Scholars and Rogues » Brad Jacobson

Exclusive: How corporations secretly move millions to fund political ads

Brad Jacobson — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:46:01 +0000

The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Exclusive: Whistleblower reveals how insurers can game healthcare bill

Brad Jacobson — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:03:58 +0000

Wendell Potter, a twenty-year veteran of the insurance industry and former vice president of communications for Cigna, warns that current healthcare legislation does nothing to prevent the insurance industry from continuing its ongoing practice of increasingly shifting healthcare costs to consumers.

EXCLUSIVE: Obama received $20 million of healthcare Industry money in 2008

Brad Jacobson — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:21:29 +0000

While some sunlight has been shed on the hefty sums shoveled into congressional campaign coffers in an effort to influence the Democrats' massive healthcare bill, little attention has been focused on the far larger sums received by President Barack Obama while he was a candidate in 2008. A new figure, based on an exclusive analysis created for Raw Story by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that President Obama received a staggering $20,175,303 from the healthcare industry during the 2008 election cycle, nearly three times the amount of his presidential rival John McCain. McCain took in $7,758,289, the Center found.

135,000 uninsured Americans will die before health reform takes effect, analysis finds

Brad Jacobson — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:30:00 +0000

A Raw Story analysis, based on a recent Harvard Medical School study, estimates that 135,000 American citizens and over 6,600 US veterans will die due to a lack of health insurance before current proposed healthcare reform measures would take effect.

Exclusive: Pentagon pursuing new investigation into Bush propaganda program

Brad Jacobson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:26:24 +0000

The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General is conducting a new investigation into a covert Bush administration Defense Department program that used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage.

Exclusive: Pentagon’s domestic propaganda program may not have been terminated

Brad Jacobson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:48:13 +0000

Pentagon officials won't confirm Bush propaganda program ended The covert Bush administration program that used retired military analysts to generate favorable wartime news coverage may not have been terminated, Raw Story has found.

Pentagon used psychological operation on US public, documents show

Brad Jacobson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:30:00 +0000

A months-long review of documents and interviews with Pentagon personnel has revealed that the Bush Administration's military analyst program -- aimed at selling the Iraq war to the American people -- operated through a secretive collaboration between the Defense Department's press and community relations offices. Raw Story has also uncovered evidence that directly ties the activities undertaken in the military analyst program to an official US military document’s definition of psychological operations -- propaganda that is only supposed to be directed toward foreign audiences.

Tributes censor Cronkite’s anti-Iraq War stance

Brad Jacobson — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:15:27 +0000

Cronkite Called War "Illegal from the Start," Slammed Network Silence and Would've Spoken Out Again from Anchor Desk

CNN’s Iran timeline omits US-backed ‘53 coup

Brad Jacobson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:20:36 +0000

It might be more difficult for Republicans to bash President Obama for being "timid" in his comments about the Iranian government's violence against protesters if the U.S. media didn't consistently censor US-Iranian history. Take CNN's recent Iran timeline, titled "A brief look at Iran's history."

Gene Randall ‘Reporting,’ Inc.

Brad Jacobson — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:16:02 +0000

My article published yesterday in Columbia Journalism Review: Former CNN correspondent-turned-PR consultant Gene Randall’s video “report” for oil giant Chevron might be unprecedented for how it blurred the line between public relations and journalism. But the Randall-Chevron production raises not only ethical questions, but also the question of whether a surge of newly pink-slipped reporters might go, as one media critic put it, “over to the dark side” and how that might further muddy the line between news and corporate advocacy.

Larry King writing sequel to ‘My Remarkable Journey’

Brad Jacobson — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:30:09 +0000

In an interview with the Al Jazeera news network today, legendary talk show host Larry King revealed he's already working on a sequel to his new autobiography "My Remarkable Journey." King said the follow-up autobiography, with the working title "If You're Not Nauseous Yet, You Will Be," will disclose many juicy anecdotes and surprises he couldn't fit into his current book. King, who's been making the rounds to promote "My Remarkable Journey," provided Al Jazeera with the following teasers that readers can expect to find in "If You're Not Nauseous Yet, You Will Be":

Interview with Greg Mitchell, Editor of ‘Editor & Publisher’

Brad Jacobson — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:21:00 +0000

Greg Mitchell, Editor of 'Editor and Publisher' magazine, recently spoke with MediaBloodhound from his Lower East Side Manhattan office at E&P. In addition to the 2008 campaign, topics ranged from the dire state of the newspaper industry and its “dirty secret” to the impact of the U.S. media's censorship of graphic war images to whether Twitter and Sarah Palin will go the way of the pet rock.

NYT Public Editor dances around ‘Brutal Truth’ of torture

Brad Jacobson — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:43:45 +0000

Clark Hoyt's New York Times public editor column on Monday, "Telling the Brutal Truth," brings the ongoing "debate" over whether waterboarding is torture to brave new heights of absurdity.

Mark Danner schools David Gergen on CIA torture

Brad Jacobson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:43:47 +0000

During a recent segment on CNN's AC 360, journalist and professor Mark Danner torpedoed CNN senior political analyst David Gergen's attempt to minimize new revelations of Bush administration CIA torture tactics released by the Obama administration.

Howard Kurtz’s Octomom hypocrisy: He was against exploiting it for ratings before he was for it

Brad Jacobson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:59:45 +0000

Washington Post and CNN media critic Howard Kurtz dedicated an entire segment of this past Sunday's Reliable Sources cable program to a gratuitous pie fight between two players involved in Nadya "Octomom" Suleman's never-ending nationally televised freak show. But a little over a month ago, Kurtz decried the media for exploiting the octuplet mother for ratings and for doing so under the false pretense that concern for her babies' well being drove their round-the-clock coverage. What a difference a few weeks make.

Officials say feds involved in Nevada ACORN raid

Brad Jacobson — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:08:07 +0000

Part of the reason I've been off the radar here for so long -- my latest investigative report for Raw Story: Federal agencies were involved in the decision to raid the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in Nevada last October, just weeks before Election Day, the offices of Nevada’s Secretary of State and Attorney General say. The allegations raise questions of whether politics played a part in the raid and calls into question assertions by the US Attorney’s office that they were uninvolved. Federal guidelines instruct agencies investigating election fraud to avoid action that might impact the elective process.

Woodruff parrots GOP talking points to WH budget dir

Brad Jacobson — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:29:44 +0000

In a primer on how to conduct an interview relying almost solely on Republican talking points, PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff discussed the new budget plan with White House Budget Director Peter Orszag on Wednesday night.

Matthews repairing ‘balanced’ cred with…imbalance

Brad Jacobson — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:17:58 +0000

If you’re Chris Matthews and you’re attempting to regain a reputation for being “fair and balanced” after famously exhibiting excitement about Barack Obama and his presidential campaign, what do you do? How about facilitating a discussion about Obama’s proposed stimulus plan with two lawmakers from the same party, the Republican Party?

That’s precisely what Matthews did during a segment on his January 27 edition of Hardball, inviting only Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) and Representative Mike Pence, the House Republican Conference Chair, to discuss the plan.

Not enough? How about a segment exploring whether Rush Limbaugh is the “new voice of the GOP” but once again facilitating the “balanced” discussion with two people on the right and no one on the left or even center? (Never mind that Limbaugh has been the voice of the Republican Party for two decades and counting.) In the very same broadcast, Matthews did this as well, bringing on MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan and right-wing radio talk show host Heidi Harris (you might remember that Harris, appearing on Hardball during the election season, had told Matthews that women vote for Democrats because they “tend to think with their hearts and not with their minds”).

Want more? How about, in the process, framing a question based on Rush Limbaugh’s assertions and posing it to these two other right-wingers while prefacing the question with the words “let’s get back to the facts here”?

MATTHEWS: Look, let’s get back to the facts here. Does he [Limbaugh] have something here by saying that Barack Obama is trying to get the Republicans to join him, or at least a handful of them, so that he can share the blame if it [stimulus plan] doesn’t work? Is that a reasonable claim?

This kind of fairness and balance not only rivals Fox News but threatens to out-Fox it.

Does anyone doubt that Matthews once again feels a thrill running up his leg? It’s official: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Matthews is back!

Cross-posted from MediaBloodhound.

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked menu of George Will’s catered dinner party for Barack Obama

Brad Jacobson — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:11:48 +0000

Conversation at the recent dinner party thrown by conservative pundit George Will for Barack Obama may remain shrouded in secrecy. But one thing will not: the menu. And there was no shortage of food. An anonymous source leaked the detailed catered menu to The Wounded-Courier today. (Other conservative pundits in attendance included William Kristol, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Paul Gigot, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone and Rich Lowry.) Here is what was served:

MediaBloodhound’s 2008 Fact or Fiction Challenge

Brad Jacobson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:51:48 +0000

The following are quotes and headlines culled from this past year at MediaBloodhound (keep in mind some were said or written prior to '08 but noted here during the year). Some are real (fact) and others are from satirical articles (fiction) posted under "The Wounded-Courier." See if you can distinguish between the two. Once you've answered all the entries -- but not before because multiple entries may come from the same post and checking one might give away another -- you'll find the answer key at the very bottom. All right, news junkies and media mavens, the 2008 Fact or Fiction Challenge is on: