By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

The media say they want bipartisanship — as long as it doesn’t apply to them. Politicians should bridge their differences and come together in the public interest. Put aside petty politics and forge reasonable compromises. But should the pundit class adopt a similar tone? No way!That would amount to a collective hari-kari for a business built on argument and finger-pointing. Who would Hannity accuse of being socialists? How could Olbermann face the public without naming his Worst Persons in the World? Would Dobbs bury the hatchet with illegal immigrants? Could O’Reilly get through a whole show without ridiculing pinheads? How would they play softball on “Hardball”? Who would the Wall Street Journal editorial page blame for undermining capitalism?

No, what’s great about the debate over Obama and bipartisanship is that media outlets can pretend to be high-minded about it while slugging it out. If we had real bipartisanship — if the president and congressional leaders held a joint news conference to slap backs and hail an economic package that would pass unanimously — television ratings would plummet. Blogs would go unlinked. Magazines would sit on newsstands, unsold. Newspaper circulation would drop. (Oh wait, that already happened.)

Read More: 

By JOHN F. HARRIS, Politico

The conversations don’t begin with hello. They don’t end with goodbye. Most often they pick up with a low, drawling voice uttering something between a sentence and a grunt.

“Wahzgoanawn?” For those accustomed to hearing James Carville only when he is trying to enunciate more clearly for television, that translates to: “What’s going on?”

So begins another morning in what may count as Washington’s longest-running conversation — a street-corner bull session between four old friends who suddenly find themselves standing once more at the busiest intersection of politics and media in Washington.

Carville calls White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Read More:

by  Melanie Morgan, Human Events

So this is how it’s going to be in the new administration: President Obama signs an executive order that will result in millions of abortions around the world — not too controversial, right?

President Obama is proposing a gigantic spending plan that hugely increases the national debt and inserts the government in the economy — who could be against that?

President Obama is closing Gitmo and giving constitutional rights to terrorists — oh, that is mainstream.

By David B. Wilkerson, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — New York Times Co., battling along with the rest of the newspaper industry to remain solvent during the financial meltdown, said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit fell 48%, but its results still surpassed most estimates.

The company (NYT:5.79, -0.19, -3.2%) also said it has hired Goldman Sachs & Co. to help it explore the sale of its nearly 18% stake in New England Sports Ventures, which includes the Boston Red Sox.

The quarterly profit decline reflected the reduced value of an asset at the International Herald Tribune, severance costs and ongoing declines in advertising sales.

by  Bill O’Reilly, Human Events

There is much irony in the fact that while liberals have won power in Washington big time, left-wing media are collapsing all over the place. In the last couple of weeks, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the mother of all liberal publications, The New York Times, each has issued SOS announcements.

The Seattle paper will cease publication in March unless a buyer is found. Even though it can’t pay its bills, the Post-Intelligencer should have been inducted into the left-wing hall of fame after its publisher told the FBI to buzz off when the agency asked for media help in locating two possible terror suspects.

Andy Rooney on CBS 60 Minutes believes that no one in America dislikes Obama. I agree that he must be reading the wrong newspapers. The press seems to try to silence debate and overlook any opposition to President Obama.                

By Gerry Storch, OJR

You don’t get free gas from a gas station.

You don’t get free meals from a restaurant.

You wouldn’t walk into the Googleplex … that’s Google’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. … and expect a staffer to rush to the lobby with 1,000 free shares of Google stock for you.

At least we don’t think so.

So why is the newspaper industry the only one in America that is expected to give its product … in its electronic version … away for free?

Wrestling with that question will determine the fate of this nation’s newspapers.

Our answer: except for the “Big Four” national players, newspapers will not survive unless they 1) convert out of print and totally into the Internet, 2) confine themselves to local news and, most importantly, 3) charge for it.