C Street

Watch: Maddow On C Street

Zachary Roth | November 18, 2009, 9:30AM

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow picked up our report -- with credit -- on the C Street house losing its tax exempt status last night.

She tied residents of the Christian house to the effort to stop health-care reform, and interviewed Jeff Sharlet, the author of a book on the shadowy religious group that owns the house.

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Pat Buchanan

Buchanan: White Americans Are Losing Their Country!

Zachary Roth | October 20, 2009, 11:32AM

Pat Buchanan, in his latest column, in reference to white Americans:

America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.

Don't tell MSNBC!

Global Warming

Reuters: We Screwed Up On Hoax Press Release

Zachary Roth | October 19, 2009, 3:22PM

Reuters admits it messed up by not calling the Chamber of Commerce about that hoax press release saying it had changed its stance on climate change.

Media

Leaked Email: CNBC Went To Tea Partiers Looking for Angry Protests

Zachary Roth | August 12, 2009, 12:21PM

CNBC approached Tea Party activists, looking for angry protest events that would make good television, according to a leaked email from a Tea Party discussion group. And one Tea Bagger responded by flagging an upcoming event that, he said, "should be a riot ... literally."

Yesterday, Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin sent an email, obtained by TPMmuckraker, to a Tea Party google group. Martin told the group: "We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC."

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Media

John Solomon's Sycophantic Email To Justice On Attorney Firings

Zachary Roth | August 11, 2009, 6:17PM

It's fair to say the U.S. attorney firings scandal turned out to be a pretty big deal. It contributed to Alberto Gonzales' resignation as Attorney General, and triggered an ongoing criminal investigation.

But based on those newly released documents, John Solomon's take was pretty much: what's the big deal?

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U.S. Attorneys

Email: Rich Lowry Offered To Help White House Spin Firings

Zachary Roth | August 11, 2009, 4:09PM

Here's a fun nugget from the U.S. attorney documents (h/t reader B.M.):

It looks like Rich Lowry of National Review offered the White House his services in doing some positive P.R. on behalf of Rove protege Tim Griffin, who the administration had sought to muscle into the U.S. attorney job in Arkansas as a replacement for the fired Bud Cummins.

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Lobbyists

Politico Covers Coal Industry Group's Lobbying Push -- Without Mentioning Those Forged Letters

Zachary Roth | August 6, 2009, 11:41AM

Try to understand this...

A major lobbying campaign, aimed at making sure that the Senate version of the energy and climate change bill includes subsidies for coal, is being planned by a coal-industry lobbying group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

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Media

Olbermann: Wolffe Won't Be On Countdown Until We Know What Else He's Doing

Zachary Roth | August 4, 2009, 11:20AM

MSNBC may have agreed to disclose Richard Wolffe's gig with a major corporate P.R. firm -- but that's not good enough for Keith Olbermann.

The Countdown anchor -- for whom Wolffe filled in last week as a guest host -- wrote on Daily Kos yesterday evening that Wolffe would not appear on the show even as a guest "until we can clarify what else he is doing," and suggested that the former Newsweek reporter had not been straight with the network about his duties for the P.R. firm, Public Strategies.

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Media

On Wolffe P.R. Firm's Client List: Exxon Mobil, Northrop Grumman, Republic of Georgia

Zachary Roth | August 3, 2009, 5:03PM

It's pretty questionable for anyone who works for a lobbying or public relations firm to also host a news show on which issues of interest to those clients' are likely to be discussed -- as we told you MSNBC's Richard Wolffe does.

But to get a sense of just how compromised Wolffe really is on this, it's worth taking a look at the clients of the P.R. firm he works for -- Texas-based Public Strategies Inc.

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Media

MSNBC: We'll Disclose Wolffe's P.R. Ties

Zachary Roth | August 3, 2009, 3:33PM

MSNBC says it will now tell viewers that Richard Wolffe -- who is a regular commentator on the network, and last week guest-hosted Countdown -- works for a corporate P.R. firm.

Network spokesman Jeremy Gaines told TPMmuckraker in an email:

We should have disclosed Richard's connection to Public Strategies. We will do so in the future.

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Media

Richard Wolffe's Two Hats: MSNBC Guest Host, And Corporate Spin-Meister

Zachary Roth | August 3, 2009, 11:48AM

Oh, that liberal MSNBC...

Last week, Richard Wolffe, the former Newsweek White House correspondent who's been a frequent commentator on MSNBC's Countdown, guest-hosted the show while Keith Olbermann was on vacation.

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Media

Debunking The GOP's Phony Euthanasia Myth -- Since Politico Won't

Zachary Roth | July 28, 2009, 2:09PM

In recent days, a new right-wing scare tactic on health-care has blossomed on conservative blogs and emails lists: the notion that the reform bill making its way through the House would lead to euthanasia by requiring senior citizens to submit to "end-of-life consultations."

It won't surprise you to learn this is a lie. But President Obama just got a question on it at a public event. And the idea has now made it into Politico, where a straight news story asks in its headline, all even-handed: "Will proposal promote euthanasia?" Since Politico thinks it'll be easier to "win the morning" by misleading readers into believing there's a legitimate debate over this issue, it's worth taking a minute to debunk it.

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Mark Sanford

NBC's Gregory: "I Wasn't Promising A Friendly Forum" For Sanford

Zachary Roth | July 21, 2009, 12:16PM

Over the weekend, NBC's David Gregory responded to charges raised by TPMmuckraker and others that he was overly solicitous in trying to woo Mark Sanford to come on Meet The Press during the imbroglio over the South Carolina governor's disappearance.

In an email to a blogger at Daily Kos, Gregory wrote:

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Mark Sanford

Morning Joe Producer Offered "Friendly Place" For Sanford To Tell Story

Zachary Roth | July 17, 2009, 5:23PM

We've made it through all 570 pages of those emails sent from and to Mark Sanford's office in the period just before, during, and after his disappearance.

Earlier we highlighted how big name TV journalists like David Gregory, George Stephanopoulos, and John King aggressively wooed the South Carolina governor's press secretary in an effort to get the governor to come on their shows. But here are a few of the other interesting finds -- mostly press related -- from our search:

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Mark Sanford

NBC's Gregory to Sanford's Office: "Meet The Press Allows You To Frame The Conversation As You Really Want"

Zachary Roth | July 17, 2009, 2:29PM

The Charleston Post and Courier has posted online (pdf) all 570 pages of emails obtained from the office of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

There's a bevy of information in there, but one exchange that jumped out at us was the one between Sanford's press secretary, Joel Sawyer (who just today announced he's quitting -- good for him!) and David Gregory, the host of NBC's Meet the Press. In courting Sanford's office, Gregory wrote that "coming on Meet The Press allows you to frame the conversation as you really want to."

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Mark Sanford

Tapper Responds: We Didn't Know About Sanford Affair When I Sent That Email*

Zachary Roth | July 15, 2009, 11:52AM

It looks like Jake Tapper doesn't feel like his network's response to the news that he sucked up to Mark Sanford's office by denigrating NBC's coverage of the missing gov story -- that Tapper was just "carrying some water" for a producer -- is quite sufficient.

This morning, Tapper has been tweeting further defenses of his catty email to a Sanford aide -- in which he called NBC's coverage "slimy" and "insulting."

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Media

Tapper To Sanford Aide: NBC Spot On Missing Guv Was "Slimy" And "Insulting"

Zachary Roth | July 15, 2009, 9:10AM

But it looks like it wasn't just the acknowledged right-wingers who were denigrating the story to Sanford's aides. The State has written up a few more of the emails, and look what they found:

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Mark Sanford

Great Call: In Emails To Sanford's Office, Right-Wing Media Dismissed Missing Gov Story

Zachary Roth | July 14, 2009, 12:24PM

The State newspaper of South Carolina has used a public records request to obtain emails sent to and from Governor Mark Sanford's office during the hectic few days last month when he had gone missing. It's not surprising that the emails underline the utter confusion that beset the governor's hapless aides as they tried to ward off inquiries about their boss's whereabouts, without themselves having any idea where he was.

But they also show something even funnier: an effort by the right-wing media to curry favor with Sanford's office by dismissing the story as a storm in a teacup created by the liberal media. It's fair to say that, as news judgments go, it would be hard to find one that turned out worse than this -- given the subsequent revelations about Sanford's Argentinian liaison and his abandonment of his post.

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Media

Second WaPo Doc Offers More Info On Salons

Zachary Roth | July 7, 2009, 2:21PM

When a leaked flier last week revealed the Washington Post's plan to organize a corporate-sponsored "salon" on health care, the paper portrayed the flier as the hastily-created product of an over-zealous business department which misrepresented the Post's genuine vision for the event.

But now Politico -- which broke the original story -- has obtained a copy of a word document, sent out over two weeks ago, for the planned July 21 event. The document's existence will intensify questions about how, as the Post has claimed, the business and news sides of the paper could have been on such different pages over the event.

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Media

Atlantic Publisher On "Salons": I Didn't Read The Marketing Materials Either

Zachary Roth | July 7, 2009, 9:13AM

Atlantic Media publisher David Bradley is defending the corporate-sponsored, off-the-record "salon" dinners that his company has been organizing since 2003, in response to TPMmuckraker's report yesterday on the dinners.

In a 1500-word "letter" posted on The Hotline, Bradley refers to "concerns I'm reading now on the web" (no attribution, naturally), before explaining why he thinks the salons -- which, as we wrote yesterday, are very similar to the Washington Post's planned event that ignited a furor last week -- "are full of good purpose." (He adds that they're also "part of my best thinking on how we carry forward (read fund) modern journalism.")

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Lobbyists

Not Just WaPo: Atlantic's Corporate-Sponsored "Salons" Tout "Private Conversations" With Top Journos, Lawmakers

Zachary Roth | July 6, 2009, 1:13PM

Last week, Politico reported that the Washington Post had planned to put on an exclusive off-the-record "salon" at the home of its publisher, where corporate lobbyists would pay as much as $250,000 to gain access to Post reporters and editors, as well as Obama administration officials and members of Congress. The news provoked an outcry in DC journalism circles -- the Post's own ombudsman called it "pretty close to a public relations disaster" -- and the the event was quickly canceled.

But the notion that the Post's gambit represents some sort of new and uniquely outrageous collapsing of the wall between the editorial and business sides of a news publication is badly off the mark. In fact, it would be closer to the truth to say that the paper got caught pushing the envelope on a money-making and influence-building strategy that other outlets had been quietly deploying for years.

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Mark Sanford

Media Recap: Credulous Press Ate Up Spin From Sanford's Office

Zachary Roth | June 25, 2009, 11:20AM

Now that the dust has settled -- at least for a few hours -- on the tale of the love-struck guv, it's worth focusing on another angle: the shockingly credulous news coverage of the story.

Throughout Monday and Tuesday, there were pretty good reasons to be skeptical of the ever-changing official line that Sanford's office was putting out.

After all, here's how things went down, in a nutshell:

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John Ensign

Report: Fox Got Ensign Letter Three Days Earlier Than It Admitted

Zachary Roth | June 24, 2009, 6:50PM

Just as we were all getting sidetracked by one GOP sex scandal, there was an interesting development in another.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Fox News received Doug Hampton's bizarre letter -- about the affair between Hampton's wife Cindy and Sen. John Ensign -- three days earlier than the right-wing news channel had previously acknowledged.

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John Ensign

Fox: We Didn't Tip Off Ensign About That Crazy Letter To Kelly

Zachary Roth | June 19, 2009, 1:31PM

Fox News has denied tipping off Sen. John Ensign after receiving that bizarre letter from Doug Hampton, in which Hampton asked for Fox anchor Megyn Kelly's help in exposing Ensign's affair with Hampton's wife Cynthia.

Tom Lowell, the senior producer of Kelly's show, has told the Huffington Post that a booker for the show did get Hampton's letter, via email, the day before Ensign went public about the affair. Lowell said a producer followed up with Hampton, but he seemed "evasive and not credible," so Fox didn't pursue it -- which, frankly, sounds reasonable.

But more importantly, Lowell said no one at Fox had let Ensign's camp know about the letter. "I categorically deny that we ever reached out to the senator in any way shape or form prior to him making his announcement," Lowell said.

So that still leaves a big mystery: Ensign has now said clearly that it was the threat to go to a TV news show that prompted him to go public. So how did Ensign know about that?

Right-wing extremism

SHOCKER: Buchanan Prefers "The Old Bigotry" To Affirmative Action

Zachary Roth | June 12, 2009, 1:55PM

OK, we know it's not exactly breaking news that Pat Buchanan holds some views that are borderline racist, to put it mildly. But this one is just too blatant to pass up.

In his latest column for Human Events -- a forum he often uses to air opinions that wouldn't fly during his regular gigs as a commentator on MSNBC -- Buchanan writes that he "prefers the old bigotry" to the Ivy League affirmative action policies that may have benefited Sonia Sotomayor, because "at least it was honest."

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Racism

Latest Right-Wing Meme: Von Brunn's A Lefty

Zachary Roth | June 11, 2009, 4:19PM

It's hardly been 24 hours since James Von Brunn allegedly walked into the Holocaust Museum and shot museum guard Stephen Johns. But already conservatives from Rush Limbaugh to Red State have started advancing their latest up-is-down meme: Von Brunn -- a white supremacist consumed by hatred of Jews and blacks, who has called for President Obama to release his birth certificate -- isn't really a right-winger -- in fact, he's a lefty.

Let's count off the examples:

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Media

Report: Before Congressional Run, Scarborough Represented Killer Of Abortion Doctor

Zachary Roth | June 5, 2009, 6:07PM

Over the last week, MSNBC has led the cable-news charge in covering the George Tiller murder -- and the questions it's raised about how implicated the wider anti-abortion movement is in the violence. Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews have all covered the story -- Maddow with particular distinction. But until today, one MSNBC show has been conspicuous for its reluctance to touch this major story. That would be Morning Joe, hosted by Joe Scarborough.

This morning, Scarborough publicly addressed the story, for what appears to be the first time. But what he talked about was his own past ties to an anti-abortion killer. And his comments -- which seemed designed largely to minimize those ties -- appear to conflict with other reported facts about the incident.

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Dick Cheney

Liz Cheney Asked To Stay On MSNBC Set To Take On Robinson

Zachary Roth | May 12, 2009, 4:58PM

Earlier today, we posted some video of a combative exchange on MSNBC's Morning Joe between Liz Cheney and Eugene Robinson on the subject of Dick Cheney's vocal support for torture.

Here it is again:

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