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Mediaite.com:
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was a guest on Thursday morning’s TODAY show, and got into a relatively heated discussion with host Matt Lauer when the topic of Whitney Houston‘s death came up.
Lauer brought up O’Reilly’s earlier comments, when he said that Houston had wanted to kill herself, because of her constant abuse of drugs.
“I don’t believe that anyone is a slave to addiction,” O’Reilly said, explaining that while addiction is a disease, people also have free will. “You don’t have free will when you have lung cancer. You do have free will when you’re a crack addict.”
O’Reilly said the media looked the other way while Houston was addicted to drugs “for two decades.” When Lauer said that there were plenty of stories about Houston’s addiction, O’Reilly countered that they were just sensationalized accounts.
“You know what we in the media do, Lauer?” O’Reilly asked. “We wink wink it, we Snoop Dogg it. We Willie Nelson it. Hey, oh yeah, they’re stoned. That’s fine. And what message does that send? It’s okay!”
Lauer said that it was apples and oranges, saying that the media did highlight Houston’s problems.
“They exploited it!” O’Reilly exclaimed. “Name me one media commentator outside of myself who said, ‘Hey Whitney, you better knock it off or you’re going to be in the ground. Give me one!”
The two went back and forth on the coverage of Houston’s addiction before Lauer suggested, “Let’s move on a little, because you and I could do this for hours,”
“Because I’d always be right,” O’Reilly said.
“And I know you’d always think you’re right,” Lauer added.
RELATED: Christie defends decision to lower flags for Whitney Houston
Uh oh:
President Barack Obama's approval rating is back to 50% for the first time in more than eight months, and he currently holds an edge against all the remaining Republican presidential candidates in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups, according to a new national survey.
And a CNN/ORC International Poll released Wednesday also indicates that the GOP's advantage on enthusiasm has been erased, and that the number of Americans who think things are going well in the country is on the rise. Six out of ten say things are going poorly in the country, but four out of ten say things are going well, up 15 points since November.
"Does that mean it's morning in America? It is for Democrats - a solid majority of them now say things are going well in the country. But overall, six in ten still have a gloomy outlook about the state of the country," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Optimism is on the rise among independent voters, with a notable increase among men as well, although a majority of both groups still think things are going poorly."
The rise of Americans who say things are going well appears to be helping the president, whose approval rating now stands at 50%, with 48% saying they disapprove of the job Obama's doing in the White House. The president's approval rating has edged up three points from last month and is up six points from November. The last time Obama's approval rating was at 50% or above was last May, as a result of the killing of Osama bin Laden, and it stayed there for about a month before fading.
"Independents now have a net-positive view of President Obama," says Holland. "His approval rating has also reached 50% in the suburbs."
Looking ahead to November, the poll indicates that the president's re-election chances are on the rise. In hypothetical matchups among registered voters, Obama holds a 51%-46% margin over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, leads both former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas by the same 52%-45% advantage, and beats former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 55%-42%.
The president appears to have gained ground since January against Romney, Paul, and Gingrich. Only Santorum has held steady. The poll also indicates that Obama wins a majority of independent voters in all four general election match-ups.
RELATED: The GOP field’s big weakness
Mediaite.com:
On Sunday, conservative news and opinion site The Daily Caller published a lengthy report on Media Matters, the high-powered — and, the article reports, highly influential — liberal media watchdog group. The article, published by site founder Tucker Carlson and senior online editor Vince Coglianese with contributions by reporters Alex Pappas and Will Rahn, takes a look not only at the organization’s influence on major media outlets, advertisers and the White House, but also offers a portrait of Media Matters’ head, David Brock.
Media Matters’ power is not only in drawing attention to or commenting on instances of media bias or quibbles among various political personalities, notes the Daily Caller, but on enacting real changes in networks, usually by going after specific news makers with the help of kindred organizations. For example, Media Matters — working in conjunction with the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists, and the National Action Network — was instrumental in bringing attention to radio host and former MSNBC personality Don Imus comments regarding the Rutgers women’s basketball team — attention that ultimately saw Imus being fired from the network. The same held true for the organization’s efforts regarding those advertisers working with CNN’s Lou Dobbs and Fox News’ Glenn Beck.
That influence, the Daily Caller adds, also extends to essentially creating news for a certain major cable news outlet:
High profile though these victories against conservatives were, Media Matters has perhaps achieved more influence simply by putting its talking points into the willing hands of liberal journalists. “In ‘08 it became pretty apparent MSNBC was going left,” says one source. “They were using our research to write their stories. They were eager to use our stuff.” Media Matters staff had the direct line of MSNBC president Phil Griffin, and used it. Griffin took their calls.
Stories about Fox News were especially well received by MSNBC anchors and executives: “If we published something about Fox in the morning, they’d have it on the air that night verbatim.”
That influence also extends to print and online outlets, with several well-known reporters named in the report as being particularly amenable to Media Matters’ tips and stories. Among those named is Ben Smith, formerly of Politico and currently of BuzzFeed. According to an unnamed former staffer, Media Matters knew Smith would “take stories and write what you want him to write.”
RELATED: Tucker Carlson To Bill O’Reilly: Media Matters ‘Basically Writes’ MSNBC Primetime
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