Slate.com - publication

Rush mentioned Slate.com today, because an author named David Weigel had published a piece there called The Ghost of Willie Horton: Will the GOP play the race card on Rangel and Waters?

From Wikipedia:
Slate is an English-language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft, as part of MSN. On December 21, 2004, it was purchased by the Washington Post Company. Since June 4, 2008, Slate has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by the Washington Post Company to develop and manage web-only magazines.

A French version (slate.fr) was launched in February 2009 by a group of four journalists, including Jean-Marie Colombani, and economist Jacques Attali. Between them, the founders hold 50% in the publishing company, while the Slate Group holds 15%.

Since June 2008, David Plotz has served as the editor of Slate. He had been the deputy editor to Jacob Weisberg, Slate's editor from 2002 until his designation as the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of The Slate Group.

The Washington Post Company's John Alderman is Slate's publisher. Slate, which is updated daily, covers politics, arts and culture, sports, and news. It is ad-supported and has been available to read free of charge since 1999. The magazine is politically liberal and is known (and sometimes criticized) for adopting contrarian positions.

A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that Slate was the least trusted news source among its online counterparts with only 4% of respondents giving it top marks for credibility.[8]

Background
Slate features regular and semi-regular columns such as Explainer, Chatterbox, and Dear Prudence. Many of the articles tend to be short and relatively lighthearted pieces. There are also many meta-columns: collections and analyses of major newspapers, magazines, and blogs. It has a number of associated blogs, including the well-known Kausfiles. It also features frequent week-long diaries and a link to each day's Doonesbury, whose website is hosted by Slate. Podcasts of several of its columns are also available for download.

Slate used to contribute to the now canceled National Public Radio show Day to Day.

Slate features a set of online forums called "The Fray", the editing and moderator duties of which are left up to a "Fray Editor."

In March 1998, Slate attracted considerable notice by charging a $19.95 annual subscription fee, becoming one of the first sites (outside of pornography and financial news) to attempt a subscription-based business model. The scheme didn't work; in February 1999, Slate returned to free content, citing both sluggish subscription sales and increased advertising revenue. A similar subscription model would later be implemented by Slate's independently-owned competitor, Salon.com, in April 2001.

On July 15, 2005, Slate began offering a podcast, featuring selected stories from the site read by Slate editor Andy Bowers. This podcast now features regular gabfests, or roundtables, covering various topics. The political gabfest was the first, headed by John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon and David Plotz. Later, a culture gabfest was added. Slate's sister sites the Big Money and DoubleX also have regular roundtables which are available on the podcast. The sports gabfest, hangup and listen, is the most recent addition to the podcast.

Another podcast, featuring the Explainer column, was later added, read by Slate foreign editor June Thomas and later Samantha Henig. As of January 9, 2009 the Explainer podcast is on hiatus until further notice, to return "as soon as [its] budget allows." third, called "Slate's Spoiler Special," reviews movies for people who have already seen them.

In September 2005, Michael Kinsley returned to Slate, writing a weekly column published simultaneously in Slate and the Washington Post.

On November 30, 2005, Slate started a daily feature ”Today's Pictures,” featuring fifteen to twenty photographs from the archive at Magnum Photos that share a common theme. The column also features two flash animated ”Interactive Essays” a month.

In June 2006, on its 10th anniversary, Slate unveiled a redesigned website. In 2007, it introduced "Slate V", an online video magazine with content that relates to or expands upon their written articles.

Editorial stance
Slate's focus and editorial slant is politically liberal, as seen in choice of columnists, choice of and position on topics, and featured cartoon, Doonesbury. During the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, a significant majority of staff and contributors supported Democratic challenger John Kerry, and in 2008, Slate staff overwhelmingly favored Democrat Barack Obama.

Slate includes many voices of the Clintonian / Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) / neoliberal point of view. These include two of its bloggers: Mickey Kaus, whose favorite subjects include welfare reform and the potential for a future candidate from either party to reap major political gains by taking a law-and-order stance on immigration issues; and Bruce Reed, President Clinton's domestic policy adviser, and current president of the DLC. Jack Shafer, one of its top editors, has stated that he has voted for the Libertarian Party candidate for President in every election since he became eligible to vote.

One unusual feature of the magazine is that it explicitly states its staff's biases, going so far as to publish the presidential votes of individual staff members and writers. Slate frequently publishes columns that advocate a neoclassical view of economics, with articles written by economists such as Steven Landsburg and Tim Harford.

On the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Slate took a "liberal hawk" perspective, as represented in the contributions of Christopher Hitchens, William Saletan and others. Michael Kinsley and Timothy Noah were the only full-time Slate staffers who opposed the invasion, though Noah was briefly persuaded to abandon his relatively dovish position by Colin Powell.

In the years since the occupation began, however, the magazine has been increasingly critical of the war's management, most strongly in Fred Kaplan's "War Stories" column.

The Daily Beast - publication

Rush just mentioned The Daily Beast today. As he mentions these publications, I'll give information on them here, from Wikipedia (a copyright free site, but also one that anyone can go into and edit, so be aware of that.)

EDITED: Oops! I see I'd already covered The Daily Beast a week or so ago. Sorry, lousy memory. Won't happen again!




The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. About one-third of its content is original, while the rest is aggregated links to articles written by other news outlets. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC. Edward Felsenthal, a former Wall Street Journal editor, is the site's executive editor, and Stephen Colvin is its president.

The name of the site is derived from that of the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop.

Format
One of the features of The Daily Beast is the "Cheat Sheet", billed as "must reads from all over". Published daily, the "Cheat Sheet" offers a selection of articles from online news outlets on popular stories. The "Cheat Sheet" includes brief summaries of the article, and a link to read the full text of the article on the website of its provider.

Since launch, the site has introduced additional sections, including a video "Cheat Sheet", "Book Beast", "Hungry Beast", and "Sexy Beast",[4] a Fashion and Entertainment section. The site frequently creates encyclopedic landing pages on topical subjects such as Obama’s inauguration, the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, Michael Jackson, the Iran uprising, and the US Open.

The Daily Beast contributors include: Christopher Buckley, Scott Turow, Mark McKinnon, Douglas Rushkoff, Matthew Yglesias, Meghan McCain, Reihan Salam, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Gerald Posner, Simon Schama, Eric Alterman, Reza Aslan, Fatima Bhutto and others including Brown herself.

Major advertising, from brands such as HBO, British Airways, Bottega Veneta, Patricia Cornwell, and Bravo!, are featured on the site.

Popularity
According to a New York Times article, The Daily Beast had reached three million unique visitors per month as of September 28, 2009.

Beast Books
In September 2009, The Daily Beast launched a publishing initiative entitled Beast Books that will produce books by Beast writers on an accelerated publishing schedule.

Plagiarism controversy
In February 2010 it was claimed by Jack Shafer of Slate.com that the chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast, Gerald Posner, had lifted five sentences from a Miami Herald article and claimed that he had written them himself and was able to publish them in The Daily Beast under his own name. Shafer also discovered that Posner had written plagiarised content from a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, Texas Lawyer magazine and a healthcare journalism blog. An immediate internal investigation by The Daily Beast led to Posner's departure.

Drudge Report - Internet Publication

As Rush mentions a publication (internet, paper, etc), I'll give information on them here, from Wikipedia (a copyright free site, but also one that anyone can go into and edit, so be aware of that.)


From Wikipedia:
The Drudge Report is a conservative news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Andrew Breitbart, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many columnists.

Occasionally, Drudge authors news stories himself based on tips. The Report originated in 1996 as a weekly subscriber-based email dispatch. It was most famous for being the first news source to break the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the public after Newsweek decided not to publish the story.

Selected Stand-Alone Political Blogs & News Sites
Site Unique Audience Sept. 2008
huffingtonpost.com 4,545,000
politico.com 2,362,000
drudgereport.com 2,059,000
Source: comScore Media Metrix

Origins
The Drudge Report started as a gossip column focusing on Hollywood and Washington, D.C. Matt Drudge began the email-based newsletter called Report from an apartment in Hollywood, California, using his connections with industry and media insiders to break stories, sometimes before they hit the mainstream media. Drudge maintains the website from his home in Miami Beach, Florida, with help from Andrew Breitbart, who assists in story selection and headline writing.

Breitbart, who describes himself as "Matt Drudge’s bitch", works the afternoon shift at the Drudge Report, as well as running his own website (breitbart.com), and another website (BigHollywood.com) providing a conservative support system for people in the Los Angeles entertainment industry.

Drudge, who began his website in 1997 as a supplement to his $10/year email newsletter, received national attention in 1996 when he broke the news that Jack Kemp would be Republican Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 presidential election. In 1998, Drudge made national waves when he broke the news that Newsweek magazine had information on an inappropriate relationship between "a White House intern" and President Bill Clinton (the Monica Lewinsky scandal), but was withholding publication. After Drudge's report, Newsweek published the story.

Content
The Drudge Report site consists mainly of selected hyperlinks to news websites all over the world, each link carrying a headline written by Drudge or his editors. The linked stories are generally hosted on the external websites of mainstream media outlets. It occasionally includes stories written by Drudge — usually two or three paragraphs in length. They generally concern a story about to be published in a major magazine or newspaper. Drudge occasionally publishes Nielsen, Arbitron, or BookScan ratings, or early election exit polls that are otherwise not made available to the public.

The site carries advertisements that generate the site's revenue. The Drudge Report's advertising is sold by Vienna, Virginia-based ad firm Intermarkets.

In April, 2009, Associated Press announced that it would be examining the fair use doctrine used by sites like Google and Drudge Report to justify the use of AP content without payment.

On May 4, 2009, the US Attorney General's office issued a warning to employees in Massachusetts not to visit the Drudge Report and other sites because of malicious code contained in some of the advertising on the website. In March, 2010, antivirus company Avast! warned that advertising at the Drudge Report, New York Times, Yahoo, Google, MySpace and other sites carried malware that could infect computers. "The most compromised ad delivery platforms were Yield Manager and Fimserve, but a number of smaller ad systems, including Myspace, were also found to be delivering malware on a lesser scale, Avast Virus Labs said."

Design
The Drudge Report Web site has experienced very few changes since its 1997 debut, and remains entirely written in HTML with a mostly monochromatic color scheme of black boldface Courier New text on a plain white background. The Drudge Report was described by Cheryl Woodard, co-founder of PC, Macworld, PC World and Publish magazines, as "a big, haphazard mishmash of links and photos" and by Dan Rahmel as "popular despite a plain appearance".

The Report website is simple and, according to Paul Armstrong of webwithoutwords.com, retro in feel. Jason Fried of 37signals.com calls it "one of the best designed sites on the web." It consists of a banner headline and a number of other selected headlines in three columns in monospaced font. Most link to an outside source, usually the online edition of a newspaper, which hosts the story. When no such source is available, either because the story is 'developing' with little known details at the moment or is an exclusive scoop, a special page is created on the Drudge Report servers which contain text and possibly images.

There are different importance levels a story could appear as on the site, the rating of which relies on Matt Drudge's editorial discretion. The Report almost always holds one major story above the logo, usually just one sentence hyperlinked to the most important story of the day. Other stories surrounding the main headline can be found in the upper left hand side of the page and link to more specific articles dealing with aspects of the headline story. The standard story, either the headline or links below the logo, are written in black. The stories Drudge considers most important are in red, all under a single major headline in large, bold type. For especially important breaking stories, especially if still emerging, Drudge places art of a flashing red light on the screen.

Although the site initially featured very few images, it is now usually illustrated with five or six photographs. Generally the images, like the linked headlines, are hotlinked from other news agencies' servers.

Political leanings
Matt Drudge has said that he is a conservative, but "more of a populist". The Drudge Report website is generally regarded as conservative in tone, and has been referred to in the media as "a conservative news aggregator". More recently Richard Siklos, an editor of Fortune magazine, called the Drudge Report a "conservative bullhorn", the Los Angeles Times labelled Drudge a "well-known conservative warrior", the New York Times referred to him as a "conservative muckraker", and Glenn Greenwald called him a "right-wing hack".

Greenwald also wrote that the Drudge Report is part of the "Bush/Cheney right-wing noise machine", adding: "Allowing [websites like Drudge Report to dominate our political debates and drive media coverage guarantees a decrepit, rotted, and deeply corrupt country. ... Their endless lynch mob crusades supplant rational and substantive political debates."

Ben Shapiro of townhall.com wrote "The American left can't restrict Internet usage or ban talk radio, so it de-legitimizes these news sources. Ripping alternative news sources as illegitimate is the left's only remaining option -- it cannot compete with the right wing in the new media....They call Matt Drudge a muckraker and a yellow journalist."

A 2005 study placed the Drudge Report "left of center". The study was criticised by Mark Liberman and liberal media watchdogs. The authors stated that although "conventional wisdom" asserts that the Drudge Report is "relatively conservative", their methodology found it to be "centrist".

The authors placed Drudge Report in a dead heat with Fox News Special Report With Brit Hume, ABC's "Good Morning America", CNN's NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" as most centrist outlet. The study also noted that "...our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites... The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."

Influence
According to Mark Halperin, "Drudge's coverage affects the media's political coverage", effectively steering the media's political coverage towards what Halperin calls "the most salacious aspects of American politics." In The Way To Win, a book written by Halperin and John Harris, Drudge is called "the Walter Cronkite of his era." Democratic Party strategist Chris Lehane says "phones start ringing" whenever Drudge breaks a story, and Mark McKinnon, a former media advisor to George W. Bush, said that he checked the site 30–40 times per day. Matt Drudge has been criticized by other media news personalities: Bill O'Reilly twice called Drudge a "threat to democracy" in response to Drudge disclosing his book sales figures, and Keith Olbermann referred to Drudge as "an idiot with a modem".

Drudge (and his website) was labelled one of the "Top 10 anti-Barack Obama conservatives" by the US editor of The Daily Telegraph in February 2009.

In addition to the media influence, Drudge Report also has influenced design elements on other sites. Some with opposing view points [58] and some who use the same format of listing news. A left-leaning[ parody site called Drudge Retort was founded in 1998 as "a send-up of Mr. Drudge's breathless style".

Archives
Many reports from 1995 to early 1997 are available in the Usenet archive provided by Google Groups. A more extensive archive of the website is provided by Drudge Report Archives, which has archives since mid-November 2001 and stores snapshots of the Drudge Report homepage every two minutes.

Notable stories
Monica Lewinsky scandal
The Drudge Report attained prominence when it was the first to report what came to be known as the Lewinsky scandal. Drudge published the story on January 17, 1998, after Newsweek reportedly turned down the story.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
During 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group made claims about John Kerry's war record, which were mentioned by Drudge and investigated by major newspapers and TV networks.

Obama photo
Drudge published a photo of Barack Obama in Somali tribal dress on February 25, 2008, and reported that the photo had been sent to him by a Clinton campaign staffer. The publication of the photograph resulted in a brief war of words between the Clinton and Obama campaign organizations.

Prince Harry in Afghanistan
On February 28, 2008 Drudge published an article noting that Prince Harry of Wales was serving with his regiment in Afghanistan. Prince Harry was ten weeks into a front-line deployment in Afghanistan that was subject to a voluntary news blackout by the UK press. The blackout was designed to protect Prince Harry and the men serving with him from being specifically targeted by the Taliban.

An Australian weekly women’s magazine New Idea broke the story in January, but it was not followed up at the time. New Idea editors claimed ignorance of any news blackout.[71] Then a German newspaper, the Berliner Kurier, published a short piece on February 28, 2008, also before Drudge. Drudge subsequently claimed the report as an exclusive. Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, professional head of the British Army, said: "I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us". The Prince's tour of duty was prematurely ended, since his unit might be targeted by large scale suicide attacks intended to kill the Prince.

U.S. Senate Problems
On March 9, 2010, The Senate Sergeant-at-Arms claimed the site was "responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate...Please avoid using [this] site until the Senate resolves this issue...The Senate has been swamped the last couples (sic) days with this issue." The Drudge Report countered stating "it served more than 29 million pages Monday without an e-mail complaint about 'pop ups,' or the site serving 'viruses.'"

Controversial stories, errors and questions about sourcing
Exclusives
Research by the media magazine Brill's Content in 1998 cast doubt on the accuracy of the majority of the 'exclusives' claimed by the Drudge Report. Of the 51 stories claimed as exclusives from January to September 1998, the magazine found 31 (61%) were actually exclusive stories. Of those, 32% were untrue, 36% were true and the remaining 32% were of debatable accuracy.

Sidney Blumenthal lawsuit
In 1997, the Drudge Report reported that incoming White House assistant Sidney Blumenthal beat his wife and was covering it up. Drudge retracted the story the next day and apologized, saying he was given bad information, but Blumenthal filed a $30 million libel lawsuit against Drudge. After four years, Blumenthal dropped his lawsuit. Blumenthal said the suit had cost him tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. He agreed to pay $2,500 to Drudge's Los Angeles attorney for travel costs, claiming that Drudge was "backed by unlimited funds from political supporters who use a tax-exempt foundation." The Individual Rights Foundation, led by conservative activist David Horowitz, paid Drudge's legal fees in the Blumenthal lawsuit. A federal judge noted in the judgment that Drudge "is not a reporter, a journalist, or a newsgatherer. He is, as he admits himself, simply a purveyor of gossip."

Alleged John Kerry intern scandal
During the 2004 Presidential campaign, Drudge ran a story quoting General Wesley Clark, where Clark claimed that the John Kerry campaign would implode over an intern affair. Drudge reported that other news outlets were investigating the alleged affair. He removed it from the site shortly thereafter when the other news outlets dropped the investigations.

Alleged Bill Clinton illegitimate child
In 1999, the Drudge Report announced that it had viewed a videotape which was the basis of a Star Magazine and Hard Copy story. Under the headline, Woman Names Bill Clinton Father Of Son In Shocking Video Confession, Drudge reported a videotaped "confession" by a former prostitute who claimed that her son was fathered by Bill Clinton. The Report stated, "To accuse the most powerful man in the world of being the father of her son is either the hoax of a lifetime, or a personal turmoil that needs resolution. Only two people may know that answer tonight." The claim turned out to be a hoax.

Alleged CNN reporter heckling of GOP Senators
On April 1, 2007 Drudge cited an unnamed "official" source saying that CNN reporter Michael Ware had "heckled" Republican Senators McCain and Graham during a live press conference. Drudge reported that:

“ An official at the press conference called Ware's conduct "outrageous," saying, "here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I've never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter." ”
— The Drudge Report, Matthew Drudge

Ware disputed Drudge's report on CNN April 2, 2007, saying that the story was leaked "by an unnamed official of some kind to a blog", that the story was anonymous, and that no one was willing to put their name to it; he advised people to view the tape.[citation needed] Video hosted by Rawstory shows that Ware did not make a sound nor ask any question during the press conference. The Drudge Report did not retract or apologize for the story. Drudge's report was echoed in The Washington Times, which carried opinion questioning Ware's trustworthiness, and in many conservative blogs, some of which called for Ware's resignation.

Oprah and Sarah Palin
On September 5, 2008 the Drudge Report reported that Oprah staffers were "sharply divided on the merits of booking Sarah Palin." He said that he obtained the information from an anonymous source. Winfrey responded in a written statement to news outlets that: "The item in today’s Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates." Oprah Winfrey's public statement came after she had already used her show to publicly endorse Barack Obama for president. Drudge was accused of planting a false story for political ends by some commentators.

Ashley Todd attack hoax
On October 23, 2008, Drudge published an unconfirmed exclusive story regarding Ashley Todd, the 20-year old employee of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) and John McCain volunteer who had allegedly been attacked by a black male for having a McCain sticker on her car. Drudge reported the story without a link but as 'developing', titling the headline "SHOCK: McCAIN VOLUNTEER ATTACKED AND MUTILATED IN PITTSBURGH - "B" carved into 20 yr old Woman's Face". The story set off a "storm of media attention",[87] being quickly picked up by many conservative bloggers and right-wing talk radio show hosts, all citing the Drudge Report as their source. It was also reported in newspapers and TV both in the US and around the world. The story was confirmed to be a hoax perpetrated by Todd and, according to Talking Points Memo, spread to reporters by McCain's Pennsylvania Communications Director.

Drudge then printed a retraction of the story, including links to the news stories detailing that the attack had been a hoax and that Ashley Todd had performed a similar 'attack' on herself while working for the Ron Paul campaign.

Real Clear Politics - publication

From Wikipedia:

RealClearPolitics is a non-partisan political news and polling data aggregator based in Chicago, Illinois. The site's founders say their goal is to give readers "ideological diversity." They have described themselves as frustrated with what they perceive as anti-conservative, anti-christian media bias, and while some have suggested the column selection is conservative-leaning, the site includes columns and commentary from both sides of the political spectrum.

The site was founded in 2000 by former options trader John McIntyre and former advertising agency account executive Tom Bevan. Forbes Media LLC bought a 51% equity interest in the site in 2007.

Origin and philosophy
Origin
The Web site was founded in 2000 by McIntyre, a former trader at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and Bevan, a former advertising agency account executive. McIntyre explained "[i]t really wasn't any more complicated than there should be a place online that pulled together all this quality information." They call what they do "intelligent aggregation." The site has grown in election-season spurts since it first went online. It has expanded from a two-man operation on a shoestring budget to a full-time staff of more than two-dozen employees overseeing the company's mainstay, RealClearPolitics, as well as three smaller sites: RealClearMarkets, RealClearWorld, and RealClearSports.

Philosophy
In an interview with the conservative magazine Human Events, McIntyre described the philosophy behind the Web site as based on "freedom" and "common-sense values." Said Bevan, "We think debate on the issues is a very important thing. We post a variety of opinions." He further stated, "we have a frustration all conservatives have", which is "the bias in media against conservatives, religious conservatives, [and] Christian conservatives."

When Nate Silver of rival site FiveThirtyEight.com claimed RealClearPolitics.com was rigging its averages to favor Senator John McCain and other Republicans, McIntyre denied having a conservative bent, stating, "We’re running a business, We have no interest in screwing around with that for partisan purposes.” Silver later backed away from the claim and said the two sites had a friendly rivalry and grudging respect for each other.

Format
Updated continuously, the RealClearPolitics sites, which are based in Chicago, aggregate content from a wide range of sources, sources that run the gamut of locations and political persuasions. Stories from the Washington Post and other large-circulation media frequently run alongside articles from such lesser-known papers as the Ottawa Citizen, while analyses from the liberal New Republic may be paired with more conservative publications such as the Weekly Standard. McIntyre's purported objective is "to give readers ideological diversity. We're trying to stay immersed in the nation's political bloodstream at all times. That way, we can show you every small, little twist and turn, and give multiple sides to every story."

Ownership
Forbes Media announced on November 7, 2007 that it had acquired a 51% stake in RealClearPolitics.com. The founders will remain owners and management. In November, 2008, Forbes President and CEO Steve Forbes sent a memo directing that the company's online brands, including Forbes.com, Investopedia and RealClearPolitics.com be combined.

RealClearPolitics also owns RealClearMarkets, RealClearWorld and RealClearSports. RealClearMarkets and RealClearSports were launched in November 2007. RealClearWorld, the international news and politics site, was launched in August 2008.

Original content
In addition to linking to external content, RealClearPolitics also provides original commentary.

Bevan and Kyle Trygstad write "The RCP Blog," which is hosted by TIME. Trygstad and Mike Memoli write the "PoliticsNation" blog. Doctoral student Jay Cost writes the "HorseRaceBlog." Veteran journalist Doug Clawson writes the "Media Watch" blog.

The site's political commentary, election analysis and polling averages have been featured in national media outlets, including The New York Times,Fox News Channel, The Economist, Investor's Business Daily, and The Chicago Sun-Times. RealClearPolitics polling averages are used on MSNBC's Hardball, Fox News, and the Web sites of CBS News and the Washington Post.

Political poll averaging
Statisticians explain that it is sometimes misleading to average results from multiple polls. Richard Gott III, a professor at Princeton, and Wes Colley, a researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, published findings in the journal Mathematical and Computer Modeling. New York Times contributor Neil Tyson, wrote in an Op-Ed piece that “in swing states, the median result of all the polls conducted in the weeks prior to an election is an especially effective predictor of which candidate will win that election — even in states where the polls consistently fall within the margin of error.”

Reader reactions
New York Times columnist David Brooks said, "Some people wake up every morning with a raw egg and exercise. I wake up every morning with RealClearPolitics.com. It's the perfect one-stop shopping for the smartest commentary on politics and life." Howard Fineman, Newsweek chief political correspondent, states that, "RealClearPolitics.com is a site that makes a credible effort to do the impossible: to provide a comprehensive, real-time (and not just Beltway- based) overview of the entire American political conversation.

Salon.com - publication

From Wikipedia:
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group (OTCBB: SLNM), often just called Salon, is an online magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot as one of the internet's first online publications. Salon primarily focuses on left-leaning American politics, but it covers a range of issues. Reviews and articles about music, books and films are also a prominent feature of the site. Salon's headquarters are located west of downtown San Francisco, California. Its current editor-in-chief is Joan Walsh.

Content and coverage
Salon magazine covers a variety of topics. It has reviews and articles about music, books, and films. It also has articles about "modern life", including relationships, friendships and human sexual behavior. It covers technology, with a particular focus on the free software/open source movement.

Salon has always been an interactive site to some degree. The "salon" concept is played out in two discussion board communities open exclusively to online subscribers, Salon Table Talk and The WELL, and since 2005, comments on editorial stories open to all readers.

In 2008, Salon launched its biggest interactive initiative, Open Salon, a social content site/blog network for its readers.

Responding to the question "how far do you go with the tabloid sensibility to get readers?", former Salon.com editor-in-chief David Talbot said:

Is Salon more tabloid-like? Yeah, we've made no secret of that. I've said all along that our formula here is that we're a smart tabloid. If by tabloid what you mean is you're trying to reach a popular audience, trying to write topics that are viscerally important to a readership, whether it's the story about the mother in Houston who drowned her five children or the story on the missing intern in Washington, Chandra Levy.

Salon.com has also been criticized for its left-leaning content by notable figureheads of the libertarian movement such as Lew Rockwell. Lew Rockwell and those affiliated with his movement like economist Tom Woods have described some of the content published at Salon.com as inaccurate and politically-motivated smear attacks.

Key people
Regular contributors include the political opinion writers Glenn Greenwald and Mike Madden; investigative reporter Mark Benjamin; critics Laura Miller, Heather Havrilesky, Stephanie Zacharek and Andrew O'Hehir; columnist Garrison Keillor; aviation columnist Patrick Smith, culture critic Camille Paglia; feminist writer Rebecca Traister; advice columnist Cary Tennis, and cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, author of This Modern World.

David Talbot was the founder and original editor-in-chief. Richard Gingras is the CEO. Joan Walsh is the editor-in-chief. Kerry Lauerman is Salon's executive editor. Gail Williams manages The WELL. Norman Blashka is the CFO and VP of Operations.

History
Salon itself was first published in 1995, later purchasing the virtual community The WELL in April 1999, and making its initial public offering of Salon.com on the NASDAQ stock exchange on June 22 of that year.

Salon Premium, a pay-to-view (online) content subscription was introduced on April 25, 2001. The service signed over 130,000 subscribers and staved off discontinuation of services. However, less than two years later, in November 2002, the company announced it had accumulated cash and non-cash losses of $80 million, and by February 2003 it was having difficulty paying its rent, and made an appeal for donations to keep the company running.

On October 9, 2003, Michael O'Donnell, the chief executive and president of Salon Media Group, said he was leaving the company after seven years because it was "time for a change." When he left, Salon.com had accrued $83.6 million in losses since its inception, and its stock traded for 5¢ on the OTC Bulletin Board. David Talbot, Salon's chairman and editor-in-chief at the time, became the new chief executive. Elizabeth "Betsy" Hambrecht, then Salon's chief financial officer, became the president.

In July 2008, Salon launched Open Salon, a "social content site" and "curated blog network" It was nominated for a 2009 National Magazine Award. in the category "best interactive feature."

Business model and operations
Aspects of the Salon.com site offerings, ordered by advancing date:

--Free content, around 15 new articles posted per-day, revenues wholly derived from in-page advertisements.
--Per-day new content was reduced for a time.
--Salon Premium subscription. Approximately 20% of new content made available to subscribers only. Other subscription benefits included free magazines and ad-free viewing. Larger, more conspicuous ad units introduced for non-subscribers.
--A hybrid subscription model. Readers now can read content by viewing a 15-second full screen advertisement to earn a "day pass" or gain access by subscribing to Salon Premium.

Government Executive .com - publication

I don't think Limbaugh has ever mentioned this website, but I found it yesterday when looking up the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act.

From Wikipedia:

Government Executive is an American trade magazine, founded in 1979. In 2009, the independent research firm Market Connections, Inc. cited the magazine as the number one publication read by federal managers. It is part of Atlantic Media Company and owned by David Bradley.

The editorial team is led by Tom Shoop, along with managing editor Sue Fourney and Executive Editor Allan Holmes, who also oversees tech-focused Nextgov sister site. The editorial staff includes veteran reporters Bob Brewin and Katherine McIntire Peters. The magazine is distributed free to senior executives in federal, state and local governments.

This is actually a pretty interesting website/publication. Take a look at it at http://www.govexec.com/.

Headlines from July 22, 2010:
Panel: Pentagon should freeze hiring, slash management 07/22/10

Defense Business Board also recommends major changes to retirement system.

Obama: Administration attacking waste with a 'vengeance' 07/22/10 President mocks unnecessary agency spending in remarks at ceremony to sign improper payments legislation.

Troubles loom for some military pay 07/22/10 All three military services signaled during hearing that they would have to furlough civilians in the coming weeks if Congress doesn't pass supplemental soon.

Polling Station: Workplace Safety
The president wants fewer injuries and illnesses on the job. Give us your feedback on safety and workers' compensation.

MSPB finds shortfalls in front-line manager hiring and training 07/22/10 Technical competence is favored over leadership skills when choosing supervisors, report says.

Burning Question: What do you wish your employees did? 07/22/10 Meet deadlines? Quit gossiping? Retire if you're just interested in the job any more?

FEATURE HIGHLIGHT
The Power of the Purse
The procurement process has long been used as a lever to influence social policy, but some say favoring contractors who pay higher wages would be going too far.

Agencies didn't reinvent the wheel on stimulus contracts 07/22/10

The Week in Comments: Accountability and race 07/22/10

From Nextgov.com: White House cites use of health data as example of its innovation initiative 07/22/10

SPECIAL REPORT
Best Dates to Retire 2011
Our Retirement Planning columnist, Tammy Flanagan, takes a look at next year's calendar to find the best days to leave to maximize your benefits under CSRS or FERS.

OMB's handling of USDA funding has lawmaker fuming 07/22/10
USDA offers Sherrod civil rights job 07/21/10

Supervisor training bill clears House subcommittee 07/21/10

From Nextgov.com: Union, GSA at odds over personal use of social networking sites 07/21/10

--Virginia Democrat objects to federal pay freeze
--USDA official resigns over racial comments
--Pharmacists back measures to cut feds' prescription drug costs
--Feds ordered to cut pollution from travel, commuting
--Five Meeting Mistakes

Politico - Publication

From Wikipedia:
Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C. includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency. It was a sponsor of the 2008 Republican Presidential candidates debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on May 3, 2007, and the 2008 Democratic Presidential candidates debate at the Kodak Theater on January 31, 2008.

John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei left The Washington Post to become Politico's editor-in-chief and executive editor, respectively, launching the newspaper on January 23, 2007. Frederick J. Ryan Jr., former Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, is president and CEO.

Ownership, distribution and content
Politico is financed by Robert Allbritton, chairman and chief executive of Allbritton Communications, which owns television stations in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, all affiliated with the Disney-owned ABC network.

The newspaper has a circulation of approximately 32,000, distributed for free on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in Washington, D.C. The newspaper prints up to five issues a week while Congress is in session, and sometimes publishes one issue a week when Congress is in recess. It carries advertising, including full-page ads from trade associations and a large help-wanted section listing Washington political jobs.

Politico is a partner with several news outlets that co-report and distribute its video, print, and audio content. Partners include CBS News, Allbritton Communications's ABC station WJLA and cable channel News Channel radio station WTOP-FM, and Yahoo! News election coverage.

Journalists covering political campaigns for Politico carry a video camera with them to each assignment, and journalists are encouraged to promote their work elsewhere. Though Politico seeks to break the traditional journalism mold, it expects to initially make much of its money from Washington D.C.–focused newspaper advertising.

After progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America accused Politico of having a "Republican tilt," Politico's Ben Smith answered: "Media Matters has a point: ...that Bush's public endorsement made us seem too close to the White House. That was clearly a favor from the president to us (albeit a small one), and felt to me like one of those clubby Beltway moments that make the insiders feel important and the outsiders feel (accurately) like outsiders." The other primary editors disagreed with the general accusation for a varitey of reasons and some pointed to accusations of a liberal bias from the other side of the political spectrum.

In September, 2008, The New York Times reported that Politico would expand its operations following the 2008 presidential election: "after Election Day, [Politico] will add reporters, editors, Web engineers and other employees; expand circulation of its newspaper edition in Washington; and print more often."

A 2009 profile of the organization in Vanity Fair said Politico had an editorial staff of 75 and a total staff of 100. Its circulation is around 32,000 and as of summer 2009 its web traffic was around 6.7 million unique visitors per month. This is less than the 11 million it had during the high point of the campaign, but most political news outlets have lower traffic outside election years. As of July it was expected to have annual revenue of around $15 million, primarily from the printed product, enough for the publication to remain financially solvent.

Wall Street Journal - publication

From Wikipedia:

The Wall Street Journal [foundedJuly 8, 1889] is an English-language international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, in New York City, with Asian and European editions.

The Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States by circulation. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 2.1 million copies (including 400,000 online paid subscriptions) as of March 2010 compared to USA Today's 1.8 million. Its main rival in the business newspaper sector is the London-based Financial Times, which also publishes several international editions.

The Journal primarily covers U.S. and international business, and financial news and issues. Its name derives from Wall Street in New York City, the heart of the financial district, and has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The newspaper version has won the Pulitzer Prize thirty-three times, including 2007 prizes for its reporting on backdated stock options and the adverse effects of China's booming economy.

History
Beginnings
Dow Jones & Company, publisher of the Journal, was founded in 1882 by reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Jones converted the small Customers' Afternoon Letter into the Wall Street Journal, first published in 1889, and began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph. The Journal featured the Jones 'Average', the first of several indexes of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange.

Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902; circulation was then around 7,000 but climbed to 50,000 by the end of the 1920s. Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism.

Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that greatly effected the Great Depression in the United States. Barron's descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007.

The Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, and company CEO in 1945, eventually compiling a 25-year career as the head of the Journal. Kilgore was the architect of the paper's iconic front-page design, with its "What's News" digest, and its national distribution strategy, which brought the paper's circulation from 33,000 in 1941 to 1.1 million at the time of Kilgore's death in 1967. It was also on Kilgore's watch, in 1947, that the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize, for editorial writing.

The Wall Street Journal nevertheless fell on uncertain times in the 1990s, as declining advertising and rising newsprint costs—contributing to the first-ever annual loss at Dow Jones in 1997—raised speculation that the paper might have to drastically change, or be sold. It is commonly held to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web, with 980,000 paid subscribers in mid-2007. As of May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of the Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition.

Vladimir Putin with Journal correspondent Karen Elliott House in 2002On November 30, 2004 Oasys Mobile and the Wall Street Journal released an application that would allow users to access content from the Wall Street Journal Online via their mobile phone. It "will provide up-to-the-minute business and financial news from the Online Journal, along with comprehensive market, stock and commodities data, plus personalized portfolio information--directly to a cell phone."

The paper's paid content is available free, on a limited basis, to America Online subscribers, and through the free Congoo Netpass. Many Wall Street Journal news stories are available through free online newspapers that subscribe to the Dow Jones syndicate. Pulitzer-prize winning stories from 1995 are available free on the Pulitzer web site.

In September 2005, the Journal launched a weekend edition, delivered to all subscribers, which marked a return to Saturday publication after a lapse of some 50 years. The move was designed in part to attract more consumer advertising.

In 2005 the Journal reported a readership profile of about 60 percent top management, an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, and an average age of 55.

In 2007 the Journal launched a worldwide expansion of its website, to include major foreign-language editions. The paper had also shown an interest in buying the rival Financial Times.

Website content is available, like the print edition, to paid subscribers.

Design changes
In 2006, the Journal began including advertising on its front page for the first time. This followed the introduction of front-page advertising on the Journal's European and Asian editions in late 2005.

After presenting nearly identical front-page layouts for half a century—always six columns, with the day's top stories in the first and sixth columns, "What's News" digest in the second and third, the "A-hed" feature story in the fourth and themed weekly reports in the fifth column -- the paper in 2007 decreased its broadsheet width from 15 to 12 inches while keeping the length at 22 3/4 inches, in order to save newsprint costs. News design consultant Mario Garcia collaborated on the changes. Dow Jones said it would save US$18 million a year in newsprint costs across all the Wall Street Journal papers. This move resulted in the loss of one column of print, pushing the "A-hed" out of its traditional location (although the paper now usually includes a quirky feature story on the right side of the front page, sandwiched among the lead stories).

The paper still uses ink dot drawings called hedcuts, introduced in 1979, rather than photographs of people, a practice unique among major newspapers and a method of illustration considered to be a consistent visual signature of the paper. The Journal still heavily employs the use of caricatures, notably those of Ken Fallin, such as when Peggy Noonan memorialized recently-deceased newsman Tim Russert. Nevertheless, the use of color photographs and graphics has become increasingly common in recent years with the addition of more "lifestyle" sections.

News Corp. purchase
On May 2, 2007, News Corp. made an unsolicited takeover bid for Dow Jones, offering US$60 a share for stock that had been selling for US$33 a share. The Bancroft family, which controlled more than 60% of the voting stock, at first rejected the offer, but later reconsidered its position.

Three months later, on August 1, 2007, News Corp. and Dow Jones entered into a definitive merger agreement. The controversial US$5 billion sale added the Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch's news empire, which already included Fox News Channel, financial network unit and London's The Times, and locally within New York, the New York Post, along with Fox flagship station WNYW (Channel 5) and MyNetworkTV flagship WWOR (Channel 9).

On December 13, 2007, shareholders representing more than 60 percent of Dow Jones's voting stock approved the company's acquisition by News Corp.

In an editorial page column, publisher L. Gordon Crovitz said the Bancrofts and News Corp. had agreed that the Journal's news and opinion sections would preserve their editorial independence from their new corporate parent:

“ Mr. Murdoch told the Bancrofts that 'any interference -- or even hint of interference -- would break the trust that exists between the paper and its readers, something I am unwilling to countenance.' ... Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts agreed on standards modeled on the longstanding Dow Jones Code of Conduct. ”

A special committee was established to oversee The Journal's editorial integrity. But after the managing editor, Marcus Brauchli resigned on April 22, 2008, the committee said that he resigned under pressure, and that News Corporation had violated its agreement by not notifying the committee earlier. Brauchli said that he thought it was reasonable that new owners would appoint their own editor.

However, a June 5 Journal news story quoted charges that Murdoch had made and broken similar promises in the past. One large shareholder commented that Murdoch has long "expressed his personal, political and business biases through his newspapers and television stations." Journalist Fred Emery, formerly of the British newspaper The Times, recounted an incident when Murdoch was reminded of his own earlier promises not to fire The Times' editors without independent directors' approval and allegedly responded, "God, you don't take all that seriously, do you?"

Features
Since 1980, the Journal has published in several sections. At one time, The Journal's page count averaged as much as 96 pages an issue, but with the industry-wide decline in advertising, the Journal in 2009-10 has more typically published about 50 to 60 pages per issue. Regularly scheduled sections are:

Section One – every day; corporate news, as well as political and economic reporting and the opinion pages
Marketplace – Monday through Friday; coverage of health, technology, media, and marketing industries (the second section was launched June 23, 1980)
Money and Investing – every day; covers and analyzes international financial markets (the third section was launched October 3, 1988)
Personal Journal – published Tuesday through Thursday; covers personal investments, careers and cultural pursuits (the section was introduced April 9, 2002)
Weekend Journal – published Fridays; explores personal interests of business readers, including real estate, travel, and sports (the section was introduced March 20, 1998)
Pursuits – formerly published Saturdays; section was originally introduced September 17, 2005 with the debut of the paper's Weekend Edition; focused on readers' lifestyle and leisure, including food and drink, restaurant and cooking trends, entertainment and culture, books, fashion, shopping, travel, sports, recreation, and the home. The Pursuits section was renamed Weekend Journal beginning with the September 15, 2007 publication.
In addition, several columnists contribute regular features to the Journal opinion page and OpinionJournal.com:

Daily - Best of the Web Today by James Taranto
Monday - Americas by Mary O'Grady
Tuesday - Global View by Bret Stephens
Wednesday - Business World by Holman W. Jenkins Jr
Thursday - Wonder Land by Daniel Henninger
Friday - Potomac Watch by Kimberley Strassel, Declarations by Peggy Noonan
Weekend Edition - Rule of Law and The Weekend Interview (variety of authors)

Opinions
Editorial page
Further information: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

Editors
William Peter Hamilton, fourth

Critics
Two summaries published in 1995 by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and in 1996 by the Columbia Journalism Review. criticized the editorial page of the Journal for inaccuracy during the 1980s and 1990s.

The Journal won its first two Pulitzer Prizes for editorial writing in 1947 and 1953.

The Journal describes the history of its editorials:

“ They are united by the mantra "free markets and free people", the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities. If these principles sound unexceptionable in theory, applying them to current issues is often unfashionable and controversial. ”

Its historical position was much the same, and spelled out the foundation of its editorial page:

“ On our editorial page, we make no pretense of walking down the middle of the road. Our comments and interpretations are made from a definite point of view. We believe in the individual, his wisdom and his decency. We oppose all infringements on individual rights, whether they stem from attempts at private monopoly, labor union monopoly or from an overgrowing government. People will say we are conservative or even reactionary. We are not much interested in labels but if we were to choose one, we would say we are radical. Just as radical as the Christian doctrine. (William H. Grimes, 1951) ”

Every Thanksgiving the editorial page prints two famous articles that have appeared there since 1961. The first is titled "The Desolate Wilderness" and describes what the Pilgrims saw when they arrived at the Plymouth Colony. The second is titled "And the Fair Land" and describes in romantic terms the "bounty" of America. It was penned by a former editor Vermont C. Royster, whose Christmas article "In Hoc Anno Domini", has appeared every December 25 since 1949.

Economic issues
During the Reagan administration, the newspaper's editorial page was particularly influential as the leading voice for supply-side economics. Under the editorship of Robert Bartley, it expounded at length on such economic concepts such as the Laffer curve and how a decrease in certain marginal tax rates and the capital gains tax can increase overall tax revenue by generating more economic activity.

In the economic argument of exchange rate regimes (one of the most divisive issues among economists), the Journal has a tendency to support fixed exchange rates over floating exchange rates in spite of its support for the free market in other respects. For example, the Journal was a major supporter of the Chinese yuan's peg to the dollar, and strongly disagreed with American politicians who were criticizing the Chinese government about the peg. It opposed the moves by China to let the yuan gradually float, arguing that the fixed rate benefited both the United States and China.

The Journal's views can be compared with those of the British magazine The Economist with its emphasis on free markets. However, the Journal demonstrates important distinctions from European business newspapers, most particularly with regard to the relative significance of, and causes of, the American budget deficit. (The Journal generally points to the lack of foreign growth, while business journals in Europe and Asia blame the low savings rate and concordant high borrowing rate in the United States).

Political issues
The editorial board has long argued for a less restrictive immigration policy. In a July 3, 1984 editorial, the board wrote: If Washington still wants to 'do something' about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders.' This stand on immigration reform has placed the Journal as an opponent of most conservative activists and politicians, for example National Review, who favor heightened restrictions on immigration.

The Journal in recent years has strongly defended Lewis Libby, whom it portrays as the victim of a political witchhunt. It has also published editorials comparing the attacks by Seymour Hersh, and The New York Times on Leo Strauss and his alleged influence in the George W. Bush administration with those of Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe conspiracy theorist and perennial presidential candidate.

The Journal editorials are a strong defender of US support for Israel and opposes statehood for Palestine

Some former Wall Street Journal reporters have said that since Rupert Murdoch bought the paper, news stories have been edited to adopt a more conservative tone, critical of Democrats. The editorial page routinely publishes articles by scientists skeptical of the theory of global warming, including several essays by Richard Lindzen of MIT.

News and opinion
The Journal's editors stress the independence and impartiality of their reporters. "A Measure of Media Bias", a December 2004 study conducted by Tim Groseclose of the University of California, Los Angeles and Jeff Milyo of the University of Missouri, stated that:

“ One surprise is the Wall Street Journal, which we find as the most liberal of all 20 news outlets [studied]. We should first remind readers that this estimate (as well as all other newspaper estimates) refers only to the news of the Wall Street Journal; we omitted all data that came from its editorial page. If we included data from the editorial page, surely it would appear more conservative. Second, some anecdotal evidence agrees with our result. For instance, Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid (2001) note that "The Journal has had a long-standing separation between its conservative editorial pages and its liberal news pages." Paul Sperry, in an article titled the "Myth of the Conservative Wall Street Journal", notes that the news division of the Journal sometimes calls the editorial division "Nazis." "Fact is", Sperry writes, "the Journal's news and editorial departments are as politically polarized." ”

The methods used to calculate this bias have been challenged by Mark Liberman, professor of computer science and the director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania. Liberman says "that many if not most of the complaints directed against G&M are motivated in part by ideological disagreement -- just as much of the praise for their work is motivated by ideological agreement. It would be nice if there were a less politically fraught body of data on which such modeling exercises could be explored."

The company's planned and eventual acquisition by News Corp. in 2007 led to significant media criticism and discussio about whether the news pages would exhibit a rightward slant under Rupert Murdoch. An August 1 editorial responded to the questions by asserting that Murdoch intended to "maintain the values and integrity of the Journal

The Daily Beast - publication

From Wikipedia:
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. About one-third of its content is original, while the rest is aggregated links to articles written by other news outlets. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC. Edward Felsenthal, a former Wall Street Journal editor, is the site's executive editor, and Stephen Colvin is its president.

The name of the site is derived from that of the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop.

Format
One of the features of The Daily Beast is the "Cheat Sheet", billed as "must reads from all over". Published daily, the "Cheat Sheet" offers a selection of articles from online news outlets on popular stories. The "Cheat Sheet" includes brief summaries of the article, and a link to read the full text of the article on the website of its provider.

Since launch, the site has introduced additional sections, including a video "Cheat Sheet", "Book Beast", "Hungry Beast", and "Sexy Beast", a Fashion and Entertainment section. The site frequently creates encyclopedic landing pages on topical subjects such as Obama’s inauguration, the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, Michael Jackson, the Iran uprising, and the US Open.

The Daily Beast contributors include: Christopher Buckley, Scott Turow, Mark McKinnon, Douglas Rushkoff, Matthew Yglesias, Meghan McCain, Reihan Salam, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Gerald Posner, Simon Schama, Eric Alterman, Reza Aslan, Fatima Bhutto and others including Brown herself.

Major advertising, from brands such as HBO, British Airways, Bottega Veneta, Patricia Cornwell, and Bravo!, are featured on the site.

Popularity
According to a New York Times article, The Daily Beast had reached three million unique visitors per month as of September 28, 2009.

Beast Books
In September 2009, The Daily Beast launched a publishing initiative entitled Beast Books that will produce books by Beast writers on an accelerated publishing schedule.

Plagiarism controversy
In February 2010 it was claimed by Jack Shafer of Slate.com that the chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast, Gerald Posner, had lifted five sentences from a Miami Herald article and claimed that he had written them himself and was able to publish them in The Daily Beast under his own name. Shafer also discovered that Posner had written plagiarised content from a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, Texas Lawyer magazine and a healthcare journalism blog. An immediate internal investigation by The Daily Beast led to Posner's departure.

Breitbart.com - publication, Big Government - publication

From Wikipedia:

Andrew J. Breitbart (born February 1, 1969) is an American publisher, commentator for the Washington Times, author, and an occasional guest commentator on various news programs. He may be best-known for serving as an editor for the Drudge Report website. He was a researcher for Arianna Huffington, and was employed by her as "the primary developer" of her website, the Huffington Post. He currently runs his own news aggregation site, Breitbart.com, and five other sites: breitbart.tv, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism, and Big Peace.

Breitbart.com
Breitbart currently runs his own news site at Breitbart.com; it is frequently linked to by the Drudge Report and other websites. It features wire stories from the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Fox News, PR Newswire, U.S. Newswire, as well as direct links to a number of major international newspapers. Its Blog & "Network" links tend to run to the right within the U.S. political spectrum (e.g., National Review, Instapundit, and Townhall.com). The site also features a search engine powered by Lingospot and a finance channel powered by FinancialContent. In 2007, Breitbart launched a video blog, Breitbart.tv


Big Government
Andrew Breitbart gave notice that he would produce a new blog, entitled "Big Government," to premiere on September 10, 2009. He hired Mike Flynn, a former government affairs specialist at Reason Foundation, as Editor-in-Chief of Big Government.

The site started by airing footage of ACORN staffers in Baltimore who gave unethical advice concerning underage prostitution and tax-evasion on-tape to Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe. Within 24 hours of the video's release, the two women featured on the hidden camera were fired by ACORN over the incident. After the release of the second in the tape series, which targeted the Washington D.C. ACORN office, the U.S. Census Bureau severed its connection with ACORN, which had been scheduled to assist in the 2010 census. Five "sting tapes," with Hannah Giles portraying the "prostitute" Kenya, and O'Keefe acting as her boyfriend/pimp, have been released; these feature the ACORN offices in Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, New York, and both San Bernardino and San Diego, California.

Breitbart has vowed to "continue exposing" the ACORN organization; on November 22, 2009 he broke a story on Burbank's KFI AM radio about a "document dump" by the National City, California ACORN office. His story claimed that thousands of allegedly incriminating documents were thrown in a public dumpster in the wake of California Attorney General Jerry Brown's investigation of ACORN, only to be recovered by local private investigator Derrick Roach. Breitbart said that he intended to "drip" the documents out in a serialized story, in a fashion similar to the O'Keefe videos. Brown released a report on April 1, 2010 saying that O'Keefe's videos were "severely edited" and finding no evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.

On March 22, 2010 ACORN announced that is was disbanding due to insufficient revenue, attributable in great part to the effects of the controversy ignited by Breitbart's investigations

The Daily Caller - publication

As Rush mentions a publication (internet, paper, etc), I'll give information on them here, from Wikipedia (a copyright free site, but also one that anyone can go into and edit, so be aware of that.)



The Daily Caller is a political journalism website based in Washington, D.C., United States with a focus on original reporting and breaking news, founded by journalist and political pundit Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, former adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney. The Daily Caller launched on January 11, 2010.

Staff
The editorial staff is led by executive editor Megan Mulligan and features reporting from White House correspondent Jon Ward, formerly of The Washington Times, Jonathan Strong,[2] and Alex Pappas[3]. The site also features a humorous blog written by Jim Treacher. Mike Riggs, formerly of the Washington City Paper, writes "The DC Morning", an email wrap up of the morning's events. The Daily Caller is in the White House rotating press pool. Its reporters have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News Channel, CNBC, NBC and CBS, and radio stations across the country.

Ideology
In an interview with Politico, Carlson said that The Daily Caller will not be tied to ideology but rather will be "breaking stories of importance". In a Washington Post article, Carlson added "We're not enforcing any kind of ideological orthodoxy on anyone."

Opinion contributors have included Arianna Huffington, Newt Gingrich, Andrew Breitbart and S.E. Cupp.

RNC night club incident
On Monday, March 29, 2010 Daily Caller reporter Jonathan Strong reported that the RNC reimbursed a staffer almost $2,000 for an evening spent with donors at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers who imitate lesbian sex acts. The resulting media backlash led to the firing of Allison Meyers, the staffer in charge of the Young Eagles program that submitted the expense report and later the resignation of other RNC officials.

JournoList incident
On Friday, June 25, 2010, The Daily Caller published private emails from Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel denigrating conservatives, who he covered for the paper. That same day, Weigel resigned from the Post, and JournoList — the listserv that hosted Weigel's disparaging emails — was deleted by creator Ezra Klein of the Washington Post.

Acquistion of KeithOlbermann.com
On Thursday, July 15, 2010, The Daily Caller announced its acquisition of KeithOlbermann.com. That domain links to The Daily Caller's homepage. Olbermann, the host of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, suggested he'd sue The Caller for the rights to the site.

The Huffington Post - Publication

As Rush mentions a publication (internet, paper, etc), I'll give information on them here, from Wikipedia (a copyright free site, but also one that anyone can go into and edit, so be aware of that.)

Rush references this blog frequently, either as "HuffPo" or the "Huffington and Puffington Post."

From Wikipedia:
The Huffington Post, also referred to as HuffPo or HuffPost, is a liberal/progressive American news website and aggregated blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring various news sources and columnists. The site offers coverage of politics, media, business, entertainment, living, style, the green movement, world news, and comedy, and is a top destination for news, blogs, and original content. The Huffington Post was launched on May 9, 2005, as a commentary outlet and alternative to conservative news websites like the Drudge Report.

In 2008, the site launched its first local version, HuffPost Chicago; HuffPost New York launched in June, 2009, HuffPo Denver launched on September 15, 2009, and HuffPo Los Angeles launched on December 2, 2009. The Huffington Post has an active community, with over one million comments made on the site each month. Prior to The Huffington Post, Huffington hosted a website called Ariannaonline.com. Her first foray into the Internet was a website called Resignation.com, which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton.

In addition to columns by Arianna Huffington and a core group of contributors such as Harry Shearer, John Conyers, Rosie O'Donnell, and Roy Sekoff, Founding Editor, The Huffington Post has over 3,000 bloggers—from politicians and celebrities to academics and policy experts—who contribute in real-time on a wide-range of topics.

A comprehensive list of contributors to the The Huffington Post blog can be found in its "Bloggers Index, but includes: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Heather Robinson, Michael Moore, Jimmy Demers, Madonna, Alec Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Saskia Sassen, Sheryl Sandberg, John Cusack, Larry David, Nora Ephron, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Anneli Rufus, Neil Young, Rahm Emanuel, Albert Brooks, Mia Farrow, Russ Feingold, Al Franken, Ari Emanuel, Gary Hart, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ryan Reynolds, Richard Patrick, Craig Newmark, Donna Karan, Kenneth Cole, Ryan J. Davis, Donatella Versace, Bill Maher, Cleo Paskal, B.D. Gallof, Lutfullah Kamran, M. K. Asante, Jr., Robert Wright, Larry Gelbart, Stephen Covey, Wendy Diamond, and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.

The site also publishes columns by specialists in a wide range of fields such as Alice Waters on food, Doctor Harold Katz on dental health, Suzie Heumann on sex, Diane Ravitch on education, Jacob M. Appel on ethics, and Jon LaPook on medicine, and publishes scoops of current news stories, links to selected prominent news stories, and provides a liberal counterpoint to sites such as the Drudge Report. Compared to other left-wing blogs such as Znet or Daily Kos, The Huffington Post offers both news commentary and coverage. The comment section is home to discussions on politics, religion, and world affairs.

The Huffington Post's OffTheBus is a citizen-powered online news organization that is a collaboration between The Huffington Post, New York University (NYU), and Jay Rosen's NewAssignment.Net. The Huffington Post's FundRace is a website that tracks contributions to the presidential campaigns and includes a mapping feature that shows contributions broken down by city, neighborhood, and block.[11]

Investment
In August 2006, The Huffington Post announced that SoftBank Capital would invest $5 million in the site, which had grown in popularity in only a year, to help expand it. Plans included hiring more staff to update the site 24 hours a day, hiring in-house reporters, and a multimedia team to do video reports. Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners also invested. The news marked the site's "first round of venture capital funding."

The site now has invested in Vlogging, or video blogging, with many of the site contributors contributing via video, and capturing clips in the media and posting them on the site.

In November 2008, The Huffington Post completed a $15 million fundraising from investors. The money will finance expansion including more journalism and the provision of local news across the United States.

The Hill - publication

Limbaugh referenced The Hill today. What's that?

From Wikipedia:
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.

Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times.

It is written for and about the U.S. Congress, with a special focus on business and lobbying, political campaigns. and other events on Capitol Hill. The newspaper features investigative reporting, profiles of lawmakers and aides, features describing the sociology and politics of the Hill, book and restaurant reviews, and a weekly column about the Capitol Hill neighborhoods.

Since 2003, The Hill's editor in chief has been Hugo Gurdon, previously a reporter and editor at The Daily Telegraph (London) and the National Post (Toronto). Gurdon turned The Hill from a weekly paper into a daily during congressional sessions.

The newspaper has the largest circulation of any Capitol Hill publication, above 21,000. It has a free website and seven blogs: The Hill's Congress Blog, The Hill's Pundits Blog, The Hill's Briefing Room, The Hill's Twitter Room, Hillicon Valley, On The Money, and E2Wire. Hillicon Valley is a policy blog about technology, E2Wire focuses on energy and environment, and On the Money is about finance.

Current columnists
A. B. Stoddard
David Keene
David Hill
Mark Mellman
Jim Mills
Dick Morris
Markos Moulitsas
John DelCecato
Cheri Jacobus
Brent Budowsky
Ron Christie

Past columnists
Byron York
Josh Marshall

American Spectator - conservative publication

Rush Limbaugh has been going on and on today about an article in the American Spectator. I'll cover that later on, but right now, I've decided to add yet another feature to this blog, which is a history of every political publication in press today, and in the past .

From Wikipedia (and remember Wikipedia can be edited by anybody....):
The American Spectator is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors such as Thomas Sowell, Tom Wolfe, P.J. O'Rourke, George F. Will, Malcolm Gladwell, Patrick J. Buchanan, and Malcolm Muggeridge, although today the magazine is best known for its reports in the 1990s on Bill Clinton and its "Arkansas Project", funded by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife and the Bradley Foundation.

Founding and history
The American Spectator was founded as The Alternative in 1967 by Tyrrell and other students at Indiana University, and was originally published in a tabloid format (it is now published in a traditional magazine format).

After operating under the name The Alternative: An American Spectator for several years, in 1977 the magazine changed its name to The American Spectator because, in editor Tyrrell's words, "the word 'alternative' had come to be associated almost exclusively with radicals and with their way of life." In fact, Tyrrell had started the magazine as a conservative alternative to the student radicalism at the nation's universities in the 1960s.

During the Reagan Administration, the magazine moved from Bloomington, Indiana to suburban Washington, D.C.

The 1990s
The publication gained prominence in the 1990s by reporting on political scandals. The March 1992 issue contained David Brock's expose on Clarence Thomas accuser Anita Hill, famously calling Hill "a bit nutty and a bit slutty". Brock and his colleague Daniel Wattenberg soon moved on to a target of somewhat longer-lasting relevance: Hillary and Bill Clinton. A January 1994 article about then-President Bill Clinton's sex life contained the first reference in print to Clinton accuser Paula Jones, although the article focused on allegations that Clinton used Arkansas state troopers to facilitate his extramarital sexual activities. It only referred to Jones by her first name and corroborated few if any elements of her story. This article was the basis for the claim of damages a sexual harassment lawsuit which started the chain of events resulting in President Clinton's impeachment.

David Brock recanted his accusations upon his departure from the conservative movement. He also denounced his Anita Hill article in his 2003 book Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. He implies that Rush Limbaugh's coverage of his Anita Hill article instigated advertising on Limbaugh's network, which resulted in a large increase in the magazine's circulation. He also implies that this caused the magazine's content to '[move] away from thoughtful essays and scholarly reviews and humor pieces' to 'hit jobs'.

For his part, Wattenberg eventually incurred the displeasure of many fellow conservatives when he belatedly admitted that he had killed a story about rumors of President Clinton fathering a child out of wedlock (with a young African American woman.) Wattenberg actually tracked down a videotape of the woman being interviewed (by an unnamed third party who asked her what Wattenberg described as "softball" questions), but he never was able to interview her himself. Wattenberg's rationales for killing the story were that he had no proof that the story was true and that the woman's testimony was unconvincing. He said that she "seemed like a junkie." (The story was revived in 1999 by Matt Drudge.)

Internal strife eventually led to the departure of long-time publisher Ronald Burr after a disagreement with Tyrrell led Burr to call for an independent audit of the magazine's finances. The departure of Burr and several prominent conservative figures from the magazine's board of directors resulted in conservative foundations pulling much of the funding the nonprofit had relied on to pay high salaries to Brock and Tyrrell, as well as to fund direct-mail campaigns needed to keep up the monthly's circulation.

Faced with a budget crisis, the magazine, then led by publisher Terry Eastland, a former spokesman in the Reagan Justice Department, laid off staffers and cut spending significantly. The magazine also struggled to pay legal bills incurred from an investigation launched against it by President Clinton's Justice Department for alleged witness tampering in the Whitewater investigation. The Justice Department investigation led to revelations about the "Arkansas Project," a campaign by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife to discredit the Clintons by funding investigative reporting at several conservative media outlets. The Justice Department investigation led nowhere and the Spectator was exonerated.

As shortfalls continued, George Gilder, a long time supporter of the magazine who was newly wealthy from an Internet business, purchased the magazine with the goal of turning it into a profit-making glossy with significant media buzz. Numerous staff members, demoralized by the ever-looming budget crises, were laid off or departed after Joshua Gilder and Richard Vigilante, took the reins and vowed to reach a new technology- and business-savvy audience.

Circulation and budget losses continued and even increased in the Gilder era, and at one point the entire Washington-based staff other than Tyrrell and executive editor and web site editor Wladyslaw Pleszczynski were laid off as operations were moved to Massachusetts, where the rest of George Gilder's businesses were based. In 2003, George Gilder, who had lost most of his fortune with the bursting of the Internet stock bubble, sold the magazine for $1 back to Tyrrell and the American Alternative Foundation, the magazine's original owner (the name was later changed to the American Spectator Foundation).

The magazine then moved operations back to the Washington, D.C. area. Later that year, former book publisher Alfred S. Regnery became the magazine's publisher. By 2004, circulation hovered at around 50,000.

The 2008 book Turkmeniscam, by Harper's Magazine journalist Ken Silverstein, reports that American Spectator editor R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. was paid by the Carmen Group on behalf of the Kazakhstan government to visit Kazakhstan in 2000 and write favorable articles. Tyrrell wrote such an article for The Washington Times. The funding was never publicly disclosed.