Excuses for not covering Benghazi–a helpful list for members of the Jurassic Media
There are rising calls for more reporting on the consular attack in Benghazi. Our poor press is beleaguered, and certainly too busy covering Sandy and the election to respond.
In fact, they’re so busy they apparently can’t think up good excuses for not covering Benghazi. At least, I haven’t seen any reasons disclosed publicly. They just don’t seem to see, hear, or say anything about it.
To help them out, I thought I would come up with a nice, prefab list of excuses. If any members of the media are reading, please feel free to use these. I’m sure QandO readers will add even more in the comments:
- There’s really no need to go on site, because there’s video of the whole thing, shot from a drone. I’m sure we’ll see it very soon, probably about November 8. No, I’m not the least bit curious about why the Obama administration hasn’t released it yet. Why do you ask?
- I just can’t see publicizing the whole seven hour standoff thing. We have enough superhero movies already.
- Can’t get over there. SwissAir has no business class seats left.
- Can’t face increasing my carbon footprint with a trip that long.
- No Starbucks in Benghazi, and I hear the one in Tripoli is always out of pumpkin spice for lattes.
- All these ghost-shaped Halloween cookies I baked would go to waste if I couldn’t give them to trick-or-treaters.
- Sorry, I missed your question because I just came from a meeting with Obama. Let me wipe my mouth and then hear it again.
- Putting something that violent in front of the public is not to be done lightly. Hey, we’re consistent about that. We didn’t show the pictures of George Zimmerman’s beating either.
- Dead ambassador? Oh, yeah, I heard something about that. Something about a video that caused a riot. What a shame. But gosh, that was six weeks ago. Old news.
- I’m afraid of politicizing that story this close to an election. Yeah, I did report Romney’s premature comments on it, and asked him a dozen times if he regrets his remarks. So?
- Too busy writing my story about how Hurricane Sandy depressed Democratic voting in Philadelphia, so Obama losing Pennsylvania was an act of God. Certainly not a repudiation of Obama. Nope. No way.
Seriously, I thought the media could not be any more disgraceful in their slavish covering for Obama. More fool I.
Observations: The QandO Podcast for 13 May 12
This week, Bruce, Michael and Dale talk about the Mitt Romney “bullying” story, media bias, and how the level of journalism under which the country suffers is a disservice to the voting public.
The direct link to the podcast can be found here.
As a reminder, if you are an iTunes user, don’t forget to subscribe to the QandO podcast, Observations, through iTunes. For those of you who don’t have iTunes, you can subscribe at Podcast Alley. And, of course, for you newsreader subscriber types, our podcast RSS Feed is here. For podcasts from 2005 to 2010, they can be accessed through the RSS Archive Feed.
Observations: The QandO Podcast for 29 Apr 12
This week, Bruce and Dale talk about what the Trayvon martin case says about the media.
The direct link to the podcast can be found here.
As a reminder, if you are an iTunes user, don’t forget to subscribe to the QandO podcast, Observations, through iTunes. For those of you who don’t have iTunes, you can subscribe at Podcast Alley. And, of course, for you newsreader subscriber types, our podcast RSS Feed is here. For podcasts from 2005 to 2010, they can be accessed through the RSS Archive Feed.
Breitbart Bombshell Set to Explode? (Updated)
The hum and twitter around the blogosphere is that Andrew Breitbart has something serious cooking, and it’s coming out this week. After the pantsing his site, BigGovernment.com, gave the national media with the O’Keefe and Giles ACORN sting, Breitbart is apparently poised to embarrass them again with a scoop that promises to be juicy. Right now, the best speculation is that it will have to do with the NEA. Patterico peruses an article in which Breitbart seems to give strong hints:
Ace is right [in this post]: in Breitbart’s column, he said:
When the next big scandal hits – and it will, and it most certainly won’t come from traditional journalism – all eyes will be on “Pinch” Sulzberger to see if he does his job.
With hindsight, it’s obvious that Breitbart was foreshadowing the release of the ACORN tapes. He even specifically mentioned ACORN in his column, as one of two stories that showed how the media was covering for Obama.
So, let’s see. He identified ACORN as one of the two big stories, and then he dropped a bomb on ACORN. Now he’s hinting that there’s another bomb coming.
See what I’m getting at here?
If you’re trying to figure out what the next big shoe to drop might be, I suggest that you consider re-reading his column to see what he identified as the second story that demonstrates the media’s complicity with the Democrat party. Namely, the NEA:
Another story not making the evening news is that of artist Patrick Courrielche, who has shown that the National Endowment of the Arts is seeking to use government funds to promote Obama administration initiatives. On Sunday’s “This Week,” George Will pierced the mainstream media veil.
“Recently there was a conference call arranged by the National Endowment for the Arts, with a representative of the White House, for potential grantees or actual grantees of the federal government, getting subsidies – the theme of it was how the arts community could advance the president’s agenda. Now I don’t know how many laws that breaks, but I am sure there are some.”
What are you waiting for, Katie Couric?
If I were a betting man, I’d be betting big that the upcoming bombshell will relate to the NEA. You read it here first.
You may recall the NEA story (which both Bruce and I covered) regarding how the agency actively encouraged artists to promote the Obama administration’s agenda through their works.
In addition to Patterico’s reading of the tea leaves, two names have been floating around in connection with a Breitbart blockbuster, both of which are also connected to the NEA: Yosi Sargent, its communications director and the leader of the conference call described above, and Buffy Wicks, a former Obama field organizer now with the White House Office of Public Engagement who was also on the call. If the speculation is right, I’d have to guess that Breitbart has uncovered something incriminating (assuming that the NEA conference call breached some law or regulation).
Whatever it is, I agree with those who are saying that Breitbart’s primary target in all of this is the MSM. I think it was the media who were the real losers in the ACORN story, just as they were in the Van Jones debacle. Ever since last summer the media has unashamedly supported Obama in every way that it can, and covered up for him where possible. Embarrassing connections are buried, misstatements and outright lies are routinely ignored, and opposition is either painted in a most unflattering light or marginalized as fringe elements of little import. And that’s not to mention the constant caterwauling about racism at every turn. Breitbart easily outmaneuvered them in the past few weeks since, like the hare found out, you can’t sleep on the job and expect to stay out in front. As Ace said, “He warned the media. They ignored the warning.” I look forward to whatever comeuppance Mr. Breitbart has in store for them this week.
UPDATE: Yep. It’s the NEA all right:
So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?
Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others.
Make sure to go and RTWT.