by TChris

Since the Bush administration has become notorious for disguising propagada videos as “news stories,” it’s a bit disingenuous for the president to remark that it’s “deceptive to the American people” to show the videos without disclosing their government origins. He’s right about the deception, but wrong about the solution. He thinks it’s up to the news broadcasts that run the stories to identify their origins. They should, but it’s also incumbent upon the administration not to disguise propaganda as news in the first place.

Senator Byrd got 98 votes for his proposal to "force federal agencies over the next year to disclose the origins of video releases."

If you are a college student who downloaded music or movies this past year from 'IHub2', get ready for an unpleasant surprise - 405 lawsuits were filed yesterday. More are planned.

The suits are targeting users of IHub2, also called Internet 2. "a separate network used by universities and colleges for sharing research and other academic works."

For the uninitiated (and that included us):

Wednesday at 1:00pm, ET, the winners of the National Magazine awards will be announced. You can follow live as the awards are announced here.

I'm rooting for Denver's 5280 which is up for two awards, both for articles written by Maximillian Potter. More details here. [Full Disclosure: I've been blogging daily for 5280 for several months now -- here's last week's group of posts.]

All of the finalists worth reading, I've tracked down the links for the ones most germane to TalkLeft.

Time Magazine describes the she-pundit with long blond hair as "irrestible and influential" in naming her as one of the most 100 influential people in the World (not just America, mind you, but the World.)

Time describes its list as consisting of people whose "power, talent or moral example is transforming the world."

She's listed in the "artists and entertainers" categories. At least she's not listed in the Leaders, Thinkers or Heroes categories, but still, it's totally irrational and voids the list of any modicum of credibility. In fact, it's downright insulting.

Executive Editor Adi Ignatius claims responsibility for the list. In an audio clip on the site, he says the nominations came in from readers correspondents and then he and staff whittled them down. I knew there was a reason I have always read Newsweek instead of Time. Whenever I have see a copy of Time, usually at the dentist's office, I think "Dick Cheney."

I'm really glad Time has never gotten a dime from me. If I had a subscription, I'd cancel. With all the media choices out there, who needs a magazine that wastes what little time extra time we have for reading the news?

[Corrected to reflect that the correspondents, not readers, of Time were the source of the nominations.]

We thought the America We Stand as One video was just about the funniest video ever. But the remix will have you laughing out loud. [Link via Greg Beato at Wonkette with a hat tip to Atrios.]

It depicts an America that stands as one...because after we get finished blasting the world's evildoers into democracy-loving rainbows, there won't be any other countries left. F**k yeah!

America, We Stand as One (F**k Yeah! remix)

America, We Stand as One (Original version)

Ashcroft's Eagle Soars is chopped chicken liver in comparison.

Markos of Daily Kos is on C-Span tonight in a very long interview about blogging, the Kos community, Democrats, himself and more. The interviewer questions him about his entire life, from San Salvador, to his Army service, his marriage, the birth of his child - even about the blog he created for the pregnancy. Markos is terrific and it's a very compelling interview. It repeats at 11:00 pm ET, watch if you can.

Crooks and Liars has the video of the National Press Club blogger panel. It's been distilled down to 17 minutes. Wonkette and Matt Yglesias both lit into the unjournalist Jeff Gannon aka Jeff Guckert. You can watch the whole thing on C-Span2 at 8pm ET tonight.

John at AmericaBlog live-blogged the action which aired on CSpan2, and writes about Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox):

The Peabody Awards for electronic media excellence have been announced. One winner that is taking some by surpise is 60 Minutes II and Dan Rather and Mary Mapes - for their Abu Ghraib report. Good for them. That was a great report and they deserve the recognition.

The Peabody given to the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes" honored an exclusive story, produced by Mary Mapes and reported by Dan Rather, about the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Several months after that journalistic coup, Ms. Mapes was fired and Mr. Rather retired as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" earlier than planned in the wake of another broadcast, on President George W. Bush's National Guard service. After initially backing its reporters and their report, CBS said they may have based it on falsified documents.

In citing the report, the committee said, "This Dan Rather report broke the story of the abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad, airing for the first time the photographs of American soldiers and abused Iraqi prisoners that shocked the world. "

Another winner was the Daily Show:

Ezra Klein's got a new part-time gig writing a column for Campus Progress on young writers who have landed jobs with media or activist organizations.

Gather round kids, and let me welcome you to Get a Job, a regular feature here at Campus Progress. We know you’re broke. We know you are staring out over the precipice of graduation scared of free-falling into adult life. And we know you’ll soon want a job solving both afflictions. This feature will try to give you some ideas on that front.....

His latest interview: Matt Yglesias, who we in the blogosphere affectionately call "Big Media Matt." (coined by Atrios.)

If you want faces to go with names, here's a picture with Ezra, Matt, Atrios, me (and Jesse, Zoe, Brian and Tom.)

A big thanks to Crooks and Liars for locating and uploading the video of Peter Jenning's announcement last night of his lung cancer. ABC News, if you can believe it, is charging for the video.

The video is sad. Jenning's voice is scratchy, and he tries to put a brave face and display a stoic outlook on his condition. One of the things that has made Jennings (and Brokaw) superior anchors is that they never made the news about them. Their personalities really didn't come through in their newscasts. It was always about the story. Even in this announcement, Jennings half sounds like he's reporting on his condition. He extends compassion to others who are battling cancer and tells us that one is a survivor from the moment of diagnosis. He doesn't allow himself even a moment of self-pity on the air--although his last line has a touch of self-effacing humor to it.

Some doctors are speculating that his cancer must be advanced because he is going right into chemotherapy without first having surgery. I suspect only Jenning's doctors know for sure how advanced his conditon is. Lung cancer is serious, but there are survivors.

It's official, the Current Network, headed up by Al Gore, will launch in August. It's aiming for the 18 to 34 market, and will try to be more like MTV than Fox News or MSNBC. It will not be a liberal network:

"We have no intention of being a Democratic channel, a liberal channel, or a TV version of Air America, that's not what we're all about," he said, referring to the liberal radio network.

From today's news conference:

An eight part documentary on the murder trial of novelist Michael Peterson begins tonight on the Sundance Channel.

“The Staircase” is a documentary that follows the case of novelist Michael Peterson who was charged in 2001 of murdering his wife. The documentary originally aired on Britain’s BBC network and shows the defense strategies of Peterson’s team of lawyers, the head of which is David Rudolf. Peterson claims that his wife fell down a flight of stairs in their home in Durham, NC.

The film is airing in the US on the Sundance Channel in eight parts starting tonight with the first two parts at 9 pm, Eastern and Pacific times; 8 pm, Central time.

The entire trial was televised live on Court TV, so many may be familiar with it. David Rudolf is a terrific lawyer and I'm told the documentary is very well done.