more spin

From OlbermannWatch:

The following perfectly encapsulates the bias of "Man on Fan" Olbermann. While he has avoided reporting the decrease in killings since the Baghdad crackdown commenced, liberal Olby has eagerly trumpeted every piece of bad news he could scrape up.

From the Mercury News:

Nearly two weeks into the newest Baghdad security plan, the daily count of murder victims dumped on the city's streets has declined significantly, a likely sign that Shiite Muslim militia groups aligned with the Iraqi government have reined in their members or sent them out of the capital.

But deaths from bombings and mortar attacks, after an initial decline, have returned to the levels of the previous two months, suggesting that the plan's initial measures have had little impact on the Sunni insurgent groups believed to be responsible for most of that violence.

Maybe Olbermann isn't reporting on the decrease in deaths in Iraq because there hasn't been a decrease?

OlbermannWatch & Me

From my inbox:

Has anyone told you lately that you one pathetic loser? I would be willing
to bet you thousands of e-mails like this daily. It is obvious you are
ditching the Habeas Corpus story, what I want to know is why were you all
over it in the weeks and months before the ruling? Truley cowardess, to say
the least. Another thing, the olbermannwatch site won't be closing, you can
get that thought out of your mind. If it does close farther down the road,
bet your ass I will start another one. P.S. Wasn't it great when the Great
Bill O' mispronounced your name last week? That is your new name now,
Ulbermahn, it fits your sorry fat ass much better, Osama Bin Ulbermahn. Do
you look up and down the street before you get out of your car? You
should...............

One word: classy.

can someone re-send the memo?

The New York Times ran a correction to their story on blogger access to the Libby trial stating that Bob Cox had only negotiated access for his organization. Someone at Cox's right-wing Media Bloggers Association doesn't seem to have gotten the memo.

From the right-wing Media Bloggers Association earlier today:

For blogs, the Libby trial marks a courthouse coming of age. It is the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials, said Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. Cox negotiated access for the bloggers.

That's funny. It's as if the Times correction never existed.

Maybe the right-wing Media Bloggers Association has the same devotion to truth and accuracy that Bob Cox does?

Adios Bob!

Bob Cox is exploring the possibility of shutting down OlbermannWatch.

Why?

From OlbermannWatch:

With the recent announcement that NBC Universal has signed Keith Olbermann to a new multi-million dollar, multi-year contract, the time has come to consider whether Olbermann Watch continues to serve a valuable role as a watchdog site.

One would think that a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract would only increase the need for a "watchdog" site, but OlbermannWatch has never had a particularly close relationship to the demands of impartial logic.

What's the real reason Bob is considering closing OlbermannWatch?

From Bob's farewell post at the National Debate:

It's clear to me that TND has too much right-of-center baggage to be an effective platform from which to advance the non-partisan agenda of the Media Bloggers Association. I believe I can be a far more effective advocate for the MBA - and establish myself as a thought-leader on blogging and citizen media - by creating an entirely new blog. Maybe folks will see this as somewhat pointless in that I am still the same person and I am still going to have the same opinions. Maybe they're right but I feel that that the time has come to break with my TND-self and start a new chapter in my blogging career. What better way than with a new personal blog with a new more constructive tone; a blog devoted to my work as President of the Media Bloggers Association.

Like the National Debate, OlbermannWatch has become a handicap for Bob's career aspirations.

Bob has a long history of fostering a venomous internet culture based on bullying, intimidation, and irresponsible interpretations of fact. He's attempting to transform that particular brand of poison into a career as an advocate for the blogging community as a whole.

Good luck with that, Bob.

Bob Cox Getting Greedy?

From Fire Dog Lake:

And I'm curious how Shane's article [in the New York Times] made the mistake of saying Robert Cox of Media Bloggers Association had "negotiated access" for all of the bloggers at the trial. I made very clear in my interview that there were two distrinct groups of bloggers, and I'm certain Jane and Marcy were explicit on that point as well. Did Cox make some sort of sweeping (and misleading) claim of credit late in the process that Shane neglected to double-check with Team FDL? Did a confused copyeditor try to "clarify" a poorly worded sentence? Hopefully, Siun or Jane or someone is hounding Shane for an explanation.

From the NY Times:

Correction: February 15, 2007
A front-page article on Thursday about bloggers covering the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. referred imprecisely to the role of Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, in securing credentials. Mr. Cox negotiated access for his association, which was the first blogger group to be granted credentials to cover the trial. He did not negotiate on behalf of firedoglake.com and other blogs that received their credentials later.

Bob Cox's History of Online Terrorism, Example #4

Following up yesterday’s post detailing Bob Cox’s decision to reveal personal information about one of his critics… it actually gets worse.

What could be worse than publishing the height, weight, phone number, education, etc. of an individual posting comments under a pseudonym?

Bringing in Dad.

M

y purpose in posting as much information as I could find about [name of Cox’s critic] was simply to make the point that she is not as ‘anonymous’ as she thinks and that her behavior may also come with a cost. Just as she made her hate speech about me a part of the ‘permanent’ record of the internet via Google, so to is information about the actual person who wrote all that stuff. My hope is that someday, somehow she will be held accountable for her behavior. In the meantime, that she does not like is reason enough. It's called getting a taste of your own medicine, something [name of Cox’s critic] father knows something about.

Dr. [name of the father of one of Cox’s critics]

BTW, there is no mystery to how I know what I know. My web hosting account comes with some basic web stats software which includes features like displaying where visitors are coming from (so I know what sites/forums have linked to OW) and the IP addresses of visitors/comments (so I can sort by IP address). I can match the IP addresses with what pages were visited including the comment form page; this allows me to do a quick sort and see all the comments coming from one person regardless of what fake name they use. This is how I know when someone is using multiple ‘handles’ to post.”

Bob Cox's History of Online Terrorism, Example #3

The mother of all examples of irresponsible blogging.

The following is a comment Bob Cox made on OlbermannWatch. Note that it not only provides detailed personal information on the OW critic, but an interesting color commentary. I think it says far more about Bob Cox than it does the critic he is responding to.

[Initial of OW critic] is the sad story of a smart girl with way too much time on her hands and a bit of narcissism disorder. She is originally from Northern California. Her father is a doctor and her sister is also [initial]. She is athletic, an avid soccer player who went to high school near [city] and went to college at [university] where she studied history. She was a very good student at [university] and worked part-time as a "TA" in the history department among other things.

She is 5'3", weighs about 110 pounds and wears a size 4. She was married but is now divorced. She drives up a pick up truck and claims to have worked as a detective once. She describes herself as "not so well endowed--big big big fuckin' brains-- and a lot a balls."

[Initial of OW critic] is your classic "professional" student. She has never held a real job but rather spent her last few years jumping from school to internships and back. She was an intern at the [organization] which allowed her to live at home while working for low pay in [city]. While there she wrote an Op-Ed piece lobbying a professional organization. Last summer she again lived at home while she spent time working for the [organization].

Today she is holed up as a graduate student living off daddy's money at the [university]. She was originally pursuing a Masters in [field] and would have graduated this spring but decided to add a degree in [field] and so has put of her graduation plans off until 2006 (see what I mean about "professional" student). In the meantime, she is looking for a summer internship, possibly entailing a move to the East Coast (I won't say where exactly). She is also considering participating in programs in Central America (possibly Guatamala) and maybe even Cuba. Her dream, of course, would be work with/for Keith Olbermann at MSNBC. My money is on her taking a good look at the real world next year, gulping and opting to for a Ph.D. program, preferably someplace warm.

[Initial of OW critic] currently lives about a block off the main [university] campus in [city] where she is at liberty to stroll to class and her part time job in a school office. I have her exact home and work address, phone numbers and a satellite photo but I am not going to publish any of that here. The last four digits of her home phone are [xxxx]; her work phone is [xxxx].

While at [university], [Initial of OW critic] has been very active in a number of campus organizations ranging from a pro-Kerry group to a poker club. She is not very good at cards but the stakes are small so she can't lose too much.

Today [Initial of OW critic] writes "I'm fairly confident that my want for privacy is perfectly valid, not nefarious in the least, and just plain smart." What she fails to mention is that she has posted to OlbermannWatch.com on a variety other names as well (and apparently, even to this day, still believes that I don't know this).

When you compare [Initial of OW critic] public persona to the online incarnation you can begin to understand her reason for not wanting to be associated with her internet alter ego - a horrendously foul-mouthed, bossy, raving loon. If a potential employer were to run a google search and match up her name with her various psuedonyms like [names] and the many others it might be awkward for her.

…

You see, if you put together the pieces – [state], School, [field] - (and Google is pretty good and putting together such pieces) you will find that there are not that many Universities, in [state], that offer graduate degrees in [field] - and even less than have students named [first name of OW critic].