“…a good sense of how the telecommunications corporation would like to “shape” the world wide web can be gleaned from reports of how AT&T managed the live webcast of last weekend’s Lollapalooza concert when it came time for Pearl Jam to perform.

Now that Jimmy Breslin-so-not Mike Barnicle is back in his shell, msnbc Hardball host and Jimmy Breslin-in-his-dreams Chris Matthews is back in the saddle.

Here Media Matters observes Matthews as he expounds on gender, history, and politics. Let’s listen in!

As Media Matters has noted, Matthews — who on his June 24, 2007, program said that he “love[s] gender politics” — has frequently focused on gender issues when discussing Clinton. He has said that “some men” say Clinton’s voice sounds like “fingernails on a blackboard“; wondered if Clinton is “a convincing mom“; claimed that “men don’t knock Hillary” and that they are “are afraid” to criticize her. He once also claimed that her criticism of the Bush administration’s homeland security spending priorities made her look “witchy” and has wondered if there is a “gigantic monster,” a “big, green, horny-headed … monster of anti-Hillaryism that hasn’t shown itself.”

Matthews’ discussion of Edwards’ height and Clinton’s voice came about three hours after a conversation on Hardball about gay marriage, during which he turned to Karen Finney, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, and said, “[Y]ou don’t love your wife, do you? I’m just kidding.” Moments later, Matthews said: “Let’s get back to the debating point here before we get too frivolous.”

[END]

And now for a snippet from the guy who isn’t a Jimmy Breslin wannabe:

[From Democracy Now, it's Jimmy Breslin talking with Amy Goodman about media coverage of the 2004 Democratic Convention. link here http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/29/1442255]

AMY GOODMAN: Some say that because it’s so scripted, there’s nothing to talk about.

JIMMY BRESLIN: I don’t care. That’s none of your business what it is. Your business is to write it. If it’s lousy, then you’re running a lousy convention. If it’s good, you run a good convention. But you are running a convention of the Democratic Party, which is producing a candidate to run for president and you don’t want to cover it? You don’t have it on your air? Then you shouldn’t have the station. Awful. That’s a tremendous thing that happened.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that this goes hand in hand with the way the media covers the lead up to the invasion?

JIMMY BRESLIN: Exactly — they don’t care. They got good jobs. These people are too well off. Ever look at them? There is no curiosity. Their curiosity is where they are going out tonight or what party they go to. There’s no curiosity here. None whatsoever. And also, they can’t write too good. 37 words in a lead sentence, and they expect the public to follow and read. Norman Mailer would do 16 or John Steinbeck 14, they do 47 to show that they went to Tufts and they did 10 papers before this.

AMY GOODMAN: Pulitzer Prize journalist Jimmy Breslin. He writes for “Newsday.”

According to R.C. at Media Matters:

“During a segment on the August 6 broadcast of NBC’s Today, NBC senior
foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell uncritically aired Republican
presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s claim
during an August 5 debate aired on ABC’s This Week that Sen. Barack Obama
“went from going to sit down to tea with our enemies, but then he’s going to
bomb our allies. I mean, he’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.”
[end quote]

So, Gov. Mitt Romney tagged Sen. Obama with the “Strangelove” label,
one most associated in popular culture with
gleeful, pre-emptive nuclear attack. He did this
despite the fact that last week Obama also said he wouldn’t
use nukes “in any circumstance.”

Say what you will about Obama’s recent foreign policy forays, but
calling him”Dr. Strangelove” is like something out of Dr. Strangelove.

But Governor Romney is not the first in recent days to
refer to Obama as “Dr. Strangelove.”

That weird distinction goes to reporter Mike Barnicle.

On Friday, August 3rd, Barnicle was substituting for
host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball. At one point during the
show Barnicle was joined by a panel consisting of Jay Carney from
Time Magazine, Craig Crawford from Congressional Quarterly,
and Julie Mason of The Houston Chronicle.

I’ve posted a partial transcript. you can skip to the
end of the chitchat to see Barnicle drop the bomb just
in time for a commercial break.

Harball link:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20146238/

BARNICLE: Jay, let me ask you something; you know, I
go into a couple different states and have a cup of
coffee and bump into people—you‘re out there in
Chicago. You‘re out there in the middle of the
country. Whenever Barack Obama‘s name comes up,
there is a gleam in a lot of people‘s eyes, because I think a
lot of people, my instinct is, want something new, something
different this time out.

And yet national security, being what it is, people‘s
fear of another terrorists attack, the balance between
the two, experience and something new; how do you
think that‘s playing out for Barack Obama?

CARNEY: Well, you know, in some ways very well. He has

done well raising money. He has shown a lot of
grass roots support. But I think experience is an
issue. It‘s one that Senator Clinton clearly wants to
exploit, and other candidates like Chris Dodd and Bill
Richardson want to exploit, because there is no
question, at least on national security matters, that
Barack Obama has less experience than some of his
opponents.

One thing that is refreshing about this, you
know—while it‘s a feud and a name-calling episode
between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, it‘s
substantive. I think what we saw here revealed a lot
about both candidates and where they stand on the
issues and their relative level of experience.

And while—on the Senator Obama issue, while it‘s
certainly true that no president of either party would
truly look at the idea of using nuclear weapons to
bomb Osama bin Laden in Waziristan, it‘s also true
that it‘s very rare that a president would take that
off the table ever, because it is simply not done in
foreign policy, where you remove options from the
table when you are trying to exert leverage. I think
Senator Obama expressed a truth, but he also, I think,
showed his inexperience.

(CROSS TALK)

CRAWFORD: Any loose talk about nukes by a
presidential candidate is trouble, particularly a new
comer already trying to fend of the naive —

MASON: Rookie mistake.

BARNICLE: Doctor Strangelove. We are going to be
right back with the panel. You are watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.

Glenn Greenwald spots the war propaganda like a hawk.

Click link above and scroll down to: “A new low of mindlessness for our media.”

Here’s some Greenwald fury. The man is good.

“It is difficult to remember a media spectacle to match yesterday’s grand pageant where Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon were paraded across virtually every network and cable news show and radio program and heralded as “war opponents” and “Bush critics” who nonetheless returned from Iraq and were forced by The Truth to admit that we are Winning. For sheer deceit and propaganda, it is difficult to remember something quite this audacious and transparently false.

As was demonstrated yesterday, O’Hanlon and Pollack were among the most voracious cheerleaders for Bush’s invasion and, as the war began to collapse, among its most deceitful defenders. But it goes so far beyond that.

Even through this year, they have remained loyal Bush supporters. They were not only advocates of the war, but cheerleaders for the Surge. They were, and continue to be, on the fringe of pro-war sentiment in this country. And yet all day yesterday, this country’s media loudly hailed them as being exactly the opposite of what they really are.”

Of course, these fringe pro-warriors take their cue from the Master.

My letter to the NY Daily News (unpublished )

To the editor:

The NYC Health Department just announced

Skyrocketing rates of diabetes in New

York City, especially in low-income

neighborhoods ("City Stalked by Diabetes",

NY Daily News, July 25).

On the same day, you report that two health

Clinics which serve thousands of Brooklyn

residents in communities with “high rates of

diabetes” may close for lack of funds

("Gloves off in fight to keep

clinics open," July 25).

So, at the very moment City health officials

sound the alarm about a looming health crisis,

we learn that access to medical treatment is to

be eliminated from neighborhoods where

it’s needed most.

There is something very wrong with this picture.

City and State officials must now act on this alarming

report by increasing - not decreasing - access to

affordable, high-quality care for low-income City

residents with diabetes and other serious illnesses.

Sincerely,

whatsleft

The NYTimes Caryn James celebrates the Jane Austen 

Chic-lit Industrial Complex:

A few quotes:

 "How did this early-19th-century novelist become the chick-lit, 

chick-flick queen for today?" 

(snip)

 "Her ironic take on society is delivered in a reassuring, sisterly voice, 

as if she were part Jon Stewart, part Oprah Winfrey. "  (???)

(snip)

 "And while Austen’s era, with its rigid code of social

rules, must have been repressive if you lived in it, when prettily depicted 

on screen it can seem positively peaceful and stable, a respite from 

today’s fraught,  slippery world of quick hook-ups, divorce and family 

counseling."

Um. Yeah. Repression sucks. Good thing it goes away "when prettily 

depicted". And how did "family counseling" make its way here??  

And the piece de repulsion:

 "Marsha Huff, the president of the Jane Austen Society

of North America (like so many Janeites, she’s not an

academic; she’s a tax lawyer) points to the scene in

“Pride and Prejudice” in which Lady Catherine (Judi

Dench in the ’05 film), tries to bully Elizabeth into

giving Darcy up because she is his social inferior.

“Elizabeth reacts exactly the way we would react: she

is insulted, she’s indignant at the way this dinosaur

from another era would try to tell this intelligent,

beautiful young woman what to do,” Ms. Huff said in an

interview.

And however much society has changed, Austen’s heroines — 

unlike the Brontës’ —  deal with the believable, timeless 

obstacles of class, money and 

misunderstanding, which make her works 

adaptable to any era. As Ms. Huff said:

 “Everyone thinks she’s Elizabeth Bennet; 

not everyone thinks she’s Jane Eyre. 

Everyone knows a young woman trying to 

decide if the guy she’s attracted to is 

Mr. Right. Not everyonemeets a Mr. Right 

who has a mad wife in the attic.” 

*******************************************

..."dinasaur from another era"??? The tax lawyer must be drunk.  And the 

Brontes characters are just so...irrelevant, so not "believable." whatever 

that means. 

such a load of crap! As if Austen's novels are a girl's "how to" on 

dealing with man-trouble. An Austen scholar of my acquaintance 

(Hi A.B. M., PhD!) notes that as a woman author, 

Austen’s place as a member of English 

Literature’s canon is precarious, easily ghettoized and 

trivialized. Chick-lit might taste nice, but it's not art. .

It's pathetic to see a female journo like 

C James so gleefully piling onto the ignorance bandwagon.

Next thing ya know they'll be selling a Jane Austen Action Figure…

Fire up the Tivo, or just be home on Wednesday, April 25th at 9:00pm to catch a devastating expose by Bill Moyers of the US media during the run-up to the Iraq war.

The program is called Buying The War. Here’s the link to PBS - check your local listings!

Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher has a great preview of Moyer’s main allegations here.

It is now clear to almost everyone – not just those who opposed the war from the start – that the US media performed almost no independent, responsible reporting in the months leading up to the start of the war in march 2003. Print and TV reporters offered virtually no images of killed or wounded civilians, asked no hard question of the war’s most avid proponents, and ignored evidence that could undermine the case for WMDs.

A snippet:

“[former CNN head] Walter Isaacson is pushed hard by Moyers and finally admits, “We didn’t question our sources enough.” But why? Isaacson notes there was “almost a patriotism police” after 9/11 and when the network showed civilian casualties it would get phone calls from advertisers and the administration and “big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”

Moyers then mentions that Isaacson had sent a memo to staff, leaked to the Washington Post, in which he declared, “It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan” and ordered them to balance any such images with reminders of 9/11. Moyers also asserts that editors at the Panama City (Fla.) News-Herald received an order from above, “Do not use photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties. Our sister paper has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening emails.”

There’s much more in the article, and the show sounds like it will make for eye-opening, if painful, viewing.

It’d all be criminal if it wasn’t so sad. And vice versa.

A NY Times piece on workshops for aspiring female op-ed writers seems to blame women themselves for their near-invisibility on the Times and other op-ed pages:

Whatever other reasons may explain the lack of women’s voices on the nation’s op-ed pages, the lack of women asking to be there is clearly part of the problem. Many opinion page editors at major newspapers across the country say that 65 or 75 percent of unsolicited manuscripts, or more, come from men.

Meanwhile The Nation’s Katha Pollitt takes issue with the whole ‘women don’t try’ meme:

But feminine psychology doesn’t explain why all five of USA Today’s political columnists are male, or why Time’s eleven columnists are male–down to the four in Arts and Entertainment–or why at Newsweek it’s one out of six in print and two out of thirteen on the Web. According to Editor and Publisher, the proportion of female syndicated columnists (one in four) hasn’t budged since 1999. The tiny universe of political-opinion writers includes plenty of women who hold their own with men, who do not wilt at the prospect of an angry e-mail, who have written cover stories and bestsellers and won prizes–and whose phone numbers are likely already in the Rolodexes of the editors who wonder where the women are.

Click here to watch a great video about the overwhelming number of ads we are all subjected to…The guys in the video do their own guerrila marketing in Union Sq, New York.

Looks like trouble is a-brewin over at CBS news with Katie Couric.

Viewership is down. Excitement is…eh. Ms. Couric’s producer has been axed and a new one brought in, but just who exactly is the anchor here, the producer or Couric? The article hints at at dull commentary segments, over-long interviews (Katie’s strong-suit!) and just plain lackluster news-gathering.

Have you seen the telecast? Ms. Couric – bright enough, tough enough, and very driven – just doesn’t seem that interested in news...a tricky hurdle for the anchor of the station made famous by Edward R Murrow.

I mean, the other anchors are dull as cement and network news is hardly cutting-edge, but come on: Couric appeared on the Superbowl pre-game show (woo hoo!) to plug a new, ongoing CBS “happy news” feature. Because, as she explained to the sports desk ‘big-necks’, we just don’t see enough of what’s going right with America.

Thing is – it’s not a news journalist’s job to give us joy and hope in a new day and a better tomorrow. That’s what we have Oprah for. And Dick Cheney.
I cant help but think of last week’s superb Washington Post expose of the squalid conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. Now THAT was news. Gloomy, shocking, necessary NEWS. And it broke open a huge scandal that maybe – maybe – could lead to action being taken to actually improve the care wounded US soldiers receive at Walter Reed and other VAs.

Would that story have made the cut over at Katie’s CBS happy-cast?