Brutally Honest

Is the AP being obtuse or are they deliberately hiding something? (UPDATED)

I came across the following AP story today and, after you read the excerpt, I'll tell you why I found it most interesting:

 J.C. Penney is sorry and it wants your business back.

That's the gist of its latest ad, a public "mea culpa" which the mid-priced department-store put on its YouTube and Facebook pages.

The ad, titled "It's no secret," shows shots of women working, playing with their children and doing other everyday activities.

"Recently J.C. Penney changed," a voiceover states. "Some changes you liked, and some you didn't. But what matters with mistakes is what we learn. We learned a very simple thing, to listen to you."

The ad comes after the Plano, Texas-based company last month fired its CEO, Ron Johnson, after 17 months on the job and rehired his predecessor Mike Ullman

Johnson's ambitious changes included getting rid of most sales and bringing in new, hip brands. The strategy was designed to attract younger, wealthier shoppers in a bid to reinvent the stodgy retailer, but it alienated Penney's loyal customers and caused sales to plummet.

The ad acknowledges the missteps and asks customers to return to its stores.

"Come back to J.C. Penney. We heard you, now we'd love to see you," the voice-over states.

The TV spot is in contrast with the chain's "fair and square" advertising campaign that accompanied Johnson's revamp. Those ads were colorful and whimsical and did not give specifics about products. In one spot, a dog jumped through a hula hoop held by a little girl. The text read: "No more jumping through hoops. No coupon clipping. No door busting. Just great prices from the start."

...

"When you are in a freefall, you sometimes need to call a time out and say, 'Wait a second. We're going to get this under control,'" he said. "The answer may be further down the road as to why they come back."

J.C. Penney Media Relations Director Daphne Avila said the idea for the ad began several months ago after an "extensive" review of customer feedback.

"We want to give customers our assurance that what they loved about J.C. Penney — trusted brands, great style and affordable prices — will be inherent to every shopping experience," she said.

What's not covered by the Associated Press, in any way, would seem to be central to why J.C. Penney was in a freefall.  From Lifesite News less than a month ago:

Plenty of companies have argued that natural marriage is "bad for business"--but they'll have a tough time persuading J.C. Penney. After a series of radical decisions, the retailer is struggling to survive a 25 percent drop in sales.

It started in 2011 when the company hired Ellen DeGeneres, a vocal proponent of same-sex "marriage" as its spokesperson.

The choice drew fire from organizations like the American Family Association (AFA) because it was a departure from the store's longstanding values. When AFA's One Million Moms complained, J.C. Penney's new CEO, Ron Johnson, stubbornly dug in his heels.

Then, on Mothers' Day, the company shocked customers with a blatant endorsement of homosexuality in an ad that featured two moms--followed by a two-dads ad for Fathers' Day. Coupled with an overhaul of the stores' pricing system, the stock never recovered.

Now, months after the experiment failed, J.C. Penney has fired Johnson and replaced him with the former CEO, Myron Ullman.

Does anyone think any particular piece or part of the Lifesite news might have been relevant to the folks at the Associated Press?  Does anyone want to know why the AP considered it irrelevant?

I certainly would.

I doubt we will.

Doesn't fit the meme.

Carry on.

UPDATE: A friend found fault with my source (Lifesite News), stating that liberals would have problems with a conservative site and wouldn't find anything therein credible.  I agree.

So here's an ABC News piece on the subject:

Is JC Penney trying to become GayC Penney, or is it just a smart marketer?

Last year, the company announced that Ellen DeGeneres, who is openly gay, would be its latest spokesperson. On Mother’s Day, it  featured a lesbian couple in one of  its ads. And now, just in time for Father’s Day, the retail chain  has issued another print ad, this one with real-life couple Todd Koch and Cooper Smith, and their two young children.

 The copy reads: “What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — all rolled into one. Or two.”

Once again, the ads have raised the ire of the conservative One Million Moms,  that is again accusing  JC Penney of promoting “sin” in its advertisements.”

“It’s obvious that JCP would rather take sides than remain neutral in the culture war,” OMM writes. “JCP will hear from the other side, so they need to hear from us as well. Our persistence will pay off! One day we will answer for our actions or lack of them. We must remain diligent and stand up for Biblical values and truth. Scripture says multiple times that homosexuality is wrong, and God will not tolerate this sinful nature.”

OMM has launched yet another boycott of JC Penney.

In an email to ABC News, JC Penney  spokesman Joseph Thomas said that “In celebration of Father’s Day, we’re proud that our June book honors men from diverse backgrounds who all share the joy of fatherhood.”

 The ad has received a ton of comments online, and  Cooper and Koch have heard from long-lost friends who’ve seen their photo on Facebook and on TV.

“Ninety percent of the blog posts are very positive and heartwarming. But some of the ones that are so hateful shock me,”  Smith, 37, who owns a public relations firm in Dallas, told ABCNews.com.  ”I just don’t know how anyone could project so much hate toward something as loving as the  relationship we have with our kids. That photo was just a moment in time that showed our affection toward our children and how we care toward them. Nothing is being shoved down anybody’s throats.”

 

Will the Washington Post correct the record on the death of the infant son of BBC journalist Jihad al-Masharawi?

Here's "the story behind the photo" as reported by the Washington Post on November 15th:

The front page photo on Thursday’s Washington Post tells, in a single frame, a very personal story from Wednesday’s Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. Jihad Misharawi, a BBC Arabic journalist who lives in Gaza, carries the body of his 11-month old son, Omar, through al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

An Israeli round hit Misharawi’s four-room home in Gaza Wednesday, killing his son, according to BBC Middle East bureau chief Paul Danahar, who arrived in Gaza earlier Thursday. Misharawi’s sister-in-law was also killed, and his brother wounded. Misharawi told Danahar that, when the round landed, there was no fighting in his residential neighborhood.

“We’re all one team in Gaza,” Danahar told me, saying that Misharawi is a BBC video and photo editor. After spending a “few hours” with his grieving colleague, he wrote on Twitter, ”Questioned asked here is: if Israel can kill a man riding on a moving motorbike (as they did last month) how did Jihad’s son get killed.”

...

The story that these photos tell, of loss and confusion, may help inform the Palestinian reactions – and, as the photos continue to spread widely on social media, perhaps the reactions from beyond the Palestinian territories – to the violence between Israel and Gaza.

Yes... perhaps this story, released today, will do just that:

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a report that says Palestinians, rather than Israelis, killed the infant son of BBC journalist Jihad al-Masharawi on November 14. 

When the boy was killed during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, the media and various monitoring groups piled on Israel. Photographs of the father holding the deceased infant were shown around the world.

...

U.N. watchdog group Human Rights Watch, which attempted to keep a running tally of all the civilian deaths Israel and Hamas had caused during Pillar of Defense, reported that Israel had killed Mishrawi's "11-month old" son the day after the infant died.

BBC journalists used tweets to imply Israel's guilt in the infant's death the day the child was killed.

But now, the U.N. says the infant was killed by a rocket fired at Israelis "by Palestinians that missed its mark." The infant boy and his mother were both killed by the Palestinians. 

Please dear reader, don't hold your breath thinking the media will correct the record on this.

I'd be surprised if any of them even carry the U.N. correction at all.

What you're not hearing about the LA cop killer

I find it interesting, though certainly not damnable and certainly not the reason or the cause for the rampage Christopher Dorner has been on, that many media outlets are purposely leaving out pieces and parts of the man's long and rambling manifesto. 

Twitchy has the details:

What was left out?  Quite a bit.

• Dorner’s statements in support of gun control (“Who in there right mind needs a f**king silencer!!! who needs a freaking SBR AR15? No one”),
• his attack on President Barack Obama’s critics (“You question his birth certificate, his educational and professional accomplishments, and his judeo-christian beliefs”),
• his adoration of First Lady Michelle Obama’s hair (“I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama”),
• his admiration for Joe Biden (“I’ve always been a fan of yours and consider you one of the few genuine and charismatic politicians”),
• his support for Hillary Clinton (“You’ll make one hell of a president in 2016″),
• his fondness for former President Bill Clinton (“He was always my favorite president”),
• his confidence in San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (“He’s [good people] and I have faith and confidence in him”),
• his love of MSNBC and CNN (“Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite’s lead”),
• his criticism of the National Rifle Association (“Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, you’re a vile and inhumane piece of sh*t”) ,
• and his hatred of George Zimmerman (“Too bad Trayvon didn’t smash your skull completely open, Zim”).

In short, the MSM omitted the parts of the manifesto where Dorner reveals he is a card-carrying liberal Democrat.

Did the media outlets disclose that they left out this material? No they did not.

This becomes the subject of a post here for one reason alone.  To show the utter hypocrisy and bias of today's media.  

Imagine for a moment what the fallout today had been if conservative utterances had been splattered throughout the pages of this guy's manifesto.

The media would be blaring those utterances 24/7 and then covering the band wagoneers who would be all over it like stink on poop.

But since this guy's clearly a leftist, nothing, nada, zero.

Most revealing.

Then again, thinking people were already aware.

"Are you [bleeping] kidding me? Are you [bleeping] kidding me?"

That's the reaction from Mollie Hemingway at GetReligion to The New York Times coverage of this past weekend's March for Life in DC:

The story that has outraged so many folks is the primary story on the march that ran in a more prominent position than the straight story. In fact, it ran above the fold of the national news section, headlined “In Fight Over Life, a New Call by Catholics.”

The lede:

The March for Life in Washington on Friday renewed the annual impassioned call to end legalized abortion, 40 years after the Roe v. Wade decision. But this year, some Roman Catholic leaders and theologians are asking why so many of those who call themselves “pro-life” have been silent, or even opposed, when it comes to controlling the guns that have been used to kill and injure millions of Americans.

More than 60 Catholic priests, nuns, scholars and two former ambassadors to theVatican sent a letter this week saying that if marchers and politicians truly want to defend life they should support “common-sense reforms to address the epidemic of gun violence in our nation.”

A caption for the piece read:

Anti-abortion protesters flooded the National Mall in Washington on Friday for the annual March for Life. Many Catholic leaders and theologians are asking why many of those who call themselves ‘pro-life’ have been silent when it comes to gun control.

You’ll notice that marchers are only called “pro-life” in a scare-quotey sense to cast skepticism on their claims. You might also wonder if the Times broke precedent to cover the massive march so as to be able to criticize it with this more prominent story, but we can’t really know the answer to that question.

We’re a family site here so I’m going to be careful here:

Are you [bleeping] kidding me? Are you [bleeping] kidding me?

What? This is the religion angle for the massive, hundreds-thousands-strong March for Life that marks the murder of 55 million unborn children over the last 40 years? We’re going to turn it into something nebulous (no specific gun controls are even discussed) related to the media’s current political cause du jour?

And it gets worse.

Believe it or not, this is basically just a press release from the same savvy, highly funded PR firm that has been rolling reporters for the last year. One is beginning to think they enjoy the ride.

The group that put out the letter is … drum roll please …

… Faith in Public Life. Yes, that Faith in Public Life! They’re the ones who came up with the highly successful “Nuns on the Bus” tour that got embarrassingly uncritical coverage for an anti-Paul Ryan campaign featuring not one, not two, but as many asthree to four nuns. We’re talking front-page coverage in major media outlets, gushy broadcasts, the works.

You couldn’t pay for coverage this nice. Except, I guess, that George Soros and his fellow donors do pay for this coverage. But you know what I mean.

Well yes, thinking people know what you mean Mollie.

It means that the media continues to be in our faces as to being in the tank for progressives and their agenda but particularly so when that agenda entails issues of faith.

Mollie actually has an additional story that's more of the same.

And so the culture wars continue, waiting for those on the sidelines to choose a side.

Have you chosen?

The American news media knows the truth

Posted by guest blogger Locutisprime

According to Newt Gingrich, at least two major networks have the smoking gun to prove that president Obama abandoned those in the US Consulate in Bengazi. Denying the consulates requests for military assistance that was available and opting to believe and foist the leftist meme of the moment, that the Muslims of the world were just angry over some errant youtube video and that the attacks on our consulates were reactionary and had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism. 

On Tuesday night’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” on the Fox News Channel, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that major news networks might have secret emails proving that the White House canceled plans to assist the besieged U.S. Embassy in Benghazi.

Gingrich said that the bombshell emails could be revealed within the next two days.
“There is a rumor — I want to be clear, it’s a rumor — that at least two networks have emails from the National Security Adviser’s office telling a counterterrorism group to stand down,” Gingrich said.

“But they were a group in real-time trying to mobilize marines and C-130s and the fighter aircraft, and they were told explicitly by the White House stand down and do nothing. This is not a terrorist action. If that is true, and I’ve been told this by a fairly reliable U.S. senator, if that is true and comes out,

I think it raises enormous questions about the president’s role, and Tom Donilon, the National Security Adviser’s role, the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who has taken it on his own shoulders, that he said don’t go. And that is, I think, very dubious, given that the president said he had instructions they are supposed to do everything they could to secure American personnel.”

Read more.

What kind of moderator was Candy Crowley?

It should come as no surprise to those who think, who don't emote, who have a firm grasp of reality and aren't high on narcotics that she was biased.

Politico:

Amid persistent complaints and interruptions from both candidates, President Obama ultimately got more than three extra minutes of speaking time than Mitt Romney during Tuesday's debate.

According to CNN's timekeeping, Obama got 44:04 minutes of speaking time, while Romney got 40:50.

If my my math is correct, that's nearly 10% more time given Obama.

But wait, there's more.

Breitbart:

In the first presidential debate, Jim Lehrer, no slouch at shilling for the Democratic Party, interrupted Mitt Romney 15 times and Barack Obama only five.  

Crowley made Lehrer look like an amateur. She interrupted Obama nine times, (although four of those were when he wouldn’t respect the time limit when discussing assault weapons; he went over his time limit all night long), but when it came to Mitt Romney, she was utterly beyond the pale.

Crowley interrupted Romney 28 times. 28 times. Her desperation to keep Romney from scoring points was so patently obvious that it wasn’t really a surprise when she had her infamous moment: the moment when she interrupted and falsely claimed Romney was incorrect in accusing Obama of refusing to call the Benghazi attack an act of terror.

Again, check my math but that's more than twice the number of interruptions.

Clearly, Ms. Crowley was doing what the media is known now to do.

Shill for their liberal co-ideologues.  Run interference for them.  Do what they can to help the Democrats and hinder the Republicans.

It's undeniable.

And rather sickening.

Tapes the Obama loving media chooses to ignore

Professor Jacobson is chronicling the tales of the tapes:

Obama attended an anti-Israel conference with Rashid Khalidi.  The L.A. Times will not release the video.

Obama was caught on an open mic calling federal employees ”slugs.”  CBS News will not release the tape.

Obama was caught on an open mic promising the Russians to be more flexible if re-elected, and CBS describes the controversy as mere “presidential politics.”

An audio surfaced of Obama talking about how he loooooves redistribution, and Andrea Mitchell will not play it.

Where would this country be, where would this Presidential race be, with an objective media?  They have become nothing more than an extension of the Obama campaign.

But you people with brains already know this.

 

Death blow? Seriously?

Chris Stirewalt at FoxNews is questioning the current gestalt taking place with the Obama loving press:

"You can mark my prediction now: A secret recording from a closed-door Mitt Romney fundraiser, released [Monday] by David Corn at Mother Jones, has killed Mitt Romney's campaign for president."

-- Bloomberg News political columnist Josh Barro

In mid-August, President Obama led Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by nearly 5 points in the Real Clear Politics Average of national polls. Today, after a spate of new polling, Obama leads by about half that.

While the race moved briefly into an absolute tie following the Republican National Convention, it's hard to see how the current contour of this race is very different than it has been all along: the incumbent leads, but only slightly.

The strong suggestion here is that the succession of moments that were said to have ruined Romney's chances were little noticed by voters.

The latest alleged death blow for Romney, a leaked video of the candidate telling donors that he didn't expect to win the votes of those who don't pay federal income tax, led every network news show this morning and is supposed to be the next big thing in the race. But since voters didn't seem to pay much attention to the previous "big things" what's to say that this one will be any different?

I continue to agree with those who say an opportunity has been handed Mr. Romney, an opportunity to reach out to those who work hard, who pay their share of taxes, and yet who see people on the dole driving better cars, talking on expensive cell phones and wearing better clothes than they themselves do, all while wanting those of us pulling them along in their dependence-on-government wagons to pull even harder.

Huge opportunity and perhaps the last opportunity to actually go and win this thing.

Don't blow it Mitt.

Just don't blow it.

[Image Source]

"I’m just trying to make sure..., no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question"

That from a journalist, coordinating with other journalists, before yesterday's Mitt Romney press conference.

Of course, I use the word journalist in the traditional sense:

RightScoop has audio, here's the transcription:

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: …pointing out that the Republicans… *unintelligible* …Obama….

CBS REPORTER: That’s the question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: *unintelligible*

CBS REPORTER: Yeah that’s the question. I would just say do you regret your question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Your question? Your statement?

CBS REPORTER: I mean your statement. Not even the tone, because then he can go off on…

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And then if he does, if we can just follow up and say ‘but this morning your answer is continuing to sound…’ – *becomes unintelligble*

CBS REPORTER: You can’t say that..

**Later**

CBS REPORTER: I’m just trying to make sure that we’re just talking about, no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you stand by your statement or regret your statement?

What media bias?

 

 

"How are conservatives supposed to [do] business with a media that considers them evil?"

John Nolte is asking the question in the wake of the head of Yahoo's News Agency David Chalian's firing over idiotic statements made about the GOP:

This is who the media is. This is what Romney and all Republicans are up against. In what atmosphere does a so-called reporter feel comfortable firing off this kind of vicious joke?

Well, the answer is easy: In an atmosphere where you're surrounded in a bubble by elite, ignorant, hate-mongering, ideologically-bigoted leftists just like yourself.

The media cannot be reasoned with nor can a peace be brokered.

We must defeat these people because that's what they intend to do to us. When you believe our nominee is happy to party while black people drown, you can only believe that we possess no humanity. You can't reason with people who hate you. You just can't.

ADDED: This is a sample of the media's awful, racialist behavior towards Mitt Romney. Believe me, there's plenty more. Here's our rundown of yesterday's media coverage of the convention; it's a tale of bias and race-baiting. Here's the story of how NBC News's Chief White House Correspondent, Chuck Todd, race-baited while live on the air yesterday. Incredible stuff.

How are conservatives supposed to business with a media that considers them evil?

There's audio at the link of Chalian's soulless and revealing comments.  Check it out and be wiser for it.