" and "Iron Chef" and the like (haven't caught the Anderson Cooper "Iron Chef" episode yet though--I prefer episodes with judges who actually judge food for a living.) But just like actors, celebrity chefs think that just because they're talented in one sphere that they automatically have a worthwhile perspective on politics and world events. Take celeb chef Anthony Bourdain's appearance on the cable news show most resembling cleaning out your attic--dusty, boring, and mostly irrelevant to your everyday life, CNN's "Larry King Live." And unfortunately for LKL, "Extreme Mortman" noticed that Bourdain was on the show weighing in on the Middle East last night:

“Larry King Live” last night booked heretofore-unheard of celebrity chef Anthony Boudain, who lodged this heretofore-unheard complaint about the Middle East situtation:

KING: You’ve described, Tony Bourdain, the situation on the beach as like going to a Metallica concert gone horribly wrong. What do you mean?

BOURDAIN: Well, I have to say that the embassy side of the operation was uninspiring. It was — one would have expected better of any concert promoter or nightclub operator, even on short notice.

Clearly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not only needs to broker peace, she needs to foster more entertaining and musical humanitarian relief efforts.

Cooper & Co.'s Mideast anchoring: like amateur hour, but much, much longer

On CJR Daily, Lawrence Pintak writes a must-read analysis of cable news' ME crisis coverage that includes these trenchant observations:


...Hype abounded. "This could be World War Three!" more than one reporter was heard to say. The same dramatic images were endlessly repeated, as if on a loop. Rumor was elevated to fact -- and the networks seemed proud of it. One CNN promo showed an unedited sequence in which a nameless photographer told Anderson Cooper, in northern Israel, that there was a rumor of rockets on the way. Cooper then turned to the camera and authoritatively reported, "The police say more rockets are coming."So much for checking sources.

To be fair, there was also a fair share of solid, informed reporting. Yeoman's work has been done by Nic Robertson in Beirut, Matthew Chance in Gaza and Christiane Amanpour on the Israeli border, as well as CNN anchor and Beirut veteran Jim Clancy, NBC's Martin Fletcher on MSNBC and the handful of others who are based in, or spend significant time in, the region. The problem comes with those -- like Cooper -- who have parachuted into the Middle East with little grounding in the region, and the anchors back in the studios in London and the U.S. The errors of the uninitiated embeds in Iraq have been endlessly repeated...

...As is so often the case these days, celebrity reporters themselves frequently became the story. Anderson Cooper spent more time on-camera than the protagonists in the conflict, and MSNBC endlessly looped an outtake of Richard Engel repeatedly flubbing his on-camera standup as Israeli bombs fell behind him, much, I suspect, to his embarrassment. A failure to remain cool under fire is not something to be proud of.

Important to remember--and impossible to forget, when you see pics like this, of Fox News cameraman Mal James--that cable news crews are getting rocketed, shelled and shot at along with reporters. See more stunning behind-the-scenes pics of Fox News' Mideast crisis coverage here.

Margaret Thatcher passes the handbag to Michelle Malkin

Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin--who, much like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, cannot see institutionalized wrong-headedness without hitting it with her handbag--really lets Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan have it upside the head:

Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan got on my nerves this weekend.

Matthews sputters that if the "neoconservatives" had "been in a schoolyard fight in high school like they should have been, we wouldn't be seeing the world we're getting from them today."

Buchanan blusters: "They're calling for wars against people that never attacked us. I don't care how bad they are. There are wicked people all over this world but you don't go after people unless they come after you."

One way to cure their ignorance and amnesia would be to clock them over their heads with The Legacy of Jihad and wallpaper their offices with Imad Mugniyah's most wanted FBI banners.

Or they could be forced to take a tour of the gravesites of Americans killed by Hezbollah jihadists over the last quarter-century....

Michelle's vlog on the matter is a must-view.

Olbermann takes the gold in the Hate Olympics, continued

I especially love this picture of Keith Olbermann getting ready to do his floor exercise in the Hate Olympics (aka his Nazi salute in Bill O'Reilly mask to a room full of TV critics over the weekend.) Why? Because Olbermann's face is wreathed in shadows, much like his soul.

Olbermann's brain is similarly opaque...over at Olbermann Watch Johnny Dollar breaks down the specific hypocrisy in play--as in, didn't Olbermann himself decry the disgusting appropriation of genocide for cheap personal reasons recently? The answer is a resounding yes several times over...

The infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann has never hesitated to attack others who cheapen the horrors of Nazi Germany by applying the label to present day controversies....

It's undeniable and incriminating stuff. Read on....