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Tapper did good.

"This Week on ABC" to be fact-checked

By GottaLaff

From the Department of It's About Time:

This week we’ve invited Pulitzer Prize winning website PolitiFact to fact-check the newsmaker interviews featured on the program.

The idea was first proposed by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen and I thought it worth a try. PolitiFact editor Bill Adair, the St Petersburg Times’ Washington bureau chief, and I know each other from fact-checking forums and such (I was at the Fact Check desk during the 2004 elections) so I asked him if he’d be willing to give it a try. He was.

This is something many of us have been begging for for years now. You'd think "news" programs would have fact checked on their own and not have to be convinced to do so by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen... back in 2009.

You'd also think that news oriented programs would do their level best to get the facts right in the first place. Instead, they go out of their way to prove how fair they can be by inviting opposing sides with opposing voices to over talk each other to prove their opposing points.

Facts have very little to do with it. Ratings do. Working their audiences into a lather does, because that generates higher ratings. And generating higher ratings leads to generating more money.

However, it does very little to educate viewers. And as I keep saying, an uninformed electorate means the end of a real democracy. Voters cast ballots for candidates who have more money, bigger megaphones, and effective messaging.

Please note that I did not say accurate messaging, but effective.

If viewers were knowledgeable and could spot misinformation more readily, they would be less likely to support those who disseminate it. And they would be much less likely to watch so-called "news" shows that push it.

So, kudos to This Week, but come on, it shouldn't have taken this long to do something as fundamental as busting the liars. And the idea that they have to boast about it suggests that, until now, many haven't been exactly reliable, trustworthy sources of information.

Thank you ABC News

For giving Ex President Karl Rove a platform to fillibuster for his proven quality opinions. Video when I get it.

PLEASE NOTE: Title has been changed to correct an error.

Note from Paddy- I incorrectly credited Jake Tapper for hosting the show today (and letting Karl run roughshod over everything), we think it was John Karl. My mistake, I listen in another room from where the computer er television is. What a day.

VIDEO- Axelrod: When You Go Into The Details, People Support The Healthcare Bill

By GottaLaff

Earlier today, I made the following point:

When voters are polled about what is actually in the bill, they overwhelmingly approve. When they are polled after being bombarded by smears and lies, they raise their eyebrows a little.

They should be raising their eyebrows at the party who is misleading them, not the effort to improve their health and save their lives.

Now Crooks and Liars has a clip from David Axelrod that drives it home... to Jake Tapper, who can't seem to extricate himself from right wing talking points:

TAPPER: But according to polls, the American people do not agree with what you think--

AXELROD: The polls are split, Jake. I mean, one of the interesting things that has happened in the last four or five weeks is that if you look at -- if you average together the public polls, what you find is that the American people are split on the top line, do you support the plan? But again, when you go underneath, they support the elements of the plan. When you ask them, does the health care system need reform, three quarters of them say yes. When you ask them, do you want Congress to move forward and deal with this issue, three quarters of them say yes. So we're not going to walk away from this issue.

Ding! Right answer.

Captionary: Rachel Maddow meets Roger Ailes

By GottaLaff

What I'd have given to be at this little do:

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Fox News chairman Roger Ailes were among the guests at last night's holiday party for tvnewsers at the White House.

Check this out:

Greta Van Susteren blogs about meeting Maddow for the first time and about who else was there:

Jake Tapper of ABC and his wife were there (my money is on Jake for getting the job as anchoring This Week on ABC now that George has gone to GMA and Jake would be great at it)

No. Nononono. Can we get one new liberal replacement host out of ABC? Just one? Just this once? Pretty please with ratings on top?

Sorry. Back to reality. I'd drifted there for a minute.

"What's more important: Health care reform bill or public option bill?"

By GottaLaff

Lalalala! I can't hear yo-o-ou!

Just now on the Tee Vee Machine, during the daily briefing, Jake Tapper asked Robert Gibbs,

"Is it more important for President Obama to get a bi-partisan health care reform bill ....or a public option bill?"

His answer: A choice and competition bill. In other words, he gave no answer.

Video- HHS Secretary Sebelius Calls Death Panel Talk "Horrific"

I know she's on our side, but out of all the people who make up this administration, Sec Sebelius is the one I'm most disappointed by. She is monotone, doesn't answer the questions (very surprised Tapper let her get away with it) and just has a very flat delivery. I should bookmark her speeches for nights I can't sleep...

Mark Levin smells a conspiracy in the Obama White House

Dude, that's some concentrated crazy right there. Think Progress has the trail from Right Wing Meme to Main Stream Media Question, and it's damn disturbing.

Palin's Peeved at Political Punch

By GottaLaff

(via)

In the news again. Poor Limelight Palin! Or should I say, Grabby McEarmark? This news cycle, it's Jake Tapper who got her all upset. Not being one to take sass like his lying down [Laffy Note to self: Forgo mother-of-five "lying down" jokes here], she sic'd her flunky on him, that's how mad she was. The truth hurts, doesn't it, Grabby?

A very irate aide to Gov. Sarah Palin contacted ABC News today to explain why his boss's 31 requests for earmarks in the fiscal year 2009 budget, totaling $197 million, represent a victory for fiscally conservative values.

"I am disturbed by this item," wrote Bill McAllister, director of communications for Gov. Palin, referencing a blog entry from last night in which we referred to an article in the liberal magazine Mother Jones noting that Palin -- after what seemed like a campaign against earmark abuse -- was back at the proverbial trough.

"The headline [link] doesn't seem very dignified for a major news organization,"said the spokesman for the governor who repeatedly referred to then-Senator, now-President Obama as "palling around with terrorists." He also quibbled with our referencing Mother Jones. (We also reference conservative publications here. But anyway.)

"Let's start with the overwhelming mischaracterization of Gov. Palin's stance on earmarks that has been repeated and repeated since Aug. 29," McAllister wrote. "The governor never said that earmarks should be abolished or that the State of Alaska wouldn't seek or accept any. Didn't happen. What she said well before she was a national candidate (going back at least to October of 2007) was that earmark reform was necessary and the state would need to rely less on federal money than it had been."

McAllister then pointed out that Palin made 51 earmark requests for the FY 2008 budget, totaling $256 million; and 31 requests totaling $197 million, for the FY 2009 budget.

McAllister said that for next year's budget, Gov. Palin will only make eight requests, totaling $69 million, which will include "six ongoing federal appropriations and just two new projects: an upgrade at the Kodiak Missile Defense Facility, which is relevant to national security, and a bridge replacement critical to construction of the pending Alaska natural gas pipeline, also in the national interest." [...]

"She has spoken out on reform of the federal process, and it is a disservice to her that her position was so egregiously mis-reported last year and that those same false stories are now being used to make her look like a hypocrite -- adding insult to injury, quite literally."

Alarmed, I asked McAllister how Palin was "literally" injured. Was she okay? Was she infirm?

"I didn't say physically injured," he wrote back. "Certainly her reputation was injured by the erroneous reporting." [...]

In any case, the point is, Gov. Palin as a vice presidential candidate claimed that she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending of Congress."

And yet, she has asked for and is still asking for -- and receiving -- tens millions of dollars in earmarks [...]

Including [...] moneys for alcohol bootlegging interdiction and North Pacific fisheries programs.

Yes, all that erroneous reporting is what's injuring what's left of her stellar reputation. It was nothing she's done, said (er, tried to say), or insinuated. Glad we cleared that up. It would be a shame if she began her 2012 campaign with any misunderstandings.

Big H/t: Mark Karlin at Buzzflash for the Palin photo link

New president, new questioners: Meet the (new) press

By GottaLaff

Because the media snuggled up with Little Georgie Bush for so long, my money is on the "new" press overcompensating and making every attempt to nail Obama as often and as hard as they can. Key word: Overcompensating:

When incoming press secretary Robert Gibbs approaches the podium in the White House Briefing Room, a new cast of notebook-clutching, laptop-tapping reporters will be there to greet him as the five biggest news networks are all switching up their chief White House correspondents to cover the 44th president.

The new faces will be Chuck Todd (NBC), Jake Tapper (ABC), Chip Reid (CBS) and Ed Henry (CNN). Although Fox News hasn’t named a replacement for Bret Baier — who just took over “Special Report” — the betting money in Washington is on correspondent Major Garrett, who covered the Obama campaign. While all the correspondents played significant roles during the 2008 election, their White House experience varies from several years to none at all.

With surveys showing the public believes Barack Obama received easier coverage during the campaign, coupled with lingering criticism of how the White House press corps dropped the ball as the Bush administration made the case for invading Iraq, the incoming group has a few hurdles to overcome.

Overall, it's not a bad team. But I have this nagging suspicion that they'll feel obligated to be more aggressive, whether it's warranted or not. I may be wrong, it's just a gut feeling.

Not that tough questions are a bad thing, far from it. I'd just hate to see gratuitous gotchas rather than fair, dispassionate, and thoughtful journalism.

This quote from Ed Henry was somewhat reassuring:

Asked about the perception that Obama has had easy treatment from the press so far, Henry warns against overcompensating: “We can’t turn every nit-picky thing into Watergate.”

Thank you.

For background on each of the reporters, go here.

VIDEO Fact Check-- ABC: Palin lied about global warming record

By GottaLaff

"Show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect -- or no effect -- on climate change," challenged Palin. "I have not said that. I have said that my belief is that there is a cyclical nature of our planet."

Tapper handily meets Palin's challenge by citing a December 2007 article in a Fairbanks newspaper in which she was quoted as saying, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity."

In his ABC blog, Tapper further notes that as recently as this August 28, Palin told an interviewer, "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

Alien thought to Republicans: Tell the truth, tell it often. And stop insulting us with so-called "challenges" when there are these newfangled things called videos, transcripts, and documents that easily prove how wrong you are via a simple click of the mouse.