MSM Obama Confession Time: WashPo, NewsWeek, MSNBC, LA Times

Bias on Record:
Washington Post
Chris Matthews
Newsweek
Los Angeles Times

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Mainstream Media: Yes We Can!

Deborah Howell, the ombudsman at the Washington Post completely agrees [An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage]:

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

Human Gaffe Machine Joe Biden?

One gaping hole in coverage involved Joe Biden, Obama's running mate. When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission.

John at Power Line wasn't surprised [Ho Hum] and offers a possible solution.

Howell finds that the Post's coverage of Sarah Palin was especially biased. To which my response is, tell us something we didn't already know. Anyone who can still be shocked by newspapers' liberal bias hasn't been paying attention for a long time. The Washington Post is a Democratic newspaper, and a good one, for the most part. As I've said before, the Post is the most respectable voice of the Democratic Party. But it would be foolish to expect objectivity from what is essentially an arm of the Democratic Party.

Conservatives should stop talking about media bias and start founding (or buying) some newspapers of our own. Of course, until that happens we'll probably still complain about bias from time to time.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air [Right on time!] sums up DBKP's position on the matter exactly.

Why didn’t the Post want to look at the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama’s only executive experience prior to his run for the presidency? The media never bothered to make a hundredth of the effort on Obama that they did with Palin, and they had two years to do it.

That’s the issue Howell should have addressed in her column. We already know that the Post gave imbalanced coverage of Obama and McCain, as did most of the rest of the media. And now Howell gives the mea culpa in her first column after Election Day, when it’s far too late to do anything about it. Where was Howell during the last three months? Why wait until the election is over to speak up? That’s an answer in itself.

Gateway Pundit has a video of MSNBC's Chris Matthews. [Now That the Election is Over... Media Admits Bias For Obama] Matthews declares that his job as a journalist is to continue his Grand Obama Pimp he perfected during his election coverage.

There will be no traditional press honeymoon between Chris Matthews and Barack Obama, Matthews already having been guilt of the press equivalent of premarital sex.

Journalists not only love new...
They love Democrats.
Sarah Palin was new but they raked her over the coals.
Such is the demise of our mainstream media.
The one thing that is clear after this election-- If you want to find the truth you will have to go elsewhere for your news.

Two words-- Rashid Khalidi.

Jammie Wearing Fool, WaPo Ombudsman: Yes, We Were Completely In the Tank for Obama :

They found plenty of space to go over McCain's health in agonizing detail but ignored Obama's drug use, shady connections and mysterious undergrad years.

I'm sure they'll make up for their grossly imbalanced coverage now that their guy is safely in office. And I have an oceanfront spread in Wyoming up for sale.

It's to the Washington Post's credit to admit that its coverage emanated from within the tank. We may see more stories like this.

More likely, we'll see the usual apologia from the MSM about how they were non-biased stalwarts looking out for the interests of the unwashed sheeple who remain as their customers.

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NEW YORK Times



Since the NY Times ceased being a serious journalistic endeavor some time ago, we'll let its horrific coverage of Election 2008 pass without comment.

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LA Times and the Khalidi Video

The Lost Angeles Times' refusal to release the video of the Obamas, Rashid Khalidi and Bill Ayers is well-documented. The LA Times previously had ordered its reporters not to write on their blogs about John Edwards getting caught leaving his mistress Rielle Hunter's room at the Beverly Hilton--even after it had been confirmed by Fox News.

* Obama, Khalidi Hidden Video: The Evolution of the LA Times Excuses
* LA Times Obama-Rashid Khalidi Video: $175,000 Reward Offered for Tape
* Obama-Khalidi Tape: Blogger Obtains Quotes from Hidden Video UPDATED
* John Edwards-Rielle Hunter Love Child: LA Times Censors Reporters on Story

As the LA Times mulls over further lay-offs, it might examine its refusal to provide its remaining customers with a product they seek: news.

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NewsWeek Keeps its Obama Thoughts to Itself--until AFTER the Election

Mikes America, at Flopping Aces, tipped off a post election admission from Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas of Newsweek on Charlie Rose: Newsweek Editors: Obama a “Creepy,” “Deeply Manipulative,” “Creature”

Why didn’t they say this in their magazine BEFORE the election?

Yesterday I shared with you the audio of Tom Brokaw being interviewed by Charlie Rose where both men admit they don’t know who Obama really is or what he intends to do in office. Now, a post election admission from Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas of Newsweek; also interviewed by Charlie Rose. Audio is provided with commentary by Rush Limbaugh (transcript):

FA provides the Brokaw video, as well as a transcript, ending with the following observation by MA:

At what point will Meacham and Thomas, along with Brokaw and so many others face the fact that they committed journalistic malpractice by hiding the character concerns they are only now sharing about Obama? Were they just tooooo busy digging dirt on Sarah Palin’s children and Joe the Plumber to tell the American people what a “creepy,” “manipulative,” “creature” Obama is?

Yes, they kept all of this out of their publication before the election.

Again, we'll give Meachum and Thomas credit for admitting their bias.

As with the others, they get absolutely no credit for being journalists--their professed profession.

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by Mondo Frazier
images: dbkp file

Unreleased Obama Records: Did Obama Attend Columbia?

Who is Barack Obama?
The Still Unreleased Obama Records
Why Won't the Press Ask?



Medical Records
Occidental College Records
Columbia University Records
Harvard University Records
Birth Records
University of Chicago Records
Khalidi Video

Did Obama Even Attend Columbia?

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Three days before Election Day 2008 and much of Barack Obama's past remains shrouded in secrecy. The same press that can tell you how much Sarah Palin's shoes cost can't seem to muster any curiosity over large gaps in the Obama narrative.

Indeed, that same MSM press is as intent on hiding information as it is publishing it. [Obama, Khalidi Hidden Video: The Evolution of the LA Times Excuses]

The remaining customers of the LA Times have been treated to the spectacle of the Times making news by not reporting news--a familiar position for the paper.

In July, even though John Edwards was caught at the Beverly Hilton visiting his mistress by reporters from the National Enquirer--and it was confirmed a few days later by Fox News--the LA Times instructed its reporters NOT to write about it on their blogs. [John Edwards-Rielle Hunter Love Child: LA Times Censors Reporters on Story]

So, readers of the LA Times are used to being kept in the dark. The Obama-Khalidi video is just the latest instance of this happening.

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ALSO at DBKP: LA TIMES Suppressing the Obama-Khalidi Video

* Obama, Khalidi Hidden Video: The Evolution of the LA Times Excuses
* LA Times Obama-Rashid Khalidi Video: $175,000 Reward Offered for Tape
* Obama-Khalidi Tape: Blogger Obtains Quotes from Hidden Video UPDATED

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The Missing Obama Records:
Did Obama Attend Columbia?



An interesting article appeared yesterday at Unqualified Reservations, "Did Barack Obama Go to Columbia?".

Interesting because it speculates that the reason the Obama campaign has not released his Columbia records is--that Barack Obama didn't really attend Columbia.

Far-fetched?

Perhaps, but not as far-fetched as a candidate getting this far in the political process without the press issuing its normal calls to see records.

My question is: was Barack Obama ever a student at Columbia? Because here's how one scurrilous compendium of racist smears puts it:
Obama graduated from Columbia College in 1983, and after spending a year in New York, moved to Chicago.

Wayne Allyn Root says, "I don't know a single person at Columbia that knows him, and they all know me. I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever! ... Nobody recalls him. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding.

Questioner: Were you the exact same class?

Root: Class of '83 political science, pre-law Columbia University. You don't get more exact than that. Never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him. At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, 20th reunion, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me. No one ever heard of Barack! Who was he, and five years ago, nobody even knew who he was... the guy who writes the class notes, who's kind of the, as we say in New York, the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him. Is that not strange? It's very strange...

When asked about his undergraduate training at Columbia University, The New Times states that Obama "declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years."

Many of his classmates don't remember Obama. He's not in the yearbook. Columbia couldn't find a picture of him at school.

What can be said with some certainty is that Mr. Obama lived off campus while at Columbia in 1981-83 and made few friends. Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him.

As the author, Mencius Moldbug, observes: "What is the chance that a budding young politician of undeniable talent and promise spends his junior and senior years at Columbia, and no one remembers him? What is the chance that my right ass cheek, through spontaneous quantum vibration, suddenly transmutes into a hemisphere of polished gold? Don't you feel these probabilities are at least roughly comparable?"

The normal minions of the Obama campaign descended upon the blog, filling the comments section with their usual spammery. But, this article points to one inescapable fact.

If Obama released his Columbia records, such speculation--well-reasoned as it is--simply would not be written. Moldbug could be writing about Obama's re-distributionary policies.

Moldbug asks a few questions that would have been answered already--if Barack Obama had released his Columbia records.

Barack or Barry - note that he is still Barry while at Occidental; at the next place we know he existed, Harvard Law, he has become Barack - spends two years at Columbia. He presumably receives two years worth of college credits. By taking two years worth of college courses.

Furthermore, in every other period of his life, he is known as the gregarious and charismatic young man he obviously was. Nor can his looks be described as ordinary. Nor is even his name ordinary. This man is a future president. And no one remembers him? No one?

The Columbia records are part of a pattern:

• no medical records released to the press;
• no Occidental records released to the press;
• no Harvard University records released to the press;
• no Columbia records released to the press;
• the fight to gain access to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records;
• no original birth certificate released to the press

There's also another pattern: the press is perfectly satisfied to be kept in the dark. In 2004, CBS News had such a burning desire to see George Bush's service records, they foisted forged documents onto their viewers.

Perhaps that explains why CBS News has exhibited no curiosity to see the unreleased Obama records?

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ALSO at DBKP: The Missing Records of Barack Obama

* Obama Records: Obama Medical, College, University, Other Records Still Hidden
* Obama College, Medical, Birth Records: Who is Barack Obama?
* Obama Medical Records: MSM’s Don’t Ask, Obama’s Don’t Tell Policy
* Obama Records: Obama Campaign Still Refuses to Release Medical, Other Records

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Barack Obama certainly is a candidate for change. Consider:

• Barack Obama is the first candidate to opt out of public financing--after he promised on national TV he would not--since public financing started in 1976. That's quite a change.
  
• Barack Obama has not released his college, university or medical records. Obama has released more books (2) than he has records (0). That's also quite a charge.
  
• Barack Obama showed up in Joe the Plumber's neighborhood; Joe asked Obama a question and Obama's answer reveals an unpleasant fact: Obama wants to "spread (Joe's) wealth around". Obama partisans use state computers to look into Joe's supposedly private records and then leak the info to a lapdog press that publishes and broadcasts it. That's certainly a change.
  
• A Democrat attorney has to file suit in an attempt to see Barack Obama's birth certificate. The suit was dismissed over the issue of "standing". But the Obama legal team fought the suit instead of showing Obama's original birth certificate.

That's a lot of change.

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It would be easy enough to dispel the speculation surrounding the past that shrouds Barack Obama: Obama could release his records from Columbia.

And Occidental College.

And Harvard University.

And his medical records.

And his original birth certificate.

But he won't--and the press won't ask him.

Absent any of these records--which Obama has refused to release--speculation is not only correct, it's to be expected.

Obama has chosen to be a "fill-in-the-blanks" candidate.

Until the Obama records see the light of day, we'll fill in a few of those blanks.

Anyone who disagrees?

They know nothing; they are merely speculating as well.


by Mondo Frazier
image: dbkp file

Obama, Rashid Khalidi Video: LA Times Evolution of Excuses

Rashid Khalidi and Obama:
The LA Times Hidden Video
The Evolving Excuse-Mongering of the LA Times

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Why won't the LA Times release the video it has of Barack Obama attending, what one report called, a "Jew Bash" for former PLO spokesman and present Columbia professor, Rashid Khalidi?

The LA Times has had a week trying out a variety of excuses, before finally settling on one that--they hope--will take some of the heat off of them: "we promised our confidential source we wouldn't release it."

If what remained of the LA Times' readership didn't like the Times' reason for suppressing the video, no problem. They only had to wait a day or two and the Times gave a different excuse.

Let's take a look at how the LA Times tried out a variety of excuses for not releasing the video they had.

ALSO at DBKP:
* LA Times Obama-Rashid Khalidi Video: $175,000 Reward Offered for Tape
* Obama-Khalidi Tape: Blogger Obtains Quotes from Hidden Video UPDATED

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The Evolution of Excuse-Mongering


#1: "...Through with the story."
October 25, 2008

Wallston said that the article was written after he watched video taken at the Khalidi going away party. When I asked him about the video he said that as far as he was concerned he was through with the story.
--Confirmed: MSM Holds Video Of Barack Obama Attending Jew-Bash & Toasting a Former PLO Operative... Refuse to Release the Video!



#2: "The Times did write about the tape"
October 27, 2008

The Times did write about the tape, so I’m not sure what you mean aboutsuppressing the video or information from the video. Here is a copy of the report about the video.
--LA Times Responds to Readers: Get Lost



#3: "We're not a video service"
October 27, 2008

“We’re not a video service,” Doyle McManus, the Times Washington bureau chief, tells me. “We’re not suppressing anything. We were the first to report on these facts.” He declines to say whether the paper considered posting the video.
--Journalists Name 44th President


#4:Assorted Excuses
October 28, 2008

Brit Hume opened his Fox News show with this story today, and reported that the Times is now saying “No comment.”

LA Times excuses so far:

* “We did report on it. Why aren’t you happy with that?”

* “There are ethical problems with releasing the tape.”

* “No comment.”
--McCain Demands That LA Times Release Hidden Tape

#5:Promise to the Source
October 28, 2008

“The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it,” said the newspaper’s editor, Russ Stanton. “The Times keeps its promises to sources.”

There you have it.

Pick an excuse, any excuse.

by Mondo Frazier
image: AP

Obama-Khalidi Video: $175,000 Bounty Raised on Internet for Tape

LA Times Obama-Rashid Khalidi Video:
LA Times Won't Release Video of
Obama and Wife at Jew-Bash
McCain accuses the Times of covering up the information
Blogger Doug Ross Gets Tip on Two Obama Quotes at 2003 Event




“We should know about their relationship including, apparently, information that is held by the Los Angeles Times concerning an event that Mr. Ayers attended with a PLO spokesman.”

“The Los Angeles Times refuses to make that videotape public. I’m not in the business about talking about media bias but what if there was a tape with John McCain with a neo-Nazi outfit being held by some media outlet, I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different.”
--John McCain, to WAQI, also known as Radio Mambi

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Other Obama Ties to Hamas Fund-Raiser Revealed by LGF
Bloggers Offering $175,000 For Copy of Video
McCain Campaign Calling LA Times to Release Video
An Eye-raising Guest List

DBKP reported earlier today that Doug Ross received a pair of quotes from a source who had seen the video the LA Times is holding, "Obama-Khalidi Tape: Blogger Obtains Quotes from Hidden Video UPDATED".

Ross' story "RED ALERT tip: Two Quotes from the Obama-Khalidi Videotape", cites a source "from a person who has provided useful, accurate and unique data from LA before (e.g., "All six of CNN's 'undecided voters' were Democratic operatives"). Take it for what it's worth, but I believe this person is on target.


The two quotes offered by Ross' source are certainly reason enough that the LA Times would want to suppress the video. Obama is supposedly congratulating the

"Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine."

and

"there's been "genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis."

The source said that Obama used the quotes to "rile the audience (largely pro-Palestinian) up".

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Obama Campaign Has Still Refused
To Release Medical, College and University Records



The Wall Street Journal is reporting that McCain Accuses L.A. Times of Holding Back Obama Video.

John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, today accused the Los Angeles Times of withholding a videotape of an event that he asserted was attended by both Barack Obama and 1960s-era radical Bill Ayers. The campaign has repeatedly argued that Obama has not been straight about their relationship.

The videotape, described in an April L.A. Times story, was of a 2003 banquet honoring Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian activist and scholar. At the dinner, Obama spoke of their friendship and how much he had learned from him.

On Tuesday, a McCain spokesman first called on the newspaper to release the videotape, saying it would shed light on the relationship between Obama and Khalidi. Today, McCain repeated the call in an interview with a Cuban radio station, accusing the newspaper of bias and asserting that Ayers was at the event as well—a point that has not been reported anywhere. Palin made the same points from the stump.

The Times has provided four different excuses for not releasing the tape--finally settling on the latest, that "it was provided by a confidential source on condition that it not be released."

In a story published today, the newspaper said it did not publish the tape itself because it was provided by a confidential source on condition that it not be released. “The Times keeps its promises to sources,” said the newspaper’s editor, Russ Stanton.

Ross responds to this latest reason for not the LA Times not publishing the news:

"How frickin' stupid do they think we are? Someone gave the Times a videotape so it wouldn't be released? And they can't publish a transcript?"

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ALSO at DBKP:
Obama's Refusal to Release Medical, Other Records

* Obama Records: Obama Medical, College, University, Other Records Still Hidden
* Obama College, Medical, Birth Records: Who is Barack Obama?
* Obama Medical Records: MSM’s Don’t Ask, Obama’s Don’t Tell Policy
* Obama Records: Obama Campaign Still Refuses to Release Medical, Other Records

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Michelle Obama "Friend" of Hamas Fund-Raiser
MO's Name Later Scrubbed from Website Page

The website, Little Green Footballs, has been reporting on the existence of the Obama-Khalidi video at the LA Times and has been keeping track of the excuses the Times has used since being called upon to release the tape. [The LA Times is Hiding an Incriminating Video of Barack Obama at a Party with Radical Palestinian Activists and Bill Ayers]

LGF today reprinted a story from April that was ignored by Big Media at the time: Another Disturbing Unreported Barack Obama Association: a Terrorist Fundraiser.

Back in April, we reported on a page at the Barack Obama website belonging to a fundraiser named Hatem Elhady, former chairman of the Hamas-linked Islamic charity “Kindhearts.” One of the friends listed on Elhady’s page was none other than Michelle Obama, and we have the screenshots to prove it. When this page was exposed at LGF, the Obama campaign first erased Michelle Obama’s name from the page, then shortly afterward, the entire page disappeared.

I’m reposting these LGF articles below, because they got virtually no attention at the time.

***

Another big Barack Obama supporter: Hatem El-Hady, former chairman of the Toledo-based Islamic charity Kindhearts, closed by the US government in 2006 for terrorist fundraising: Terrorist Fundraisers for Obama.

El-Hady has now devoted himself to raising money for Barack Obama; he has a page at the official Obama campaign web site, with three “friends” listed on it: “Rick,” “Fatima from Toledo, Ohio,” and ... Michelle Obama.

The story at LGF has the page screenshots, both before and after it was laundered.

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What the LA Times will report is that Khalidi was often a spokesman for the PLO and that Khalidi and Obama, just like Bill Ayers, lived in the same neighborhood.

J-MAC ATTACK! CHARGES DAMNING BAM VID SUPRESSED:

In reporting on Obama's presence at the dinner for Khalidi, the article noted that some speakers expressed anger at Israel and at U.S. foreign policy, but that Obama in his comments called for finding common ground.

The Times reported today "Khalidi in the 1970s often spoke to reporters on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Khalidi later lived near Obama while teaching at the University of Chicago. He is now a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University in New York."

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BLOGGER BOUNTY for Khalidi VIDEO



Signs that the capitalist spirit is not dead in the Right half of the blogosphere.

From Newsbusters' PJ Gladnick: Obama/Ayers/Dohrn/Khalidi Video: $175,000 Reward/Bribe Offered to Newsmen to Report News:

This is pretty funny. A $175,000 reward/bribe is now being offered for a Los Angeles Times reporter to actually report the news, namely to release the Khalidi video that the Times refuses to let the public see. It started out with a mere $25,000 offer made by Ace of Spades (emphasis mine):

Well, I don't know if one will step forward. I can guarantee, though, that if the goods are delivered the blogosphere can contribute $20,000. In a matter of hours.

Maybe more. More would depend on the tape.

This offer includes is particularly directed towards Los Angeles Times employees. Maybe ones that just got fired. Or will get fired in the next couple of weeks.

Guaranteed.

Anonymous.

That's how we roll.

Pretty pathetic that we have to try to bribe "newsmen" to release newsworthy tapes.

If your conscience is troubled, They should have released it anyway.

Plus that $25,000. You know what helps an aching conscience? Rubbing it with crisp hundred dollar bills, that's what.

Yeah it just went up five g's. If I can get $5 grand in a donation drive, I'm pretty damn sure I can get $25,000 for the tape.

And no, not a stunt. One little blog gets $5 k in a donation drive. Something like this, with every blogger linking the donation button, would easily get in excess of $25,000.

From Dirty Harry's Place, "$150,000 Offered for Obama/Khalidi/Ayers Tape"

I’ve also received another offer from a private donor for an added $25,000 that I’m currently working to verify.



If Jerry Lewis showed up, we might get the bounty up over a quarter mil.

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THE GUESTS

Change and Experience Blog have done a lot of research and have compiled a lot of information including the guest list:(via Stop the ACLU, "$175,000 Reward Offered for Obama Khalidi Tape")

Those who attended (the guest list): 1. AAAN (Arab American Action Network) 2. Not In My Name 3. Ali Abunimah (a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, who met Obama in 2000) 4. Bernadine Dorhn and Bill Ayers 5. Barack Obama 6. Mayor of Chicago Richard Daley 7. Rashid Khalidi 8. Mona Khalidi 9. Gihad Ali, a Palestinian spoken word poet 10. NPR Worldview host Jerome McDonnell (not McDonald as written in the e-mail) 11. Camilia Odeh (director of SWYC Southwest Youth Collaborative) 12. Sanabel debka troupe (traditional Palestinian dance group) 13. Hatem Abudayyeh 14. Others - Up to 50 to 500, possibly 600 guests (based on Burbank Manor’s seating capacity capabilities)

Who knew?

Will the LA Times release its obviously newsworthy tape, in spite of the political fallout that could affect its chosen candidate?

Like the New York Times and AP, the LA Times makes more news when it suppresses the news than it does when it reports the news. This was true during the media blackout surrounding the John Edwards' scandal.

It's true in this case also.

Maybe the LA Times has hit upon a new business model. One that the editors feel will stop the layoffs, reverse the sagging ad revenues and lift circulation figures.

Or it could just be another sign of the Great American Media Putz-dom continuing--this time in the City of Angels.


by Mondo Frazier
images: dbkp file