WWE suspends 10 superstars, maybe more!

I've said it before, it's rare for a wrestling story to get any traction in the mainstream news. So with MSNBC reporting on 10 WWE superstars being suspended by the company for violations of it's "Wellness Program", well, I get interested.

The story reveals that no names have been released by WWE but that the suspensions were...

"...based on independent information from the Albany County, N.Y., district attorney’s office, which has been investigating sales of steroids and growth hormones through Internet and phone-order firms."

Wrestlezone.com is amongst many other sources with more information, although I cannot completely verify the accuracy of some of their stories. In this case however, they seem to be relying on information released by the mainstream media. Of the various other mainstream media outlets that are reporting the story, three seem to be more up on it than the rest.

The New York Daily News is on the case, thanks to the fact that the investigation is being carried out through Albany County, NY Distict Attorney's Office. They were the first people to list names connected with the investigation.

ESPN also listed names, though a different set. They too seem to be well on-top of this story.

Sports Illustrated seem to be the most clued up though, with a story that reads very authoritatively, and gives a more complete list of names. It has to be said that all the names in NY Daily News and ESPN lists also appear in this list. This is why I have said thatb I feel both of the other sources are well on top of this story. There are more details here though, including drugs listed and dates of supply. All of them are between September 2004 and February 2007.

Amongst some of the other reports I have seen for this, are reports that one of the pharmacies involved in the investigation is a company called Signature Pharmacy in Orlando, FL, and that a Florida doctor is apparently helping with the DA's enquiry.

There are also reports that say that stars from Major League Baseball and the National Football League could also be involved in this scandal, so this may not be a WWE exclusive problem.

WWE are known to be facing congressional hearings soon, so this information could not have come at a worse time for them.

This is one of those stories that will probably take a long time to go away, and will be followed by many media sources with interest. Wrestling fans too will want to follow this story, even if they don't like the result of it. One thing I know for sure is that TNA, WWE's best known rival in the wrestling world, will be looking at this as a major oppourtunity. I doubt they will be completely silent on this for long.

Tony Snow - Leaving the White House, back to Fox News?

MSNBC reports that Tony Snow is to step down from his post as White House Press Secretary on September 14th 2007, to be replaced by his deputy Dana Perino.

He obviously feels hard-up cos he said he needs more than his White House salary of $168,000. Ah diddums!

I wonder if he'll be heading back to the old Murdoch dollar at Fox News. He might be able to come close to being able to ask for top dollar now he is well known worldwide.

On a more serious note, Tony Snow is still ailing with cancer after having had a reoccurance of the disease back in March, and underwent another course of chemotherapy, which has only recently concluded. I wish him well in his continuing recovery from cancer.

US Cable News Ratings: Countdown's best figures!

This is a post that I am cross posting on both Viewpoint and EMC MediaBlog. For those of you who read one blog but not the other, a brief intro. Viewpoint is my own personal blog where I cover an eclectic mix of subjects. EMC MediaBlog is a blog I contribute to along with many other Transdiffusion colleagues about the media, predominantly in Britain, but we also cover overseas media as well. So, with the introduction to new readers out the way, it's time to talk about the growing Countdown.

No, this is nothing to do with the Channel 4 game show which started on the same day that the channel did, but a news programme on US cable network MSNBC. Countdown with Keith Olbermann is one of MSNBC's most popular shows, and is in many ways, the ratings flagship of the network. However, it is ususally behind many other shows on both Fox News Channel and CNN.

All that could be changing, because last Sunday (26th August 2007), MSNBC's parent company, NBC, aired a live Sunday version of the show, before a pre-season NFL game. Preliminary ratings indicate the show was watched by around 4.1 million viewers, which is around 6 times the usual audience for the programme on MSNBC (around 600-700 thousand), which for a show that wasn't advertised heavily, except on the political blogosphere,is a pretty decent performance.

Now, the numbers for Wednesday night's cable news ratings have just been released, and they reveal some interesting facts.

In what is seen in advertising circles as a key audience demographic, the 25-54 demographic, Countdown was only 6000 viewers behind their big rival in the 8pm timeslot, The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel (299,000 for Countdown, 305,000 for the Factor). However, the bigger story lies in the total viewer numbers, where Countdown recorded what must be its best performance ever, 974,000 viewers.

This doesn't beat the Factor, in a week where Bill O'Reilly is on holiday, but it did emphatically take second place, behind the Factor's 1.641 million, but well ahead of third place CNN (527,000). Maybe O'Reilly being off this week does help, but I think the greater factor here is the live Sunday edition of Countdown which has definitely brought new viewers, to the show, and in the long run, could bring new viewers to MSNBC. Only time will tell.

On that wednesday, Countdown was watched by more viewers than any of the following programmes on US cable news.

The Big Story with John Gibson (Fox News Channel)
Lou Dobbs Tonight (CNN)
Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN)
Glenn Beck (Headline News)
Nancy Grace (Headline News)

Add to that that it was less than 100,000 viewers behind these programmes...

Lary King Live (CNN - 1,029,000)
On The Record with Greta Van Susteren (Fox News Channel - 1,071,000)

...and you have an idea of just how good a performance it was. Larry King Live was the only programme on CNN to rate higher and nobody on Headlines News could even get glose. In fact, even combining the ratings of any two Headline News shows that day wouldn't help them beat Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Is this the start of a trend? We'll have to wait and see, but there is definitely signs of an upturn, and expect these numbers to be heavily celebrated by MSNBC.

The Weather In Leather - Joanna Rice

The web has a funny way of allowing you to dig up things that you may have forgotten or had not known about. I found one such incident on YouTube, when we had a weather forecaster dressed pretty much exclusively in leather on Sky News some years ago.



Hopefully my HTML skills are up to scratch and the video in question should be seen above. If not or if you're reading this blog via an RSS reader which doesn't work with video, the link to the video is here.

This got me searching for more, and turned up this slideshow of other occasions when the same forecaster, Joanna Rice, appeared in leather outfits. There's one outfit in particular in that slide show which looks like a catsuit of sorts!



Again, hopefully the video slideshow should be above, if not, or for those on RSS readers without video, the link is here.

I did some further digging around. Unfortuantely I couldn't come up with an official site for her, nor an agent's site, more's the pity. But I did dig up this site, which has 10 pages of her myriad outfits for weather forecasting, most with leather in them somehwere.

I also turned up information about her here and here, which also has a limited selection of images.

It just goes to show, you never know what you can find on the net. Go forth, my friends and explore

Trade-off rescuers lives for the Utah Miners???

Some of the press can be completely stupid sometimes, and in his latest Washington Times column, Thomas Sowell proves that point by suggesting that there was no point in rescuing the trapped miners in Utah.

A whole nation following the tragedy of a Utah mine cave-in was struck by the further tragedy of another cave-in at the same mine, killing men who had gone underground to try to rescue the miners trapped there.

The second tragedy was avoidable — but only if we were willing to talk about human life in terms of tradeoffs. But our society has become too squeamish to do so.

He then tries to justify his callousness by resoundingly condemning any thought that it might be compassion.

Tradeoffs are inescapable in every aspect of life. But anyone who talks about tradeoffs when life is at stake is likely to be denounced as lacking compassion, if not cruel. Squeamishness is too often confused with humanity, but the consequence of squeamishness can be needless suffering and needless deaths

Thomas Sowell, how can you know what compassion is, if you have none? How can you write that, utterly condemning every fireman, policeman, doctor, coastguard and every other member of the emergency and medical services for whom compassion is not an option, it's a way of life.

The only thing that was needless here, was your inane rantings about a tragedy. Rantings, which will cause more hurt and suffering to the families of those who have died in that mine. Sometimes, just sometimes, for the greater good of the human race, it is better that views like yours, Thomas, are not published, thereby not causing further unnecessary and needless suffering, the very thing you claim to want to save people from.

Thomas Sowell's column is worthy of nothing but a nomination on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann's Worst Person In The World segment. Heck, it could even win it.

Newsbusters actually reports factually, whilst trying to insinuate bias!

Newsbusters is a blog from the right wing Media Research Center which supposedly highlights liberal media bias. However, this time, they actually managed to report something completely factually, whilst trying to insinuate that bias was involved.

The entry by Brent Baker highlights comments by syndicated columnist Mark Shields, on the programme Inside Washington, produced by Washington DC ABC affiliate WJLA. Mark Shields describes how right wing radio attacks will make Hillary Clinton somewhat as a sympathy figure, in the same way, as NPR's Nina Tottenberg pointed out, as she was elected to the New York Senate seat in her first Senate run.

The whole entry is written with lots of quotes, to insinuate that there is bias in the statements, whereas in fact, what was stated was factual. We have seen it happen before, we could see it happen again.

Olympic Park Security Guard Dies

MSNBC is reporting the death of the security guard who was wrongly accused in the 1996 Olympic bombings in Atlanta. Richard Jewell was 44 and had had kidney problems since the end of February 2007.

I remember that incident all too well. Surprisingly, some original reporting from that incident still exists on the web, courtesy of CNN.com, or as it was known back then, CNN Interactive.

But it is amazing that that event has been politicised by some on the right. Amazing and shameful. I've located an article on right wing news website WorldNetDaily, which claims,astonishingl, that Democraitc President Bill Clinton covered up the bombings! It's from about 3 years ago now, but the ridiculousness of it beggars belief. It's part of a series of articles about a so called 'political deciet' that led us to September 11 2001.

This is why I am against the news being politicised, by any and all sides. To me News = Fact and I know that politics and facts are not exactly comfortable bedfellows at the best of the times. Keep the personal political viewpoints in the opinion columns and blogs, not in the news.

The Castro Rumour-Mill Returns!

Wikinews is reporting that two websites are reporting the rumour of the death of Fidel Castro. ONe even reported that an official announcement would come at 4pm ET. Well, no such announcement came.

I always have my doubts when it comes to rumours, but just occasionally,as in the Sky Sports 3 case back in 1996, the rumours can be proved to be true. However, as is usual in these situations, I will believe it when it is reported by a trustworthy and reliable news source.

I believe that some of these rumours are started by those who would like to see him dead. They are the ones who believe that a Cuba without Fidel Castro could be won back from the "commies". These were probably the same people who thought that we would be welcomed with open arms in Iraq and that Iran would back down fromthe might of the United States. There is no reason to believe they would be any more correct now than they were previously.

Newsbusters bust their own guts!

Okay, now if THIS is not the most biased, egotistical, unscientific poll I've ever seen, I don't know what is.

I feel like adding a fourth option to the list... Stupid Conservative!

Ratings Review: JNLR year ending Jun 07

The Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) figures for Jun 06-Jun 07 have been released by Ireland's media regulator, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI). These are the figures for radio stations in Ireland.

Of interest to me is the fact that little has changed in the past 6 months. RTE Radio 1 still holds a 23% national reach with RTE 2FM just behind on 18%. RTE Lyric FM also holds a consistent 3% reach.

Commercial music station Today FM is only just behind 2FM with 16% reach, whilst commercial talk station NewsTalk 106-108 struggles with just 5%.

It is very interesting to note that the local stations in Ireland tend to have much larger reach than the national stations. Highland Radio has a 64% reach in their listneing area. By contrast, the two local Dublin stations 98FM and FM104, both score 12.7% in their area, which is lower than RTE Radio 1's equivalent number in Dublin (31%).

It will be interesting to look at the next set of numbers, when they next come out.

Welcome to the backwards society!

Imagine living in a society where guns are freely available and it is a constitutional right to bear arms, but sex toys are banned! It would be legal to carry a lethal weapon, but not legal to carry something that does no physical harm to anyone.

Say hello to Alabama!

Society really does have it backwards!

And now, the non-news, about the newscaster!

Hot on the heels of one piece of bad journalism from the Daily Star yesterday, comes a very different journalistic boo-boo from the ultra-conservative Daily Mail. This time, making a news story out of nothing.

The story is basically that during a trailer for Monday's 10 O'Clock News on BBC1, newscaster Emily Maitliss was caught showing rather too much leg!

Apprantly there have been 30 complaints to the BBC's message boards. Note, not the complaints department, but the message boards!

The picture is there on site, and you can quite frankly see how much the Daily Mail is talking through its hat, a hat that incidentally, I hope they soon have to eat, preferably with a hot sauce!

Repackaged 18 month old news? Must be the silly season!

Stories may go in and out of news bulletins and newspapers depending on how much has happened in the meantime, but rarely do you get stale news. Today, you did, from the Daily Star!

The story is about new X-Factor judge, Dannii Minogue, and pictures of her enjoying "...lesbian romps with a naked lapdancer." at a London nightclub.

Now, originally, the crux of this post would have been that what celebrities do in their off hours is really not our business. Even now, I still believe this.

However this blog post has become a rant at a lazy media.

You see, when I checkout a story that I'm going to comment on, I do it the honour of a little research beforehand. This way, I find out if a story is pure hyperbole, or actually has something a little more factual about it. In this case, I simply typed in the words "Dannii Minogue Lesbian" into Google, and I found the story straight away, with the incriminating photgraphs.

However, what struck me about the story was not the pictures, but the date!

The story is reported on the site, dated February 2006!

This material is 18 months old!

Furthermore, just a little way into the story itself, the site reports that the story was originally reported in the News Of The World!

So, just because she is now a judge on the X-Factor, this story is dredged up from a competitor, repackaged it and branded it an exclusive!

Quite frankly, this is the ultimate in bad journalism! We see it far too much these days, but this is possibly the worst example of journalism I have seen in a very long time.

A little research told me just how bad this was and proved to me just what these so-called tabloid journalists will do to get their paper to sell more copies. This should give you all the reasons you need to AVOID these kinds of charlatans. Stick to reputable news sources.

Networking women with new boobs!

MSNBC's News Blog points to a Yahoo! News piece about a company which "networks" women with implants for their breasts!

Is it me or is the world getting just a little bit wierder?

Lego Man found off Dutch Coast!

Saw this on Wikinews, and am stunned.

What I want to know his, did he have any swimming lessons???

Girls Aloud in PVC catsuits!

I've been a fan of Girls Aloud ever since their debut single, Sound Of The Underground. But now, they've stepped up to a new level by wearing PVC catsuits in their new video "Sexy! No, No, No..."

I've loved catsuits since first seeing them on Julie Newmar when she played Catwoman in the 1966 Batman TV series, and with the popularity of the films The Matrix and Underworld, the catsuit is now moving well and truly into the mainstream.

No sexy woman should be without one in her wardrobe.