A few interesting links for November 30th through December 2nd:
- Media Matters – Wash. Times and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review publish false Heritage Foundation claims about autoworker compensation – " In recent days, The Washington Times and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review published op-eds by members of the Heritage Foundation containing the false claim that union autoworkers earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits. In fact, according to General Motors, these claims are based not only on current workers' hourly wages and benefits, such as health care and retirement, but also retirement and health-care benefits that U.S. automakers are providing for current retirees."
- NBC and McCaffrey's coordinated responses to the NYT story – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com – General Barry McCaffrey has been corrupt for a long time (he was the drug Czar, remember?), and NBC was quite happy employing him in his role as defense contractor shill.
More here
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/01/mccaffrey/index.html - Daily Kos: Who Rules Mark Halperin's World? – "Number of references on Mark Halperin's website, thepage.time.com, for each of the following, according to Google:
Rush Limbaugh: 113
Sean Hannity: 77
Matt Drudge: 56
Bill O'Reilly: 34
Huffington (Post or Arianna): 23
Keith Olbermann: 14
Rachel Maddow: 9
Daily Kos: 0" - Daily Kos: Defending The Media From Halperin's Tin-Foil Attack – " I assembled a list of 92 articles published by the NYT in 2007 and 2008 (see below). As you can see, none of thes articles show any signs of "extreme bias" or "extreme pro-Obama coverage."
I'm not saying the articles prove any sort of systematic anti-Obama bias. But they do invalidate Halperin's claim about the NYT, in the process exposing his claim that coverage of the 2008 campaign represents "the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war" as totally unsubstantiated.
Given Halperin's utter lack of specifics to support his claim, the real question is this: why did he choose to throw the media under Rush Limbaugh's bus?"
- Bargain gifts for the culture vulture – 2008 Gift Guide – Salon.com – ". On the leading edge of an incoming tsunami of art-house-flavored releases is the first-ever batch of Blu-rays from the Criterion Collection, available for preorder now and pre-Christmas delivery. It's an eclectic and intriguing blend, from Nicolas Roeg's deliciously culty "The Man Who Fell to Earth"($27.95), starring the 1976 androgynous version of David Bowie, to Carol Reed's sinister, black-and-white Vienna Brit-noir "The Third Man"($28.99), Wong Kar-wai's winsome 1994 romance "Chungking Express" ($27.95) and Wes Anderson's debut indie heist caper "Bottle Rocket" ($27.95). (Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" ($23.99), exactly the kind of eye-popping spectacle you'd expect to see in a new format, will be along in January.) No telling yet whether technophiles will kvetch or kvell about the hi-def transfers, but to you and me they'll look stupendous."