Broadcast Television

While looking into the News Media Guild's positions in the current standoff between it and the Associated Press, I came across the most recent contract (large PDF file) between the two. It expired this past November; unionized AP employees are continuing to work under the old contract's provisions. Many people don't know that the AP is a "not-for-profit news cooperative" which is "owned by…

Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's federal minister for minorities and that government's only Christian, was assassinated yesterday on the streets of Islamabad. Bloomberg News is reporting that the Pakistan Taliban is claiming responsibility for the shooting: As many as four men ambushed Shahbaz Bhatti, a 42-year-old Christian, yesterday as he left home without a security escort, Geo television…

A sitting congressman admitted earlier this week to seeking psychiatric treatment after news broke that he had sent bizarre photos of himself in a tiger costume to staff members and taken prescription pain killers given to him by an unnamed campaign donor. Seven of Oregon Democrat David Wu's staff members reportedly quit after the 2010 campaign due to his bizarre behavior. The second largest…

The other night while watching the Super Bowl, I became increasingly aware that the Angry Left might have a point about the Giant Corporations. Not that the game was not exciting. It was. Those quarterbacks can really heave the ball. Suddenly it is in their hands, and suddenly it is in a receiver's outreached arms, having passed through a forest of opposing players' arms. Both teams were…

To add an exclamation point to Brad Wilmouth's great post last night ("ABC Pushes for Tax Hike on Capital Gains, Ignores Likelihood of Tax Revenue Loss") -- in ignoring the likelihood that raising the capital gains tax rate would reduce capital gains tax collections, the network also "somehow" forgot now-retired World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson's aggressive questioning on the topic…

A recently-released analysis by the Pew Research Center reveals some interesting facts about the online conversation regarding the Tucson massacre. Most notably, it lends statistical weight to the claim that the left accused its ideological opponents of fostering a "climate of hate" to a far greater degree than did the right. Though that may not be altogether surprising, the Pew study also…

Noel Sheppard posted the news about J. Eric Fuller's arrest at NewsBusters earlier this evening: According to the website of ABC-TV affiliate KGUN, J. Eric Fuller was arrested and charged with threats, intimidation, and disorderly conduct. Demonstrating impressive prescience, John Hayward at Human Events predicted on Friday that Fuller would attempt to capitalize on his being among the…

President Obama has taken an admirable stand for fiscal austerity, and blasted attempts to yet again raise the debt ceiling, which currently stands at $14.3 trillion (with a T) - or roughly the GDP of the United States. Said the president: The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its…

Eric Holder recently had what he wants to be perceived as a really important interview about the domestic terror threat with Pierre Thomas of ABC News. In the video at the ABC link, George Stephanopoulos's intro at Good Morning America describes Holder as "a pretty circumspect man," but that on the subject of domestic terror threats, "he doesn't seem to be pulling any punches." Really? If…

Is Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps trying to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine through what he calls a "public value test" for broadcasters? The short answer is no, and Copps is adamant about that point. He points out that while the Fairness Doctrine regulated political speech by mandating equal time for all views on a given topic, the "public value test" will only require that…

When candidate Obama bragged of campaigning in 57 states, or Pres. Obama suggested that the national language of Austria is "Austrian," we all remember how ABC flaunted those embarrassing flubs.  Or not. But let Sarah Palin momentarily mention North rather than South Korea as our ally, and ABC finds it newsworthy.  Check out the video after the jump, containing the news scroll from today'…

Along with the cheerful news that Fox News trounced its cable news competitors on Election Night (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), those longing for more fairness and balance in television news coverage can take some comfort in the fact that the Big Three Networks' evening news shows came in with audiences almost 20% lower during the week before and the week of the 2010 midterm elections compared…

According to Newsweek's Allison Samuels, American TV audiences are not "ready for 'super-negros' on the small screen." Samuels made her complaint in light of NBC's cancellation of it's ratings-plagued spy series, "Undercovers," which featured a black actor and actress in the lead roles as glamorous and deadly CIA agents:

Buckeye State residents are supposed to be impressed with media reports like this one from WXIX in Cincinnati telling us that passenger rail ridership increased 14% last year to almost 147,000. That's just over 400 people a day. In the whole state. Spread over seven station stops in multiple cities. You've got to be kidding me. Context, people.