Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has this MUST READ column on how the Journolist flap “shows a destructive ‘gotcha’ mentality”: she recounts the controversy and puts it into a different context than those who use it for their own partisan or ideological purposes. I haven’t weighed in on this controversy yet, but to this column I say “Ditto.” I have often noted...

Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

I was looking for new stories covering the death of Dan Schorr, a well-respected journalist. On the MSNBC.com web site, the story on his career was listed under the “Entertainment” section. Dan Schorr was definitely NOT an entertainer, but apparently journalism now falls under that heading according to at least one editor.

Has recent South Korean media coverage of U.S. military plans in the Yellow Sea forced Washington’s hand – and triggered an overreaction in China’s media? In this ironic article from China’s state-controlled Global Times written by what is thought to be a fictitious People’s Daily editor, Ding Gang, Chinese media should consider information in other media as a ‘calculated...

Many on the extreme right and elsewhere on the political spectrum strongly advocate we return to some imaginary original Constitution, and that we should live by what the original framers thought or intended – as these advocates are only able to decipher. Of course, any political, economic, social or religious ideology expanded via rigid consistency will naturally lead to insanely ludicrous statements and...

Conservative talk show hosts aren’t the only ones going after Barack Obama now. So are liberal progressive talk show hosts as you can read about here. But this is how the game works, folks. Earlier today I put up THIS LINK to my first weekly column on Cagle Cartoon’s MSNBC site that dealt with the issue of talk radio. Since then, I got three emails insisting what I wrote only really refers to...

A long time ago, I had a friend who had never cast a vote. In any election, ever. She just didn’t vote. When I asked her why (which I did more than once), she would always answer my question the same way: “What’s the point? They’re all the same.” I tried to convince her that there were differences even in the most unexciting elections. I tried to get her to see that not voting was,...

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

The best, concise short take I have seen on the issue of journalistic lack of integrity is HERE. Rather than recap it, visit it yourself. Journalistic integrity is an issue that goes back to the glory days of the old media and is becoming a major one now on several fronts in the new media — even as the new media tries to use it against the old media. And it’s coming into play now on several stories...

There is no Atticus Finch or Joseph Welch in all this. On the 50th anniversary of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” we are back in a time when McCarthyism played on fears to spread hatred and destroy lives of people in public life. The President, who won an election by putting the Civil Rights era behind him, will have to revisit that time before his birth and make things right not only with Shirley Sherrod...

On The Media, new to Georgia Public Broadcasting and already a favorite find of a good many friends, spent an hour last week on the future of newspapers. In support of TMV Assistant Editor David Shraub’s excellent Sherrod-inspired post on the true failings of the journalistic enterprise, a few select quotes… Yochai Benkler, a professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of Harvard’s Berkman...

Talk radio is flying high. But how powerful, positive..or dangerous..is it? What does it mean to our politics and how we discuss politics? I deal with those ISSUES HERE in my first weekly political column on www.cagle.com’s MSNBC site.

I was driving to a client appointment this morning in Phoenix, traveling north on 7th Avenue just south of Bethany Home Road, when I noticed a White SUV in front had a fairly unique bumper-sticker that appeared to have been professionally printed. It stated as follows: ‘I LOVE MY COUNTRY” “BUT I FEAR MY GOVERNMENT” I happened to pull up on the left of the same vehicle at the next light and noticed the...

RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Let’s stop pussyfooting around the Shirley Sherrod story and go for the jugular. I don’t give a poop whether Andrew Breitbart and his Big Government website is a conservative post dead set on destroying the Democratic Party. What I do care about is that Breitbart, artificially inflated with a profile in New Yorker Magazine and a darling contributor of false stories to Fox News, the Drudge Report and Rush...

Judging from this article from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, appearing to favor policies of the United States – even if they are in the interests of Iraq in general – could be dangerous to your political health. Kitabat columnist Zahraa’ Al Hussayni warns politicians who appear to be turning their backs on past resistance to the U.S. that ‘lovers of power and self interest’ will...

I am one of those misguided, clueless people who, when writing about our military men and women slugging it out in Iraq and Afghanistan, engaged in combat, just trying not to get killed or maimed by an IED or just driving a truck with supplies across the desert, instinctively and invariably refers to them as “heroes.” However, a piece appearing today in the Los Angeles Times tells me how utterly wrong and...

Both the Sherrod matter and the Journolist revelations have one thing in common that the ideologues from both sides remain blissfully and determinedly unaware; the controversies are excellent examples of epistemic closure on both sides. To jog your memory, Julian Sanchez defined epistemic closure thusly: One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has...

Our political Quote of the Day comes from MSNBC’s must-read First Read team which looks at the Shirley Sherrod media-created controversy/distraction and writes: The three-ring circus in Washington: In Obama’s first year and a half as president, there haven’t been any sex scandals, any stories of widespread corruption, or any plans to wage war against a nation without WMD. But what does it say —...

With falling approval ratings, Barack Obama is getting advice from all sides on how to “save” his presidency. In the latest round of parsing by pundits, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post concludes: “The bank bailout averted a financial crackup and the stimulus package pulled the economy back from the abyss. Along with reform of the financial industry and health care, these are considerable...