TV News LIES

The opponents of the proposed Cordoba Initiative Islamic center planned for Lower Manhattan are fond of suggesting, by way of lengthy and often confusing chains of causation and association, that its principal planner, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is connected to terrorism.

"The imam has been tied to some shady characters," Fox Business Channel's Eric Bolling recently said, "so should we worry that terror dollars could be funding the project?" Blogger Pamela Geller, who has become a regular talking head on cable-news channels to denounce the mosque, has noted Rauf's involvement with a Malaysian peace group that funded the group that organized the Gaza flotilla under the headline, "Ground Zero Imam Rauf's 'Charity' Funded Genocide Mission."

While much of the focus has been on Google and Verizon when it comes to net neutrality as of late, the Wall Street Journal has reported that lobbyists began a new set of talks among a much wider group on Wednesday.

The Information Technology Industry Council is a lobbying firm which represents dozens of companies, including Apple, AOL, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Nokia, and RIM among others. Reports indicate Microsoft is in attendance as is Cisco. AT&T and Verizon are also involved in the negotiations, but Google is not.

The Democratic National Committee called into question Fox News' objectivity Tuesday after it was reported that the cable network's parent company – News Corporation – recently donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association.

"No Republican who appears on Fox can be seen as answering to an independent press and all should appear with a disclaimer for who they truly are – the favored candidate of the corporate-friendly network. No Fox News political coverage can be seen as impartial and all of it should have a disclaimer for what it truly is – partisan propaganda."

"This is one piece of the puzzle that the public should consider when they are viewing coverage of politics," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My I srael) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.

One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn't want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. "Going public in the past has had a bad effect," she says. "There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground."

No more than one-quarter of Americans trusts the news media, but the greatest confidence in the struggling newspaper industry ironically comes from young people, a poll said Friday. The Gallup poll found that 25 percent of Americans felt a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers and 22 percent in television news, in line with a steady slide over the past two decades.

The media were among the national institutions in which Americans placed the least confidence, although Congress, big business and health care coverage providers fared worse.

Newsweek magazine is now the property of Zionist billionaire Sidney Harman and his wife Jane—a fervent advocate for the interests of Israel—who (rather than serving in Congress as she does) should instead be serving time in prison for influence peddling and conspiracy to obstruct justice on behalf of two Washington operatives for AIPAC, the powerful lobby for Israel.