…are hard to come by.
(CNN) –Sources tell CNN’s Ed Henry and John King Barack Obama has chosen Eric Holder as his nominee for Attorney General.
Holder has accepted the position but must still undergo a vetting process by the Obama transition team.
If confirmed, Holder will become the first African-American to hold the position.
We have an African American President Elect. Our current Secretary of State is black, as is her predecessor. When will these ‘ground-breaking’ appointments cease to be ground-breaking? Let me rephrase that: when will reporters not feel compelled to note that person X is the first person of race Y to be nominated to position Z, as if this is still newsworthy?
Tom posted this at 4:58 PM EST on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 as Journalism
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The Palin-Doesn’t-Know-Africa-Is-A-Continent-Meme was a complete hoax, and one that — despite some reservations — I pretty much fell for. Apologies.
Tom posted this at 10:24 AM EST on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 as Journalism
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This piece by WaPo’s ombudsman shows quite a bit of what’s wrong with modern journalism. She admits that their election coverage was both bad and slanted, but then makes lame-o excuses for why that’s unlikely to change in the future. This bit is particularly striking:
Some readers complain that coverage is too poll-driven. They’re right, but it’s not going to change.
Some readers can go suck an egg, I guess. Because what gets covered isn’t determined by what ought to be covered, or what the readers want to read about. It’s determined by what the journalists are interested in, and what they want to write about for their peers to read. Actual readers - those increasingly few people willing to pay for newspapers - don’t really get factored in to this process. And woe be the man who lectures a journalist about civic duties to cover issues; you’re much more likely to get a lengthy lecture on the Fourth Estate or an indignant “I’m the journalist who the hell are you?” rant than to get through his thick skull.
It’s sort of nifty that the Post has an ombudsman column. The readers who care about such things get to feel like their concerns are taken seriously, and the reporters and editors who are making the mistakes and slanting the coverage don’t have to pay attention to a word she writes. It’s like watching dinosaurs go extinct while having one tell you that the weather’s just fine.
Apollo posted this at 11:35 AM EST on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 as Journalism
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Viva Greg Packer, 44, of Huntington N.Y.!
Apollo posted this at 11:53 PM EST on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 as Journalism
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A few days ago, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Post, and The Washington Times endorsed John McCain for president.
Now, Obama bans their reporters from his campaign plane. A few thoughts and observations.
Ronald Radosh sees an attempt to intimidate the press:
[T]he Obama campaign suddenly announced that in the few remaining days of the campaign, they were removing the reporters of The New York Post, The Dallas Morning News and The Washington Times from the campaign plane. In their place would be journalists from Essence and Jet, two African-American monthly publications. Not only would the latter two be depended upon to offer fawning stories about Obama, by the time their articles got into print it would be two months after the election.
Despite disclaimers from the Obama spokesman, the reason was clear why the three press outlets were banned. They were all papers hostile to Obama and had endorsed John McCain for the Presidency. To get a place on the campaign plane, their papers had reserved space way in advance, and had paid giant sums to guarantee seats for their reporters. Yet when last minute coverage was critical, their people were pushed out.
This may seem like a minor story, and indeed, Saturday’s Washington Post had not one word about this development, although it was a front page story in the competing Washington Times.
It may not amount to much. Perhaps it was simply a matter of the campaign having too many demands on it for space among different news outlets. Yet anyone who thinks the choice of removal of three who were known opponents of the campaign was accidental is simply not reasoning clearly.
A thought experiment. What would the reaction be if John McCain banned, say, the New York Times and The Washington Post from his campaign plane for endorsing Obama, particularly if he replaced the seats reserved for these major papers for writers from, say, National Review and The Weekly Standard, who would of course be more sympathetic to him? A whole bunch of people would probably say that McCain was afraid of those papers, and suggest he grow a backbone.
It appears that Obama, like Nixon, has an enemies list. How much of the press will bend over backwards to stay off it?
Hubbard posted this at 9:12 AM EST on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 as Journalism, Audacity of Hype, DON'T PANIC
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I’m really tired of people saying that Obama campaigning in states that Bush won is a sign of strength. Whether Obama is strong or weak - hell, if he was 30% behind in the polls - he would have to campaign in states that Bush won, because otherwise he couldn’t flippin’ win. It’s not necessarily a sign of strength that he’s campaigning in Bush states, it’s a sign that he did well enough in grade school math to figure out that 254<270. The last guy who only won the states Bush didn't win didn’t win.
If journalists want to argue that Obama’s in the lead, it doesn’t take much creativity to do so. But “he’s winning because he’s campaigning in Nevada and Iowa” is as thoughtless as analysis comes.
Apollo posted this at 2:20 PM EDT on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 as Journalism, Audacity of Hype
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Barack Obama is possibly four days away from being president-elect, and he has the audacity to get pissy when he can’t take his daughter trick-or-treating without photographers following him? Does he think it’s routine for the most powerful man in the world to go door to door asking for candy, and that such activity won’t attract a little publicity? What office does he think he’s running for? He and Sarah Palin should talk.
Apollo posted this at 12:15 AM EDT on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 as Journalism, Audacity of Hype
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From CNN:
Motorcycle accidents have killed more Marines in the past 12 months than enemy fire in Iraq, a rate that’s so alarming it has prompted top brass to call a meeting to address the issue, officials say.
Twenty-five Marines have died in motorcycle crashes since last November — all but one of them involving sport bikes that can reach speeds of well over 100 mph, according to Marine officials. In that same period, 20 Marines have been killed in action in Iraq.
That’s quite an odd way to spin such news, but I’m hardly surprised. Also of note is that — assuming recent figures remained constant — significantly more US Military personnel died this year from illness, homicide, and suicide than from hostile action. I’m calling for an investigation.
Tom posted this at 10:34 AM EDT on Friday, October 31st, 2008 as Journalism, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!
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