Huffington Post and Fox News disputes with Donald Trump - Arianna Huffington is no Roger Ailes

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A long festering feud of sorts has offered an interesting sidelight to the media coverage of the presidential campaign.  It all started when Arianna Huffington's Huffington Post news media manufacturing shop decided Donald Trump was not worthy of being covered as news.

Here was what her minions said about it.

A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump's 'Campaign'

Ryan Grim Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post

Danny Shea Editorial Director, The Huffington Post

After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president we decided we won't report on Trump's campaign as part of The Huffington Post's political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump's campaign is a sideshow. We won't take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.

Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim also dismissed Trump as a "clownshow" in an interview about the decision with Business Insider.

In his interview with Business Insider, Grim said Trump is only performing well in the polls "because of the big field" in the Republican primary.

Of course, the Donald responded in typical Trump fashion, take no prisoners.

Donald Trump's campaign dismissed the Huffington Post as a "glorified blog" in a statement on Friday evening.

"The only clown show in this scenario is the Huffington Post pretending to be a legitimate news source," the Trump campaign statement said. 

Though the statement was titled "Donald J. Trump Response To Huffington Post," a Trump spokeswoman said it was attributable to his campaign. The statement pointed to the fact Trump has previously criticized the Huffington Post on Twitter.

"If you read previously written Tweets, Mr. Trump has never been a fan of Arianna Huffington or the money-losing Huffington Post," the statement said.

Indeed, in one 2012 tweet, Trump launched a series of personal attacks on the site's cofounder and editor in chief, Arianna Huffington, that referenced her 1997 divorce from a former congressman who later announced he was gay.

Trump tweeted, "@ariannahuff is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man - he made a good decision."

For the record, Arianna and Michael Huffington split in 1997 ... and a year later, the former congressman revealed that he's bisexual. Michael is now a gay rights activist.

Trump has been ripping the Huffington Post ever since the website ran a story on August 16, which attempted to uncover why Donald has been so "crabby" recently.

After the article ran, Trump called the Post a "loser" that will "die like AOL is dying."

The Trump campaign's statement also touted his positioning in a series of polls and vowed he would win the first two presidential primaries. 

"Mr. Trump is number one in the unimportant Huffington Post poll, along with all other recently released polls including Reuters, FOX, USA Today/Suffolk University, and The Economist. Mr. Trump is in first place in Nevada, where he is also number one, by a wide margin, with Hispanics. He is number one in North Carolina and expects to win Iowa and New Hampshire," the statement said.

Arianna long has been a fixture in the NYC and California elite social circles.

She began The Huffington Post on May 10, 2005, as a liberal/left commentary outlet and alternative to news aggregators such as the Drudge Report.

AOL acquired the mass market Huffington Post for $315 million on February 7, 2011, making Arianna Huffington editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group.

Though inspired by Drudge, Fox News is the real enemy to all progressive, leftist, liberal bastions like the Huffer.  Perhaps Arianna is trying to become the equal to Fox News President Roger Ailes.

Ironically, both Roger Ailes (Fox) and Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post) have had recent public disputes with Donald Trump but the different way they responded explains why Arianna is no Roger Ailes.

When Trump complained that Fox News was too tough on him in the first debate, Ailes talked to him directly and worked out an arrangement to make sure he received full and fair news coverage from Fox.

When Arianna got upset with Trump, she ordered her supposedly professional reporters to treat him as entertainment, not news, and like a clown, not viable candidate for office.  I suppose such is the reaction one might expect considering the diametrically opposed political philosophies of the two although prejudging the news is rather rare in journalism.

As Trump climbed to the top of the polls and the Huffer continued to ignore him they lost out on a massive opportunity to make money off the Donald.  No other liberal media outlet took such bizarre action and then sent out mouthpieces to dish the Trump campaign as clownish, not even The New York Times or Washington Post.

Perhaps such different reactions by Ailes and Huffington, explains why Fox News continues to dominate the cable airways.

Arianna Huffington created her news service in 2005.  After 10 years in business, Arianna had sold the Huffington Post in 2011 for $315 million when she was a minority stockholder, and received $18 million for the company she started.  She reportedly receives a salary of $4 million per year.

Roger Ailes was named the founding CEO of Fox News when it was started by Rupert Murdock in 1996.  During his twenty year reign Fox News totally dominated cable news, and he built the value of the network to the #48 most valuable brand in America, at $13.3 billion in revenue with a value of $11.3 billion according to Forbes Magazine.  Roger receives over $20 million a year as Chairman and CEO.

There is a reason Roger Ailes is rated one of the most powerful people in the news media.  He learned the business from the inside out and along the way was a crucial media advisor to Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and made many media personalities famous like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Megyn Kelly.

Perhaps Arianna should learn from the Master Roger Ailes and treat Trump as a viable presidential candidate instead of playing juvenile games that demean the news business in America.

Of course the always unpredictable Trump will test the patience of anyone over and over. Just tonight, August 25, he again took a shot at Megyn Kelly for no particular reason and this time Roger Ailes has demanded Trump apologize to the Golden Girl of the Fox News network.  Stay tuned for the latest update. 

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The Facebook Blues - What Happens to Facebook When People Run Out of Things to Say?

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Aren’t We All Suffering From 'Facebook Depression?'

So once we become a member of Facebook and achieve immortality as a viral digit what happens when we finally run out of things to say?  It sounds like a good question to me.  I've been on Facebook several years and watched a lot of people come and go although the digital world is reluctant to let go of you long after you cease to be a member.

You see those mythical clicks still generate money for the social media types and it never really mattered whether you read the advert, clicked through the adverts, withdrew from membership, or even died.  For some strange reason they expect you to notify them in the event of your death and then they may carry a tribute page for you until you return from the grave to cut it off.

Yet there is also the problem of what to do when you do run out of things to say.  I must say I thought it was impossible for some people to run out of words.  It was as if they had a bionic mind attached to bionic fingers pounding out an endless stream of sense and nonsense on social media.

However, as I tracked them over time I noticed there was an obvious sequence of steps that indicated they were slipping into a stage of intellectual constipation, followed by a bout with subject drought, each step bringing shorter and shorter messages.  Soon Tweets replace talks and life was limited to 140 characters, minus the length of your username.

Soon they were posting automatic e-birthday greetings and calling it a digital-days work.  By now, the kids were grown, details on every possible disease were painstakingly provided, they described numerous physical calamities, and by now their story was becoming boring even to themselves.  The addiction was complete but the withdrawal was a distant pipedream.

Now that is a problem.  So, they entered the Freudian stage of self-analysis and concluded that they very well might be the most boring person they knew.  Self-awareness leads directly to writers block as one debates the cause of their condition and realizes it all is a direct result of being mentally abused as a child or being a lifelong Democrat.

Either way they now turn their attention to finding a lawyer and deciding whether to sue their parents, school, siblings, or political procrastinators on television for their woes.  Then they have to decide whether to make it a class action suit on behalf of their siblings, or extend it to everyone in the entire digital world.

Unfortunately, a class action in the digital world might be hard to pull off when there are 597 million Americans on Facebook, and only 310 million Americans alive.  Obama never mentioned we could have 287 million illegal digital immigrants, or illegal aliens as Republicans like to say.

Anyway, we are reaching the point where we desperately need help for the virtual captive, digital addict, and Facebook fool.  There is always intervention, or group therapy, private counseling,  or prescription drugs.  You see, unlike illegal drugs, prescription (legal) drugs contribute to the economy and if you get enough prescriptions you are bound to find one that works.

Today the news media said that 50% of all people given legally prescribed addictive narcotic painkillers for a 30 day period are still using them three years later.

 

The painkillers in question "include things like codeine, morphine, and brand names like Percocet and Vicodin,"

"Now more people die from overdose of these prescription drugs than from cocaine and heroin overdose combined."

About 1 in 3 people taking prescription painkillers were also on some type of anti-anxiety or muscle relaxant prescription, according to the report, "A Nation in Pain," which was produced by Express Scripts.

The report found that among patients using opioids on a long-term basis, 30 percent had also filled a prescription for benzodiazepines, short-acting anti-anxiety drugs such as Xanax (alprazolam) and Ativan (lorazepam).

Nearly 30 percent of patients who took opioids also had a prescription for muscle relaxants. Approximately 8 percent of patients were taking all three medications at the same time.

Since the combination of these drugs can be lethal, meaning it kills you dead, then about 60% of people taking legal prescription narcotic painkillers are clearly suicidal since they should know the risk.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the U.S. accounts for only 5 percent of the world's population, yet as a country we consume at least 75 percent of all opioid prescription drugs - including 99 percent of the world's hydrocodone, the opiate that is in Vicodin.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that overdose deaths from these drugs quadrupled from 1999 to 2010.

Experts say most of those prescriptions are unnecessary. The United States makes up only 4.6 percent of the world's population, but consumes 80 percent of its opioids -- and 99 percent of the world's hydrocodone, the opiate that is in Vicodin.

Who is prescribing all that Vicodin? More than 600,000 doctors, from surgeons to podiatrists, are licensed by the Durg Enforcement Agency to prescribe the drug. At the top of the list of pain relief prescribers are primary care doctors, followed by internists and then dentists. According to many critics, doctors often prescribe Vicodin because it is not as tightly regulated as other narcotic pain relievers are, although it is just as dangerous.

Now just who are your friends?

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Danica's Star Power draws 14.24 million on Fox Television

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Being a winner comes in many forms at Daytona 500

So she wrecked three times and finished 38th in the Daytona 500, at least she finished and no wrecks were her fault.  Still her impact was up in the stratosphere in terms of the NASCAR television viewers.

Overall, FOX television averaged an estimated 14.24 million viewers for Monday primetime when the rain delayed Daytona 500 finally got underway, along with an 8.2 rating/12 share.

For comparison, Fox averaged a 5.0 final Nielsen rating and 8.6 million viewers for its 13 Sprint Cup Series telecasts this season, up 4.2 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively, from a 4.8 rating and 7.8 million viewers over 11 races last year.

In other words, 14.24 million tuned in for the Danica Patrick Daytona 500 show, an increase of over 5.6 million viewers from the most recent Fox NASCAR races.

She wasn't the only one making media history at the race.  When the jet fuel explosion brought the race to a standstill on the 160th lap, fellow NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski grabbed his phone and started tweeting on Twitter.  During the delay his eyewitness Tweets helped boost his Twitter following from 65,000 to 200,000 followers.

But that wasn't what made history.  He was the first driver to ever tweet from the race track during a race, even though he was parked on the track waiting for the restart.

His staggering number of followers still left him far behind the new kid on the block, Danica Patrick, who brought over half a million Twitter followers with her to Daytona.

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Super Bowl or Social Blabfest - You Decide!

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The day after the Super Bowl is usually dominated by following the MVP to Disneyland and the David Letterman Show followed by a ticker tape parade through the Canyon of Legends in New York City.

This year was a classic battle of strength between gladiators and cunning between rival coaches, both of whom were out of the New York Giants organization and destined for the NFL Hall of Fame.

So what happened?  The Internet social network overwhelmed the Main Street and Lame Street media and drop kicked  the follow up stories about the game through the goal posts. Instead, Face Book and Twitter ruled the next 24 hours and we are still feeling the lingering impact 48 hours later.

What football game Super Bowl Sunday?  According to the Viral Jabbernet the Super Bowl was really the Social Bawl where people, millions of people, trashed about every trivial aspect of the event having nothing to do with anything.

Madonna lip-synching?  Gisele's lips moving?  Clint Eastwood endorsing Barack Obama?

Come on, I'm a Giants fan and watched the game and none of those three dominant game topics of our Internet social network bothered me.  I was interested in the terrific game between great rivals and the uncanny ability of New York teams to win the big ones, even when not the favorite.

Young Madonna

As for Madonna, she fought her way to the top of the pop world and people could always dance to her music.  I thought her show was great entertainment.  Now some of my friends in the music business pointed out some technical problems but they were things I didn't notice. I was focused on the game.

Madonna today

And Gisele, well I had heard about Gisele Bundchen as a model and just vaguely in the far corners of my memory banks I thought I had heard something about Tom Brady and a supermodel but I never put the two together.

I thought her pre-game prayer Tweet thing was kind of refreshing.  Asking her circle of friends to pray for her husband when he was going to go out and be beat up by the best, meanest and strongest linemen in the world seemed a good idea.

So after the game some Giants fans are hassling her, and no one is better than New York and New Jersey Giants fans at heckling, and she shots off a four letter word while defending her husband saying "he can't throw the @#@#ing ball and catch it."

Are you kidding?  She was dead right.  The Patriots receivers dropped four critical passes, including two huge gains on the last drive to try and win.  And how many men in America wouldn't be thrilled to have one of the world's most popular supermodels as their wife and come to their defense after such a stressful game.  What WAS wrong was someone eavesdropping on her private life and recording her private conversation on a cell phone, then posting it on the Internet.

The Internet is a great tool but it is also the greatest assault on the right to privacy in the history of the world.

Finally, we come to one of my favorite movie actors and courageous movie directors, Clint Eastwood.  The Quiet Man in the saddle did a Super Bowl ad for the City of Detroit about how the city was halfway recovered from the recession thanks to the recovery of the Detroit auto industry.

Before the next commercial started the viral airways were filled with Tweets about how Clint Eastwood, a well known and respected Republican supporter and office holder, a mayor, was suddenly backing President Obama.  Of course that was not said in the ad, just in the subconscious minds of the media manipulators.

Today Clint came out and said it was nonsense, he has no intention of supporting President Obama.  And he had every right to support the auto industry recovery and Detroit.  Damn right Dirty Harry!

In the end, maybe the tweeters had it right.  Just look at this Reuters news story after the Super Bowl.

(Reuters) - Quarterback Eli Manning and his New York Giants may have beaten superstar Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at Sunday's Super Bowl, but none them could outmuscle Madonna -- at least, where TV audiences were concerned.

A record 111.3 million U.S. viewers watched the Giants defeat the Patriots in the professional football championship, but 114 million watched the halftime performance by Madonna that drew mostly mixed reviews and a firestorm of controversy over a rude gesture by rapper M.I.A.

Ratings tracker Nielsen on Monday said the Super Bowl on the NBC network was the most-watched TV program in U.S. history, eclipsing the 111.0 million who watched 2011's game. An extra three million tuned in for Madonna's glitzy, Cleopatra-themed performance, giving the Material Girl the distinction of having the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show ever.

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