Why is NewsMax promoting Tim Russert's new book?
SUMMARY: Despite having previously criticized Tim Russert for alleged liberal "media bias," right-wing news website NewsMax is promoting Russert's new book, Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons, as "a great Father's Day Gift."
Despite having previously criticized NBC News Washington bureau chief Tim Russert for alleged liberal "media bias," right-wing news website NewsMax is promoting Russert's new book, Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons (Random House, May 2006) as "a great Father's Day Gift."
In a June 10 "News Alert" email, NewsMax touted its promotional offer of a free copy of the book with the purchase or renewal of a subscription to its print publication, NewsMax Magazine. NewsMax is also offering four free issues of the magazine to anyone purchasing a copy of Russert's book at the regular price through the NewsMax online store. (The online store also offers promotions on books by a host of conservative authors, including Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, John Podhoretz, and Michelle Malkin.)
In the past, NewsMax has criticized Russert for alleged liberal "media bias." The "Media Bias" section of the NewsMax website features numerous articles on Russert, authored by writer and editor Carl Limbacher "and the NewsMax.com Staff." Additionally, an April 17, 2003, article by regular NewsMax columnist and former Rep. John LeBoutillier (R-NY) cited Russert's previous work as a "Democratic political operative" for New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) as evidence that "CBS, NBC and ABC are totally dominated by the left."
Similarly, in an October 28, 2002, article, NewsMax president and CEO Christopher Ruddy wrote:
[A]ll the major network Sunday "news" programs are now anchored by former Democratic Party operatives who worked for liberal Democrats.
[NBC's Chris] Matthews was a senior aide to powerful House Speaker Tip O'Neill [D-MA], Tim Russert was an aide to Mario Cuomo, and [ABC News'] George Stephanopoulos was the Clintons' chief spokesman.*
One can imagine if, God forbid, a conservative Republican would get a top media anchor job. Don't hold your breath.
Although NewsMax's promotion of Wisdom of Our Fathers seems at odds with its previous statements criticizing Russert, NewsMax does have a relationship with Russert's publisher, Random House. This relationship dates back to April 2002, when NewsMax and Random House's now-defunct Prima Publishing group agreed to a "joint venture for the purposes of publishing and marketing books." Under the agreement, NewsMax contributors and Prima were to "create a cobranded series of books" with Prima overseeing "the editorial, marketing, sales, and distribution of the series," and NewsMax "promot[ing] the books through its extensive network of online and print readers." The books were to be published "under the Prima Forum imprint, a line of serious nonfiction books."
When Prima Publishing was dissolved and realigned in 2003, Prima Forum was absorbed by Random House's Crown Publishing Group, Prima Publishing's parent division. Following the realignment, the Prima Forum line of books was re-launched under Crown Forum, a new imprint "solely devoted to nonfiction with a conservative point of view." Two books apparently resulting from NewsMax's "joint venture" with Prima Publishing were subsequently released by Crown Forum.
In July 2003, Crown Forum released NewsMax columnist James Hirsen's Tales from the Left Coast : True Stories of Hollywood Stars and Their Outrageous Politics and Carl Limbacher's Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House. NewsMax received joint authorship credit for both books and has its own "author's spotlight" page on the Random House website, touting NewsMax as "the leading source for conservatives looking for news on the Internet, with more than eight million unique visitors every month." Hirsen and Limbacher also have their own pages on the Random House website, including links to their various Random House books.
In addition to Hirsen's and Limbacher's books, Random House has also published three books by Richard Poe, a NewsMax contributor and the editor of David Horowitz's website FrontPageMag.com from 2000 to 2002 (and currently senior fellow and director of research and investigative projects at Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture). All three were released under the Three Rivers Press imprint.
*Ruddy neglected to mention CBS News' Bob Schieffer, who has hosted the Sunday morning talk show Face the Nation since 1991. Schieffer has not worked in Democratic Party politics and, in fact, has acknowledged a "golfing friendship" with President Bush "during the 1990s."
Russert is a big name and it's probably a good book. It's a cross promotion with the Newsmax magazine.
Why does AAR put on commercials for Glenn Becks CNN program 50 times per day? Glen Beck is NOT a big name and his show sucks! Guess AAR sold out!
As much as I agree w/ MMFA on a number of issues - even the majority of issues, this one strikes me as quite a reach. (Incidentally, I hear the same Glenn Beck ad on the Ed Shultz show.) If a partisan group is selling something that, in and of itself is not partisan, so what?
Also Russert's book doesn't appear to be POLITICAL...it's just a nice Father-Son story.
It may be local. I tend to listen to AAR over the internet from 8 a.m. til about 2:30 or 3:30 p.m. (Dependent on how loopy Randi is that day) and I never heard a Glen Beck advertisment.
Also, Big Ed is NOT employed by AAR , and local station can sell airtime to anyone they wish too. If they do not sell ads they do not broadcast.
Russert has been everywhere promoting this book and it is a-politial; almost everybody has a father or a least a father figure.
What is the point of this story? This is a non political book and a nice one at that. So Newsmax is advertising Russerts book? Maybe Newsmax's leaders like books about Fathers. I know I do. Why does Media Matters promote Keith Olbermann?
That would be a good topic to read on Media Matters.
--"This is total nonsense"--
NewsMax accuses Russert of a liberal bias. But yet they hawk Russert's new book. Is it because NewsMax has business ties to Random House-which sells books written by NewsMax and FrontPage contributors? Is it because NewsMax's principals are so tissue-thin (or non-existent) that they will sell them out at the drop of a dollar? Is it because they made a "deal with a devil"-Russert? What's going on here? Inquiring minds want to know.
Very few advertising outlets have political standards when accepting advertising dollars. Many so called "liberal" media companies, (NYT, WAPO etc.) will allow just about anyone to buy advertising space in their papers. This is a fact of life. TV & Radio outlets seem to have more rules ( but not higher standards). As long as no one tries to advertise something obscene, someone will be willing to broadcast the ad. Newspapers, magazines, TV & Radio stations only exist because of their ability to sell advertising.
A good question, and a curious tangled web. Hardcore, right-wing NewsMax-who has accused Russert of liberal bias- has a business relationship with Random House, publisher of Russert's book -which NewsMax is now promoting- as well as books by NewsMax and FrontPage contributors.
At the very least, it would seem that NewsMax is not committed to their "liberal bias" allegations against Russert.
We sing praises to the dollar and how it makes us rich and those around us miserable.
I think MMFA missed the point on this one. By showing that a conservative group (in some cases liberal) is willing to promote someone they seemingly don't like, only discredits the reason why.
If a group that has blasted Russert (personally, I think he can be a tool at times) is offering free editions of their very soapbox if the consumer buys Russert's book only proves that this group cares more about money than principles.
It's all about the dollar. That's why I'm holding back against saying anything about A.C. (Anne Coulter, Anti-Christ, hmmmm). She's a loud-mouth shock jock like Howard Stern. Anne says things to get a rise or reaction out of people, bring attention to herself and sell her book.
She's not in this for politics or partisanship. She's in this for the money. They all are.
Newsmax's claim that the network Sunday talk shows favor the left because their hosts at one time in the past worked for Democrats is baloney. Why doesn't NewsMax judge these programs' alleged bias by examining their content like Media Matters? it is clear that Russert and Matthews favor the RIGHTWING on their news shows and do not tilt their panel discussions to the left. On This Week, the roundtable has ultraconservative George Will and liberal Robert Reich, the fillers are journalists who do not exhibit any political persuasion. CBS has Bush pal George Scheffert. Why doesn't NewsMax point that out?
I'm not saying there's a connection or anything, but I manage a bookstore and the Russert book hadn't really been moving as quickly as I'd expected until this week. Then, the morning the Ann Coulter book came out we had 8 different people come in to pick up both the Russert book and the Coulter book together. I'm a really small store in a very liberal town, so this struck me as very unusual. There seemed to be a connection between those two books that I hadn't seen since Michael Crichton's State of Fear seemed to be selling in tandem with Coulter's How To Talk to a Liberal.
...if you work at a bookstore, would you please help me understand something?
Have you ever actually seen someone purchase a Sean Hannity book? I can't imagine that people actually buy these types of books; I'm certain that the publisher fictiously reports book sales in order to create a buzz. Any truth to my "shot in the dark" of an attempt to make sense of all this?
Hannity's books don't sell for us at all, but we can always count on at least a handful of people to come in for every new Coulter book. I don't mean this to sound judgemental, but the people who come in asking for Coulter's books seem like they've never even set foot in a bookstore before, and 99 times out of 100 they're elderly. More often than not they'll also use the opportunity to provoke some sort of political argument with us. Many conservatives seem to view bookstores as inherently liberal, and the Coulter book buyers definitely aren't shy about making antagonistic comments.
I imagine buying SH's books is like buying porn. One can do it from home and no one will know. No one except the online retailers, the ISP, third party billing routers and all the others that know everything that you do when you surf... But atleast not the others in your town.
That's what all of these books by angry conservatives are: Pornography. Reading a book that re-enforce someone's rock solid beliefs is mental masturbation. I guess you could say the same about some books from the left. The only difference being that the books from the Coulters and the Hannitys are much more lurid in their depiction of the evils they rail about.
I would think that MM posted this story as further proof that the claim of liberal media bias is a fable. Put a different way, if Tim Russert is a flaming liberal, and if NewsMax is as dedicated to furthering the conservative agenda, as they imply -- Why would they promote a liberal's book, and further his exposure and popularity?
Thus, the conservative movement is either sacrificing "the movement" against the liberal media in favor of profit, or the entire idea of a liberal media is a sham; it's one or the other.
If it's not that, then I don't get why this article has been posted.
The liberal media thing is a complete sham, but this example doesn't support that. But a good read on the subject is 'What Liberal Media'. The movement conservatives wanted to usurp the media to use to dominant the media with their message. They calculatedly designed the 'the media is liberal campaign'. The bozos in the media fell for it hook line and sinker. They now bend over backwards to prove that there isn't a liberal bias to the point that they end up intentionally or not having a predominance of conservative voices in the media. The conservatives pulled the pendulum from the middle or maybe slightly left of center to the outer most reaches of the right. Conservatives like Pat Buchanan who used to be considered extreme right are now presented as mainstream conservative voices and the extreme right voices end up being people like Ann Coulter who a few short years ago would not even be allowed on a reputable news show. Ann Coulter was right - they have the media now. The right also established their measure of what constitutes the extreme left, (On Bill O’riellys show it’s any progressive that criticizes him) and the mainstream media goes to great pangs to keep the people they characterize as extreme Liberals on their shows for fear of being accused of advancing extreme leftist, but they’ll hall out Pat Buchanan in prime time and Ann Coulter on the fluff AM shows. These guys are like the evil geniuses in the old comic books.
I meant haul out.
About Pat Buchanan and the hateful Ann Coulter!!!!!!!!!
Yo Lynn, my brother-in-law once trotted out the "liberal media" myth, and I asked him, "you mean the corporate media?" Tex, the poster here, and others say it so well, how these rabid right-wingers have moved the goal posts so far in political discourse and media expectations, that the "mainstream" is now the domain of the "conservatives". The Hannity claim, for example, that Bin Laden watches CNN, and the ABC smear, is like a comic book diabolical plan to turn all the mainline tv news sources into FOX-lite (tastes great, less filling).
Although NewsMax's promotion of Wisdom of Our Fathers seems at odds with its previous statements criticizing Russert, NewsMax does have a relationship with Russert's publisher, Random House.
The speculation and innuendo prior to that is, quite frankly, abysmal. Even considering MMFA's note above, this is a blatant attempt to indict Russert for NewsMax promoting his book. I seriously doubt MMFA's intent was to defend Russert.
This item wasn't even necessary either. One only has to do a search for "Russert" here to see a substantial number of instances where Russert was wrong or mislead. That should be reason enough to be wary of using him as a sole source.
This item really amounts to a fallacious attack. MMFA should consider pulling this item.
I agree that perhaps MMFA should leave the innuendo to the posters, but I am genuinely interested in the Newsmax decision to actively promote an author whom they had previously written-off as too "liberal". Is Russert now the darling of conservatives? Does it behoove the conservative establishment to keep conflating Russert with the liberal media myth? I'd say that the confusion benefits the Repubs so that Russert continues to help them with his lapdog underpinnings and progressives continue to trust his "objectiveness".
Is this MMFA item worthy of their standards? I don't know.
Asking the question privately is one thing. However, to ask the question publicly and formally has a different implication. In this case, it amounts to innuendo.
The facts in this instance suggest that the only thing unusual is the irony. I don't see any upside to this item. I do see this item acting as fodder for MMFA (and blog) critics.
Joseph Brown wasted his time on this one. If the editors assigned it to him...they should be chastised. If he did this on his own...whew...way too much time on his hands.
you only show your diseased carcass of a head on threads such as these, but when MMFA has items that are indefensible posted, you disappear as quick as George Bush did when it came time to fulfill his National Guard duties.
The question is NOT "Why is NewsMax promoting the book? ---although I challenge anyone to name ANY book that NewsMax has promoted before this one that wasn't hard-freakin-right
The real mystery here is that Tim Russert would allow himself, or his book, to be associated with NewsMax in any way.
I mean, for a journalist, THIS is like coming out of the closet: "Hey, I'm a HACK." Yes, Tim, I had been wondering about you for some time now--now we all know.
LIBRARIAN