And here is the news, which we made up earlier...

... or simply copy and pasted from someone else without checking.

Sarah Palin deserves a media apology

Now, why do I suspect this not insignificant story about the MSM's 'collection' and 'reporting' of facts will not reach headline level in many places.

As a matter of interest, did the BBC run with this, even if just quoting other sources they'd like to believe?

If so, maybe they'd like to comment?

Gaurdian - Whose lie is it anyway?

Number twos

I don't think the Conservatives are exactly helping themselves, at any level, but there seems an interesting parallel with Sarah Palin in the way the MSM is treating them, to what end one can't imagine.

Neither here nor there leader but seemingly holding public support, so gun for the deputy at every opportunity on any basis, whether warranted or not.

And leave out as much, or indeed any, analysis of the favoured 'side' and its super-sons' and daughters' failings.

Seemed to work recently.

Silly girls

Just to show my views on the media span more than one station:

Ch 4 Snowmail - 'ALLO 'ALLO!

And another radio phone joke makes the headlines. Though the ease with which Sarah Palin fell for the dodgy accent and seal-hunting enthusiasm of the Canadian presenter, who rang her up pretending to be Nicholas Sarkozy, suggests the real scandal may be her credulity.

Remind me; which other intellectual giants have had our faith in their credulity tested closer to home, especially by one Mr. Bremner?

I know two idiots don't make a sage, but I rather suspect a more forgiving stance was taken. Maybe it's another boys' thing?

Telegraph - Sarah Palin gets pranked by Canadian radio station -

Remind me; which other intellectual giants have had our faith in their credulity tested closer to home, especially by one Mr. Bremner? A fact that seems to have passed the BBC and SKY by today, at least.

I know two idiots don't make a sage, but I rather suspect a more forgiving stance was taken then. Maybe it's another boys' thing? Though as it was mainly Mrs. Beckett who got nailed perhaps it was her party affiliation that saved her, and the fact they were/are in power.

As you say, purely on what I heard of what did happen, she came out of it well, but what major political players are doing being handed phone calls (I suspect she does not pick up the phone and answer 'aspiring VP to the world's most powerful country') without someone punching 1471 is a worry.

ps: interesting word that... 'prank'. Where have I heard that used again recently? It must be pretty high on the list of descriptive nouns for something rather dire, depending on your moral equivalence balance. Actually if it had been applied in the same way by our finest comedic talents... to Mrs. Palin... I suspect the commentariat would have been more forgiving... for some reason. Maybe it's not what you say that matters; it's more how the chatterati rates who it is said about. Like issues vs. personalities, I guess.

Order-order - caption competition -

Gaurdian - Joke on Palin again as she falls for fake Sarkozy call

So, what's it like to get paid a lot to do sod all?

(Can be said by either)

Skirting the issue

Newsnight

Much more importantly, to me in the UK and concerned with the BIG issues...

When are you going to be addressing (here's hoping) the vastly important, topical issue of... Mrs Palin's wardrobe. Everyone else is doing it!

Now, I have to say that I have in my wardrobe the same suit I had a decade ago for smart stuff, while the missus is on La Redoute's frequent buyer programme, so there is an 'issue' here.

As it wasn't mentioned on BBC Breakfast News, I still wonder who is paying, but if not the taxpayer whose business it is and hence who cares. Maybe Mr. Obama's helicopter has seats made from whale foreskins?

Maybe some are just still smarting over the expose over their bubbly bill... which is paid for by the licence fee and hence, in part...me.

When it comes to the BBC, might there be a danger of skirting (sorry) dodgy ground here, considering, how to say, more 'favourable', uncritical 'reporting' of the fashions sported by oh so many others 'approved' of (from Princess D through WAGS to Mrs. Brown), and from ladies who also don't seem to lob up each day in the same one-piece.

I merely note in passing a few of Newsnight's very own being involved, irony-free, with a progamme that is currently quite active in getting knickers in a twist over 'inappropriate' relationships.

Meanwhile, I have noted the ongoing quality of editorial riquor with their 'post 'n never check/read again' blogs...
McCain Suckered By Obama Over The Big Bucks

2. At 07:41am on 23 Oct 2008, JunkkMale wrote:
Just like New York...

McCain Suckered By Obama Over The Big Bucks

1. At 07:46am on 23 Oct 2008, JunkkMale wrote:
...New York... evidently a post that is thought so good, they post it twice!

(until it is without acknowledgement or explanation removed, put back in, taken out...).

Sorry, I appear not to be treating these with the gravitas some think they obviously deserve.

Can't think why.

Indy - Republican Party spent $150,000 on Palin's wardrobe
Obama still has questions to answer

Gaurdian - How to spend $1.5bn on elections - first lavish $150,000 on Sarah Palin's clothes
Tomasky talk: Palin v Tomasky clothing budgets

Like the money spent on other billboards is any different, or better, or of use to the poor.

Telegraph - US election: Sarah Palin's spending spree

Remind me, on whose dime was Jackie O's wardrobe when she was hitched to that geezer whose electoral chances seemed to do OK when she scrubbed up well?

Or is it OK only so long as the dosh gets blown on the arm candy? I remember thinking 'Nice barnet, Cherie. Worth every penny!'

Indy - Sarah Churchwell: Who's 'ordinary' in these clothes?

On a point of education for this non-US expert...

Where did these funds come from and how are they defined?

They money used is referred to as 'public funds' hence 'charg[ed] to the taxpayer'. Really?

Does that mean all electoral expenses, no matter what side of the political divide, are covered by the public?

In which case what are the party fund raisers for?

And of these public funds, might we learn what else, again from across the political divide, is spent by the various parties and (one presumes, on behalf of) the various candidates.

In a world of impressions the way a woman looks is given more heft. I seem to recall the media, well some, being quite happy with the image presented by Jackie Kennedy or, more recently, Sarah Brown when not being used as a prop by hubby. Or Cherie's multi-£ barnet.

I guess the message is that these ladies were somehow different? If not politically, maybe it's just that they were the main attraction's female eye-candy, so that's OK then.

Times - Republicans spent $150,000 on Sarah Palin's clothes - No answer to the above yet, but a quick Google leads me in a slightly different direction.

Telegraph - Barack Obama election night rally to cost Chicago $2 million - When in doubt... 2 wrongs! Ain't non-partisan, considered, objective media commentary just the best:)

Hotair.com - Jeri Thompson nukes Colmes, defends Palin’s wardrobe expenses

I guess I am capable of being swayed by a stereotype as the next... person... but Mrs. Thompson was simply the sharpest, most coherent and well-informed person in the exchanges. End of.

Frankly the BBC seems to have hyped an aspect and dropped it once the main line has served its function, namely Mrs. P blowing a wad on frocks. Little on the context vis a vis presentation or the activities of others in this regard.

Party funding is a wee bit more complex than that, and if running with an aspect I would maintain any sharing this either do it 'all or nothing'.

Mrs. T was not about to let Mrs. O get a free pass, but such 'two-wrongs' counters have to be skillfully used to a) make a point without sounding petty and b) giving the very entities that feel free to initiate such trivia techniques the opportunity to say, with all due pompous hypocrisy they can muster: 'well, we're not talking about that'.

Maybe the question should be asked more why they do not, in an even way, from the outset, from so-called 'objective' journalists who these days seem happy to be agenda-supporting shills for party Press Releases.

Telegraph - £92,000 on clothes in nine weeks? Way to go Sarah Palin!

Our 4th in a state

US Election: Please help me make my mind up

Well, like me, you could decide on neither. And it wouldn't really matter, 'cos we're not over there, or voters.

However, to help you, you could try you very own paper, who shares gems like this front of house:

Brigitte Bardot calls Sarah Palin a 'disgrace to women'

Another obscure foreign ex-celeb calls media-luvvie object of obsession foreign VP aspirant some names and it's Splashville USA!

I fly no flag for Mrs. Palin, but with each effort over here my faith in and respect for the UK media excavates a little lower through the barrel base than it is now.

Of course, I have another, counter, theory as to what the 4th in a state is up to, and it ain't pretty either.

Heck, look at the picture.

Gaurdian - Palin ducks press questions... you betcha

You may as well ask why Sen. Obama can't function without a Teleprompter, or Gordon Brown (a politician of slightly more concern to me here, now) will only be seen on certain comfy sofas, but this isn't the right (geddit?) place for such questions, I guess.

If I paid for access to this, I'd be moved to make it one of my first belt-tightening sacrifices (publisher take note - the BBC/car mag subsidy is not much use with no licence-fee paying or car-driving readers). But as it's free, let's keep the dance going.

Gaurdian - Tina Brown's new website is a curious beast -

'An online scrapbook of her pals' views ...'

In... The Guardian (online). Too easy.

Newsnight - It's All Relateable

I fly no flag for Mrs. Palin (nor any of the others... who are they again? Thanks to the quality of BBC coverage it's hard to recall, bar the bloke Simon Schama has decided to 'follow') and, as a UK voter, that opinion really matters little.

But the way the chattering classes here are treating this overseas election, and trying to shape the result in the 'correct' way using unsubtle versions of the last 'correct' way (Operation Clark County anyone?) is starting to reach silly levels..

From the Guardian to the Telegraph and beyond (you know who you are), there appear to be on-staff individuals whose sole function is to talk about an aspiring foreign VP, and usually in as dismissive terms as possible, even if on occasion journalistic integrity does manage a small bit of objectivity to creep in.

Now there is another technique: agenda manipulation by quote of proxy celebs.

Hence yesterday I am treated to what ex 60s heartthrob Brigitte Bardot thinks of Mrs. Palin, and now 'The Boss' (he's not keen).

I know journalists, especially those working for the BBC, do... well... should not allow their personal agendas to creep in, so using such techniques - 'I'm just reporting a respected political viewpoint, from a rock star, honest' - leaves me deeply concerned for here.

What next: 'Jim Davidson, when commenting on the new fiscal bail-out some have described as Mr. Brown's latest masterstroke, has with remarkable insight reflected the unquestioned view of the majority of the public that dealing with a massive mess in which he was totally complicit by throwing yet more public money into an abyss is hardly cause for media cheerleading now'?

Spare the opinion/commentary/aspirations, Aunty. Just the facts. I'll decide the rest.

But then, when it comes to pols compromising themselves in word and/or deed with unprompted errors, or their telegenic mates endorsing them, one still has to trust that one is served the rough with the smooth, across the board, in equal measure. Can we?

Telegraph - Top dozen YouTube gaffes of US election - 'Course, they have been 'selected'

Those who can, do. Those who can't get hired to report/comment on the other half

Will Sarah Palin or Joe Biden screw up tonight?

It seems rather surprising to me that, in a nation of a few hundred million, half of whom (as here) are in the media commentariat, 'they' couldn't crank up a moderator who had a slim chance of being seen as balanced and objective.

ps: What a sorry testimony to the state of, well, everything really, is that one the highest offices in one of the most significant countries on the planet is, or at least deemed to be about who of two candidates 'screws up the least'. I sit here deeply reassured as to the future of my kids.

The messenger vs. the message

Or, maybe, 'Sen. Palin vs. Harry Potter'?

Small-town girl v big-city boy

It is all rather extraordinary, not least in the shadow of Clark County.

I really having trouble forming a view of the people and/or the policies involved, not that my UK opinion matters a jot to US voters, but such reporting standards have to create a backlash.

Trying my utmost to be objective, almost any 'fact' that gets unearthed seems to be trivial, given totally undue prominence considering the relative status of the object of focus... and is hard to look at as anything than spiteful hissy fits from a small, if vocal minority who don't think others are smart enough to vote the 'right' way.

It may be there are other, more balanced 'analyses' of the other protagonists but I honestly can't say I have noticed. This Sarah Palin obsession seems unrelenting. The Guardian and even The Telegraph has staff bloggers that run an endless drip of 'anti-Palin stories. Trouble is, most seem to be either based on heresay or are plain wrong, and these sad, weak diatribes pale in comparison to the often YouTube-loaded rebuttals that in many cases can skewer Messrs. Obama and Biden by highlighting that whatever Mrs. Plain is accused of, they are on record of actually doing.

Despite some deep concerns on aspects of her policies and beliefs (such is the volume of red flagged effort across almost all 'we know better' media that might be true it's hard not to), as a human being I have to confess she comes across as someone I would instinctively side with simply by who is ranged against her and the sheer clunkiness of these so called 'smarter than the average PR' commentator's dollops of bitchiness vs. the Governor's self-evident US-style 'sass' & 'class'.

I can imagine how that plays with a more average voter outside of Washington, New York, Hollywood or indeed London, Paris or Berlin.

Yet again the arrogance of the (plus the paid-for 'our' in the UK thanks to the unique way our national broadcaster funded) media elite establishment seems extraordinary.

But I have a theory, and it is that they are all indeed very smart, and are in fact seeking to reap all they sow in this way by design. Punt out obvious, nasty drip-fed digs playing the person rather than the ball in media no one reads or watches in the USA, but let the power of the internet bear the rebuttals across the pond.

It is hard to divorce the medium from the messenger, so when a foreign liberal media cabal say do one thing, I'm figuring the more conservative folk in the heartlands may just kick back.

A bit like how I just felt being told as top of story that Gordon Brown was a saint because the multi-billion earning author chum of his wife says so and has dropped some chump change on his bankrupt party. And especially via a dig a Mr. Cameron's (of whom I am no fan) Party's policy seeking to promote family units on the basis which the author deems nasty as she was a 'single mum'. Thanks to the BBC's relentless, celeb-obsessed, 'word of the Gord' coverage, I mainly heard a direct snub to some modest, middling family values and struggling ambitions ill-served in a decade by the incumbent Govt (we are £500 poorer, apparently), from another out of touch luvvie FOG (Friend of Gordon) who is empathising with her sisters. Which, by the nature of the coverage at least, is a tad different to most rich Conservative donors that will be cited in balance.

All these guys can do what they like, with however much they want but... and this is the key point... the way it gets served up is not playing as well with this one-person voting constituency as well as those who spin may have intended.

Indy - JK Rowling donates £1m to Labour - 'Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I am delighted that JK Rowling, who is one of the world's greatest ever authors, has made such a generous donation.' I know she is popular, and deservedly so IMHO, but... Bless.

For those who still believe all they read, read on...

Posts and all, though...

Wikileaks posts a hack of Palin's e-mail account

This one I thought caught soem of the flavour:

Sep 17 08, 11:33pm (about 14 hours ago)

This article is so wrong, it's not even funny.

And for the guardian aswell, which prides itself on its web savvy.

1) the headline, as noted by kerin, is libellous - wikileaks did not hack Palin's email - if I was them I'd be coming after you with a brainspoon. Ok, you changed it pretty quick, your legal dept know their business even if your reporter doesn't.

And this from a pro-Obama person. A 'bang-up' job? After that, who cares about the rest of the story?

The lady is for U-turning?

I have some, if not much, sympathy for pols.

Pretty much every aspect of what they do, or say, falls in to 'damned if you do; damned if you don't'.

And one thing more than any other epitomises this: changing your mind.

Now it can be an evolution, a mitigation or even a total 180, but sure as eggs as eggs the very media hounding you for having a view will then show its gratitude to you coming round more to their way of thinking by serving it up as a less than complimentay 'U-turn'.

I pondered this as I glanced across at the latest Gaurdain take on their less than favourite potential US VP.

From this on the home page:

Palin makes climate change U-turn Republican vice-presidential nominee agrees human activity contributes to rising global temperatures

to this:

Palin reverses position on climate change After years of questioning the scientific consensus, the vice-presidential nominee has agreed that human activity contributes to rising global temperatures

I have noted the BBC is also very good at such subtle shifts betwixt the home page splash and the actual article it links to.

Now, Mrs. Palin is one I have yet to get much of a serious view upon, swept along as I am by the guff that all 'sides' are still throwing around.

However, I took a few moments to read this through, bearing in mind the context it was billed.

After years of questioning the scientific consensus, Sarah Palin switched her position yesterday on the origins of climate change, agreeing that human activity contributes to rising global temperatures. "I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change," Palin told ABC news,

That, frankly, is pretty much where I am, and hardly the words of an eco-antichrist.

Palin had previously cast doubt on the cause of rapid Arctic sea ice melting in her home state of Alaska. One day before she joined the Republican ticket in August, she told conservative website NewsMax: "I'm not one … who would attribute [climate change] to being man-made

Still not quite seeing much more than a fairly common, and none too aggressive, view here.

But the Alaska governor also expressed sympathy with fellow conservatives who continue to believe – in the face of broad scientific consensus – that observed climate change is a natural variation unrelated to human activity.

As opposed to... what? Staking a claim on an extreme view that can only serve to alienate a lot of folk? Irrespective of her being allowed her beliefs, this would make little political sense these day.

"Whether it's entirely, wholly caused by man's activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet, the warming and the cooling trends – regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we've got to do something about it," Palin said.

I'm really sorry, but that sounds downright reasonable.

She also challenged ABC anchor Charles Gibson to produce proof of her prior denial of the origins of climate change: "Show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change."
Sounds like he didn't.. or couldn't. But even the article author's helpful fisking manages only this:

"I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity". And before her 2006 election as governor, her spokesman said Palin believed "the jury is still out" on the origins of climate change.

I am again sorry, but that doesn't make anything like the connection attempted.

Now, many other aspects of this candidate's record , statements and future intentions need looking at carefully, along with the others, to see how she stacks up.

However, if this is the level of jounalism we can expect from the Gaurdian to try and put whatever 'case' they embrace forward, they need to be downright ashamed of their sorry selves.

For balance? Pit-bull Palin, enemy of the greens, could be McCain's Achilles heel