Tag: subjectivity

Thursday Night in Iowa: A Republican “Royal Rumble” Without the Front-Runner There (Physically, Anyway)

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

thWF5BU64KLast Sunday, the WWE staged it’s annual event, known as “The Royal Rumble” in which 30 combatants enter the squared circle, individually, every 3 minutes, and try to toss each other over the top rope, to see who will headline WrestleMania in a World Championship Match.

Last night’s Republican Presidential Candidates Primary Debate, with the notable absence of the Front-Runner, Donald J. Trump, was reminiscent of that wrestling event.

For those of you who did not watch the Trump-less Republican Primary Contenders’ Debate on Fox News Channel last night, MSN.com provides a detailed synopsis (from the Opposition Party’s point-of-view, of course)…

DES MOINES — The first Republican presidential debate without Donald Trump still took on a Trumpian tone at times, with the seven other top candidates here Thursday night voicing anger, talking tough and vowing to do away with political correctness.

But with the defiant GOP front-runner staging his own counter-program by rallying supporters a few miles away, Trump’s absence left a vacuum on the debate stage and fewer fireworks than Republicans had grown accustomed to.

From the opening question, it was mostly filled by Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), who has been locked in an intensifying duel with Trump for dominance in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, only four days away.

Cruz began by mocking Trump’s reputation for insults: “I’m a ‘maniac’ and everyone on this stage is ‘stupid,’ ‘fat’ and ‘ugly.’ And Ben [Carson], you’re a ‘terrible surgeon.’ Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way . . .”

From there, however, little more was said about Trump, few direct attacks were leveled at him and the overall atmosphere was notably calmer than in previous debate. That left Cruz as the top target as Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and other opponents sought to puncture the Texas senator’s appeal by trying to depict him as an inauthentic conservative.

“The truth is, Ted, throughout this campaign you’ve been willing to say or do anything in order to get votes,” Rubio said. “You want to trump Trump on immigration.”

Rubio and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) both attacked Cruz for having once supported an amendment that would have granted legal status, not citizenship, to illegal immigrants — though Cruz maintains that it was a “poison pill” and that he has always opposed amnesty.

“He is the king of saying, ‘Oh, you’re for amnesty. Everybody’s for amnesty except for Ted Cruz,’ ” Paul said. “But it’s a falseness, and that’s an authenticity problem.”

Cruz was not the only candidate on the defensive on immigration, however. Rubio also came under fire for his role as one of the Gang of Eight senators who crafted comprehensive reform legislation in 2013.

After giving Rubio a backhanded compliment for being “charming and smooth,” Cruz hammered him for having aligned with President Obama and Democratic Senate leaders Harry Reid (Nev.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.).

The Fox News Channel moderators tried to challenge both Cruz and Rubio by playing archival video footage of the two senators. After showing the Cruz videos, co-moderator Megyn Kelly asked: “Was that all an act? It was pretty convincing.”

In the absence of Trump, Cruz and Rubio had the most to gain or lose in Thursday night’s debate. The two are the second- and third-polling candidates in Iowa, and their strategies are predicated on being the last non-Trump candidate left standing to face off with the mogul in a long-slog primary season.

Both men emerged with scars.

Rubio appeared to struggle explaining why he advocated a hard-line immigration approach as a Senate candidate, then pursued comprehensive reform that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, then reverted.

Rubio said he does not support “blanket amnesty” and focused on the need to seal the border with Mexico and improve security there.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush used the exchange to portray Rubio — his onetime protege when Rubio was a Florida state lawmaker — as weak for having reversed positions on immigration. After noting that he supported Rubio’s work in the Gang of Eight, Bush said, “He cut and run because it wasn’t popular among conservatives, I guess.”

“You shouldn’t cut and run,” Bush said. “You should stick with it. That’s exactly what happened. He cut and run, and that’s a tragedy.”

Rubio countered by saying that Bush had reversed his own position on citizenship and legal status in a book he wrote.

“So did you,” Bush snapped back.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie used the back-and-forth over Senate votes and amendments to show the leadership differences between legislators and executives, and he repeated his call for a governor in the White House.

“I feel like I need a Washingtonese-English dictionary converter,” Christie joked.

Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who once led the polls but has seen his lead falter among heavy scrutiny of his policy knowhow, invoked his medical career as a credential for the White House: “I’ve had more 2 a.m. phone calls than everybody here put together, making life and death decisions.”

The immigration exchange was one of the few moments of direct confrontation onstage between the candidates. The debate lacked a central focus, with Kelly and her co-moderators, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace, asking many one-off questions that focused on the vulnerabilities of individual candidates.

In return, the candidates gave many of the canned lines that have become familiar on the campaign trail, avoiding taking big risks with the Iowa caucuses so close.

The seventh Republican debate of the 2016 campaign cycle was the first not to include Trump, the billionaire mogul whose bombast and showmanship dominated the previous events.

Trump boycotted the debate, escalating his feud with Fox and its star anchor, Kelly, because he believed he would not be treated fairly. He has long harbored disdain for Kelly because of her aggressive line of questioning during the first GOP debate in August, and he has argued that the network was taking advantage of his popularity with viewers to boost its ratings and thus its advertising revenue.

In her opening question, Kelly said, “Let’s address the elephant not in the room tonight.”

Trump staged a competing rally Thursday night on the Des Moines campus of Drake University, where he raised money for and honored veterans.

Much of the debate centered on foreign policy, with the candidates competing to show who would be the toughest commander in chief.

“You claim it is tough talk to discuss ‘carpet bombing,’ ” Cruz said. “It is not tough talk. It is a different fundamental military strategy than what we’ve seen from President Obama.”

Early in the debate, Cruz took fire on multiple fronts. Paul went after him for refusing to show support for a vote to audit the Federal Reserve and for not voicing strong enough opposition to the government’s surveillance efforts.

“I don’t think Ted can have it both ways. They want to say they’re getting some of the liberty vote,” Paul said. “But we don’t see it happening at all. We think we’re going to do very well in Iowa with the liberty vote.”

Rubio, as he has for months, portrayed Cruz as weak on national security.

“As already has been pointed out, the only budget that Ted has ever voted for is a budget that Rand Paul sponsored that brags about cutting defense spending,” Rubio said. “And I think that’s a bad idea.”

The closing days of the race have been nasty here in Iowa. The campaigns and allied super PACs are blanketing television and radio airwaves with attack ads, while the candidates have laced their stump speeches with sharp barbs.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is banking his hopes on the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary, sought to position himself above the fray.

“We cannot fix things in this country — the Social Security, the border, balancing the budget, getting wages to grow faster — unless we lead as conservatives, but we also invite people in from the other party,” Kasich said. “We have to come together as a country. And we have to stop all the divisions.”

Kasich’s call for unity went unheeded, and he was a non-factor through significant stretches of the debate as other candidates sparred.

As in previous debates, the candidates harshly attacked Hillary Clinton and sought to position themselves as best equipped to lead the Republican Party into the general election against Clinton, whom they see as the most likely Democratic nominee.

“She is not qualified to be president of the United States,” Christie said, drawing loud cheers from the audience. “The fact is, what we need is someone on that stage who has been tested, who has been through it, who has made decisions, who has sat in the chair of consequence and can prosecute the case against Hillary Clinton.”

Bush made a similar pitch.

“This is an election about people that are really hurting,” he said. “We need a leader that will fix things and have a proven record to do it. And we need someone who will take on Hillary Clinton in November.”

So, what was the Front-Running Trump up to, while the rest of the candidates duked it out?

Again, MSN.com has the story (and, please remember, they are hardly non-partisan)…

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump opened a Thursday rally coinciding with the final GOP debate before Monday’s Iowa caucuses by telling supporters he would have preferred to be at the debate, but had no choice but to skip it after promising a boycott.

Angry over an escalating feud with debate host Fox News, Trump bowed out of the debate and held what his team called a “Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations” at a packed 775-seat auditorium at nearby Drake University instead.

“You have to stick up for your rights. When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights,” Trump told the crowd. “We have to stick up for ourselves as people and we have to stick up for our country if we’re being mistreated.”

Speaking from the stage at what felt like a cross between a televised fundraising telethon and a typical Trump campaign rally, Trump said his foundation already had raised between $5 million and $6 million for veterans since announcing the event. He said he’s putting up $1 million of his own money and read off the names of wealthy friends he said had pledged major contributions.

Trump repeated earlier statements that Fox “very much” wanted him to attend the debate and said he’d fielded repeated phone calls from the network during the day. Fox News Channel issued a statement saying Trump had offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that Fox contribute $5 million to his charities, which the network said was not possible.

Fox News says Chairman Roger Ailes, in conversations with Trump, “acknowledged his concerns” about a statement the network had made in the days leading up to the debate.

Trump has said he’s not worried about turning off voters who may be disappointed by his decision to skip Thursday’s contest.

“We’ve had other voters that love what I’m doing because they don’t want to be pushed around by the establishment,” said Trump, who is planning to participate in the next debate in New Hampshire.

It was unclear exactly which groups would receive money raised from the event and new website Trump launched for collecting donations: donaldtrumpforvets.com. Contributions to the site will go to The Donald J. Trump Foundation, Trump’s nonprofit charitable organization. The page says: “100 percent of your donations will go directly to Veterans needs.”

Trump representatives had been reaching out to various groups, in some cases inquiring about their programs and finances. Among those contacted were the Green Beret Foundation, which provides care to veterans, and Fisher House, which provides free or low cost housing to veterans and military families receiving treatment at military medical centers.

K9s for Warriors, which trains rescue dogs to be service animals for veterans, received a call from a Trump campaign representative asking if the group was interested in accepting funds from the event, according to executive director Rory Diamond. Diamond said the group is non-partisan but would be happy to accept any contributions.

Two of Donald Trump’s presidential rivals have taken the stage at a rally Trump is hosting to benefit veterans as he skips the Republican debate.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum attended the rally after participating in the early undercard debate for candidates whose poll numbers were too low to make it on the main stage.

Trump was joined at the event by two of his rivals, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Both took the stage at Trump’s event after participating in the early, undercard debate for candidates whose poll numbers were too low to make it on the main stage.

Santorum joked that he didn’t want his picture taken with the Trump campaign sign. He quipped that he’s “supporting another candidate for president,” but said he was happy to come out to support veterans.

Huckabee had earlier stressed his appearance should not be seen as an endorsement of Trump. He told the audience gathered at Drake University that he, Santorum and Trump may be presidential race competitors but said “tonight we are colleagues” in supporting veterans.

Every since I graduated high school in 1976, I have followed politics. I had to in college, because I was the News Director of the Campus Radio Station, with a staff of 20 students , who received class credit for producing a 5-minute newscast, once a week.

In 1980, I was privileged to cast my very first vote for the greatest American President in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan.

Since then, I have witnessed a lot of political chicanery, resulting in a lot of harm to the country which I love.

The Muslim-sympathizing, Alinsky-ite Marxist, who currently saunters down to the Oval Office every morning at 10:30 a.m. in his shirt sleeves, on his way to play golf, is the latest and most egregious example.

In every decade since the 1970s, the Media in this country has become more and more Liberal…and more and more subjective in their Editorial Policies and actual reporting.

With the advent of cable television and the 24-hour News Cycle, the Media had to step up their behind-the-scenes manipulation of events, in order to be competitive, and to secure the Cash Cow of their business, high viewership ratings.

What happened last night, was a result of an American Businessman, refusing to play the role of Pinocchio to one of these Modern-day Gepettos.

Per gatewaypundit.com,

FOX News and Google invited a radical Muslim activist, a Bernie Sanders supporter, a Black Lives Matter supporter and a Mexican illegal immigrant to the debate to confront Donald Trump.

Trump found out and, instead of stepping into a pile of…well, you know…he stepped around it, right into more FREE PUBLICITY, while raising money for our American Veterans, whom this Administration has treated so badly.

So, will Trump be hurt by last night?

Hardly.

As of this morning’s Drudge Report’s Republican Candidate Poll, Trump is far outdistancing the pack, with 65.59% of the vote. Sen. Ted Cruz has 16.63%, and Marco Rubio has 6.5%.

Not a scientific poll, I know, but, it could very possibly be a portent of things to come.

The best laid plans of mice and men oft’ times go awry. – Robert Burns

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The Full Story of “Politico’s” Attempt to “Politically Assassinate” Dr. Ben Carson

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

th (46)When I was a Collegiate Radio News Director from 1978-1980, I made sure that my on-air staff, including myself, maintained our objectivity in our reporting.

Since the Carter years,  political ideology has slowly replaced objectivity, among the ranks of America’s Main Stream Media, until, as was demonstrated by http://www.politico.com yesterday, “reporters” don’t even try to hide their loyalty to the Democratic Party, anymore.

Yesterday, Dr. Ben Carson was the target of a failed ‘Hit Piece” by the Liberal Political Website.

Before we look at the details of that attempt at “Political Assassination”, let’s look at his TRUE Biography, first, courtesy of achievement.org…

Benjamin Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan. His mother Sonya had dropped out of school in the third grade, and married when she was only 13. When Benjamin Carson was only eight, his parents divorced, and Mrs. Carson was left to raise Benjamin and his older brother Curtis on her own. She worked at two, sometimes three, jobs at a time to provide for her boys.Benjamin and his brother fell farther and farther behind in school. In fifth grade, Carson was at the bottom of his class. His classmates called him “dummy” and he developed a violent, uncontrollable temper.

When Mrs. Carson saw Benjamin’s failing grades, she determined to turn her sons’ lives around. She sharply limited the boys’ television watching and refused to let them outside to play until they had finished their homework each day. She required them to read two library books a week and to give her written reports on their reading even though, with her own poor education, she could barely read what they had written.

Within a few weeks, Carson astonished his classmates by identifying rock samples his teacher had brought to class. He recognized them from one of the books he had read. “It was at that moment that I realized I wasn’t stupid,” he recalled later. Carson continued to amaze his classmates with his newfound knowledge and within a year he was at the top of his class.

The hunger for knowledge had taken hold of him, and he began to read voraciously on all subjects. He determined to become a physician, and he learned to control the violent temper that still threatened his future. After graduating with honors from his high school, he attended Yale University, where he earned a degree in Psychology.From Yale, he went to the Medical School of the University of Michigan, where his interest shifted from psychiatry to neurosurgery. His excellent hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional reasoning skills made him a superior surgeon. After medical school he became a neurosurgery resident at the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At age 32, he became the hospital’s Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, a position he would hold for the next 29 years.

In 1987, Carson made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of Siamese twins. The Binder twins were born joined at the back of the head. Operations to separate twins joined in this way had always failed, resulting in the death of one or both of the infants. Carson agreed to undertake the operation. A 70-member surgical team, led by Dr. Carson, worked for 22 hours. At the end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive independently.Carson’s other surgical innovations have included the first intra-uterine procedure to relieve pressure on the brain of a hydrocephalic fetal twin, and a hemispherectomy, in which an infant suffering from uncontrollable seizures has half of its brain removed. This stops the seizures, and the remaining half of the brain actually compensates for the missing hemisphere.

In addition to his medical practice, Dr. Carson has long been in constant demand as a public speaker, and devotes much of his time to meeting with groups of young people. In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded Dr. Carson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

…Dr. Carson opposed passage of the federal Affordable Care Act of 2010, often called the ACA or Obamacare. After retiring from his position as Director of Pediatric Neursurgery at Hopkins in 2012, Carson began to speak more frequently on other public issues and emerged as a vocal critic of the Obama administration. In the news media and political circles, he attracted considerable attention as a possible candidate for public office. In May 2015, he ended several months of speculation by announcing his intention to seek the Republican Party’s nomination for President of the United States. 

Now, let’s look at the LIE that Politico published online yesterday, in order to attempt to politically “assassinate” Dr. Carson.

Mollie Hemingway, the Senior Editor at thefederalist.com, summarized the whole sorry story late yesterday afternoon…

Politico‘s Kyle Cheney admitted that he fabricated a negative story about Ben Carson. At least, according to his own standards, he admitted the grievous journalistic sin.

In a story published early on Friday, Politico’s Kyle Cheney authored a piece headlined “Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship” with a subhed “Carson’s campaign on Friday conceded that a central point in his inspirational personal story did not occur as he previously described.”

There were at least five major problems with the story:

The headline was completely false
The subhed was also completely false
The opening paragraph was false false false
The substance of the piece was missing key exonerating information
The article demonstrated confusion about service academy admissions and benefits
But other than that, A+++ work, Kyle Cheney and Politico.

It could take all day to parse the problems with Kyle Cheney’s now-somewhat-cleaned-up hit piece on Carson, but let’s just look at his original introductory claims:

“Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The academy has occupied a central place in Carson’s tale for years. According to a story told in Carson’s book, “Gifted Hands,” the then-17 year old was introduced in 1969 to Gen. William Westmoreland, who had just ended his command of U.S. forces in Vietnam, and the two dined together. That meeting, according to Carson’s telling, was followed by a “full scholarship” to the military academy. West Point, however, has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission…When presented with this evidence, Carson’s campaign conceded the story was false.”

Roughly none of this is true. Ben Carson’s campaign did not “admit” that a central point in his story “was fabricated.” Quite the opposite. The central point of the story is falsely described by Cheney/Politico as being that he applied and was accepted at West Point. Carson, in fact, has repeatedly claimed not to have applied. So any claim regarding the absence of West Point records of such an application would not debunk Carson’s point. And, again, Carson’s campaign never “conceded” the story was false at least in part because the story, as characterized by Politico, is not one he told. Further, Cheney is unable to substantiate his claim that Carson told this story. Nowhere in the article does he even explain, with facts, where he came up with the idea that Carson has ever made this claim.

Politico stealthily edited the inflammatory headline and lede, after the damage was done. They made changes without adding a note about what was corrected. They didn’t update the piece or add an editor’s note. The new headline is very much toned down to “Exclusive: Carson claimed West Point ‘scholarship’ but never applied.” This is a claim not exclusive to Politico and not newsworthy in the least. Carson himself broke this news 23 years ago when he said he was offered a scholarship to West Point but never applied. The cleaned-up story still says that Carson “conceded that he never applied nor was granted admission to West Point.” To concede is to admit that something is true. But, again, Carson himself made this claim more than two decades ago, so he’s not conceding the point to Kyle Cheney or Politico simply because Kyle Cheney and Politico misread him.

The Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel, who immediately expressed skepticism about the significance of the Politico hit that was taking everybody by storm, has a balanced take on the kerfuffle here. He also noted (on Twitter):

daveweigel ‏@daveweigel 15 hours ago

“Also, taking “fabrication” out of that headline is like taking uranium out of an A-bomb.”

One other quick point to make about Politico and Kyle Cheney’s piece. The original story claimed that Carson also lied by claiming he was offered a full scholarship to West Point since the service academy is entirely taxpayer funded. Or, as Politico put it: “indeed there are no ‘full scholarships,’ per se.” The only problem with this is that the academy itself describes this benefit as a “full scholarship.”

Ben Carson was a brilliant student who had already shown an interest in the military and had demonstrated leadership skills. It would be weirder if West Point hadn’t tried to recruit him than tried to recruit him. This doesn’t happen to we journalists, for obvious reasons, but exceptional students are recruited by top colleges and universities all the time.

Now, as for Kyle Cheney’s concession that he fabricated his piece on Carson. He didn’t. That’s how I’m interpreting his decision to stealthily edit his piece to remove much of the error. But Ben Carson didn’t “admit” or “concede” to fabrication and he’s been tarred by Cheney as if he had. So I’ll keep the headline.

Other critiques of Cheney and Politico are available from across the political and media spectrum here, here, here, here, and here.

At a time when the media need to demonstrate good faith efforts to cover Republicans and conservatives with even a modicum of fairness, Kyle Cheney and Politico have done a tremendous disservice to their brands.

Indeed.

Last night, Dr. Carson showed why he is one of the top two Candidates for the Republican Presidential Nomination, as he let the assembled members of the Main Stream Media know how he felt about their “lack of subjectivity”.

Mediaite.com reported that

Ben Carson faced some combative reporters during a press conference in Florida tonight about the various issues in his background that have been raised this week.He dismissed Politico‘s report about him not being formally offered a West Point scholarship, simply insisting it was relayed to him that he could get one with the kind of accomplishments in his background.

He declared, “There is a desperation on behalf of some to try to find a way to tarnish me… Next week it’ll be my kindergarten teacher who said I peed in my pants.”

As the reporters at his Florida presser continued to press Carson, he got pretty steamed and denounced the “witch hunt,” saying, “I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one President Barack Obama.”

In a very mocking voice, Carson brought up a lot of issues from the president’s past before turning the tables on the reporters and asking them point-blank why they’re not interested in Obama’s sealed college records.

The assembled reporters kept pressing Carson and he told them, “My job is to call you out when you’re unfair.”

Yesterday afternoon, before Politico admitted to lying, Rush Limbaugh, the Godfather of Conservative Talk Radio said the following on his program:

I think what we have here is an electronic lynching.  We have an electronic lynching being conducted against a Republican African-American candidate by a majority white, mainstream American liberal media where — if you’re not a good liberal and a good African-American on their plantation — they are gonna take you out.  And we are witnessing it.  It’s the same thing, folks, that happened to Clarence Thomas back in 1990 I believe it was. Again, back in 1990 there wasn’t any Fox News. There wasn’t a blogosphere.There were just the beginnings of the conservative presence on the web — and there was me, talk radio. But there was nothing else.  This is the kind of thing they used to get away with. This used to be the standard way news happened.  This is not character assassination.  This goes way beyond character assassination.  This is an attempt to destroy Carson’s reputation, his political future, his career, his credibility, all of it.  This is intended to destroy him.  Like just told our liberal caller: It’s the only way these people can win.  They think Carson’s a lunatic and they still can’t — or are not comfortable taking him on in the arena of ideas.  They have to character assassinate and destroy. 

This is despicable, despicable stuff.  

Yes, it is.

The Democratic Party and their Liberal Minions are desperate to somehow stop the momentum of America’s Political Pendulum, which is in the process of swinging execrably to the Right, or Conservative side.

We witnessed it with the debacle that was the Republican Candidate Debate on CNBC, in which the Junkyard Chihuahuas, that are the Min Stream Media, were loosed on the Republican Candidates, a laughable attempt, just like yesterday’s slander of Dr. Carson, which failed miserably. 

The thing about it is: We still have a year to go before the Presidential Elections.

How much more “yipping at the heels” of those who dare oppose “The Old White Folks From the Northeast” who comprise the Democratic Presidential Hopefuls, are the Junkyard Chihuahuas of the Liberal Main Stream Media capable of?

How much food can Rosie O’Donnell put away at an all-you-can-eat buffet?

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Rolling Stone Lied About UV “Rape” Story

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

 

 

Media Bias MeterHonesty…is such a lonely word. – Billy Joel

The New York Times reports that

Rolling Stone magazine retracted its article about a brutal gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity after the release of a report on Sunday that concluded the widely discredited piece was the result of failures at every stage of the process.

The report, published by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and commissioned by Rolling Stone, said the magazine failed to engage in “basic, even routine journalistic practice” to verify details of the ordeal that the magazine’s source, identified only as Jackie, described to the article’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

On Sunday, Ms. Erdely, in her first extensive comments since the article was cast into doubt, apologized to Rolling Stone’s readers, her colleagues and “any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.”

In an interview discussing Columbia’s findings, Jann S. Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone, acknowledged the piece’s flaws but said that it represented an isolated and unusual episode and that Ms. Erdely would continue to write for the magazine. The problems with the article started with its source, Mr. Wenner said. He described her as “a really expert fabulist storyteller” who managed to manipulate the magazine’s journalism process. When asked to clarify, he said that he was not trying to blame Jackie, “but obviously there is something here that is untruthful, and something sits at her doorstep.”

The Columbia report cataloged a series of errors at Rolling Stone, finding that the magazine could have avoided trouble with the article if certain basic “reporting pathways” had been followed. Written by Steve Coll, the Columbia journalism school’s dean; Sheila Coronel, the dean of academic affairs; and Derek Kravitz, a postgraduate research scholar at the university, the report, at nearly 13,000 words, is longer than the 9,000-word article, “A Rape on Campus.”

After its publication last November, the article stoked a national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses and roiled the university.

The police in Charlottesville, Va., said last month they had “exhausted all investigative leads” and found “no substantive basis” to support the article’s depiction of the assault. Jackie did not cooperate with the police and declined to be interviewed for the Columbia report. She also declined, through her lawyer, to be interviewed for this article. She is no longer in touch with some of the advocates who first brought her to the attention of Rolling Stone, said Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual assault issues at the University of Virginia.

Mr. Wenner said Will Dana, the magazine’s managing editor, and the editor of the article, Sean Woods, would keep their jobs.

Since the 1960s, America’s newsrooms have been overwhelmingly staffed by Liberals.

However, nowadays, a Conservative watchdog organization keeps an intense watch on the antics of the Main Stream Media:

The Media Research Center, headquartered in Alexandria, VA, began modestly with a handful of employees, a black and white TV, and a rented computer. The first order of business was to organize a research operation second to none. For years, conservatives could only present the anecdotal evidence of liberal journalists’ bias — a question in this interview, a statement in that report. However, anecdotal examples of bias do not prove a liberal agenda. Only through thorough, comprehensive, and ongoing analysis based on quantitative and qualitative research can one document liberal bias in the media.

From a $339,000 initial annual budget, the MRC has grown to be the nation’s largest and most sophisticated television and monitoring operation, now employing 60 professional staff with a $10 million annual budget.

The result of the MRC’s work is a mountain of evidence to use in combating the undeniable bias. The key to the MRC’s effectiveness is the ability to prove bias by using scientific studies and word-for-word quotes from the media.

For example, the MRC reports that:

In May 2004, the Pew Research Center for The People and The Press (in association with the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists) surveyed 547 journalists and media executives, including 247 at national-level media outlets. The poll was similar to ones conducted by the same group (previously known as the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press) in 1995 and 1999. The actual polling was done by the Princeton Survey Research Associates.

KEY FINDINGS:

Five times more national journalists identify themselves as “liberal” (34 percent) than “conservative” (just 7 percent). In contrast, a survey of the public taken in May 2004 found 20 percent saying they were liberal, and 33 percent saying they were conservative.

The percentage of national reporters saying they are liberal has increased, from 22 percent in 1995 to 34 percent in 2004. The percentage of self-identified conservatives remains low, rising from a meager 4 percent in 1995 to a still-paltry 7 percent in 2004.

Liberals also outnumber conservatives in local newsrooms. Pew found that 23 percent of the local journalists they questioned say they are liberals, while about half as many (12 percent) call themselves conservative.

Most national journalists (55 percent) say the media are “not critical enough” of President Bush, compared with only eight percent who believe the press has been “too critical.” In 1995, the poll found just two percent thought journalists had given “too much” coverage to then-President Clinton’s accomplishments, compared to 48 percent who complained of “too little” coverage of Clinton’s achievements.

Reporters struggled to name a liberal news organization. According to Pew, “The New York Times was most often mentioned as the national daily news organization that takes a decidedly liberal point of view, but only by 20% of the national sample.” Only two percent of reporters suggested CNN, ABC, CBS, or NPR were liberal; just one percent named NBC.

Journalists did see ideology at one outlet: “The single news outlet that strikes most journalists as taking a particular ideological stance — either liberal or conservative — is Fox News Channel,” Pew reported. More than two-thirds of national journalists (69 percent) tagged FNC as a conservative news organization, followed by The Washington Times (9 percent) and The Wall Street Journal (8 percent).

The way the Main Stream Media views themselves is quite different from the way Americans view them.

On July 25th of 2011, thehill.com published a poll focusing on voters’ perceptions of Media Bias:

A full 68 percent of voters consider the news media biased, the poll found. Most, 46 percent, believe the media generally favor Democrats, while 22 percent said they believe Republicans are favored, with 28 percent saying the media is reasonably balanced.

The share of voters who believe the media are too friendly with politicians is almost twice as large as those who find their coverage of politicians appropriate. Forty-four percent of voters assert the former; only 24 percent believe the latter.

The picture is not much brighter on the general question of ethics. Fifty-seven percent of voters think of the news media as either somewhat or very unethical, while only 39 percent see them as somewhat or very ethical.

With more and more news stories, such as this one, turning out to be outright lies, it has become very apparent that, the Main Stream Media’s “broadcast journalists” don’t feel that they have to feign objectivity anymore.

The majority of the “News Operations” in our country long ago sold out to the Democrat Party and their own Liberal Ideology. Sensationalism, propaganda, and toeing the Party Line, have replaced Journalistic Ethics and objectivity.

And, all too often, as in the case of the Duke Lacrosse Players and, almost, these young me from the University of Virginia, the Main Stream Media can irreparably damage people’s lives.

…And, shape the destiny of a country through lies, innuendo, and cover-up.

“And, that’s the way it is, April 6th, 2015.”

Until He Comes,

KJ