Archive for the &;Politics&; Category
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Somewhere, Osama Bin Ladin is Laughing His AssOff
November 20, 2010
For years, the idea of &;flying naked&; to show security folks you weren&;t a terrorist was a joke. It&;s not a joke anymore, as the TSA (and more importantly, the political powers above them) feels justified in invasive search, groping and near-sexual assault to &;prove&; passengers aren&;t carrying bombs stuffed up their body cavities.
I&;m no Sarah Palin fan, but this tweet &;TSA: it’s politically incorrect 2 “profile” anyone when natl second is issue?We profile individuals/suspects in other situations!Profile away&; actually seems right on.
Asking people questions and watching their reactions seems much more sensible (and works for the Israelis) rather than what Bruce Schneir calls &;security theatre.&;
Tags:political-correctness, security, terrorism Posted in political-correctness, Politics, technology, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
Elena Kagan: Lesbian Softballer Accordingto Journal?
May 13, 2010
Why did the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) put a photograph from 1993 of Elena Kagan, President Obama&;s Supreme Court nominee, on its cover on May 11? Was it to show her athletic ability? Her &;aw-shucks&; Americanism?
Or was it a gay-baiting smear to firmly tie her to the &;lesbian softball player&; meme for their readers?
Tags:Elena-Kagan, gay-baiting, Rupert-Murdoch, Wall-Street-Journal Posted in Politics, Rupert-Murdoch, tabloid-journalism | Leave a Comment &;
LA Times Links to Enquirer for John EdwardsCoverage
February 11, 2010
If you can&;t beat them, link to them.
The LA Times actually printed a story today not only &;crediting&; the National Enquirer with the scoop that John Edwards has supposedly proposed to main squeeze/girlfriend/homewrecker/babymama Rielle Hunter, but actually put a link in the Times story taking you directly to the Enquirer piece!
Perhaps the Times also has a dented Pulitzer or two lying around it can mail to the Enquirer to acknowledge its Edwards coverage, since the Pulitzer committee won&;t do it.
UPDATE: Here&;s the Times linking sentence: &;For the Enquirer&;s full article on the Edwards&; engagement, click HERE&;
Tags:John-Edwards, John-Edwards-lovechild, Los-Angeles-Times, National-Enquirer, Pulitzer, Rielle-Hunter Posted in Los-Angeles-Times, National-Enquirer, Politics, tabloid-journalism | 3 Comments &;
Give the National Enquirer aPulitzer
January 25, 2010
As an alumni of the then-Lantana-based tabloid, I was tickled to see that the editor of the National Enquirer, Barry Levine, had nominated the mag (rag) for a Pulitzer for its role in outing John Edward&;s infidelities and lies. As we noted back in 2008, any journalist could learn how to do a story from the Enquirer.
Although Edwards has been exposed as a truly empty suit and his wife as a shrew, the real scandal here is how the so-called &;mainstream media&; held its nose and studious avoided the story, which we were on top of a year and a half ago, for months and months.
The Enquirer nominated themselves for &;distinguished investigative reporting by a team, presented in a series of articles, and for a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs. &; As Emily Miller puts it, &;The story has led to a grand jury investigation of Edwards&; use of campaign funds and the political downfall of a two-time Democratic presidential candidate. &; She says editor Levine told her, &;Our Enquirer reporters do deserve to be nominated for a Pulitzer, but you know the mainstream media would rather see the Earth explode first!&;
Sadly, if not surprisingly, the Pulitzer committee found technical reasons to disqualify the Enquirer&;s bid before it ever really got started. It&;s ironic, too, because the Pulitzers were founded by a founder of yellow journalism, Joseph Pulitzer.
Now the beleaguered priests of the press are too good to dirty their hands with the muck-raking Enquirer. As Gawker&;s Ravi Somalya adds:
If the Washington Post, or the New Orleans Times-Picayune or any paper really, had broken a story of this magnitude their Pulitzer nod would barely be in doubt. Edwards called the Enquirer, while trying to disparage its claims he was cheating and had fathered a child &;tabloid trash.&; That stigma is the only reason its investigative reporters will not be considered.
Tags:death-of-journalism, John-Edwards, National-Enquirer, The-National-Enquirer Posted in National-Enquirer, Politics, tabloid-journalism | 2 Comments &;
Why Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods ShouldGolf
December 17, 2009
Bill can take pointers from Tiger on upping his score.
Perhaps Newt Gingrich and Silvio Berlusconi can join them for a foursome. No cheating&;on the course.
Although with Susan MacDougal apparently joining Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers, with allegations by Paula Jones, the President is proving quite the player himself.
Tags:Berlusconi, Bill-Clinton, Monica-Lewinsky, Newt-Gingrich, Susan-MacDougal, Tiger-Woods Posted in 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, political-correctness, Politics, Sex and Society, tabloid-journalism, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
Music forGuantanamo
October 22, 2009
I wonder if the Pink song the government used to torture inmates was &;Dear Mr. President.&; Nahhh&;
And which is worse torture, the Barney song or Neil Diamond?
As for Bruce Springsteen, what could be a greater perversion than blasting Empty Sky, from The Rising?
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to the empty sky&;.
Tags:9-11, Bruce-Springsteen, Dear-Mr.-President, Guantanamo, music-for-torture, Pink, torture Posted in 9-11, Music, Politics, war-on-terror | Leave a Comment &;
Obama Picks Jon Huntsman as Ambassador toChina
May 16, 2009
As something of a China hand myself, I applaud this bipartisan selection to one of the most important U.S. ambassadorships. And congratulations to Politico, who beat both CNN and the Washington Post to the story and apparently even the news conference.
It goes without saying that the appointment puts one of the GOP&;s rising stars far away and presumably unable to build a campaign organization
But Huntsman will gain valuable experience in dealing with a rigid, calcified party bent on ideological purity&;the Republicans Chinese Communists.
Tags:Barack-Obama, Chinese-politics, Jon-Huntsman, Politics, U.S.-politics Posted in CNN, Politics, Washington-Post | Leave a Comment &;
Dumbest ElectionReactions
November 5, 2008
Ralph Nader called Barack Obama an &;Uncle Tom&; on Fox the other night, apparently because Nader thinks he&;s a corporate tool. Perhaps Nader would like someone more authentic like Jesse Jackson (last seen sobbing for the TV cameras after the election) to &;cut his nuts off?&;
Then there&;s this NSFW missive, from my erstwhile employer Larry Flynt, the auteur behind the eagerly-awaited &;Nailin Palin&;.
Meanwhile, NBA star Gilbert Arenas was convinced both contenders would raise his taxes if elected. Earning his &;Agent Zero&; sobriquet, he protested in the dumbest way possible: by not voting.
Tags:Barack-Obama, Gilbert-Arenas, Jesse-Jackson, Larry-Flynt, Ralph-Nader Posted in Politics, public-relations-disaster | Leave a Comment &;
Barack Obama: Is the MediaBiased?
October 29, 2008
One of the most commented-on pieces on ABCNews.com is a long posting by Michael Malone on &;Media&;s Presidential Bias and Decline.&; If you wade through the 2295 words (yes, I counted), he makes some good points:
&;What I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side &; or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del&;
&;Why, to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven&;t we seen an interview with Sen. Obama&;s grad school drug dealer &; when we know all about Mrs. McCain&;s addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden&;s endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media? &;
Good questions&;but Malone&;s conclusion is from left field. To editors &;presiding over a dying industry: Obama &;offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career&;With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.&;
it&;s true that Barack Obama has gotten positive media coverage since the beginning of his campaign, when any honest person would say he was a long shot. Back then (and really, for most of his campaign) he was the underdog, and certainly the media likes the underdog narrative. Then there was his youth, his personal story (up from poverty through education and hard work!) and, not least, his race, however that&;s defined.
To echo the technology journalism for which Malone is known, editors do like the &;new new thing&;&;and that ain&;t McCain. It was Sarah Palin, until journalists did the vetting job the McCain campaign should have done.
On the flip side, as Kurtz says &;Critics, including many conservatives, say the media have been too easy on Obama, and bias cannot be discounted as a factor. A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that from the end of the conventions through the debates, McCain&;s coverage was more than three times as negative than Obama&;s.&;
Yes, the press is liberal: Slate magazine is voting 55:1 Obama over McCain, for example. But the press used to love John McCain, when it perceived that he stood for something.
As a media trainer, I would fault the McCain campaign with failing to put out a positive, detailed agenda about what they were running for and delivering consistent messages supporting it. (Hint: Lower taxes and Joe the Plumber ain&;t &;Morning in America.&;)
The Politico refers to this reality here (via Andrew):
&;There have been moments in the general election when the one-sidedness of our site — when nearly every story was some variation on how poorly McCain was doing or how well Barack Obama was faring — has made us cringe. As it happens, McCain&;s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama&;s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.&;
Tags:Andrew-Sullivan, Barack-Obama, The-Politico Posted in Journalism, Media Training, Politics | 2 Comments &;
Media Training SarahPalin
September 29, 2008
How would I media train Sarah Palin? First, I&;d have to get over my objections to her politics; I don&;t media train Philip Morris, for example, because I&;m convinced their products killed my father.
But if I accepted the Palin assignment, I would radically change the approach the Republicans are using.
First, I&;d lose the &;My Fair Lady&;/Henry Higgins approach of trying to school the eager backwoods lass in the ways of Washington. It&;s patronizing, it oozes sexism, and most importantly it doesn&;t work. Very few of us can successful cram and regurgitate hours worth of talking points; for Palin, the problem is clear in the Couric interview. Less is more.
Second, I&;d treat Palin as a real person (and a bright one) with a compelling story to tell, and get her using that story as a metaphor to promote her views in every interview, as Barack Obama did and still often does. She did, after all, come from nothing to being elected Governor of the largest state; she is not a daughter of admirals, married to a former President, a descendant of a wealthy and powerful family, etc.
Third, I&;d spend some time with her asking her what her most personal political views are and which of McCain&;s talking points she finds most compelling. Then I&;d help her craft them (or the ones that the campaign finds most acceptable, at least) into key messages that she could actively promote going forward, and return to when the questioning got tough. If her message was &;lower taxes help working families&;, for example, she could use her own family as an example.
Fourth, I&;d give her some ammunition; two or three key facts and statistics, not a week&;s worth of briefings. And I&;d make it clear that she should stick to the truth and not make up things, no matter how great the temptation or the media pressure.
Fifth, I&;d spend our time doing videotaped one-on-one interviews, not cramming random facts into her head. Give her a half-page of bullet points, have her glance at it, then throw the security blanket away. My experience is that everyone is uncomfortable and unsuccessful in the first one or two ambush style interviews, but they gain mastery over time. From there, move on to mock press conferences, shouted questions, etc.
So I guess I&;m in reluctant agreement with the &;let Palin be Palin&; Republican camp. It hasn&;t happened so far, but she can be a powerful spokesperson for the Republican ticket. But even trained, confident spokespeople can&;t help you if you don&;t have a compelling message.
Tags:Media Training, Sarah-Palin, www.msgmediatraining.com Posted in Media Training, Politics, public-relations-disaster | 1 Comment &;
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