Tag Archives: press

Britney Spears’ Ex-Bodyguard Must Prove Ongoing Harassment, Expert Says

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Attorney Michael Bononi explains that the burden is on Fernando Flores to prove his hostile work environment. By Mawuse Ziegbe Britney Spears Photo: Pacific Coast News After mounting a successful comeback and maintaining a relatively low profile in the press for the past year, Britney Spears is now dealing with another bout of disturbing claims regarding her personal life. On Wednesday, Spears’ former bodyguard, Fernando Flores , filed a sexual harassment lawsuit alleging that the singer made multiple unwelcome passes at him, exposed herself on numerous occasions and engaged in sex in front of her two young sons. A post on Spears’ site denied the allegations. The accusations are harsh, however, according to a legal expert, it’s up to Flores to provide the evidence. “What he’s gonna have to show in making these allegations is that he was subjected to a hostile work environment, and it’s gonna have to be hostile in two ways: one, that a reasonable person similarly situated would have been offended by the conduct and secondly that he was actually offended by the conduct,” Michael Bononi, a partner at Bononi Law Group in Los Angeles, told MTV News. Bononi, who has worked for castmembers of “Desperate Housewives,” is not involved in Spears’ case, though has represented both sides in sexual harassment cases. He said juries typically look for material evidence, in the form of official complaints or concerns voiced to friends, that indicates wrongdoing on the defendant’s part. “What courts and what juries look [for] is: Did he act consistently with the way you would expect someone to act who was actually offended by this type of conduct? In other words, did he make complaints? Did he tell her to stop? Did he talk to his friends and colleagues?” Bononi said. “Is there corroboration that at the time this was happening it was actually bothering him, and are people going to come forward and be able to testify that at the time this stuff was transpiring, he was talking to them about it, talking about how offended if, at all, he was?” The suit states that Flores reported an incident in which Spears called him up to her room “for no other purpose or reason than to expose her naked or near naked body to Plaintiff.” According to the suit, Flores’ supervisor, Josh McMahan, shrugged off the incident, saying, “You know you liked it.” Flores also apparently voiced his issues several times, but “his complaints were ignored or mocked, and no action was taken to rectify the situation.” Bononi described California’s sexual harassment laws as “employee-friendly,” noting that there is no cap on punitive damages. However, the onus is still on Flores to demonstrate the extent to which his experience with Spears affected him. “That’s the big hurdle that he’s gonna have to get over: How offensive was this to him?” he said. “From what I’ve read … if it’s that she’s walked around him nude a few times and similar things, I haven’t read anything where she’s demanding sex or anything along those lines.” Bononi also noted that as member of a superstar’s security detail, Flores was likely prepped for challenging and intense situations. “As far as the salacious nature of these allegations, he’s a bodyguard … how offended was he if the conduct that he’s talking about is truthful. How injured is he? It’s hard to believe that he’s scarred from seeing her in her room a few times.” Bononi mentioned that Spears’ celebrity may work against her if she has actually crossed any boundaries. The high-profile nature of the case would likely spur others to come forward if the singer has a history of inappropriate behavior with her employees. “The celebrity status, where it can really have an impact on these cases, is if she has engaged in similar sort of conduct with other people in the past, this provides … an avenue for them to come forward and say, ‘Look what happened to me,’ ” Bononi said. “The celebrity status really does encourage people to come forward that have seen some of this or have experienced similar sort of stuff in the past from Britney if she has in fact done it.” While Spears’ past troubles may inform public opinion, Bononi said her previous personal issues or the fact that she makes a living touring the world, touting an ultra-sexy image, shouldn’t factor into the sexual harassment case. “There’s nothing in her past that I’m aware of that has anything to do with sexual harassment of employees,” Bononi said. “It should not be held against her. It makes her an easy target for these types of allegations.” Related Artists Britney Spears

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Did Media Negligently Create Koran Burning Controversy?

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

As the ninth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, and Americans fret about a Pastor they never heard of burning Korans to commemorate the event, people on both sides of the political aisle should be asking a serious question: did the media negligently create this controversy? After all, Terry Jones has a tiny, 50 member, non-denominational church in Gainesville, Florida. Should some unknown Pastor – with a following smaller than what’s normally in line at an In-n-Out restaurant drive-thru! – wanting to burn Korans generate such a media firestorm that an international incident and our national security are threatened? As Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel wrote Wednesday, if you knew the real attention-getting background of Jones, the answer would be a definitive “No”:   This is a guy who looks like Jed Clampett wearing a Hulk Hogan mustache, who uses words like “tragical,” who earlier this year launched a “No homo mayor” campaign against a candidate in Gainesville . Last year Jones sent the kids of the congregation off to school in “Islam is of the devil” T-shirts. Of course they got booted, which got Jones an enticing taste of media attention. With none of this getting Jones the attention he craved, he decided to put a truck in a field with a sign on it saying, “International Burn a Koran Day”: It was like the three strawberries coming into alignment on a million-dollar slot machine. The New York Times and The Associated Press whipped out their notepads. The networks and cable stations broke out the indignant anchors. Indeed they did as evidenced by NewsBusters reports here and here . And, as Thomas pointed out, Jones is just eating it up: This is someone who can barely scrape together enough people to carry a tune in church, and now he has the world breathlessly waiting for his next words. He is a regular Moses on the mountaintop, urging the spineless Christians to take a stand against the Muslim hordes. That all this might get some 20-year-old kid from Ohio blown away in Afghanistan isn’t about to stop Jones now. The good pastor has done found his version of 72 virgins and is living in paradise. Indeed. And who are really to blame? We created the Rev. Terry Jones from dust. And in two weeks, to dust he shall return. Then we’ll move on to the guys who plan to run over the Quran at their monster-truck pull. Whatever it takes to keep your attention. We could help head off such future nonsense if we folded up the circus tent and left Jones alone with his blowtorch and 30 followers. Maybe if Gen. Petraeus told the media that it isn’t Rev. Jones who is endangering troops. That it is our coverage of Rev. Jones. That without us, this book burning would be little more than a grainy video on YouTube . Exactly. America like any country has its share of crazy people with crazy ideas. If such folks were ignored rather than given such a huge platform to spread their word from, we would all be the better for it. Unfortunately, just as media were exactly what Jones needed, he fit their bill perfectly. For weeks now, the press as a result of America’s opposition to the Ground Zero mosque have been trying to convince the citizenry that we are an Islamophobic nation that hates Muslims. Despite the lack of any supporting evidence, this has been the media narrative for approaching a month. With this in mind, an attention-seeking, unknown Pastor advertising a Koran bonfire was exactly what the press needed to prove once and for all just how much antipathy there is for Muslims here. Sadly, they gave this guy his fifteen minutes of fame without any regard for the harm that could be done to Americans living abroad, in particular those fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More hypocritically, so-called journalists are now blaming Jones for endangering the lives of others. Wouldn’t this not be the case if they ignored him? Isn’t it all the press attention he’s gotten that has actually caused this controversy? If media really are worried that his actions might result in an international incident, given how few people there are in his own area that care what he’s got to say, couldn’t they just similarly pay him no mind? Consider that Gainesville and surrounds has 258,000 residents. This means that two-hundredths of one percent of the population of this city are members of his church. Right now there are probably more media vans in Gainesville than people who care what this guy says. Can’t press members claiming they’re concerned with what his Koran burning will do just pack up those vans, go home, and do us all a favor? If nobody was there to cover the event Saturday, maybe Jones would change his mind and start thinking up his next attention-getting event. On the flipside, this controversy has done us all a favor in exposing the media’s hypocrisy concerning so-called “Islamophobia.” Consider that the press are largely in favor of the Ground Zero mosque despite being in the minority concerning this matter. They base their view on the Islamic center backers having the Constitutional right to build at that location regardless of how anyone feels about it. Yet, these same people are now in an uproar over Jones without a care for his Constitutional right to burn Korans. As such, the media have shown themselves far more concerned for the feelings and the rights of Muslims than Judeo-Christians, and far more worried about offending foreigners than the 67 percent of Americans who are opposed to the Ground Zero mosque. I guess we have Jones to thank for making this hypocrisy apparent to us. 

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NYT Bemoans Republican’s Fake Candidates, Ignored Nearly Identical Democratic Ploy

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

At the New York Times, Republican ploys to get ringer candidates on the ballot are front page news. Attempts by Democrats to do the same thing – on a larger scale – are not worth covering at all. “Republican Runs Street People on Green Ticket” blares the headline on the front page of today’s Times. Arizona GOP operative Steve May has recruited three “street people,” as the Gray Lady calls them, to run as Green Party candidates, which will likely siphon votes from Democrats running for the same seats. “The political establishment here views him as nothing more than a political dirty trick,” Times reporter Marc Lacey wrote of one of the street people. The paper’s new-found concern for political dirty tricks was nowhere to be seen, however, when a Democratic Party official ran 23 candidates on the specious “Tea Party” ticket in Michigan. The state Supreme Court recently ruled that The Tea Party cannot appear on the ballot in November. The Times helpfully offers the Democratic position on the controversy in Arizona: The Democratic Party is fuming over Mr. May’s tactics and those of at least two other Republicans who helped recruit candidates to the Green Party, which does not have the resources to put candidates on ballots around the state and thus creates the opportunity for write-in contenders like the Mill Rats to easily win primaries and get their names on the ballot for November. Complaints about spurious candidates have cropped up often before, though never involving an entire roster of candidates drawn from a group of street people. “It’s unbelievable. It’s not right. It’s deceitful,” said Jackie Thrasher, a former Democratic legislator in northwest Phoenix who lost re-election in 2008 after a Green Party candidate with possible links to the Republicans joined the race. “If these candidates were interested in the democratic process, they should connect with the party they are interested in. What’s happening here just doesn’t wash. It doesn’t pass the smell test.”… Besides the Mill Rat candidates, the Democrats smell a rat in other races, including one in which a roommate of a Republican legislator’s daughter ran as a Green Party candidate in a competitive contest for the State Senate. They cite a variety of state and federal election laws that the Republicans may have violated in putting forward “sham” candidates for the Green Party. Meanwhile, about 2000 miles away, Jason Bauer, a Democratic Party official in Oakland County, Michigan, resigned after being caught red-handed in his role stacking the ballot for his party in 23 races. His plan: to create a “Tea Party” – with no ties to any group associating with the tea party movement or any other conservative cause – to draw voters away from Republican candidates in those races. Jonathan Oosting reported at Mlive.com: The Oakland County Democratic Party says it has requested and accepted the resignation of operations director Jason Bauer in the wake of accusations he notarized campaign filings for a fake Tea Party candidate. “We are saddened by this situation, but cannot condone his alleged actions,” the OCDP said Sunday in a released statement. “For the sake of the organization, we must part ways effective immediately.” Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson, a Republican candidate for secretary of state, announced the allegations against Bauer on Friday, noting she had turned over documents to the county prosecutor and Michigan Attorney General’s office for further investigation. Was a crime committed? Well, the Detroit Free Press reminds us that “Misusing notary public designation is punishable by suspension or revocation of the notary status and a civil fine of up to $1,000.” Aaron Tyler, one of the 23 “Tea Party” candidates, said his name was filed without his knowledge. “I believe a fraud was committed,” he told the Free Press. Despite these facts, the New York Times has yet to run a single story on the Michigan controversy – a controversy that has already claimed the job of one Democratic Party official, and could, like the case in Arizona, lead to some form of legal action. Is the Times only concerned about “political dirty tricks” when Democrats stand to take the hit?

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On Meet the Press, Host Sets Up GOP Senator to Debate on Iraq with Anti-War NBC Reporter

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Sunday’s Meet the Press , NBC host David Gregory wrapped up his interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham by setting up a debate with anti-war NBC reporter Richard Engel, who wasn’t shy this week in asserting on NBC’s Today that the Iraq war was unnecessary, that Saddam Hussein was growing more moderate and respectable by the day, and was gaining acceptance in Europe. After Gregory played a clip of that — complete with Engel calling Iraq a “giant distraction of resources” from Afghanistan, just like a congressional Democrat — Senator Graham insisted that the NBC reporter was “completely rewriting history” and that Saddam “was not becoming a good citizen, he was becoming a more dangerous dictator. The world is better with him dead.” Even as this stage of the Iraq war, as the surge seems to quite clearly brought peace and calm, never-say-it’s-a-win die-hards in the liberal media are the first line of attack on the Republican position: DAVID GREGORY:  Senator, I want to conclude by asking you a question about Iraq and Afghanistan.  The president, of course, ended Operation Iraqi Freedom with an Oval Office address, addressing the nation on that point on the end of the war.  Our own chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, who covered the war throughout and has covered the war in Afghanistan as well, offered some analysis during an appearance with Ann Curry on the “Today” show about the legacy of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  I’d like you to listen and react to it. RICHARD ENGEL:  If there had been no invasion, Saddam would still be in power.  He was probably getting more moderate.  He was being welcomed into the–into–by, by a lot of European countries.  He was being welcomed into Eastern Europe in particular.  He as heading in a, in a direction of, of accommodation.  The, the sanctioned regime that was holding him in place was starting to fail.  So I think he would–it would be somewhat of a, a basket case, but it would still–it would be–Iran would be a lot more contained. So it would be a dictatorship that was trying to break out of its box, but Iran would not be as dangerous as it, as it is today. ANN CURRY:  And had the United States not invaded Iraq, would we be done in Afghanistan? RICHARD ENGEL:  Probably.  That was a giant distraction of resources, of intelligence assets.  That war would probably be over. GREGORY:  Senator, what do you say? SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM:  Completely rewriting history.  Our planes were being shot at in the no-fly zones, Saddam Hussein was violating every U.N. resolution to account for his weapons program, he was openly defying the international community when it came to controlling Iraq.  He was not becoming a good citizen, he was becoming a more dangerous dictator.  The world is better with him dead.  If we can get a government together soon in Iraq and it becomes stable and secure, we’ll have a democracy between Iran and Syria.  Iran’s biggest nightmare is to have a neighbor on their border who practices democracy.  So the 4,400 young men and women who’ve died have done this country a great service by securing Iraq and making… GREGORY:  Well, nobody’s disputing whether they’ve done the country a great service.  But even our current… GRAHAM:  We’re safer. GREGORY:  …defense secretary, who’s a Republican says, “Iraq will always be clouded by how it began.” Three-quarters of the American people think it was not worth the cost. GRAHAM:  Well, I can tell you, we will be safer by how it ends.  History will judge us, not by what we did wrong at the beginning, but what we got right at the end.  If we can get the government stable in–and, and President Obama, it is now his job to finish out Iraq.  If it finishes out well and it becomes secure and stable, allied with us on the war on terror–this is the place al-Qaeda was beat by fellow Muslims.  I can’t underestimate how important that was.  Al-Qaeda went into Iraq to topple our efforts to bring about stability and representative government, and they were, they were beaten by Muslims with our help.  That is a huge win in the war on terror.  So Afghanistan is a — we’re getting things better, we got a long ways to go, but I am glad we did what we did in Iraq.  America will be safer and history will record this as a big event in the Mideast where a dictatorship was replaced by a democracy in the heart of the Arab world. PS: I am not related to Senator Graham.

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Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Bad news for Craigslist users who like to peruse the Erotic Services Adult Services section of their site. It’s gone, replaced by a large black and white “censored” logo. I’ve reached out to Craigslist for comment and await their reply. But the choice of words is significant – the section wasn’t simply removed, the censored word was used. The site has been embattled as old press and state attorneys general use any excuse to blame sex crimes on the site. From South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster’s failed crusade against them to a variety of press stories about sex and other crimes. If it’s just a sex crime it isn’t a story. But if a listing on Craigslist was involved, it’s a big story. Craigslist has fought back using little more than their blog and logic. And they’re right. Having prostitution up front and regulated, as Craigslist does, means less crime is associated with it. It’s not like prostitution, sometimes called the world’s oldest profession, was invented on the site. The fact that eBay and others do exactly the same thing, but without human review and moderation, doesn’t seem to matter. Craigslist Sex is what scares the general population, and it’s what the press and the politicians will continue to use to get their hits and votes. So the Craigslist Adult Section was removed. Is the world now a safer place? Update: This only appears to affect U.S. sites, so if you’re looking for a happy ending in Saskatoon or the West Bank, have at it. added by: toyotabedzrock

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Vanity Fair Reporter Admits Error In Sarah Palin Hit Piece

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

For almost two years, Sarah Palin has been complaining about media members making things up about her. On Friday, one finally admitted it. As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, Vanity Fair’s October issue has a hit piece on its cover about the former Alaska governor that Palin-hating press members have been predictably fawning and gushing over. Now, the Associated Press is reporting that the author, Michael Joseph Gross, has admitted making a mistake in his piece: Reporter Michael Joseph Gross describes Palin’s youngest son, Trig, being pushed in a stroller by his older sister, Piper, before a rally in May in the Kansas City suburb of Independence. “When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008,” according to the article. “Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage.” Later in his piece, Gross described Piper joining Sarah on stage to “allow Palin to make a public display of maternal affection.”  Unfortunately, as Politico’s Ben Smith reported Thursday, that was a different Down syndrome baby: Trig wasn’t at the event, according to its organizer, Karladine Graves, a 61-year-old Kansas City physician, who, in 2009, founded one of the wave of new local conservative groups, this one called Preserving American Liberty. The “woman, perhaps a nanny,” was the boy’s mother, St. Louis talk radio host Gina Loudon, according to Graves. But it gets worse according to the AP: The mother of that child, conservative activist Gina Loudon, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that she told Gross during the rally that the child in the stroller was her son, not Palin’s. She said she tried to make it clear because the two children look a lot alike. “I told him that. And he ignored it,” Loudon said. “It’s not even like he didn’t fact check – he just ignored facts.” Now, Gross has admitted it: Gross said in a written statement sent to The Associated Press that he was mistaken. “Trig was with his mother the next day in Wichita (Kan.), but the child in Independence was someone else, and I regret the error,” he said. He regrets the error? No he doesn’t. He regrets getting caught, for as Smith wrote Thursday, this has been a modus operandi for dishonest media members like Gross for two years: [T]he Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin is so emblematic of much that’s wrong about the way she’s covered that it’s worth returning to, and I’ve learned that the its long wind-up is based on fundamental confusion about which of Palin’s children was at an event in Kansas City. Palin almost never talks to neutral media outlets, leaving her – as critics accurately note – subject to none of the questions, challenges  and reality checks that the political press puts regularly to almost every other national political figure. She takes a lot of heat for this, deservedly. But with the hunger for information about her, and the traffic she drives, the press sometimes compensates by printing such thinly sourced, badly reported nonsense about her that it’s hard to imagine it making it into a serious magazine like Vanity Fair if it concerned any other figure. Of course, this might not happen if she spoke to reporters, but that’s no excuse. Yeah it is, Ben, for what’s the point of talking to the press if they’re going to just make stuff up? Of course, this is the kind of yellow journalism by “impotent, limp, gutless reporters” Palin ridiculed while chatting with Sean Hannity Wednesday, and is why it’s difficult to believe any of the nonsense about her in the media. Vanity Fair should be so proud of itself. 

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Bozell Column: Teens and ‘Sextortion’

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Children today are often so voracious and versed in the latest communications technology that they make their parents feel like Miles Standish and Betsy Ross. Three-fourths of young people between 12 and 17 now own cell phones, reports the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  And get this: 87 percent of those who send text messages told researchers that they sleep with or next to their phones. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, and one in three send more than 100, or more than 3,000 texts a month. By contrast, only 30 percent of teenagers talk on those caveman “land line” phones. But all this cell-phone (not to mention Internet) usage carries new risks – even new crimes. Last year, the hot trend was sexting – teenagers sending each other lascivious messages (and often nude or semi-nude photographs). If a teenaged boy received a nude photo of a friend and e-mailed it to buddies or posted it on a Facebook or MySpace page, there was the very real possibility of being prosecuted for distributing child pornography. Now there’s a new and related crime in the court houses. It’s called “sextortion.” Federal prosecutors and child safety advocates are warning of an upswing in online sexual blackmail. Associated Press cited a case in Indianapolis where three teenage girls with a webcam yielded to online peer pressure to flash their breasts. A week later, one Indiana girl started getting threatening e-mails that her topless image would be sent to her friends on MySpace unless she posed for more explicit photos – and even videos – for him. This girl complied with his blackmail threats twice – and then the police and federal officials stepped in and indicted a 19-year-old male in Maryland. The victims might not even be in high school yet. The New Haven Register reported police received a complaint last November involving topless photos taken via webcam of a Conneticut girl “under 15 years old.” A 17-year-old Canadian boy was arrested in Montreal for threatening to post pictures he took over a webcam connection, demanding the young girl perform sex acts in front of the camera or he would post her topless picture on Facebook. Young men are now facing years in prison for this “sextortion.” In Alabama, Jonathan Vance, 24, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April after he confessed to sending threatening e-mails extorting nude photos from more than 50 young women in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Missouri. In Wisconsin, 18-year-old Anthony Stancl deceitfully posed as a girl on Facebook to trick high school classmates into sending him nude photos, which he then used to extort girls for sex. He received a 15-year sentence. In California, federal officials say one 31-year-old man even stooped to remotely activating some girls’ webcams without their knowledge and recorded them undressing or having sex. Teenagers are obviously more vulnerable to blackmail because most parents would be shocked to learn their children are flashing their private parts on cell phones or Internet sites. One survey found 20 percent of teenagers and 33 percent of young adults aged 20 to 26 said they had sent or posted nude or semi-nude photos of themselves. AP quoted attorney Parry Aftab to sum it all up about this growing trend of online exhibitionism: “Kids are putting their head in the lion’s mouth every time they do this.” How sad it is for teens today. Innocence is gone. It’s impossible to avoid the omnipresence of sex in our popular culture, especially youth culture. It’s one thing for teenagers to feel like they’re sexually hyperactive. It’s another for every executive making TV shows, movies, and pop songs to multiply that thought endlessly to enrich themselves.  Even sexting is a trendy TV topic. Last season on the hit Fox show “Glee,” one cheerleader boasted to another that her sex texts were impossibly hot, as if this kind of cellular titillation is what every cool cheerleader should be doing.  The entertainment industry – including the social-media websites – are forcing parents to develop a whole new sophistication, telling children that they should never submit to posing for anything that they wouldn’t want parents, teachers, and ministers to see on the Internet.  This “sextortion” trend is nastier than mere sexting, because one momentary mistake by an otherwise moral child can lead her down a path from bending to peer pressure to involuntarily becoming an online sex slave. One mistake.

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Bozell Column: Teens and ‘Sextortion’

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Journalism Institute Honors Dan Rather; He Calls for ‘Trust-Busting’ Our Media Monopoly

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The Poynter Institute welcomed disgraced former CBS anchor Dan Rather to share his thoughts on his long career and on the media in general this week. In an interview with Poynter’s Mallary Tenore , he complained “So often, particularly covering politics, enterprises that describe themselves as journalistic enterprises, and journalists who describe themselves as journalists, in fact just become transmission belts.” That’s exactly what Poynter’s interview was, a transmission belt for Rather’s lamest hits, including how the press needs a “spine transplant” and his shameless insistence that his phony-documents Texas Air National Guard story is still true. If Poynter cared about the reputation of journalism, why continue to entertain and spread doubt about the falsehood of Rather’s most atrocious “scoop”? The only thing fresh here is Rather’s growing socialism , as he insists (just like Bill Moyers) that money is corrupting politics and the government needs to break some alleged media monopoly where only four mega-corporations distribute most of America’s news: So number one is journalists need to get back to their business of being patriotic journalists in a free and democratic country and perform their function as watchdogs, as part of the system of checks and balances. We all know that huge sums of money are corrupting the whole political process, beginning with elections. For example, the last presidential election in this country, when all was said and done and you put everything together, costs more than $2 billion. That’s what was spent through the primaries, through the general election, all told. That money, not all of it came from special interests, but the bulk of it came from special interests — big pharmaceutical companies, big broadcasting networks, television, radio, electronic, big labor — and that’s a very short list. But you have a more recent example here in Florida where just to win a primary, at least two candidates spend what, more than $50 million or $60 million of their own money. This has reached the serious out-of-whack stage. So you say how can we improve coverage? Getting serious about where the money comes from, who gives it to whom, for what purpose — and most of it is given for a purpose. The case can be made — and I’m here to make it — that very large, international corporations, conglomerates control the government, and I would include some elements of big labor in that. The public is not well-served by political coverage as it is today. And I think it has to be noted, and there’s no joy in noting this, that in many important ways, very big business is in bed with big government and whoever’s in power in Washington, whether it be Republicans or Democrats — not in the public interest, but in the business interest of the huge corporations and in the staying in power business of those in Washington. And this seriously affects news coverage. Someone might say, well what is he talking about? Well let me give you an example. As recently as the 1950s, mid-1950s, there were more than 50 news enterprises, which is to say businesses, in the country that could accurately be described as having national distribution or large regional distribution. Now, there are no more than six, and I would argue only four, very large conglomerate, international corporations who control more than 80 percent of the national distribution of news. This is out of whack . Let me pause and say I’ve never worked for anybody in the enterprise other than a profit-making enterprise. I believe in the capital system, but as applied to media, we have in no small degree monopolies now. Now a great Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt did his party great service, and more importantly his country a great service, by breaking up the trust, which is to say the monopolies at the turn of the 20th century …. I’m not a business person, but in the end I think they’re not in the best interest of American business. I recognize that one gets criticized very heavily when get into this area, but I’m at the age and stage in my own career where I try to draw from my experience. I love this country, I want the country to be better for my children and grandchildren as most Americans do. And when and if the public finally get focused on this — that too few big international companies control too much of the national news distribution — then I think it may change. But until the public really understands what is happening with this, and understands that it is not a special pleading of journalists such as myself, can we come back to a really vibrant, truly independent, fiercely independent press that is important to the survival of freedom and representing government as we know it. Rather should really be writing for The Nation or Mother Jones, with this kind of hard-left talk about capitalism despoiling democracy. Poynter’s Tenore is especially embarrassing when asking Rather about the latest Internet trends, where he is clearly not well versed. He claimed “There are very few journalism enterprises on the Internet” and couldn’t answer whether he has his own personal Facebook page:  “I don’t think so.” Shouldn’t a journalist who insists his craft is so grievously lacking be a little more up-to-date?

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Gannons to the Left of Me: Bill Press Asks a Pro-Obama, Anti-Beck Question at White House Briefing

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In 2005, NBC and MSNBC and CNN were up in arms that conservative “Jeff Gannon” was allowed into the White House briefing room by Team Bush to ask “questions other reporters considered softballs.” Up until now, liberal talk-radio hosts like Ed Schultz have been seated in the front row of Obama press conferences, but they didn’t ask softball questions. On Thursday, it happened. Liberal radio host Bill Press asked press secretary Robert Gibbs to denounce Glenn Beck’s attacks on the president’s “committed Christianity.” BILL PRESS: Robert, over the last four days, Glenn Beck has criticized the president for believing in liberation theology, which he calls a Marxist form of Christianity. Two questions, Does the president, in your knowledge, even know what liberation theology is? ROBERT GIBBS: I don’t know the answer to that. I will say this, Bill, um, a crude paraphrasing of an old quote, and that is, people are entitled to their own opinion, as ill-informed as it may be, but they’re not entitled to their own facts. The president is a committed, mainstream Christian. I don’t, I have no evidence that would guide me, as to what [whether?] Glenn Beck would have any genuine knowledge as to what the president does and does not believe. PRESS: So this Marxist form of Christianity? GIBBS: Again, I can only imagine where Mr. Beck conjured that from. The double-ignorance of this exchange is impressive. How can Bill Press suggest that Barack Obama is ignorant about anything? They’re defending Obama now by suggesting he’s uninformed about progressive strains of Christianity? For his part, Gibbs is stonewalling athletically to assert there’s no evidence that any Obama opponent could assemble to assert Obama’s church of two decades, Trinity United Church of Christ on the south side of Chicago, embraced “black liberation theology” and its leading light, James Cone. In defending Obama, the liberal magazine The Christian Century acknowledged: There is no denying, however, that a strand of radical black political theology influences Trinity. James Cone, the pioneer of black liberation theology, is a much-admired figure at Trinity. Cone told me that when he’s asked where his theology is institutionally embodied, he always mentions Trinity. Video of the Meet Bill Press exchange is supportively offered at a Hillary Clinton-founded media pressure group .

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Gannons to the Left of Me: Bill Press Asks a Pro-Obama, Anti-Beck Question at White House Briefing

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Bill Press: On Election Night Boehner Office Will Be ‘Morgue,’ Pelosi’s A ‘Party’

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Gallup might be seeing an historic spread in the Republicans’ favor, and even Mark Halperin is predicting GOP gains of as many as 60 seats. But amidst all the Dem panic and gnashing of teeth, the Pelosi party can still count on one true believer: Bill Press. Former California Dem chairman Press has predicted that when results come in on Election Night, GOP leader John Boehner’s office will be a “morgue,” while Pelosi’s place while Pelosi’s place is “where the party’s going to be.” Press proferred his hyper-optimistic prediction on this evening’s Ed Show, reacting to the report that Ohio talk radio host Bill Cunningham will be broadcasting from Boehner’s office on Election Night.  For good measure, Press—ironically no fan of the First Amendment, apparently—expressed disappointment that it was legal for Cunningham to do so. Let’s make sure Press’s prediction is duly noted.  See you on November 2nd, Bill. ED SCHULTZ: Bill Cunningham, radio talk show host out of Ohio, who’s a severe righty, is saying that he is going to be broadcasting from The Tan Man’s–John Boehner’s–office on Election Night. BILL PRESS: Well first of all, I checked. It is legal , in the House, for members can allow broadcasters to broadcast from their offices, I’m sorry, I’m sorry to say . . . But I’ve got to tell you, Ed, so it’s legal to be there, but if I were Bill Cunningham I’d stay home. Because once the results come in, it’s going to be like a morgue in Boehner’s office. You and I, you and I ought to broadcast, Ed, you and I ought to broadcast from Nancy Pelosi’s balcony.  That’s where the party’s going to be. Check the mirthful reaction of GOP strategist John Feehery. Even Ed had to chuckle at Press’s prediction.  

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Bill Press: On Election Night Boehner Office Will Be ‘Morgue,’ Pelosi’s A ‘Party’

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