Media

Fox News was publicly skewered and filleted this week by one of their own guests, Thomas E. Ricks, an expert on military and defense policy and a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. His interview was abruptly and unceremoniously ended after he calmly tagged Fox as "a wing of the Republican Party."

The Lucy Burns Institute (LBI) is a Madison-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 2006 and named after a significant leader of the women's suffrage movement. The organization sponsors three websites: Ballotpedia, which tracks elections and ballot measures at the state level; WikiFOIA, which provides Information on how to use Freedom of information laws at the state and local level; and Judgepedia, which provides information on the nation's judges and court systems.

Editor's note: The Center for Media and Democracy is pleased to publish this important investigative work about a new and far-reaching effort to spin news about state legislation, which has been examined by Media Matters for America's Joe Strupp. CMD recently published two related stories, one on the Franklin Center's operations and one about ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Media Matters' original story is available here.

When Idaho state legislators proposed a seemingly uncontroversial bill to ban access to commercial tanning beds by minors earlier this year, IdahoReporter.com took up the issue with force.

If you listen to Milwaukee talk radio you have no doubt heard WTMJ's Charlie Sykes crying to high heaven about the outrageous, politically motivated witch hunt of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker being run out of the Milwaukee District Attorney's office. Milwaukee DA John Chisholm has been spearheading a secret "John Doe" criminal investigation of Walker's former staff and associates for two years now. Trials for four of Walker's associates are pending this fall.

According to Sykes, the DA's office is "leaking like a sieve" and is the source of a damaging article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- a serious charge, since people can be criminally prosecuted for violating the secrecy rules of the John Doe. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Dan Bice has broken most of the stories about the investigation, but has repeatedly denied that he is getting leaks from prosecutors.