Writer Names “Wrong Losers” Among Pundits
“With Florida still out we have yet to crown a winner of our election pundit predictions contest, but we have dubbed a lot of people wrong losers in the race to be the predictive champion,” Rebecca Greenfield wrote Wednesday for the Atlantic. “Now that we’ve outed them as poor tea leaf readers, it’s time for the justification phase of pundit predictions. While some of our political talking heads are bashful, admitting that they were plain wrong, not all of these pundits want to accept the truth. Guys, take it from Romney, a noble concession speech is the way to go in these situations. . . . “
Greenfield names former House speaker Newt Gingrich, the Washington Examiner’s Michael Barone, Ross Douthat of the New York Times; Dick Morris of the Hill; Republican strategist Karl Rove of Fox News; Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and conservative pundit Ann Coulter.
Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America added radio hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, columnist George Will; pundit Michael Barone; the conservative website Newsmax; and Larry Kudlow, anchor of CNBC’s primetime program “The Kudlow Report.”
“What was different this time was the spectacle of a whole slate of Obama-hating conservatives who claimed that despite very clear polling evidence to the contrary, that Mitt Romney would win the election in a ‘landslide,'” Boehrlert wrote. “Not only would the Republican defeat Obama, but he’d also do it sweeping, historic fashion.”
Michael Calderone added on the Huffington Post, “Fox News contributor Dick Morris, who two days ago predicted a ‘landslide’ win for Mitt Romney, argued Wednesday morning on ‘Fox & Friends’ that President Barack Obama doesn’t have a clear mandate to govern, even with a resounding electoral victory.
“Morris wasn’t shy about offering his 2 cents on the election’s outcome, despite being off by more than 100 electoral votes, along with conservative pundits Michael Barone and George Will. Morris even went a step further by saying that it’s now time to ‘stand up against this socialist agenda and stop [Obama] from fundamentally changing the United States.’ “
- “Angry Asian Man,” angryasianman.com: historic election night for asian americans
- Wayne Bennett, Field Negro: The last laugh.
- Andrew Bentley, Quartz: Why it’s more significant that America elected a black president for a second term
- Lawrence D. Bobo, the Root: Obama’s Win: An Inflection Point: Here’s why the president’s re-election is more important than his win in 2008
- Michael Calderone, Huffington Post: Fox News Election Coverage: Questions Turn From President Obama’s Victory To 2nd Term Mandate (VIDEO)
- Michael Cottman, Black America Web: Job Well Done, Mr. President
- Mary C. Curtis, Creative Loafing Charlotte: Election 2012 Notebook: An old-school celebration of four more years
- Eric Deggans, Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times: Race, media and the 2012 election: What to do when the dog whistles fail
- Eric Deggans, Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times: Three things I learned about political media from endless Obama/Romney election coverage
- Vince Duffy, Radio Television Digital News Association: As Nation Moves Forward, Political Ads Disguised As News Need to Go!
- Andrew Hough, London Telegraph: Barack Obama wins US election: how newspapers recorded history
- Charles Howard, HuffPost BlackVoices: The Psychological and Existential Experience of Seeing a Black President Win Reelection
- Earl Ofari Hutchinson, syndicated: How President Obama Can Now Govern
- Latina Lista: Overwhelming support of Obama gives rise to new questions for Latinos’ political future
- Richard Lawson, the Atlantic: Fox News Lost the Election Too, But Let’s Not Gloat
- Bryan Llenas, Fox News Latino: Obama Win Fueled by Latino Voter Muscle, FOX Exit Polls Show
- Mark Hugo Lopez and Paul Taylor, Pew Hispanic Center: Latino Voters in the 2012 Election
- David Montgomery, Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D.: Election: Noem dominates, and Charles Trimble, Indian Country Today: A political kiss of death from Lakota columnist
- Ugonna Okpalaoka, the Grio: Election 2012: From Allen West to Mia Love — a bad night for black Republicans
- Andrew O’Reilly, Fox News Latino: Obama Re-Election Thrusts Attention to Latin America
- Jeremy W. Peters and Brian Stelter, New York Times: On Fox News, a Mistrust of Pro-Obama Numbers Lasts Late Into the Night
- Pew Research Center: No Consensus View on Election Outcome (Pew)
- Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Latino: President Obama Earns Re-Election Approval From Latino Vote
- Frank Sharry, Huffington Post: How the Immigration Debate Changed the Course of the 2012 Election (Nov. 5)
- Margaret Sullivan, New York Times: Times Was Slower, but Sure, in Calling the Presidential Election
- Georg Szalai, Hollywood Reporter: President Obama’s Re-Election: How the News Media Around the Globe Covered It
- Alex Weprin, TVNewser: Million People Watched Election In Primetime, Down From 2008
- Juan Williams, Fox News Latino: Latinos Make American History, GOP Pays the Bill
FCC Expected to Approve More Media Consolidation
“Federal regulators are poised to ease ownership restrictions on major-market media outlets in what could be a boost to some big players in the struggling newspaper industry,” Jim Puzzanghera reported Tuesday for the Los Angeles Times.
“After two failed attempts to loosen its rules, the Federal Communications Commission is expected by the end of the year to approve a new proposal that would allow newspapers and television or radio stations in the 20 largest markets to consolidate.
“And unlike previous battles, there is little opposition this time to easing the so-called cross-ownership rules.
“A decade of Internet growth, fast-changing technologies and plunging newspaper revenues — along with the nation’s focus on recovering from the Great Recession — have altered views. Few people seem to care much if newspapers and television stations hook up in the same metropolitan area.
” . . . ‘It ought to be … a huge issue. Big media wanted us to believe the age of media consolidation was over, but not so,’ said former FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who had opposed loosening the rules in 2003 and 2007 and now heads a Common Cause effort to highlight the problems of media consolidation.”
Columnist Helen Ubinas Joining Philly Daily News
“I’m quite pleased to report that Helen Ubinas, a veteran columnist and national award winner, will be joining us next month as a city columnist,” Michael Days, editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, wrote to staff members on Monday.
“Helen wrote a twice-weekly, heavily reported column at the Hartford Courant for about 10 years, covering topics ranging from the corrupt administration of Hartford’s former mayor to the horrific home-invasion murders that stunned Connecticut. She is an avid blogger, and some of us are already connected to her via Twitter. In fact, she was the first Connecticut reporter to live-tweet developments from high-profile cases.
“Before becoming a full-fledged columnist, she wrote a weekly column off of the city desk and was a key player in covering city news. She was a member of the paper’s team that won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for the amazing work done when a Connecticut lottery worker killed four supervisors and then turned the gun on himself. She has also won numerous awards from local and national organizations, including the Scripps Howard Foundation and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
“Helen, who grew up in the Bronx, is a graduate of Boston University, has a master’s in American studies from Trinity College, and was a Knight Fellow at Stanford.”
Short Takes
- “Advertising directed to Hispanics often runs in Spanish-language media outlets, but in what Rolling Stone says is a first in its 45-year history, the magazine is about to feature Spanish ads in a special section,” Andrew Adam Newman wrote Tuesday for the New York Times. “A Latin Hot List section in the Nov. 22 issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands Friday, has a secondary cover in Spanish on the back of the magazine. A 15-page section has articles written in English with interviews in Spanish.”
- “A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the filmmaker behind ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ the anti-Islam film that sparked rioting across the globe, to a year behind bars after the man admitted to violating the terms of his release from an earlier conviction,” Victoria Kim reported Wednesday for the Los Angeles Times.
- “New York-based entertainment reporter Julie Chang will join Fox 11’s ‘Good Day L.A.’ as the morning show’s entertainment reporter and anchor,” Greg Braxton reported Monday for the Los Angeles Times. “Chang will join anchors Steve Edwards and Maria Sansone. Chang, who most recently worked for Fox-owned WNYW Fox 5, will also be the entertainment reporter for ‘Fox 11 Morning News.’ ”
- The Women’s Media Center announced that The 2012 Women’s Media Awards will honor journalist Sarah Hoye, All Platform Journalist for CNN, who will receive the Carol Jenkins Emerging Journalist Award. the Center has announced.
- Pansy Tlakula, commissioner of the African Commission on Human Peoples’ Rights, wants to see legal conditions implemented in Africa that allow journalists the freedom to do their jobs, Stanley Kwenda wrote Sunday for the Inter Press Service. In June, Gambia arrested Amadou Scattred Janneh and three others for printing and distributing T-shirts that called for an end to the dictatorship in the Gambia. Janneh, who is also a U.S. citizen, is the country’s former minister of information and communications. He “had been charged with treason and jailed for life and was only released after U.S. civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson intervened.”
