News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
It’s not often we will give things associated with The Philadelphia Inquirer credit for doing anything right, but that’s only because they so rarely do.
However, when they do we give credit and Jimmy Kempski’s Philly.com smackdown of a smug, self-righteous, politically correct and otherwise pompous New York Times story by Juliet Macur certainly deserves credit.
Tom Blumer has a very good piece at PJMedia.com called Ten Forms of 2013 Media Malpractice in which he describes ways not-so-honest media outlets — which include many of the oldest and once most respected ones — fail in their important role. 
The include pretending “that “no one” is saying something, when they really are” and burying the party affiliation of Democrats involved in scandal and crime.
It should be noted protecting the dishonest and incompetent doesn’t help organizations one cares about albeit in this case the problem has become circular much like, well, a whirlpool around the drain.
Incompetent and dishonest Democrat Party leaders are supported by incompetent and dishonest media institutions who then return the support to the media institutions.
Expect a collapse of both.
President Obama with his signature health plan looking like it’s not merely going to fail but to kill supporters has been smoked out of his hole on the golf course and will now field questions from a journalist. 
Well, OK, it’s going to Chris Matthews.
On MSNBC, which nobody watches.
At 7 p.m., Thursday night.
If people tune in, it won’t be to hear the President’s explanation but to see if Matthews loses control of the thrill in his leg and begins humping our Commander in Chief as certain dogs do unwary visitors.
Expect the President’s media blitz to next take him to Michael Smerconish’s podcast.
Since the Clinton years it has become apparent that big media players don’t follow truth to wherever it leads but rather take the path of least resistance to praise from their masters, security and government jobs. They have bent over backwards to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.
But now it seems that there is an inkling that those who had been given the seal of approval by the self-proclaimed smart set are not what they appeared to be. Maybe not all journalistic souls have not been sold.
ProPublica founder and executive chairman Paul Steiger received the Burton Benjamin Memorial award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Nov. 26. In his remarks he said:
And now, more recently, we are facing new barriers to our ability to do our jobs – denial of access and silencing of sources.
For the starkest comparison, I urge any of you who haven’t already done so to read last month’s report, commissioned by CPJ and written by Len Downie, former editor of the Washington Post. It lays out in chilling detail how an administration that took office promising to be the most transparent in history instead has carried out the most intrusive surveillance of reporters ever attempted.
It also has made the most concerted effort at least since the plumbers and the enemies lists of the Nixon Administration to intimidate officials in Washington from ever talking to a reporter.
Consider this: As we now know from the Snowden documents, investigators seeking to trace the source of a leak can go back and discover anyone in government who has talked by phone or email with the reporter who broke the story. Match that against the list of all who had access to the leaked info and voila!
In my days editing the Wall Street Journal, I used to joke that no one in the Washington Bureau ever had an on-the-record conversation. Now I would have to wonder whether anyone was having any kind of conversation at all that wasn’t a White House-sanctioned briefing.
It isn’t just words. The White House has been barring news photographers from all sorts of opportunities to ply their craft. Routine meetings and activities of the president, of which they used to be able to shoot still and video images under certain constraints, now are often – not always, but often — off limits, according to the American Society of News Editors, which is protesting the action, along with other groups.
The administration has invited news organizations to pick up images handed out by the press office or from the White House website. Sort of like saying, “just print the press release,” as some corporate PR people used to say to me years ago when I asked for an interview with the CEO.
To read his statement in its entirety go here.
The home of Audrey Hudson, a reporter for The Washington Times, was raided the pre-dawn of Aug. 6 by Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security’s Coast Guard Investigative Service. They apparently were looking for a “potato gun” belonging to her husband, Paul Flanagan, who was a Coast Guard employee.
Flanagan has yet to be charged with anything although raiders did take notes pertaining to Ms. Hudson regarding stories she had written exposing problems in the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Air Marshals Service, and questioned her as to whether she was the Audrey Hudson who was writing those nasty stories.
The raid occurred at 4:30 a.m. and the raiders were wearing full body armor.
Have you read about this in the establishment mouthpiece papers? Silly question.
For those that remember its relevance, former Inky reporter Ralph Cipriano is doing yeoman’s work at BigTrail.net covering the saga among the battling Democrats who own the publication regarding the firing of editor Bill Marimow.
It’s fascinating writing and shows that straight reporting can be far more interesting than the entertainment garbage that now passes for news in the dying dinosaurs. Cipriano makes the implicit case that the dinosaur may not be dying — at least as certainly — if they actually did its job rather than be a mere mouthpiece for the union-backed establishment that runs — and corrupts — the City of Philadelphia, and by extension the state.
Did you know that the Carpenters’ Union dumped $45 million of its pension fund into the Inky when it was sold to a group led by Brian Tierney in 2006? You wouldn’t if you depended on the Inquirer for news. It lost most of it. On the other hand, it kept a crusade from being launched to reform things at the city’s miserable failure of a convention center.
“They don’t hand out prizes for
pissing people off,” Cipriano notes. “And that’s what the job of journalism often is. To
create a newsroom that Ed Rendell wouldn’t feel comfortable in.”
For a scorecard as to who is on what side in the Marimow fight — owners Lewis Katz and H.F. Lenfest want to keep him and owner New Jersey Democrat boss George Norcross with Publisher Bob Hall want him gone — visit here. Tidbits include that the rage aimed at Marimow is based on a claim that he leaked a plan to cut the paper’s editorial pages by 50 percent and the paper has lost 24 percent of our readers in the last year. Free clue, maybe normalizing homosexuality is not as popular as you guys seem to think it is.
Hat tip Bob Guzzardi
Teri Adams of the Independence Hall Tea Party reports that Rush Limbaugh will be returning to WPHT 1210 AM on Oct. 28, as will Sean Hannity albeit not live.
The new line up according to Teri is
5:30-9 a.m. Chris Stigall
9 a.m.-Noon Dom Giordano
Noon-3 p.m. Rush Limbaugh
3-6 p.m. Dick Morris & Gary R’nel
6-9 p.m. Rich Zeoli
9 p.m.-Midnight Sean Hannity
The Delaware County Daily Times (Pennsylvania), today, Oct. 17, featured on their front page a photo of a Springfield, Pa.’ man’s Halloween decoration which was a plastic skeleton hanging from a tree garbed in an Obama/Biden shirt. Inside was a long story discussing whether it was racist.
Apparently some of the man’s neighbors who are Democrats and who may very well have worn similar shirts are upset. It is a white neighborhood it should be noted.
One wonders if they would be just as upset if the skeleton was wearing a Romney/Ryan shirt. One wonders if it would be a front page story if it were.
Actually, one doesn’t.
On the other hand one does wonder why there wasn’t a peep about the beating of a 15-year-old girl by nine teenage boys after an Interboro football game Monday night that is making national news. There are not a lot of details as to what might have motivated the attack in the CBS story. Think it could have involved racism? Wonder if there will be a discussion.
Montco Dem Activist Allegedly Took Boy’s Photo In Restroom — A Lansdale man has been charged by Orange County, Fla., with one count of felony video voyeurism against a child younger than 16 years of age for taking a photo of a young boy in a restroom stall at Walt Disney World on Aug. 2
The charge was duly reported by NBC10. Certain things, however, were left out that one is confident would otherwise would not have been if things had not been just a tad different — namely his political affiliation.
The accused, Joseph M. Cionzynski, 59, you see, is active with Friends of Lansdale, a left-leaning political action committee that supported the Democratic Party establishment against a couple of of party mavericks, according to RedState.com, which notes that he is also works for the National Labor Relations Board.
Cionzynski allegedly placed his cell phone under the stall and took several photographs of the boy, age 8, who was sitting on the toilet. The boy saw what was occurring and ran from the room crying. He got his mother and the two re-entered the room where the boy was able to identify Cionzynski by his shoes.
Cionzynski voluntarily turned the phone over to a sheriff’s deputy who did not find pictures of the child but did find two pictures of adult genitalia. The phone was seized and Cionzynski was given a trespass warning but not arrested. Investigators later found pictures of the boy, however, according to BayNews9.com.
An arrest warrant was issued Aug.15 and Cionzynski was arrested in Montco for extradition.
Wonder where Cionzynski stands on gay marriage? You think he might have supported D. Bruce Hanes for Montgomery County Register of Wills?
Philly Biz Journal Takes PPA Website Honors — The Philadelphia Business Journal won top honors in this year’s Philadelphia Press Association contest.
Awards were presented tonight, June 21, at the Bala Golf Club on Belmont Avenue.
Taking second place was the Jewish Exponent. BillLawrenceOnline took third and South Philly Review received honorable mention.
Jim Vanore won first place for website feature writing with “Whose Abusing Children Now” regarding the Penn State Scandal. Chris Freind writing for BillLawrenceOnline took second place for “Why Mitt Romney” while Bill Lawrence writing for the same website took third with “Shots From Sandy”.
For website news writing, Amanda Snyder of South Philly Review took first place for “Domestic Dispute”. Pattie Price writing for BillLawrenceOnline took second for “He Allegedly”; Bill Lawrence took third for “DNC Head Gets Heckled At Synagogue Rally”and Hillel Zaremba writing for BillLawrenceOnline took third for Pennsylvania “HRC’s CAIR Connection.”
The Grand Award for Public Service went to John George of the Philadelphia Business Journal for “Labor Pains” which documented the impact of the closing of the large number of maternity wards in the region.
A complete list of winners can be found here.