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Keystone Pipeline Facts

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Redford - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - 'Joe Nocera's op-ed in the New York Times yesterday deserves a response and a reiteration of the facts surrounding the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. ...Let's put the rhetoric aside, and simply focus on the facts. Nocera wants us to believe that approving this pipeline is a matter of national security. ... The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would not make the United States of America safer. Why? It would not make us safer, because the majority of the processed oil was already scheduled for export to foreign countries. That's right, this Keystone XL pipeline's Canadian tar sands oil would have

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Maddow Explodes At PolitiFact

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Rachel Maddow - Jan. 26 (News Analysis) - Rachel Maddow lit into controversial fact-checking outfit PolitiFact with notable fury on her Wednesday show, hammering the organization for a series of statements it made...

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The State of Obama’s Facts

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson, D’Angelo Gore, Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley, Ben Finley, Lori Robertson - Jan. 25 (Fact Check) - The president’s State of the Union address got the facts right — mostly. Obama said “the Taliban’s momentum has been broken” in Afghanistan. But targeted assassinations continue, and at least one independent foreign policy expert says the enemy may just be waiting until the U.S. leaves. The president said a get-tough tariff on tire imports from China has saved more than 1,000 U.S. jobs. But tire industry officials say Chinese imports have simply been replaced by imports from other countries. He took credit for putting “more boots on the border than ever before.” That’s true, but the big increase was under George W. Bush. And a decrease in illegal border crossings is due mainly to the lack of jobs in the U.S., experts say. Often the president’s facts and figures were accurate — but not the whole story. It’s true (barely) that Bush issued more new regulations than Obama at the same point in their presidencies — but Obama didn’t mention that his cost more. The president pointed proudly to increased oil drilling, increased U.S. oil production, and declining dependence on imports. But understandably he passed over any mention of chronically high gasoline prices, which hit a record of sorts last year. And he boasted of recent increases in jobs — which still number nearly 1.7 million fewer than when he took office.

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Occupy Wall Street Journalist Arrests Cost U.S. Dearly In Latest Survey

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jack Mirkinson - Jan. 25 (Special Report) - The targeting of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement has caused the United States to drop precipitously in a leading survey of press freedom. Reporters Without Borders' latest Press Freedom Index was released on Wednesday, and the list reflected some of the tumult that took place in the world in 2011, as well as the impact that those events had on journalists across the globe.

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Politifact Backtracks After State Of The Union Fact Check Wreck

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jaon Linkins - Jan. 25 (News Analysis) - In his remarks, Obama described the damage to the economy, including losing millions of jobs "before our policies were in full effect." Then he describe [sic!] the subsequent job increases, essentially taking credit for the job growth. But labor economis

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GOP Debates Let Loose The Roar Of The Crowd

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Howard Fineman - Jan. 20 (News Analysis) - Candidates' attacks, gaffes and memory lapses have dominated coverage of the 21 Republican debates so far, but reporters are covering the wrong people. The real story isn't on the stage; it's in the audience.

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Journalist Chris Hedges Sues Obama Admin Over Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens Approved in NDAA

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 17 (News Report) - Sections of the bill are written so broadly that critics say they could encompass journalists who report on terror-related issues, such as Hedges, for supporting enemy forces. "It’s clearly unconstitutional," Hedges says of the bill. "It is a huge and egregious assault against our democracy. It overturns over 200 years of law, which has kept the military out of domestic policing."

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What the Fact-Checkers Get Wrong

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Columbia Journalism Review - By Greg Marx - Jan. 05 (News Analysis) - In the waning days of 2011, Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site, brought the wrath of the liberal blog world upon itself when it dubiously—though not unexpectedly—chose as its “Lie of the Year” Democratic claims that House Republicans had voted to “end Medicare.” The uproar was just the latest wave of recrimination against the “fact-checking” enterprise,...

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Slip-Sliding to War with Iran

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Dec. 29 (News Analysis) - With the typical backdrop of alarmist propaganda in place, the stage is now set for a new war, this time with Iran. The slightest miscalculation (or provocation) by the United States, Israel or Iran could touch off a violent scenario that will have devastating consequences.

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As Bradley Manning Hearing Concludes, Military Prosecutors Say WikiLeaks Disclosures Aided al-Qaeda

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 23 (News Report) - the prosecution "linked Bradley Manning to aiding al-Qaeda... That essentially is criminalizing national security journalism... What they’re saying is anybody who puts this information on the internet—if you do a report on a drone strike, if you do a report on anything related to military operations, and then al-Qaeda reads it, then you could be accused of aiding the enemy."

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The Whoppers of 2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Dec. 21 (Fact Check) - Despite what you may have heard in 2011: The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that). Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version of the GOP plan). Most of the “millionaires” who would pay higher tax rates under a Democratic proposal aren’t job-creating small-business owners. President Obama’s mother didn’t really fight to get health insurance coverage as she was dying. And there was plenty more spin and deception in 2011. Obama claimed he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher. Michele Bachmann endorsed a claim that HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. Joe Biden claimed rapes quadrupled in Flint, Mich., after police layoffs. And that’s just some of the nonsense we debunked.

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Politifact Has Decided That A Totally True Thing Is The "Lie Of The Year," For Some Reason

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jason Linkins - Dec. 20 (News Analysis) - So, you know, go form an organization called WordTweaker and commit yourself to advocating for the most civil sounding adjectives, if that's what you want to do! But let's recall, Politifact, that your lie of the year is "Republicans voted to end Medicare." And end it, they did vote to do! Now, if the Democrats had said, "Republicans take Medicare out behind the Cannon Office Building and horsewhip it," that's a different story. But you've decided -- incorrectly -- that the most vanilla way of the describing what happened is a deception. And "privatizing" Medicare ends Medicare, as Medicare is a public entitlement program.

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5 of the Biggest Hacks in American Media

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Alex Pareene - Dec. 20 (News Analysis) - Excerpted from Alex Pareene and Salon's 2011 Hack List, here are five of the worst, most predictable and least interesting pundits in America.

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"The Arab People Have Woken Up": Yemeni Activist Tawakkul Karman Accepts Nobel Peace Prize

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 13 (Special Report) - Today we complete our coverage with the acceptance speech of Tawakkol Karman from Yemen, the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as its youngest winner to date. Karman, a 32-year-old mother of three and an outspoken journalist and activist, has agitated for press freedoms and staged weekly sit-ins to demand the release of political prisoners from jail. She founded Women Journalists Without Chains and has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy in Yemen.

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Four lessons from Flipboard’s reinvention for the iPhone

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Poynter Institute - By Jeff Sonderman - Dec. 07 (News Analysis) - The most popular news aggregation app for the iPad launches a new iPhone version Wednesday. Flipboard’s redesign for the smaller screen offers lessons in how publishers should tailor apps for the different needs of tablet and smartphone owners.

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Paul Ryan’s Undeserved Awards

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Ari Berman - Dec. 06 (News Analysis) - Tonight in Washington Rep. Paul Ryan will receive Politico ’s “ Health Care Policymaker of the Year ” award. Washington Monthly blogger Steve Benen deftly summarizes the many reasons why Ryan is so undeserving of said award. It’s been several months sinc

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How news orgs are reaching millions through Facebook’s new apps

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Poynter Institute - By Jeff Sonderman - Nov. 30 (News Analysis) - It has been over two months since Facebook announced a new class of social news applications — ones that automatically share links to everything a person reads. Now we are learning more about the readership, strategies and effects of these “open graph” or “frictionless sharing” apps. Here are the six big lessons so far.

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Romney’s Ad ‘Deceitful & Dishonest’?

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Nov. 23 (Fact Check) - The Obama campaign is in a lather over Mitt Romney’s first TV spot, calling it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” because of an edited quote from 2008. That’s a matter of opinion. We find a far more consequential issue is the ad’s exaggerated claim that the new health care law … More >>

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Bull beware: Truth goggles sniff out suspicious sentences in news

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Nieman Journalism Lab - By Andrew Phelps - Nov. 23 (News Report) - You’re reading a wrap-up of the Sept. 22 Republican presidential debate when you land on this claim from Rep. Michele Bachmann: “President Obama has the lowest public approval ratings of any president in modern times.” Really? You start googling for evidence. Maybe you scour the blogs or the fact-checking sites. It takes work, all that critical thinking. That’s why Dan Schultz, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab (and newly named Knight-Mozilla fellow for 2012), is devoting his thesis to automatic bullshit detection. Schultz is building what he calls truth goggles — not actual magical eyewear, alas, but software that flags suspicious claims in news articles and helps readers determine their truthiness. It’s possible because of a novel arrangement: Schultz struck a deal with fact-checker PolitiFact for access to its private APIs.

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WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Loses Appeal to Stop His Extradition to Sweden

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 02 (News Report) - London's High Court has ruled Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief, should be extradited from the United Kingdom to Sweden to face questioning over alleged sex crimes. Swedish authorities want to question Assange over accusations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. Assange's lawyers have argued the Swedish demand is legally flawed and that the sex was consensual. They are also concerned that the U.S. government will pressure Sweden to extradite him to the United States, where an ongoing investigation is underway about the source(s) who leaked classified U.S. diplomatic cables and Department of Defense files to WikiLeaks. They are now considering an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the European Court of Human Rights. For more, we speak with Helena Kennedy, an attorney on Assange's legal team. We also air a statement made by Julian Assange this morning in London. [includes rush transcript]

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Julian Assange: WikiLeaks Could Shut Down Over Financial Woes

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Oct. 24 (News Report) - WikiLeaks said in a statement Monday that it would stop publishing for the moment in order to focus on making money – explaining that the blockade imposed by financial companies including Visa, MasterCard, Western Union and PayPal left it with no choice.

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Lisa Simeone Under Fire From NPR For Part In D.C. Protests, Remains 'World of Opera' Host

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jason Linkins, Jason Cherkis, Zach Carter - Oct. 21 (News Report) - the hammer is being lowered, and it's being lowered rather awkwardly. Simeone, as it happens, is not an NPR employee, so what appears to be happening is that they are putting pressure on her employers to get rid of her. Wednesday night, she was fired from "Soundprint," despite the fact that the show isn't produced by NPR. According to reports, Simeone was read the NPR code of ethics at the time of her dismissal. But NPR was pretty hot to get Simeone dismissed from "World of Opera" as well, and until this afternoon,

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The Fracking Industry's War on the Truth

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Oct. 21 (News Analysis) - Superb investigative journalism by the New York Times has brought the paper under attack by the natural gas industry. That campaign of intimidation and obfuscation has been orchestrated by top-shelf players like Exxon and Chesapeake, aligned with the industry's worst bottom feeders. This coalition has launched an impressive propaganda effort carried by slick PR firms, industry-funded front groups and a predictable cabal of right-wing industry toadies from cable TV and talk radio. In pitting itself against public disclosure and reasonable regulation, the natural gas industry is once again proving that it is its own worst enemy.

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Nonprofit News Groups Face Uncertain Financial Future, Study Finds

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Chronicle of Philanthropy - By Cody Switzer - Oct. 19 (News Report) - Nonprofit news organizations can’t live on well-reported articles and foundation support forever, says a new report by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

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As Herman Cain Surges, Corporate Media Ignore His Koch Connections

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Adele M. Stan - Oct. 16 (News Analysis) - With two major polls showing Atlanta businessman Herman Cain now moving ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to claim the top spot among the contenders for the GOP presidential nomination, media are beating a path to his door. Given Cain's clear and strong connection to the billionaire newsmaker David Koch, you'd think that Cain's longstanding ties to the Americans For Prosperity Foundation, which is chaired by Koch, and its sibling organization, simply known as Americans For Prosperity, would be a meaty topic for enterprising reporters. Apparently not.

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