TV News LIES

The Houston Chronicle editorial board expressed remorse over its endorsement of Sen. Ted Cruz in the Senate race last year, saying he has failed to live up to their expectations.

“When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November’s general election, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation - that he follow Hutchison’s example in his conduct as a senator. Obviously, he has not done so. Cruz has been part of the problem in specific situations where Hutchison would have been part of the solution,” the Texas paper board wrote in an editorial titled, “Why we miss Kay Bailey Hutchison”.

A federal appeals court turned aside a major showdown over reporter's privilege Tuesday, refusing to have the court's full bench re-hear a case that resulted in a July ruling that a New York Times reporter had no right to decline to testify at the criminal leak trial of his alleged source.

No judge beyond the one who dissented from the July decision called for the case to be reheard en banc, according to an order released by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (and posted here). The vote was 13-1 against the petition filed by attorneys for Times reporter James Risen, whose testimony the government sought in the case against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling.

Glenn Greenwald, the lawyer and blogger who brought The Guardian the biggest scoop of the decade, is departing the London-based news organization, for a brand-new, large-scale, broadly focused media outlet, he told BuzzFeed Tuesday.

Greenwald, 46, published revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of American and British domestic spying and about officials’ deception about its scope. He said he is departing for a new, “once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity” with major financial backing, the details of which will be public soon.

PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website of the Tampa Bay Times, will soon launch PunditFact, a site dedicated to checking claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers and the hosts and guests of talk shows.

PunditFact is being funded by $625,000 in grants over two years from the Ford Foundation and the Democracy Fund. Seed money for the project was provided by craigconnects, a philanthropy group run by Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.