Month: August 2010

FoxNews.com Is Dead Last Among News Websites

Jon Ponder

screencap-foxnews.comMediaWeek:

Foxnews.com averages around 12 million or 13 million monthly unique users, according to Nielsen Online, rarely approaching the 35 million to 40 million uniques that leaders Yahoo News, MSNBC and CNN regularly deliver in aggregate. Some of that disparity can be explained away, as both Yahoo and MSNBC draw heavy traffic from their portal counterparts, and CNN benefits from traffic driven by CNNMoney.com and Sports Illustrated’s site.

But even on its own, CNN.com consistently beats Foxnews.com by 7 million or 8 million unique users. Per comScore, the gap is even larger: 43.4 million uniques for CNN.com in June vs. 11.4 million for Foxnews.com. Plus, CNN.com regularly bests Foxnews.com in measures like page views, time spent and video streams—and it has opened an early lead in mobile (14 million uniques vs. 9 million in May for Fox, per Nielsen).

This reinforces my theory that liberal radio and television shows lag in ratings because, unlike right wingers, liberals can read. But seriously, while a lot of folks over 65 are online, it’s fair to say that they are more educated, and thus more liberal, than Fox’s audience, for which the average age was 65 in 2009.

Charlotte a Strong Contender to Host 2012 Democratic Convention

Jon Ponder

The tower in the center is the home office of Bank of America, designed by Cesar Pelli
The tower in the center is the home office of Bank of America, designed by Cesar Pelli
I am rooting for my former adopted hometown:

Four cities are officially in the running to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention. But after a recent site visit from about a dozen Democratic Party representatives, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx likes his city’s chances. Not that he would say one negative word about St. Louis, Cleveland or Minneapolis. He would rather talk about Charlotte’s “great new facilities” and “vibrant, can-do attitude.”

“For almost an entire generation, the Democratic Party has had a hands off attitude toward the South,” Foxx told me on Friday. Though it was barely 8 a.m., we watched as workers in a city that keeps bankers’ hours grabbed their coffee-to-go on the way to their offices. “The storyline is making the South a battleground,” the youthful Democratic mayor said, “coming to a state that has been significantly impacted by the economic downturn, proving its resilience every day.”

Verbatim

Jon Ponder

If this ruling is upheld, millions of Americans will face for the first time a legal system that is committed to the view that our deeply held moral views on sex and marriage are unacceptable in the public square, the fruit of bigotry that should be discredited, stigmatized and repressed. Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents’ views and values.

– Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for [Hets-Only] Marriage, offering the professional homophobes’ take on the ruling striking down Proposition 8.

Verbatim

Jon Ponder

Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it should read ‘a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.’ The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan [Muslim], the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.

– Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826), third president of the United States, author of the Declaration of Independence, referring to the Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom, which became law on January 16, 1786.

Tea Baggers Exposed Gaming the Digg System

Trish

digg

Here’s a story we doubt you’ll see reported on FOX News. AlterNet recently completed a year-long investigation into so-called “gaming the system” at the content aggregator, Digg. A Yahoo group calling itself the Digg Patriots (whose site has since been taken down) figured out how to rig Digg’s voting. If you don’t know, at Digg and many similar sites, you can vote for the stories you want to see featured prominently, or in this case, those you want “buried.” As AlterNet reported:

It’s easier to tell you what the group is against than what it’s for: Obama, progressives, diplomacy, health care reform, immigrants, science, the separation of church and state, acknowledgment of human-induced climate change, the government, pro-choice protections, public schools, and higher education. They also claim to believe Obama is a Muslim and a socialist, and that he was born in Kenya.

Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content).

The immensity of the impact is commensurate with the reach of Digg. Again, according to Alternet:

It is ranked 50th among US websites by Alexa (117th in the world), by far the most influential social media site…Digg generates around 25 million page views per month, over one third of the page views of the NY Times. Front page stories regularly overwhelm and temporarily shut down websites in a process called the “Digg Effect.”

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Conservative Olson: All Rights Aren’t Up for a Vote

Trish

Olson was probably only allowed to speak without being shouted down because of his conservative creds. After all, he was the man who won Bush v. Gore and was rewarded with the job of Solicitor General under George W. Bush. The entire exchange is great, but the part where he asks Chris Wallace whether we should also put FOX News’ right to free speech up to the voters is brilliant.

Polls Finally Open in Florida. Will the Republican Blood Letting End?

Trish

After what seems like decades, but is only a matter of hundreds and hundreds of days, the polls were finally opened in Florida, where early voting for the Aug. 24 primary began. I pity my Republican neighbors, who must choose between the guy with no lip and the guy with no eyebrows (or hair) as their candidate for governor. This video, produced by Democrat Alex Sink’s team, shows the state of the GOP primary.

Meanwhile my gal, Sink, has rightfully profited in polling and fundraising from the rancor on the GOP side. Recent polls show her up over her Republican opponents, by how much varying upon which candidate she is paired with. Her lead seems wider over McCollum than Scott. And she has about $5.8 million in the bank, which she’ll need if she finds herself running against multimillionaire Scott. Bud Chiles, son of Democratic governor Lawton Chiles, is trailing in polls with about 15 percent. Chiles is in the race as an independent, so if he stays in, it will be a three-way contest.

Fact Checkers: Palin Caught Lying about Bush Tax Cuts – In Other News, Sun Rises in East

Jon Ponder

It’s my theory that Sarah Palin is just George Bush in a skirt and weird S&M librarian glasses. Like Bush, she is both meagerly gifted and proud of her ignorance and, like Bush, if her lips are moving, she’s lying — or, in Palin’s case, if it appears in her Facebook blog, you should assume it is GOP disinformation and spin.

So it shouldn’t be news that both the leading non-partisan news analyst organizations — Factcheck.org and Politifact — examined her statements about the Bush tax cuts and found that she was blatantly and unabashedly lying, just as Bush himself would do if he weren’t in exile.

The reason it is news when Palin lies is that the atrocities must be documented because, in the hands of a team of Karl Rove Svengalis, it is within the realm of possibilities that at least 51 percent of Americans could be convinced to vote for her for president. If that happens, the GOP will complete the job they started in 1994 of finishing off the American middle class, once and for all.

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