Showing posts with label Big Journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Journalism. Show all posts

Monday, April 16, 2012

Despite self-congratulatory declarations, Tampa Bay Times' PolitiFact's bias in analyzing "facts" over past few years is becoming increasingly apparent to everyone, and Breitbart's Big Journalism's Tony Lee points out some recent examples re Romney

Despite their rather self-congratulatory declarations, the Tampa Bay Times' PolitiFact's bias and rather loose standards for "experts" in analyzing "facts" over the past few years is becoming increasingly apparent to anyone paying close attention, and over the weekend, Tony Lee at Breitbart's Big Journalism was only too happy to point out some of those recent inconsistencies regarding their comments on Mitt Romney, and hammer them like nails.


Breitbart's Big Journalism

ROMNEY PUTS POLITIFACT ON ROPES
by Tony Lee 
In two separate instances, Politifact has contradicted itself with its rating of the accurate claim made by the Romney campaign that women account for 92.3 percent of the jobs lost under President Obama. 
The “fact checking” organization, which the mainstream media treats as an unbiased and neutral arbiter, showed how much it is willing to stretch the truth to support Obama and undermine Republicans.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/04/13/romney-puts-politifact-on-ropes



Original article this references is at: 
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/10/mitt-romney/romney-campaign-says-women-were-hit-hard-job-losse/



(And given how long his unconstitutional charade has been going on, what's the real reason that PolitiFactFlorida WON'T touch the issue of Florida State Rep.Joe Gibbons' illegal residency? His wife & kids live in Jacksonville, NOT Broward County. Period.)


In this respect, PolitiFactFlorida is very much like like their big brother covering national politics, and their business partner in crime, the Miami Herald.


Far more often than can possibly be explained by sheer coincidence or happenstance -but which can be explained by the Herald's much-lower journalism standards and worse editing than 20 years ago- in stories about politics, government, lobbying, and business in South Florida, the so-called experts that are cited in Miami Herald stories are often ones that either have an emotional or financial stake in the discussion or argument, and these are often NOT mentioned, even though they are known to people in the area who pay close attention to things.
People like, well, me.


This worsening of standards is particularly noticeable in Herald stories involving women entrepreneurs, residential and commercial real estate trends in downtown Miami, especially on Biscayne Blvd., or Hispanic media and businesses.


Articles on those subjects are almost uniformly boosterish in nature, sometimes to the extreme of appearing to be little more than paid ads or press releases, and there seems to be a clear disinclination to ask hard questions and instead accept facts and figures proffered by the parties themselves.
Plus, worst of all, the reporters involved routinely quote people who have a financial stake in what is going on in the industry generally, or, have an interest in it being portrayed as positively as possible, and thus can't be objective.


Unfortunately, the reporters involved often don't appear to be smart enough to understand that they are being used or played for chumps by the Usual Suspects.


Boosterish articles in the Miami Herald will be the subject of a future blog post here soon, and the problem is not which article to mention on these subjects so much as which ones to disregard, because they are actually written fairly and objectively.
They are the minority, esp. those about residential and commercial real estate in downtown Miami.
That has gotten completely out of control the past few months with so many self-serving front page stories.


I'll actually be at the Herald on Tuesday morning and in downtown Miami that afternoon, so I will try to take some photos of the properties mentioned in recent Herald articles that have gotten the wet kiss treatment so I can run them next to the links I use.

Friday, December 31, 2010

Hipper-than-thou Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein finds the U.S. Constitution musty and uncool. It's so 1776!

Posted by Larry O'Connor Dec 30th 2010 at 11:31 am at
http://bigjournalism.com/sright/2010/12/30/which-part-of-the-constitution-is-confusing-ezra/


And when that something tends to re-confirm your own seasoned intuition about why the American mainstream media has lost SO much credibility, respect and just plan eyeballs/readers the past 10-15 years, it makes you wonder if in the year 2010, reasonably smart print reporters STILL don't understand that when the red light is on, the TV camera is actually ON and that you are being broadcast for everyone to see; and some people record that for posterity. 

Such is the case today with this curious video featuring Ezra Klein, which I first discovered on Andrew Breitbart's popular MSM-skewering journalism website, Big Journalism

http://bigjournalism.com/, itself, a spin-of of its very popular parent website, Breitnat.com, http://www.breitbart.com/


After reading the accompanying article by Larry O'Connor and re-watching the video, I'm inclined to think that it's very likely that there will be a forthcoming new feature in this space in the new year titled, "Children's letters to liberal WaPo blogger Ezra Klein."

If you believe anything over 100 years old can't be properly understood, then why do we STILL love Shakespeare?

Why do some people -thou not me!- still pay big bucks to hear classical music or opera in concert halls that they've already heard hundreds of times?
Surely cable TV can do 'Better Than Ezra' as an eyewitness to history, but then that's why they're MSNBC, right?

Oddly enough, the U.S. Constitution proscribes the oath of office that the newly-elected President of the United States must utter under oath, and yet the person we were told two years ago was a brilliant constitutional law expert, Barack Obama, had no problem whatsoever understanding what those words meant -and neither did anyone else.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html


Klein seems to have no problem understanding the original part of our Constitution we call the Bill of Rights, and in particular, the First Amendment guaranteeing "freedom of speech"

But then that's part of the current MSM's problem isn't it?
Its very disconnectedness with the majority of the American electorate makes it a poor source to judge anything of note, and when something happens they don't expect, esp. with blue-collar or Southern appeal, they always cast it in negative and even sinister tones, out of habit.

It makes you wonder what would this crop of overly self-impressed reporters and columnists have made of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams?

And God forbid if Jefferson had been from Georgia, forget about it!

So many current print and TV reporters are forever opining the merits of compromise for others in their columns, blogs and public/TV appearances -that's when you give in and let them have their way, in case you forgot- or trying to make heroes of pols who are unprincipled go-along types.


But when push comes to shove, reality has shown us that despite their talk, they aren't really the compromising type themselves.

Reality has shown us that what they like to do is pick-and-choose from American history and its institutions, as if it were a Chinese takeout menu, and while they are very protective of their own rights. yours? Well, YOURS are up for debate.


This continually shows itself thru their very opinionated screeds and squeamishness about the parts that they personally disagree with, like American's right under the Bill of Rights to bear arms, for example, which they want to do away with.
But you couldn't have one right without the other.


So much of today's MSM don't understand this fact -or want to understand- which is one of the reasons why so many Americans are genuinely repelled by certain of them when they appear on TV chat shows, because while the citizens know their history and what real compromises were made in order for the Constitution to be passed in Philadelphia 234 years ago, many young-ish reporters are clueless, and many of the worst offenders are currently toiling in South Florida.

Ernie Pyle is dead and he isn't coming back.

http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/
------
Update of January 2, 2011 at 2:09 p.m.On The Drudge Report this afternoon, http://www.drudgereport.com/ 
Matt has this Klein story featured with the headline
Ernie Pyle is dead and he isn't coming back.
 
http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/


Update of January 2, 2011 at 2:09 p.m.
On The Drudge Report this afternoon, http://www.drudgereport.com/ Matt has this Klein story featured with the headline: WASH POST STAFFER: Constitution Impossible to Understand Because It's Over 100 Years Old...
-----

Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough on History
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A4Kti0iw3M


See also: American Revolution "1776" - David McCullough
http://www.c-span.org/Events/American-Revolution-1776--David-McCullough/19609-1/
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Below are some prospective issues that may appear in upcoming letters to 'Ezra the Elder':If Tallahassee isn't the most corrupt state capital in the United States -and it isn't Albany, either- what is?
How do you solve a problem like JenJen? (Jennifer Gottlieb)
Can you explain how airplanes don't fall from the sky?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Billy_Goat


What's the reason there's no WMATA pedestrian tunnel connecting the north and south-bound Farragut North train station and the east-west-bound Farragut West Metro train station in Washington, D.C. when they are less than a city block apart, and would obviously make everyone's life easier?


Why are all the press hangouts near the Washington Post on 15th so very, very lame, unlike the way press bars always appear in films, hence one of the reasons so  much of DC's media drinks and eats between K Street and DuPont Circle.
Those cool images oif what life could be like are precisely why so many college students put up with crap while working for the student college newspaper, because they can picture that idealized life and can imagine making it a reality?

How will it all end for Daniel Snyder and the Washington Redskins, with his wife inheriting the team and running it after he sticks his foot in his mouth one time too many and suffocates, or with him selling the team to be rid of the headache and universal criticism of him and his grating personality, and the new team owner raising the Vince Lombardi Trophy within three years?


The extra-hard sports imponderable:
The sports teams I root for most fervently have had the following people associated with them over the past few years since I returned to South Florida from the Washington, D.C. area:
Dave Wannstedt (Dolphins football coach),
Mike Davis (IU basketball coach),
Randy Shannon (University of Miami Hurricanes),
Tony Sparano (Dolphins football coach),
Peter Angelos (Orioles owner),
Stephen Ross (Dolphins owner).
Hoosier head basketball Tom Crean seems to have gone a long way in solving IU's personnel problem, but the pious Dolphins and Hurricanes seem almost oblivious to the longstanding problems that have bedeviled them for years, despite the self-evident nature of those problems.
Why?


Big Ten Network's Mary-Rachel Dick is in Bloomington for the announcement of Indiana's new head basketball coach Tom Crean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szn0VqSa61Q


Timeout during 2007 IU Basketball game against Kentucky at Assebly Hall, Bloomington, (IN), featuring the "William Tell Overture" and "Indiana Our Indiana" - the Indiana University Pep Band and IU Cheerleaders


See also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVpstk3WBk4
http://www.youtube.com/user/breitbart


Article: Which Part of the Constitution is ‘Confusing’ Ezra?

Sometimes, when you least expect it, say at the end of the year when you have a million things on your mind, something falls into your lap.

Yes, hipper-than-thou Uncle Ezra, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/ will ruminate on all matter of imponderables, but first, back to this video above.


Surely it must be more than the exposed cleavage everywhere, right?
So why is Uncle Ezra so confused?


Delicious!!!
Can you name the 7 'extra' U.S. states that Obama refers to when he says that there are 57 states? (Is one of them the State of South Florida?)


What's the point of two Carolinas and two Dakotas?

Will the curse on the Baltimore Orioles only end upon the death of Peter Angelos, or will it have staying power like the curse of the billy goat on the Chicago Cubs?