Progress Illinois

Yesterday, I described how Fox Chicago's short-sighted reaction to our use of clips from their news coverage recently resulted in the suspension of our YouTube account.  Today, the Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society took note of our case and provided some additional context.  In his blog post on the matter, CMLP director David Ardia cited an earlier example of FOX's "overreaching copyright claims" before concluding:

Fox's heavy-handed response to Progress Illinois' use of its clips highlights the network's myopic view of the media ecosystem in which it operates.  Rather than seeing Progress Illinois as a competitor attempting to steal website traffic from WFLD-TV, the network should be grateful that its political coverage is generating buzz in the blogosphere.

That's exactly right. The fact that we occasionally highlight excerpts from WFLD's coverage should be seen as a benefit to the network -- an indication of relevancy.  If there is anything depriving the network of website traffic, it's their own failure to adapt to the times. 

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That's the number of segments CNN has run in the last ten days on allegations that ACORN is responsible for voter registration fraud in multiple states.  According to Media Matters, which tallied the segments, only one of these 54 reports mentioned both of these salient points:

1) that the statutes of most of those states require third parties registering prospective voters to submit all registration forms they receive; and 2) that actual instances of illegal votes being cast as a result of registration fraud are extremely rare. 

In the past week, we've flagged two reports from CNN's Drew Griffin on the registrations submitted by ACORN in Northwest Indiana. In addition to omitting the points above, he also failed to inform viewers that ACORN itself flagged 2,100 suspicious registrations among the 5,000 it turned in Lake County -- a fact that undermines the suggestion from conservatives that the group is somehow trying to "perpetrate one of the greatest frauds in voter history."

What is it with national news outlets assuming that 11th District GOP congressional candidate Marty Ozinga is already in office?  First, Politico referred to him as "Rep. Marty Ozinga" back in July.  Then yesterday, a CNN anchor called him "Congressman Marty Ozinga" while reporting the news that Vice President Dick Cheney had cancelled a campaign event because of heart problems.  Watch it:

Yesterday, ABC News published an article on the various election-related controversies brewing in Lake County, IN.  Unlike the awful CNN segment we debunked yesterday, ABC included the battle over early voting sites in their report and did a decent job of explaining the issues at play.  However, the second half of the piece was devoted to questions surrounding faulty voter registration forms submitted to the county board of elections by the group ACORN.  And like CNN, ABC failed to include two integral bits of context: 1) according to ACORN, they are required by Indiana law to submit all registration forms they receive, and 2) before submitting those problematic forms, the organization itself flagged them as incomplete or "suspicious."  This context matters because it undercuts the suggestion from those on the right that ACORN was attempting to dupe election officials into believing the registrations were legitimate.

Furthermore, ABC -- like so many of the news outlets covering this story -- never makes the crucial distinction between registration fraud and voter fraud. 

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Watching MSNBC this morning, I happened to notice that they repeatedly referred to Bill Ayers as "Willie" in their on-screen text:

Willie, huh?  I grew up in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.  I know the Ayers-Dorhn family quite well.  And I can't remember anyone referring to Bill Ayers as "Willie." 

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After the failure of the bailout negotiations on Capitol Hill yesterday, a bevy of local newspapers analyzed the fallout this morning. The consensus? The bill was a necessity and both parties must muster the courage to get it passed.

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There's contrarian and then there's just silly. Speaking to WLS's Don Wade and Roma early this morning, Time editor-at-large Mark Halperin lauded House Republicans for protecting American taxpayers during the negotiations surrounding the mammoth -- and now defeated -- Wall Street bailout bill. Listen:

Internal mp3

HALPERIN: The House Republicans are kind of like the beleaguered, red-headed step children of our political system right now. They are the minority in the lower house. But if it weren’t for them, I think we would have had a deal passed that would have had less oversight, more money, more dictatorial powers. And so we're in a better place than we were, but it still ain't a great place. 

DON WADE: Are we marking down Mark Halperin: friend of House Republicans?

HALPERIN: A staunch backer in this case. I really think they did the public a lot of good because the House Democrats weren’t crazy about what the White House proposed.  But if House Republicans had stepped forward and said "We're in line, Mr. President.  We're going to vote for this," the thing would have passed probably largely the way the administration would have proposed it.

Where to start ...

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As I watched the surprisingly sober, policy-oriented debate last night, I kept waiting for that certain, shiny object to emerge -- something for the mainstream press to latch on to in their post-game coverage.  As it neared the end with no identifiable zingers or sensational sound-bytes, the suspense built. What was it going to be?  

An hour later, a recurring theme began to surface among the cable news talking heads: eye contact (or more specifically, John McCain's lack thereof).  Almost 24 hours later, McCain's body language -- his tense, clenched jaw; his seeming desire to turn fully away from Obama -- is emerging as the dominant narrative.  His campaign is clearly aware of this and already trying to spin his demeanor as "respectful."  Meanwhile, John Cole wonders whether we are on the cusp of the sort of damaging media feeding-frenzy that enveloped Al Gore after the first debate in 2000, during which he was caught sighing and rolling his eyes.

If we're drawing historical parallels, however, I'd point out that McCain's performance can also be likened to President Bush's during the first debate in 2004. 

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The Sun-Times reported yesterday that Attorney General Lisa Madigan is investigating a grant then-State Sen. Barack Obama issued in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer. The $100,000 appropriation was intended to fund a botanic garden in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, but was never built. On Fox News' Special Report last night, host Brit Hume highlighted the news during the "Grapevine" segment of the program. Media Matters provides the transcript and video:

But Hume conveniently omitted a crucial component of this story.  Indeed, despite Rich Miller's warning when the Sun-Times article first surfaced, Hume didn't "scroll down for the buried nugget":

Madigan’s office has notified Obama’s presidential campaign of the probe, which was launched this week. But Obama’s actions in awarding the money are not a focus of the investigation, Smith said. [emphasis added]

The morning drive-time radio show on WIND, Chicago's right-wing talk radio station, is hosted by Big John Howell and Cisco Cotto.  While the program features appearances from a wide range of political and media figures, the co-hosts are reliably conservative in their commentary.  So it was surprising to hear Howell's reaction to John McCain's announcement Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign to return to D.C. and address the financial crisis.

Throughout the program yesterday, he argued that McCain's actions amounted to "theatrics" and said, "I look at him sometimes and wonder what's going on with him."  Howell went on to declare, "It has reduced my opinion of him as a true maverick, as an independent guy." Give it a listen:

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Later in the hour, a listener callled in and said, "John, you're sounding more and more left every day."  His voice subdued, Howell responded, "I know, I know.  I can't help it."

Howell's comments raise a broader question, though: how many Republican leaners or independents around the country are having similar reactions to McCain's strategy this week?  We'll have a better sense after the next round of polling.