Sarah Palin Vanity Fair interviewer: 'The worst stuff isn't even in there'

The author of a 'blistering' Vanity Fair profile of former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has told the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe that the 'worst stuff isn't even in' the profile.

"The worst stuff isn't even in there," Michael Joseph Gross said on "Morning Joe" Thursday. "I couldn't believe these stories either when I first heard them, and I started this story with a prejudice in her favor. I have a lot in common with this woman. I'm a small-town person, I'm a Christian, I think that a lot of her criticisms of the media actually have something to them. And I think she got a bum ride, but everybody close to her tells the same story."

He later told the hosts that her political career primarily hinges on her ability to keep on lying and get away with it. "If we decide to let her keep lying and getting away with it, she's gonna still be around," he said. "But if we start returning to the standard that a politician has to talk with people, and a politician has to tell the truth, then she's outta here, because she can't stand up to that." [Via HuffPo]

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Glenn Beck on lying: 'I thought it would be a little easier'

Having been caught telling a 'white lie' during his 'Restoring Honor' rally, Fox News personality Glenn Beck admitted that he thought lying would make things a 'little easier'.

He had claimed, a number of notable online sources explain, that he had held George Washington's handwritten notes at the National Archives, however a spokesperson who works at the institution said he did no such thing. Liberal talk show hosts, such as Keith Olbermann, pointed out his error.

On his radio show yesterday, Beck defended the lie, explaining (via Huffington Post via Mediaite):

Yesterday I went to the National Archives, and they opened up the vault, and they put on their gloves and then they put it on a tray. They wheeled it over and it's all in this hard plastic and you're sitting down at a table and you can't, because of Sandy Berger, I had a long conversation with him about this, you can't actually touch any of the documents, these are very very rare. So what they do, they have it in this plastic thing and they hold them right in front of you, you can't touch them but then you can say 'can you turn it over,' and then they turn it over for you and then you look at it. I thought it was a little clumsy to explain it that way.

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Glenn Beck launches news website, 'The Blaze'

Glenn Beck, a conservative Fox News cable personality and host of the 'Restoring Honour' rally over the weekend, has launched a new opinion website - hot off the heels of his latest controversy. Beck, who hosts his own show on the conservative 'noise channel' Fox News, is known for controversy and provocative thinking - he once called President Obama a racist.

The site, which was launched on Monday, intends to focus on 'news and information' as well as “Some commentary and opinion stories we’re interested in that are being under-covered or not covered.”

Beck has noted in his introductory note to the site's new readers that he intends to be heavily involved with its day-to-day operations. "We want this to be a place where you can find breaking news, original reporting, insightful opinions and engaging videos about the stories that matter most."

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Glenn Beck: I wore a bullet-proof vest to rally for my wife (VIDEO)

Glenn Beck, who hosted the 'Restoring Honor' rally in Washington over the weekend, revealed to his supporters that he was, in fact, wearing a bullet-proof vest to the event 'for my wife'. Explaining how a woman requested that they pray together at the event, Beck explained, "She hugged me when I first got there, and she said 'oh, you are a smart man, I didn't think about wearing a vest'; I was wearing a bullet-proof vest."

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'America is better than Glenn Beck' (Opinion)

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was already dead when I was born, and yet I idolized him the way most children idolized athletes and pop stars. I had the poster and the T-shirt, I knew the speeches and the places he’d marched.

He was smart and brave, steadfast and unmovable. He was a man consumed by conviction and possessed by the magnificent radiance of the earnestly humble. He was an eloquent speaker and a beautiful writer. He cared more about justice and equality than fame or fortune. He was a beacon of light in a world beset by darkness. Read the rest here.

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USA Today plans to cut 130 jobs in 'radical overhaul'

The United States second largest newspaper is planning a 'radical' overhaul in which, the Associated Press reports, about 130 jobs are expected to be cut. The newswire reports that the paper, which is owned by print giant Gannett, is planning to trim down its print division and focus more on digital endeavors.

The layoffs will result in around 9% of the company's 1500 employees. The publisher of the paper, who spoked with AP, said that he was not aware as to where the layoffs will occur.

USA Today is just one of many major US newspapers which have been dramatically altered financially in the last few years, as the internet and other ways of receiving news brush of the crumbs of 'old world' print media. However, the publisher of the USA Today remains positive and upbeat about its prospects.

"This is pretty radical," he said of the overhaul. "This gets us ready for our next quarter century."


"We'll focus less on print ... and more on producing content for all platforms (Web, mobile, iPad and other digital formats)," according to a slide show presented Thursday to USA Today's staff. The AP obtained copy of the presentation. [Via AP]

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Bill O'Reilly goes after Kim Kardashian over Justin Bieber shoot (VIDEO)

Conservative commentator and Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly has unleashed against an Elle Magazine photo-shoot featuring teen singer Justin Bieber, 16, and reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

Reacting to photos of the 29-year old's shoot with Bieber, Fox News commentators weighed in on the nature of the shoot, and whether or not it was done in poor taste. "I think it's gross," Margaret Hoover told O'Reilly on Friday night. "It's like a pre-pubescent 16-year-old having an affair with a celebutante!"

"I wanted to be a baseball player [when I was 16]. I didn't want to hang around with Kim Kardashian," he said. "I had a baseball bat and a glove and ice skates! That's what I was doing. I'll tell you this: If a 16-year-old girl was pictured with a 29-year-old man in any of that, he'd be in big trouble. Game over," he went on to say. 

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Anderson Cooper offered $1 million to get rid of his gray hair

Anderson Cooper, the popular host of his own CNN show, has reportedly been offered up to one million dollars to get rid of his gray hair over the next five years. The Sun-Sentinel reports that Cooper would have to use the 'Go Away Gray' pill for 60 days, and use social networking sites to communicate his story to potential customers all around the world in order to receive the money.

"We feel like Anderson Cooper is a really visible and well-respected figure and thought he would be a great spokesperson for the product and the company," adding, "And it doesn't hurt that he's a handsome gentleman," a spokesman for the company marketing the pill said. 

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Sarah Palin isn't so happy about the Dr Laura resignation

Although a number of people were happy to hear that a fast-talking radio pundit known as Dr Laura Schlessinger will resign from her long-running syndicated talk show, one woman wasn't quite so pleased. Former vice presidential candidate and Alaskan glam-girl Sarah Palin, for one.

Using the social networking site Twitter, she shot back at any notion that the conservative favorite would step back out of the limelight. She tweeted:

 The controversy surrounding Laura came after she verbally exploded in an on-air rant in which she used the 'n-word' eleven times. "b thankful 4 her voice, America!" Sarah Palin continued in internet shorthand. 


Dr. Laura is said to be one of the most listened to radio hosts in the country.

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Dr Laura, in the middle of N-word scandal, ends show

Dr Laura Schlessinger announced on Tuesday that she would be ending her long-running show on talk radio in the midst of a controversy involving an on-air rant in which she mentioned the 'N-word' a number of times.

"My contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and I've made the decision not to do radio anymore," she said on the show hosted by outgoing television icon Larry King. "The reason is I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that." (WATCH HER INTERVIEW ON LARRY KING) 


"I'm not retiring, I'm not quitting, I feel energized actually," she said later in the show. "Stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country." She said that the huge public and press uproar that occurred following the rant was an infringement of her constitutional rights. 

"Living with the constant fear of affiliates and sponsors being attacked is very distracting," she argued. "I never called anybody a bad word. I was trying to bring -- and obviously it has become a national discussion now -- I was trying to make a philosophical point. And I made it wrong, but I wasn't dissing anybody. I was trying to make a point, and for that to say that I should be silenced is the reason why I'm saying to you that I'm obviously losing First Amendment rights."

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Glenn Beck says gay marriage is NOT a threat to America

In perhaps the biggest surprise to be peddled out of Fox News, the conservative noise channel owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, Glenn Beck, a political commentator on the channel, said that he does not believe gay marriage is a threat to America.

This should come as great surprise to some who have even watched five minutes of the network, where banter denouncing gay rights is a common part of the overall tone the evil overlords enjoy peddling daily over the airwaves.

"Honestly, I think we have bigger fish to fry," Beck told fellow Fox personality Bill O'Reilly. "You can argue about abortion or gay marriage or whatever all you want. The country is burning down...I don't think marriage, that the government actually has anything to do with...that is a religious right."


To cement his point, he used a quote from Thomas Jefferson. "If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?"

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Fox News hosts agree with Obama on mosque support (VIDEO)

Hosts of the popular right-wing 'noise channel' Fox News have actually taken up busy air time to support the decision made by President Obama on protecting religious freedom. Watch the video below:

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New York Post displays penchant for objectivity in reporting on Obama's mosque defense

It was reported yesterday that President Obama had given his support in defense of plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York. Now, we can report that the New York Post - the finest damn tabloid on the East Coast - has yet again shown just how objective it can be in its reporting.

"Allah Right By Me", the headline reads. This is accompanied by a red box which proclaims "Obama Blesses Ground Zero Mosque".

Good thing we can trust good ol' outlets like the New York Post to keep peddling bias.

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News Corp plans a 'digital newspaper' - "We'll have young people reading newspapers"

News Corporation, the media and information behemoth governed by newspaper overlord Rupert Murdoch, is reportedly planning a 'digital newspaper' aimed at owners of tablet computers like Apple's new iPad, which is already transforming the small market that already exists for tablet-based computing.

The company, which owns such titles as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, is looking to compete directly with more liberal and upmarket titles such as the New York Times - especially as one of the company's more controversial properties, cable channel Fox News, continues to spew more embarrassingly conservative propaganda.

Murdoch seemed elated about the project in the company's recent conference call. "We'll have young people reading newspapers," the septuagenerian (near octogenarian) said. "It's a real game changer in the presentation of news."

Murdoch and his company have been at the centre of the media world's fight to have newspapers survive in the digital age. He fought a rather public battle with internet search giant Google over concerns regarding use of newspaper content in online aggregation services and has been an avid public promoter of the subscription-based web revenue model. 

Another News Corp company, News International - which owns the trashy tabloid The Sun, and the even less earnest News of the World - purchased a company which was developing its own e-reader device designed specifically for reading newspapers. 

Could this all be part of Murdoch's grand strategy?

The new digital newspaper will cater to a younger, more engaged audience. It has been said that the stories included in the publication will be shorter, 'snappier' and more suited to a digital-centric media metabolism. 

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Rachel Maddow eviscerates Bill O'Reilly: 'Stupid' and 'without evidence'

Rachel Maddow, the liberal political pundit - or 'far left loon' in Fox News' parlance - and host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, took time out of her slot on the network to rebut a number of comments made by the conservative television personality Bill O'Reilly.

Maddow responded both to O'Reilly's comments on his own show, The O'Reilly Factor, and also comments he made in a syndicated column which was read nationally in a number of highly respected metropolitan dailies.

"This time the case against me is in his nationally-syndicated column, which I'm sure is read by millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of people," she said, mocking O'Reilly's attitude, which simply reeks of his own over-inflated sense of self-importance, to dismiss arguments against him.


O'Reilly's comments were triggered by a comment Maddow made on David Letterman's show where she called the people at Fox News 'slimeballs'. 

"Remember, Mr. O'Reilly says there is not a shred of evidence that Fox News hypes stories about scary black people taking white people's stuff," she said.

"I am not interested in playing cable news insult ping-pong with Mr. O'Reilly, but as much as he keeps insisting that I'm no one worth arguing with, that I'm an 'uber-leftist' -- he called me that in his column -- and a loon twice now, and a slightly larger percentage of 1% of the population watches his show than the proportion of 1% of the population that watches my show, for all he complains about how unimportant I am, my criticism that Fox News scares white people on purpose to politically benefit conservatives -- damn the consequences for the country -- that criticism appears to have struck a nerve over at Fox. It appears to have gotten under Mr. O'Reilly's skin," she concluded. "Good."

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Rosie bags her own talk show on Oprah's new network

Although she may have failed as the theatrical producer of Taboo, Rosie O'Donnell is set to make a return to entertainment through a new daytime talk show being developed for the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Winfrey, the quintessential queen of television talk, announced the show on Thursday. She called O'Donnell, who was once a member of the daytime panel show The View on ABC, a 'true original who brings passion to everything she does'.

She found success, winning six Emmys, for "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", which ran from 1996 until 2002. The OWN network, which is a joint venture between Winfrey and the owner of Discovery Channel,  says viewers can expect "a fun, uplifting show with Ms. O'Donnell's playful and energetic style."

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Glenn Beck compares America under Obama to 'Planet of the Apes'

Glenn Beck, the controversial host of the conservative show of the same name, took time out of his regular slot on the equally conservative Fox News to criticize the Obama administration as running America as if it were 'Planet of the Apes'.

"Here's our fearless leader in a press conference yesterday", he said - moving to a clip which shows Barack Obama giving a speech. "It's like the damn Planet of the Apes!"

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Jon Stewart mocks media coverage of Chelsea Clinton wedding (video)

Although we're all for celebrity gossip, news of the Chelsea Clinton wedding has been mysteriously absent from the gilded homepage of Murray Report lately. We thought we'd post our first (and potentially last) piece of coverage with regard to the wedding. And what better way to do it? 

Embedded above is Jon Stewart's rant against the ridiculous media coverage provided by the media on the Chelsea Clinton wedding. 

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Is Rupert Murdoch looking to buy a baseball team?

The New York Post, a publication owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has reported that its parent company is weighing up a bid on the bankrupt Texas Rangers, a team that may fetch some $400 million, the Post reports.

This isn't the first foray the media giant has made into the professional sports world, though. The company owned the LA Dodgers up until 2004 and is considering making a bid at Wednesday's bankruptcy court auction.


"It is kind of silly not to buy them," one source said. [New York Post]

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Billionaire scoops up Newsweek for $1

Sidney Harman, a billionaire who made his fortune selling stereos, has purchased ailing newsweekly Newsweek magazine from the Washington Post Company, according to reports.

The New York Times had reported on Monday that Harman was in serious talks to purchase the magazine - and was the frontrunner in the race to buy it throughout the time it was on the market.

Ad Age, an industry publication, said that the billionaire "reportedly bid $1 for the magazine but agreed to assume the magazine's liabilities."


Harman has said publicly that he intends to keep the vast majority of jobs at the newly-purchased publication, including most of the top editorial and management staff. 

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