TV News LIES

"Scott Prouty." The fellow on the other end of the phone call pronounced his name with hesitation. For nearly a fortnight, he and I had been building a long-distance rapport via private tweets, emails, and phone conversations as we discussed how best to make public the secret video he had shot of Mitt Romney talking at a private, $50,000-per-plate fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida.

Now I was almost ready to break the story at Mother Jones. I had verified the video, confirming when and where it had been shot, and my colleagues and I had selected eight clips—including Romney's now-infamous remarks about the 47 percent of Americans he characterized as "victims" unwilling to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives"—to embed in two articles.

Tony Blair has told how people are still “very abusive” to him 10 years after the Iraq War, adding that he has given up trying to “persuade people it was the right decision”.

In comments which could be interpreted as self-pitying Mr Blair said that it did not matter whether the continuing controversy about Iraq had “taken a toll on me”. He said that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was “20 times as bad” as Syria’s President Assad but admitted that it would take a “generation” to make Iraq safer than it was in 2003.

CNN's new chief Jeff Zucker turned the Carnival Triumph story into a reality TV show. It's a risky strategy for the network.

One crippled cruise ship, 3,000 American passengers, a golden opportunity for a troubled network. Jeff Zucker moved swiftly and decisively to put his distinctive editorial mark on CNN last week, giving the most telling insight yet into the way he sees the channel regaining its relevance.

The news that Sarah Palin will no longer be a paid contributor to Fox News puts an exclamation point on the end of an era, or at least a chapter, in U.S. political history. She could land somewhere else, and she still has her Facebook friends, but it’s hard to imagine she’ll find a more visible or influential platform than Fox.

The former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee has been fading from the scene for some time, as she inadvertently highlighted when she complained on Facebook during the Republican convention in August that the network had canceled her scheduled interviews that night. Her brother, Chuck Heath Jr., told Alan Colmes last week on Fox Radio that his sister is “kind of laying low right now,” though he wouldn’t or couldn’t say when asked why.

Current TV, the small cable news channel that was co-founded by former vice president Al Gore, has been sold to Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based media company.

The acquisition gives Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatar government, the opportunity to establish a footprint in the United States, where it already has an English-language version of its Qatar service -- called Al Jazeera English -- but only limited reach.

Almost 5,000 Westchester residents have unrestricted permits allowing them to carry weapons at all times. Over 2,300 residents are permitted to carry guns for work. At least 6,900 residents have shooting permits and more than 11, 200 have target-shooting permits.

Putnam County responded to the Journal’s inquiry by noting it would take time to recover records, but estimated at least 11,000 permits within its borders. Gun proponents note that such access to gun owners’ information presents a danger.