MediaBloodhound

Moving On -- Please Continue to Follow My Reporting and New Adventures via Twitter

2010-12-14T20:18:05-05:00

I cordially invite you to follow my journey into full-time reporting and promise to continue to be as dogged elsewhere as you grew to expect me to be here.

FEC commissioner faces disbarment complaint after Raw Story report

2010-04-13T23:23:56-04:00

My recent reporting on Federal Election Commissioner Caroline Hunter has now led to action.

Exclusive: Ideology trumps experience in Federal Election Commissioner’s rise

2010-03-31T11:24:24-04:00

Caroline Hunter’s confirmation to the Election Assistance Commission in February 2007 came near the end of the agency’s controversial handling of two internally contentious commissioned studies -- one on voter fraud and the other on voter identification laws. Pressure to fill the four-member bipartisan commission was high: the election season was heating up. Emails released to Congress about the two studies, reviewed by Raw Story, reveal that Hunter’s selection was not only well-timed but also succeeded in installing an ideologically partisan insider on the commission.

Exclusive: FEC commissioner helped RNC conceal role in 2004 vote suppression

2010-03-30T11:39:53-04:00

Judge found sworn testimony 'belied' the facts Caroline Hunter, a Bush-appointed Federal Election Commissioner who remains in office, provided misleading statements under oath in an effort to conceal Republican National Committee involvement in vote suppression activities during the 2004 presidential election, a Raw Story investigation has found.

RIP Jon Swift

2010-03-04T15:36:33-05:00

Taking a work break yesterday, I spotted the subject line "RIP Jon Swift" in my inbox. I hoped this was some sort of joke or a way to announce that this brilliant satirist was officially shuttering his Jon Swift blog and embarking on a new endeavor. With my heart in my throat, I quickly realized that wasn't the case.

Exclusive: How Corporations Secretly Move Millions to Fund Political Ads

2010-02-04T13:06:06-05:00

The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

EXCLUSIVE: My Interview with Health Insurance Whistleblower Wendell Potter

2010-01-20T12:05:57-05:00

Wendell Potter, a twenty-year veteran of the insurance industry and former vice president of communications for Cigna, warns that current healthcare legislation does nothing to prevent the insurance industry from continuing its ongoing practice of increasingly shifting healthcare costs to consumers.

EXCLUSIVE: Obama Received $20 Million of Healthcare Industry Money in 2008

2010-01-12T13:08:32-05:00

While some sunlight has been shed on the hefty sums shoveled into congressional campaign coffers in an effort to influence the Democrats' massive healthcare bill, little attention has been focused on the far larger sums received by President Barack Obama while he was a candidate in 2008. A new figure, based on an exclusive analysis created for Raw Story by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that President Obama received a staggering $20,175,303 from the healthcare industry during the 2008 election cycle, nearly three times the amount of his presidential rival John McCain. McCain took in $7,758,289, the Center found.

135,000 Uninsured Americans Will Die Before Health Reform Takes Effect, Analysis Finds

2009-12-15T16:37:38-05:00

A Raw Story analysis, based on a recent Harvard Medical School study, estimates that 135,000 American citizens and over 6,600 US veterans will die due to a lack of health insurance before current proposed healthcare reform measures would take effect.

Exclusive: Pentagon Pursuing New Investigation Into Bush Propaganda Program

2009-11-05T13:58:54-05:00

The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General is conducting a new investigation into a covert Bush administration Defense Department program that used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage. Last May, the Inspector General’s office rescinded and repudiated a prior internal investigation’s report on the retired military analyst program, which had been issued by the Bush administration, because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” Yet in recent interviews with Raw Story, Pentagon officials who took part in the program were still defending it by referencing this invalidated report.

Discussing Investigative Series on GRITtv with Laura Flanders

2009-10-30T13:06:09-04:00

This was taped on Tuesday. The forthcoming article (part III) I refer to in the interview was published Thursday morning.

Exclusive: Pentagon's Domestic Propaganda Program May Not Have Been Terminated

2009-10-29T13:52:43-04:00

Exclusive: Pentagon officials won't confirm Bush propaganda program ended The covert Bush administration program that used retired military analysts to generate favorable wartime news coverage may not have been terminated, Raw Story has found.

Pentagon Used Psychological Operation on US Public, Documents Show

2009-10-21T16:04:10-04:00

Part II in my investigative series for Raw Story: Pentagon Used Psychological Operation on US Public, Documents Show Figure in Bush propaganda operation remains Pentagon spokesman

Senior Official in Bush Domestic Propaganda Program Remains Obama’s Pentagon Spokesman

2009-09-29T17:32:57-04:00

My latest for Raw Story (and a major reason for my scarcity in these parts) -- part one in a series of investigative articles: A key senior figure in a Bush administration covert Pentagon program, which used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage, remains in the same position today as a chief Obama Defense Department spokesman and the agency’s head of all media operations. In an examination of Pentagon documents the New York Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request — which reporter David Barstow leveraged for his April 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé on the program – Raw Story has found that Bryan Whitman surfaces in over 500 emails and transcripts, revealing the deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations was both one of the program’s senior participants and an active member.

Op-Ed Column: Tributes Censor Cronkite's Anti-Iraq War Stance

2009-07-22T14:03:23-04:00

Cronkite Called War "Illegal from the Start," Slammed Network Silence and Would've Spoken Out Again from Anchor Desk

NYT Front|Back: Porn Plots vs. Detainee Rights

2009-07-10T16:12:49-04:00

I believe it was Patrick Henry who originally said, "Give me liberty and intricately plotted pornographic entertainment, or give me death." Of course, that was before the edit (fortunately for Henry, he wasn't living in the dawn of blogging).

Op-Ed Column: CNN's Iran Timeline Omits US-Backed '53 Coup

2009-06-24T14:33:08-04:00

It might be more difficult for Republicans to bash President Obama for being "timid" in his comments about the Iranian government's violence against protesters if the U.S. media didn't consistently censor US-Iranian history. Take CNN's recent Iran timeline, titled "A brief look at Iran's history."

Story of the Day: Gene Randall 'Reporting,' Inc. (CJR Article)

2009-06-16T15:11:50-04:00

My article published today in Columbia Journalism Review: Former CNN correspondent-turned-PR consultant Gene Randall’s video “report” for oil giant Chevron might be unprecedented for how it blurred the line between public relations and journalism. But the Randall-Chevron production raises not only ethical questions, but also the question of whether a surge of newly pink-slipped reporters might go, as one media critic put it, “over to the dark side” and how that might further muddy the line between news and corporate advocacy.

Story of the Day: NY Times Honors Reagan by Ignoring History

2009-06-05T13:11:22-04:00

In the print version of Thursday's New York Times article on the newly unveiled statue of Ronald Reagan in the Capitol Rotunda, readers are at least given a terse idea of the man Mr. Reagan's statue was replacing -- Thomas Starr King, "the 19-century Unitarian minister known as the 'orator who saved the nation' for helping to keep California from seceding as a republic during the Civil War." Yet in the online version posted a day earlier, and a full 140 words longer than its printed companion, King is described only as "a 19th-century Unitarian minister and 'Orator Who Saved the Nation.'”

The Wounded-Courier: Larry King Writing Sequel to 'My Remarkable Journey'

2009-05-23T16:47:12-04:00

In an interview with the Al Jazeera news network today, legendary talk show host Larry King revealed he's already working on a sequel to his new autobiography "My Remarkable Journey." King said the follow-up autobiography, with the working title "If You're Not Nauseous Yet, You Will Be," will disclose many juicy anecdotes and surprises he couldn't fit into his current book. King, who's been making the rounds to promote "My Remarkable Journey," provided Al Jazeera with the following teasers that readers can expect to find in "If You're Not Nauseous Yet, You Will Be":

The MediaBloodhound Interview: Greg Mitchell, Editor of 'Editor & Publisher' Magazine

2009-05-05T04:18:45-04:00

Greg Mitchell, Editor of 'Editor and Publisher' magazine, recently spoke with MediaBloodhound from his Lower East Side Manhattan office at E&P. In addition to the 2008 campaign, topics ranged from the dire state of the newspaper industry and its “dirty secret” to the impact of the U.S. media's censorship of graphic war images to whether Twitter and Sarah Palin will go the way of the pet rock. The following is an edited transcript of the MediaBloodhound interview.

Story of the Day: NYT Public Editor Dances Around 'Brutal Truth' of Torture

2009-04-29T12:44:47-04:00

Clark Hoyt's New York Times public editor column on Monday, "Telling the Brutal Truth," brings the ongoing "debate" over whether waterboarding is torture to brave new heights of absurdity.

Story of the Day: Mark Danner Schools David Gergen on CIA Torture

2009-04-21T16:55:54-04:00

During a recent segment on CNN's AC 360, journalist and professor Mark Danner torpedoed CNN senior political analyst David Gergen's attempt to minimize new revelations of Bush administration CIA torture tactics released by the Obama administration.

Story of the Day: Howard Kurtz's Octomom Hypocrisy

2009-03-30T19:09:14-04:00

Washington Post and CNN media critic Howard Kurtz dedicated an entire segment of this past Sunday's Reliable Sources cable program to a gratuitous pie fight between two players involved in Nadya "Octomom" Suleman's never-ending nationally televised freak show. But a little over a month ago, Kurtz decried the media for exploiting the octuplet mother for ratings and for doing so under the false pretense that concern for her babies' well being drove their round-the-clock coverage. What a difference a few weeks make.

Story of the Day: Officials Say Feds Involved in Nevada ACORN Raid

2009-03-18T14:38:12-04:00

Part of the reason I've been off the radar here for so long -- my latest investigative report for Raw Story: Federal agencies were involved in the decision to raid the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in Nevada last October, just weeks before Election Day, the offices of Nevada’s Secretary of State and Attorney General say. The allegations raise questions of whether politics played a part in the raid and calls into question assertions by the US Attorney’s office that they were uninvolved. Federal guidelines instruct agencies investigating election fraud to avoid action that might impact the elective process.

Story of the Day: Woodruff Parrots GOP Talking Points to WH Budget Dir

2009-02-27T11:27:33-05:00

In a primer on how to conduct an interview relying almost solely on Republican talking points, PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff discussed the new budget plan with White House Budget Director Peter Orszag on Wednesday night.

Story of the Day: Lawrence Wright on Bush Admin Wiretapping Journalists (...And Whatever Happened to the Russell Tice Story?)

2009-02-12T14:53:36-05:00

While the battle over the stimulus bill raged on, New Yorker reporter Lawrence Wright recently spoke with Brooke Gladstone of NPR's On the Media. Wright, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, reported last year that he knew the Bush administration had been spying on him. Wright's conversation with Gladstone, coupled with the statements of NSA whistleblower Russell Tice and New York Times reporter James Risen on MSNBC's Countdown last month, appear to confirm what many have long suspected.

Story of the Day: Matthews Repairing 'Balanced' Cred with...Imbalance

2009-01-28T20:08:35-05:00

If you're Chris Matthews and you want to regain a reputation for being "fair and balanced" after famously exhibiting overt excitement about Barack Obama on his road to the White House, what do you do? How about facilitating a discussion about Obama's proposed stimulus plan with two lawmakers from the same party, the Republican Party?

The Wounded-Courier (EXCLUSIVE): Leaked Menu of George Will's Catered Dinner Party for Barack Obama

2009-01-23T00:00:00-05:00

Conversation at the recent dinner party thrown by conservative pundit George Will for Barack Obama may remain shrouded in secrecy. But one thing will not: the menu. And there was no shortage of food. An anonymous source leaked the detailed catered menu to The Wounded-Courier this morning. (Other conservative pundits in attendance included William Kristol, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Paul Gigot, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone and Rich Lowry.) Here is what was served: