Keith's blog 'Bloggermann,' debuts next week. Find it at Countdown.MSNBC.com.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation's homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday.

Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season that has been marked by media controversies.

Veteran financial journalist Louis Rukeyser, who has been off television for a year due to cancer, has asked CNBC to pull the plug on his long-running Friday night business news show. CNBC said that "Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street," which has been airing with Consuelo Mack as substitute host, will cease production by the end of the year.

Rukeyser, 71, had announced earlier this year that he had cancer in his lower back and said Friday that complications had developed.

"I can no longer predict when I will be ready to rejoin you here," Rukeyser said.

Daily papers have lost a lot of their authority to decide what's news. A story they refuse to cover will get to the public some other way, and if the dailies don't lead the discussion it'll go on just fine without them.

A couple of weeks ago the sexual orientation of the daughter of Alan Keyes became various bloggers' new hot subject. As I write this column, the Tribune and Sun-Times have published nothing on it. They've stood on principle, and the principle is hard to fault. They saw signs that Maya Keyes, only 19, dreaded the attention they were thinking of paying her. There is, after all, a big difference between her playing with the subject of lesbian romance on a Web site read by a few friends and having it exposed to the world. When bloggers began calling attention to www.xanga.com, the site where they said she posted her blog, the intimate material they'd noticed there promptly disappeared.

[...]

Rich Miller, publisher of the newsletter "Capitol Fax," reported on September 30: "Almost every Chicago political reporter is currently and actively pursuing the Keyes controversy, and his refusal to talk about it is starting to drive them a little crazy. You can see it in their stories. They're champing at the bit, eager to find the hook that justifies blowing this thing wide open. Most of them are also sensitive about the daughter, but this thing is obviously driving them nuts. Millions of people already know about this, but they're not allowed to report it."

What was that bulge in the back of President Bush's suit jacket at the presidential debate in Miami last week?

According to rumors racing across the Internet this week, the rectangular bulge visible between Mr. Bush's shoulder blades was a radio receiver, transmitting answers from an offstage counselor into a hidden presidential earpiece. The prime suspect was Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's powerful political adviser.

The FBI took the hard drives of Global IMC servers in the USA and the UK. It appears that a court order was issued to Rackspace (Indymedia's service provider with offices in the US and in London) to physically remove the hard drives from Global Indymedia servers (backup servers are now in place). Rackspace was given no time to defend against the order before it was acted upon and turned over the hard drives, both in the US and the UK. [...]

During the Republican Convention, the ISP of the NYC IMC was informed that it was the subject of a Secret Service / FBI investigation into an article submitted to its Open Newswire identifying delegates at the RNC. While the FBI has made it clear to members of the press that the investigation is ongoing, there is not necessarily a connection between events in NYC and the FBI's seizure of the Rackspace servers. Currently, much of the speculation about the reasons for the FBI's move centers around photographs posted to the IMC-Nantes website.

Another theory is around some pictures of undercover Swiss police (photographing protesters) that were posted on an IMC site (IMC Nantes) - Indymedia got a request to remove 'identifying information' from the site (apparently the FBI got involved 'as a courtesy' to the Swiss authorities). Since there were no identifying details, Indymedia didn't do anything in response.

At this hour, President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote nationwide. Ralph Nader has 1 percent of the vote nationwide. That's with 51 percent of the precincts reporting.

Bush has won 324 electoral votes in 33 states. He is leading in 4 states for a total of 43 more electoral votes.

Kerry has won 105 electoral votes in 8 states and the District of Columbia. He is leading in 5 states for a total of 48 more electoral votes.

Nader has not won any state and is not currently leading in any state.

In the 435 U.S. House races, the Republicans have won 173 seats and are leading in the races for 56 seats. The Democrats have won 145 seats and are leading in the races for 56 seats. Independent and other party candidates have won or are leading for 3 seats. If these trends continue, the Republicans will retain control of the Senate and will gain 3 seats.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

With less than a month before the presidential election, an Associated Press test article declaring President Bush the winner was picked up by WBAY.com's automated system. The headline of the AP story did not bear that all-important word for the automated filters... "test."

The mistake was picked up by a discussion group on Daily Kos, prompting a phone call that alerted us to the problem. Our web host, WorldNow, removed the story within five minutes.

WBAY apologizes for the error, and we took quick action to correct it.

A federal judge held a reporter in contempt Thursday for refusing to divulge confidential sources to prosecutors investigating the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered New York Times reporter Judith Miller jailed until she agrees to testify about her sources before a grand jury, but said she could remain free while pursuing an appeal. Miller could be jailed up to 18 months.

While the clear majority of commentators described the debate as a draw, MSNBC pundits expressed a dramatically different view, declaring Vice President Dick Cheney the undisputed victor.

[...]

CHRIS MATTHEWS (host of MSNBC's Hardball): Will it be apparent enough to The New York Times to mention tomorrow, will the liberal press admit Cheney won? [...] The analogy would be a water pistol against a machine gun.

DEMOCRAT CHRIS MATTHEWS' SELECTIVE "ANALYSIS" - Matthews Pinch Hits For Edwards And Strikes Out The Truth

Kingstowne, Va.: What is your reaction to the report in the alternative weekly that The Post's focus groups revealed a lack of enthusiasm for paying for the dead-tree version of the paper?

Leonard Downie Jr.: While we understand that many people now read news online, and we welcome all who read washingtonpost.com, we are also working on making the ink-on-paper newspaper more attractive and accessible to as many readers as possible.

[...]

Arlington, Va.: How do you plan to stem the decline in circulation, which seems even worse given our region's massive population growth?

Leonard Downie Jr.: We are continuing to expand our local news coverage. We are working on ways to make the paper more physically attractive and easier to navigate through each day. And we are increasing our coverage, particularly on the front page, of subjects that matter most to our readers in their daily lives, including health, pop culture, education, entertainment, technology, etc.

On Saturday, for the third time this year, Tom Brokaw lashed out at the Media Research Center. At the New Yorker Festival, Brokaw rued how "Brent Bozell has, you know, an entire organization devoted to doing as much damage, and I choose that word carefully, as he can to the credibility of the news divisions." We couldn't have done it without their help.

And now, on the left, there are the young bloggers out there who are anti-establishment and have their own kind of schematic for, as is their right, to offer up this criticism and to develop constituencies around it. These three aging white men are stuck somewhere in the middle trying, on a nightly basis, give a fair and balanced picture of what's going on in the world....

Kerry spokesperson Michael Meehan prematurely ended his appearance on Hannity & Colmes segment after Sean and Bush rep Nicolle Devenish "ganged up" on him. One e-mailer called it the "most blatant example of attack journalism that I've ever seen on TV:" "They wouldn't let him answer with anything besides a yes or a no." As the first of two planned segments concluded, Meehan said: "If you're not going to let me answer, then I'll just cede my time." He walked out during the commercial, while Devenlish stuck around for part two.

Should media moguls refrain from endorsing presidential candidates? [...] The question has gained new urgency in New York and Washington after Sumner Redstone, who controls CBS-parent Viacom, enthusiastically endorsed President George W. Bush. From a "Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal," Redstone told an audience of CEOs in Hong Kong in late September, "because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on." In the widely-reported remarks, he added: "I vote for what’s good for Viacom." [...]

Critics, in a debate that’s now beginning to take hold, say Redstone may have risked exposing the entire media sector to the unwelcome appearance of coziness with federal regulators.

"Last week, we experienced separate lapses of judgment, resulting in the posting, on our website, of inaccurate material," Moody writes. "Credibility is our lifeblood. When we make factual mistakes, we affect adversely all the hard work that we've done for eight years to become the country's leading news channel." He calls Cameron's quotes a "stupid parody" that was included in the scripts queue, then picked up and added "unthinkingly" to the web site.

"For that reason, we are implementing a number of changes," he continues. "First, and immediately, the scripts queue is OFF LIMITS for editorial use until the item has been broadcast or the script is approved for use. Second, the use of scripts queue for humor, sarcasm, parody or other unprofessional conduct is strictly forbidden. Failure to follow this directive is a dismissable offense."

When I saw the language, it was abundantly clear that he wanted it leaked to the press. Notice that even in an advisory memo, he still takes the time to trumpet FNC over its competitors.

FOXNews.com regrets the error. From now on, polygraphs for everybody.

"I think they buckled to political pressure," says Luntz, who has advised Republicans from Newt Gingrich to Rudy Giuliani but says he's done no GOP work since 2001. "They caved. . . . Why is it that Democrats are allowed to do this" after leaving politics, "but Republicans aren't?"

But as MMFA has noted, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reported on September 2: "Earlier this year, GOP pollster Frank Luntz advised Republicans to never talk about Iraq or homeland security without first mentioning how '9/11 changed everything.'" The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on September 1: "Republican pollster Frank Luntz did his best Tuesday to pump up Ohio's Republicans at a delegation breakfast. 'If you guys fail, if John Kerry becomes president by a percent or half a percent, I think you're going to be pretty regretful,' he said."

Moore said he looked into it at the time and concluded that they weren't reliable. Not surprisingly, he really didn't seem to have any sympathy for Rather's mistake. He mentioned Burkett's name during the discussion, but never said that Burkett was his source.

FINGER-LICKIN' GOOD? Peter Jennings is quite the culinary risk-taker, judging by his recent revelations to Webster Hall curator Baird Jones: "As part of my travels as a journalist, I have had the chance to sample many bizarre menus. For instance, I've eaten sheep's testicles in Jordan, python in the Philippines and, in Mexico, I had a dinner of ants which were quite small and well cooked. But the strange thing about the dozens of exotic foods I've eaten is that they all seem to taste the same - like plain-old chicken!"

In Sunday's 10,000-word indictment of the Bush administration's misuse of prewar intelligence on Iraq's nuclear capabilities, The New York Times did not spare itself in apportioning blame in the fateful rush to war. Readers had to dig deep into the massive story, and understand some of the subtleties in the self-criticism, but it was there.

[...]

The first hint of self-criticism in the Times article comes just past the midway point, when the writers observe that on Sept. 8, 2002, the top article on page one of their newspaper "gave the first detailed account of the aluminum tubes. The article cited unidentified senior administration officials who insisted that the dimensions, specifications and numbers of tubes sought showed that they were intended for a nuclear weapons program."

[...]

Today's Times story dryly observes: "The article gave no hint of a debate over the tubes," adding, "The White House did much to increase the impact of The Times article."

[...]

Today, however, the Times revealed that the vast majority of scientists and nuclear experts at the Energy Department's labs, in fact, disagreed with the CIA assessment. [...]

Finally, much later in today's story, the reporters note that their paper, on January 10, 2003, reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency was challenging the "key piece of evidence" behind "the primary rationale for going to war." The article, the paper said, in passing, appeared on Page A10.

Scoops and attribution are our topic today; specifically, who deserves credit for breaking one of the weekend buzz stories coming out of the debates. We're referring to Fox News' fake posting which quoted John Kerry as saying: "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" [...]

Stephen C. Clemons at The Washington Note writes that Josh Marshall broke the story about the phony cuticle quote, attributed to Fox's Carl Cameron. Clemons writes: ["]Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times in his report on the fabricated Kerry posting says nothing of Joshua Marshall's investigation or his reporting.["]

While acknowledging mistakes in CBS anchor Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" report [...] Brokaw blasted what he called an attempt to "demonize" CBS and Rather on the Internet, where complaints about the report first surfaced. He said the criticism "goes well beyond any factual information."

"What I think is highly inappropriate is what going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad ... that is quite outrageous," the NBC anchor said at a panel on which all three men spoke.

[...]

"I don't think you ever judge a man by only one event in his career," said Jennings, anchor on ABC.

Rather said he did not ask enough questions before the war or conduct enough follow-up reporting.

"If the country is in dire peril, as the president of the United States says it is ... I want to be a patriotic journalist," he said.

"You know that the role of the patriotic journalist is to put your fear aside, stand up, look them in the eye, ask the rough questions. But you also know that when you do that, you're going to get hammered..." Rather said. "So what happens is you just say ... maybe tomorrow."