McClatchy Newspapers

With the demise of the Editor and Publisher this week, many media commentators are nostalgic for the hard-nosed trade journalism the newspaper industry publication often engaged in. E&P's strength was always in its core mission of reporting news industry trends. In its latter years, like a number of other outlets, it began to stray off-course into garden-variety, hypocritical leftist media…

Would anybody at the ailing McClatchy Newspapers care to point out to us even the slightest hint of neutrality in the reporting of two correspondents for that chain, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, on former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech yesterday about terrorism? You sort of get the idea where these two are coming from just by reading the title of their report: "Cheney's speech…

One measure of how far newspapers in general and McClatchy newspapers in particular have fallen is a mock newspaper front page (image below the fold) created by workers at the Raleigh News & Oberver making fun of their McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt (photo). Pruitt, who went on a disastrous spending spree a few years ago buying up doomed newspapers, including the Miami Herald, is widely credited…

Talk about a divorced from reality headline! Check out this McClatchy Newspapers headline: "Liberal TV Host Rachel Maddow Works for Civility." The article itself, dateline Los Angeles by Rick Bentley, follows the lead of its fawning headline:MSNBC boasts Maddow has become the network's first program to beat CNN talker Larry King in more than a dozen years.Maddow had been hosting her own show for…

So says MacsMind (via Flopping Aces via Minority Report via Jeff Emanuel at RedState). MacsMind's post is in response to an all-too-predictable gusher delivered by Democratic operative disguised as Associated Press reporter Jennifer Loven on April 7 (bold is mine): Cheered wildly by U.S. troops, President Barack Obama flew unannounced into Iraq on Tuesday and promptly declared it was time for…

**Update: McClatchy Changes Headline** OK, before we even get into the latest banal attack on Governor Palin's extended family perpetrated by the McClatchy newspaper chain, I would like to ask a few questions about "Those crazy Palins: Todd's half sister indicted in break-ins." Has McClatchy ever had any headlines like this: "Those Crazy Kennedys"? After all, there is a wealth of craziness with…

What is the result of an incredibly fawning newspaper puff piece about a new senator in which the subject of the story displays her supposed independence from President Barack Obama by voting for every piece of his legislation? An extremely hilarious demolishment of the story by an astute blogger. Such was the case with McClatchy Newspapers reporter Barbara Barrett whose puff piece article  about…

The Obama White House is serving as a convenient new employer for members of the media as news outlets downsize, but would they have felt so comfortable coming aboard a GOP President's staff? The latest hires: Three news photographers -- from Time magazine, Cox Newspapers and U.S. News & World Report magazine -- are joining the team of photographers snapping pictures at events and meetings in…

Truth to power? Give me a break.Mark Levin mentioned a report by McClatchy's Steven Thomma tonight on his show. When I heard Levin read from it, I assumed that when I went to the web page that McClatchy would label it as "analysis," or "background," or something similar.Nope. Apparently, it's supposed to be a straight news story.Thomma writes as if world peace and civility were salvaged because…

In a like vein as the story I posted a few days ago showing Reuters helping cover for Obama by lowering expectations, a trio of stories -- two from McClatchy and one from the AP -- prove to be little more than empty Obama boostering with little worth as news, though the AP piece at least comes close to being newsworthy. Unfortunately, this is the sort of empty reporting that has become du jour…

The late Mr. Blackwell could have gotten a job as a political reporter for McClatchy newspapers. Should you doubt this assessment, then check out this McClatchy newspapers report about Barack Obama written by  Halimah Abdullah which was described by McClatchy Watch as sounding like a cross between GQ and Teen magazine. A video showing Obama "Yes We Can" power ties was even included at the top of…

The McClatchy publishing company is more and more beginning to resemble an isolated bunker in the final stages of Götterdämmerung as ugly reality, such as their 99% stock price plunge, closes in on both fronts. Inside the bunker a leader is screaming madly, conjuring up phantom armies to ward off the unpleasant facts facing his company. However, in this case their ranting leader in the bunker…

Employees of McClatchy publishing in Iraq were in an unusually good mood recently. The occasion was the aftermath of the Iraqi journalist who tossed his shoes at President Bush at a press conference in Baghdad as you can see in these quotes from Inside Iraq, a blog for McClatchy journalists working in that country. The first quote was from McClatchy employee, "Laith," who was talking about his…

Last week, the Detroit Free Press's Web site posted "Which books would Palin want to ban?," a column by syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.  Pitts begins with a series of possible questions for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  Then he makes his point:My first question, though, would not be one of those. I'd simply ask which books she wants to ban -- and why.Yes, there's a…