The reporter who wrote the USAToday NSA story

gave a campaign contribution of $2,000 to a Democrat a couple of years ago.

On that basis, Freeperland and RW blogs are all up in arms saying the USAToday story is false and is just a hit piece.

What a sorry piece of garbage the GOP has become.

party with people they may be covering. It just begs for a charge of bias whenever the reporter writes or broadcasts. An anchor in NYC was roundly criticized years ago for contributing to a political campaign (Steve Forbes) and rightly so.

:-(

but what concerns me most is the effect the marketplace is having on major media outlets. Right-wing idiots seem to dominate all of local talk radio because so few liberal shows have succeeded.

Fox News Channel skews old but even in the critical 25-54 demographic, FNC gets 267-thousand across prime time to MSNBC's 114-thousand. That translates into real market pressure. I worry that MSNBC executives thought "Alan Keyes is Making Sense" would be a hit.

I don't think they were trying to make a statement about their political leanings but trying to improve their profit statement. The good news is the Keyes show was a total bomb but the bad news is that O'Reilly is still clobbering Olberman.

Donahue's other number was only a little lower than current hero Keith Olbermann.

It has nothing to due with profits - at least at GE.

The infomercial setup for Rush and others that Scafie/Murdock set up meant no risk for the radio stations - indeed Scafie suffered the $50 million loss on Rush year after year.

The economics of RW control is not coming from the "get to be popular and get commercials and get more airtime via more stations" concept. I wish it was that simple.

But you are correct that Jone s Network, AirAmerica and individual non-RW shows do exist and prosper - but the stranglehold that is RW media dominance of all talk is more a consequence of a couple of billionaires political leanings, a few corporations controlled by defense contractors, and board room political correctness of being right wing that gets editors and producers that want to advance - or just keep their job - self censoring so as to appear RW.

The board room Political correctness I know first hand - I was never in one where there was anyone as left - or more left - than myself. And my stay at that lofty perch was quite short and 20 years ago because of those political views - even though those views were well suppressed of course (granted I am not as smooth as most of the folks in DU's R/T can confirm! :-) ).

"RW GOP doesn't control it all"

hehehehehe. Yer funny. Enjoy yer stay here

Could your response be any more juvenile or irrelevant?

he never voted and never even registered to vote.

I was appalled (I vote every time the polls are open) but he insisted that he wanted to make no commitment that could in any way influence his objectivity.

He is no longer a reporter, and is now a committed liberal, working hard for our candidates.

She reported on telcos in the normal course of her finacial reporting and then stumbled into this story.

She is not a political reporter so what difference should it have made that she gave money to the Gore campaign?

I was just talking about the incredibly high standards some members of the press have - - or had.

that the front-line defenders of the First Amendment are often forbidden to exercise it when they aren't at work.

I guess that makes him as much of a hack as this dope. Andn which one gets more air time?

They're notorious liars.