CNN in Last Place – Behind MSNBC Reruns!

CNN has dropped to fourth place in the cable news business it invented. And Fox continues to rise while under fire from the administration. CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with ...

Roger Ailes for President?!

Topping Memeorandum is Mike Allen's wild speculation for Politico about a presidential run by Roger Ailes. Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012, top sources tell POLITICO. "Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that's what we need now," says one ...

Conservative Media Scoops Mainstream Media

A series of scandals uncovered by conservative outlets and ignored by the mainstream press are starting to raise some uncomfortable questions. The right-wing media’s single-minded focus on a handful of targets over the past months and its success in pushing those stories into the mainstream have underscored the sharp divide between traditional news organizations and the bloggers and talk show hosts ...

Obama Revamps White House Communications

Danny Glover reports on President Obama's total restructuring of the White House message machine in a piece ominously titled "The Cost of Controlling The Press." Barack Obama's White House is spending more than $80,000 a week to staff its old and new media offices. Add the price of speechwriters and the White House communications tab reaches nearly $100,000 a week, or ...

Lamar Smith: Liberal Bias Bigger Threat Than Terrorism

Rep. Lamar Smith (TX) had an interview yesterday on the number one rated cable news network, Fox News, in which he made the astonishing claim that "liberal media bias" is the biggest threat facing America today: SMITH: Let me just say — this is going to sound radical, I don’t mean for it to be radical — but to me, the ...

Fox Cancels ‘Beltway Boys’

One of those shows I used to watch but haven't in years, Fox News' Beltway Boys, which starred Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, has been canceled, Paul Bedard reports, with network execs believing it had "run its course." Theirs was a fun mix of the week's politics, a peppy version of some of the other Saturday media political reviews. They talked ...

Fox Says No to Obama 100 Day Stunt

Friday, noting that President Obama was costing the television networks millions by constantly demanding prime time for news conferences, I mused, "given the availability of a half dozen cable news channels, I’m not sure why the networks don’t just go with original programming."   Someone must be reading because Fox will be running "Lie to Me" instead. Now there's an opportunity for ...

Shepard Smith: America Doesn’t Torture

I'm amused by Nico Pitney's headline, "Shepard Smith Uncensored: "We Are America, We Do Not F**king Torture!" (VIDEO)."  Mostly because it censors Shepard Smith. But the Left's sudden embrace of Smith is interesting, too. It may have begun with this recent Esquire profile. He has always managed to be a part of Fox and apart from it at the same time, ...

Fox News Not Conservative

So says E.D. Kain: Fox News is simply not conservative.  The fact of the matter is, I find NPR and even News Hour more conservative than Fox - but in a different sense, I suppose, than the standard boiler plate conservatism that has so infested American politics.  What I mean to say is that the conservatism of Fox News tends to ...

Stephanopoulos Conference Calls – Conflict of Interest?

Via Memeorandum, I see that MRC is hammering ABC on a story that I somehow missed: Media Research Center MRC President L. Brent Bozell, III has written a letter to ABC News President David Westin calling on him to publicly address and resolve what appears to be a clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Last ...

Bill Kristol’s Replacement

As everyone knows by now, Bill Kristol's last NYT column appeared yesterday. Aside from the italicized footer "This is William Kristol’s last column," it was unremarkable.  Which, most observers on the Left and Right seem to agree, was something it had in common with most of Kristol's NYT columns and largely explains why the one year experiment was not continued. There ...

Fox Calls Election for Obama

With the polls now closed in California, FOX News has officially called the election for Barack Obama as of 11 Eastern, trailing OTB by more than two hours. Juan Williams is choking up at the significance of a black man being elected president. It is indeed quite incredible. Bill Kristol notes, too, that Obama will do it getting more votes than ...

White Evangelicals in WV Go McCain

Fox News just had a graphic up saying that 2/3 of white Evangelicals in West Virginia went for John McCain.   Thanks for the insight, guys.

Gwen Ifill, Pro-Obama Author, Debate Moderator

There's a minor hubbub brewing over the fact that Gwen Ifill, who will once again moderate the vice presidential debate, is publishing a pro-Obama book shortly after the election, apparently unbeknownst to the McCain-Palin campaign. Questions are being raised about the objectivity of Thursday's vice presidential debate moderator after news surfaced that she is releasing a new book promoting Barack Obama ...

Brit Hume Stepping Down at Year End

Brit Hume is going into semi-retirement, Howie Kurtz reports. Brit Hume, a top anchor and executive with Fox News since the channel was launched 12 years ago, plans to step down at year's end. But he won't disappear entirely. Sources familiar with the situation say that Hume, 65, will give up his job as Washington managing editor and anchor of "Special Report." ...