News Hounds

Summertime, Summertime, Donation Drive

Reported by Donna - Tue 09:38 PM

Hello to all of our wonderful readers and commenters! If you've been around News Hounds for a while you know that we have 4 big fund raising times a year. For every season there is a donation drive.

Brit Hume Attacking John Kerry For Supposed Hypocrisy

Reported by Janie - Fri 09:44 AM

During the "Two Minutes of Hate" (AKA "Grapevine") segment on last night's (7/6) Special Report with Brit Hume, Hume once again attacked Senator John Kerry, while not providing all of the facts to his viewers.

O'Reilly's 15 Minutes of Shame

Reported by Judy - Fri 08:41 AM

If everyone gets 15 minutes of fame in the television age, BIll O'Reilly got 15 minutes of shame recently when he lost the ratings race to rival Keith Olbermann. And it wasn't even the night Olbermann named O'Reilly the "worse, worser, and worst person in the world."

List of Top 100 Radio Talk Show Hosts Includes Liberals

Reported by Marie Therese - Fri 08:09 AM

Talkers Magazine, the trade publication for the radio talk industry, published its bi-annual list of the Top Talk Radio Audiences. The thing that surprised me was that of the 38 talk show hosts listed in rankings from 1 to 13, five were liberals: Ed Schultz (9th), Al Franken (11th), Randi Rhodes and Alan Colmes (tied at 12th) and Stephanie Miller (13th). But, more importantly, several of these same progressives reached a coveted spot on Talkers' annual Heavy 100 list.

London Bombing Anniversary: FOX News Stirs the Terror Pot

Reported by Marie Therese - Fri 06:22 AM

Yesterday morning, E. D. Hill, co-host of FOX's ditzy and self-involved morning show FOX & Friends, was on assignment in London. She did a short report as a teaser for today's much more exhaustive campaign designed to work the FOX viewers into a fever pitch, a prelude to non-stop saturation coverage of last year's bloody bombings in London. The purpose, of course, is to roil the emotions of the conservative base, reducing them to a quivering mass of nerves, so fearful of the masked terrorist that they would willingly give up their freedoms just to be safe. Ms. Hill did her job as fear-monger with great enthusiasm, conjuring up gory pictures of blood-soaked streets and waxing eloquent about how England and America are united in a search to get rid of civil liberties in order to maintain public safety.

Sheehan and Baldwin and Belafonte - oh my!

Reported by Chrish - Fri 03:47 AM

John Kasich filled in for Bill O'Reilly on The Factor tonight 7/6/06 and in one segment with NPR's Juan Williams the two actually made an important point about the state of discourse in this country. They agreed that too often the extremists on either end of the political spectrum get all the attention, thereby hurting their own chances of reaching the less committed people in the middle. Unfortunately, the conversation was framed using exclusively examples from the liberal end of the debate - the far-left, as O'Reilly would have said.

Never on Sunday

Reported by Marie Therese - Fri 03:25 AM

During last night's interview with CNN's Larry King, President George Bush made this startling admission:

"I have an intelligence briefing every morning, except for Sunday."

We all know that God rested on the seventh day.

But what about al Qaeda?

“Real Journalism” FOX News’ Hannity & Colmes Silent About Ann Coulter’s Plagiarism And Voter Fraud Allegations

Reported by Ellen - Fri 02:32 AM

It’s been five days since the New York Post reported at least three instances of “textbook plagiarism” in Ann Coulter’s latest book and found “similar patterns of cribbing” in the last 12 months of her columns. Yesterday, Coulter’s syndicator, Universal Press Syndicate, announced it was going to probe the allegations, itself. And she remains under investigation for voter fraud in Florida, a third degree felony. But none of that was reported last night (7/6/06) on “fair and balanced” Hannity & Colmes where Coulter made another of her frequent appearances. Instead, she was hailed as a bestselling author, an expert on foreign and domestic affairs, in danger of being “stifled” by liberals.

Clinton's "bad deal" responsible for North Korean situation today

Reported by Chrish - Thu 11:22 PM

Julie Banderas, subbing for John Gibson on the Big Story today 7/6/06, teamed up with former RNC advisor Terry Holt to argue with NPR correspondent Juan Williams that ultimately Bill Clinton is responsible for the current stand-off. Williams was forceful and competent but got double-teamed by the supposed moderator and the Republican guest.

More "In-Kind" RNC Campaign Contributions Courtesy Fox News

Reported by Melanie - Thu 09:12 PM

Fox's "premiere business news" program, Your World w/Cavuto, concentrated today (July 6, 2006) not on business, but on politics (as usual), and the topic du jour was bashing Democrats for being responsible for the fix we're in over North Korea. The message was stock stuff but what struck me was the lack of even the teeniest, tiniest hint of that much-touted "fair and balanced" coverage.

After the first segment, a report by James Rosen from the White House, Ann Coulter (in her third appearance on this "business news" program since June 8) and Charles Smith of NewsMax (the apparent "balance" to Coulter), joined substitute host David Asman in a segment titled, "Is President Clinton to Blame for North Korean Crisis?"

Ken Lay's "timely death"

Reported by Chrish - Thu 08:40 PM

Julie Banderas, subbing for John Gibson on the Big Story tonight 7/6/06, had FOX senior business correspondent Terry Keenan on to discuss the financial implications of Ken Lay's "sudden death." It appears that not only will the government not be able to collect the roughly $43,000,000 in costs assessed, but employees and investors who were going to file civil suits will not be able to do so. As Keenan called it, a very "timely death" indeed.

Eric Shawn Continues Berating United Nations

Reported by Donna - Thu 04:37 PM

Anytime that Eric Shawn reports on the United Nations he seems to hold the institution in a kind of disdain. He eagerly reports when they've done something wrong and when they don't see things the same way as the Bush administration he goes in to his 'putting the UN down' mode.

Today on Studio B with Shepard Smith, Shawn reported on the UN Security Council's reaction to the missiles fired by North Korea.

Mailbox Unfunnies - A Very Special "Ask Kimberlee" Edition!

Reported by Chrish - Thu 10:56 AM

Hey, all! I was lucky enough to win a guest blog here at my favorite site, Newshounds. Amazingly, all these fine letters came addressed to me, so I feel compelled to answer them...ok, not really, but go with me on this one.

The names are invented, but I have preserved the rather interesting, and often brain-busting, spelling/punctuation/syntax.

So put on your fancy thinkin' caps, and let's have some fun!

Hume Attacks New York Times with Lies and Misrepresentation

Reported by Janie - Thu 09:39 AM

Last night (7/5) on Special Report with Brit Hume, Hume once again used his "Two Minutes of Hate" (AKA "Grapevine") segment to trash the New York Times over their recent article by Eric Lichtblau discussing the Bush Administration's plan to track terrorist finances, which Lichtblau claims was widely known. For this assault, Hume decried an article written by Lichtblau in 2005 which he claimed proved Lichtblau himself wasn't aware of the program, when in actuality Lichtblau was merely quoting a report from the GAO.

Hannity Repeats The Big Lie About The “Found” WMD’s

Reported by Ellen - Thu 05:11 AM

In the third segment about Iraq on last night’s Hannity & Colmes (7/5/06), Sean Hannity and guest, Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra, reiterated Hoekstra’s debunked claim about a report that WMD’s had been found in Iraq. But, rather than discuss Iraq’s WMD capability, the nature of the pre-war threat to the United States or even the war at all, Hannity and Hoekstra focused on blaming the “anti-Bush” Democrats and the media for ignoring the report. But Hannity and Hoekstra never explained why the White House was not giving it much attention, either. They also continued to overlook FOX News’ own report that “a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.”

Hannity & Colmes Tries To Make The Iraq War About Democrats

Reported by Ellen - Thu 04:53 AM

Last night (7/5/06) on Hannity & Colmes, there were three discussions purportedly about the Iraq war. But in each case, the real focus was on attacking Democrats, not terrorists. It was pretty clear which group is perceived as the more important target on FOX News.

CIA officials: hunt for bin Laden is on and just as strong as ever, they promise!

Reported by Chrish - Thu 02:24 AM

Julie Banderas substituted for John Gibson on yesterday's Big Story (7/5/06) and interviewed Mike Baker, a former CIA covert agent, about the revelation that the CIA has shut down the unit that had been focused on finding OBL. Baker is also a member of The Arkin Group, yet another well-connected "intelligence risk management" company with long ties to Bush I, the CIA, and the Middle East.

From loser to leader - Mexican presidential election squeaker

Reported by Chrish - Thu 12:26 AM

One of the headlines at the bottom of the hour during The Big Story yesterday 7/05/06 was "Leftist leads in Mexico recount". It caught my eye much as this morning's chyron on Fox News Live did, only the early one read "Leftist Loser...". This morning I thought, what a loaded phrase, and leave it to FOX to leave it on the screen all through a segment. Now that the manual recount is leaning to a win for the more liberal candidate the segment and graphic were much less prominent. Hm, where have we seen FOX call an election for the conservative before the results were clear?

As of now, 12;30am EDT 7/6/06 the "leftist" Andrés Manuel López Obrador is leading conservative Felipe Calderón by about 1.5 percentage points, but we won't know if that lead holds until all the votes are counted - what a concept.

Plain Talk From Wesley Clark About North Korea On FOX

Reported by Deborah - Wed 11:31 PM

Wesley Clarke spoke very clearly to John Kasich, subbing for O'Reilly tonight, about the situation we're facing in North Korea. Kasich tried his best to cloud the issues at hand with the FOX blame Clinton tactic but Clark wouldn't let Kasich get away with it. 7/5/06

Oil Hit a New High Today but Fox's "Premiere Business News" Program Buried the News

Reported by Melanie - Wed 06:19 PM

Oil prices climbed to a record high today (July 5, 2006) but if you weren't paying attention during Fox's "premiere business news program," Your World w/Cavuto, you'd have missed that rather significant news.

During a roundtable discussion with employees of Forbes magazine about what the market would have done had the North Korean missiles "worked," Forbes' publisher, Rich Karlgaard said,