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Tag: CNN

  • CNN Fires News Editor over 50 Instances of Plagiarism

    CNN has fired a news editor after they discovered around 50 instances of plagiarism in her articles.

    Marie-Louise Gumuchian has been terminated after CNN’s internal investigation. According to the company, Gumuchian wrote frequently about international events–especially in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. She worked out of CNN’s London bureau.

    CNN says that they’ve edited out plagiarized passages from her stories, and have even had to yank some stories altogether. CNN isn’t giving any more specifics on which stories have been flagged and edited/removed.

    Here’s CNN’s full statement:

    CNN has discovered multiple instances of plagiarism by Marie-Louise Gumuchian, a former CNN news editor. She wrote frequently about international news, writing and reporting about Africa, Europe, and the Middle East from our London bureau.

    An unpublished story flagged last week during our editing process led to an internal investigation that uncovered other examples in about 50 published stories, and our investigation is ongoing.

    We’ve terminated Gumuchian’s employment with CNN, and have removed the instances of plagiarism found in her pieces. In some cases, we’ve chosen to delete an entire article.

    Trust, integrity and simply giving credit where it’s due are among the tenets of journalism we hold dear, and we regret that we published material that did not reflect those essential standards.

    We also believe in letting audiences know when we’ve remedied situations that threaten to compromise that trust.

    Gumuchian also spent some time writing for Reuters.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Budget Vacations: Websites, Destinations, And More

    Vacation is all I ever wanted. It’s a chance to get away. And it can be spent with or without other people. But what do you do when you want to take a vacation but all you can find are resorts that charge an arm and a leg or five-star hotels that don’t live up to the billing?

    Enter budget vacations. I think everyone remembers college, cramming four or five people into a car and heading to a beach, or mountains, or if you’re in the Midwest cornfields. No frills, no bells or whistles; just a nice time spent with friends or family without bankrupting yourself.

    So, in that vein, here are three tips for taking a budget vacation. Let it be known that they won’t apply to everyone but everyone should be able to take something away from them.

    Let’s start with Number One: Use the Internet to Your Advantage. Every traveler needs to know how to use the internet to their advantage, and by that I mean websites that are designed to find you the cheapest possible vacation element, whether those are flights, hotels, or other arrangements.

    Kayak, in particular, does a good job and even offers you the option of comparing search results to those from other travel websites. But there is also Hotels.com, Travelocity, Priceline, Bookit.com, and more.

    The idea behind these sites is simple: Search all the flights or hotels in an area to find the one that suits your budget. Use them to find the most affordable option for you.

    Number Two: Choose Your Destination Carefully. A trip to the Big Apple is probably going to cost more than a trip to Champaign, Illinois. Ask yourself—what am I looking to do and what are my options? Travelocity is a particularly good website for this. Under the “deals” section, it lists specific cities and a certain package with variables such as how many people and how many nights are offered.

    If nothing else, check out this article by Budget Travel, located on CNN’s website. It lists the 10 best budget vacations for spring. The list includes the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Washington, D.C., and even Montreal, Canada, and the Dominican Republic if you want to go the international route.

    Finally, Number Three: Avoid the Seduction Trap. It’s easy to get sucked into the sheer amount of data at your fingertips and even easier to be seduced by spectacular pictures of beaches and mountains and cities on these websites. Refrain. Don’t do it. You have your budget, right? What you can spend and what you can’t. Adhere to it. This is more of a cautionary tale than anything. A good time is a good time, but at some point you have to return home and it always feels good to have budgeted well-enough to be able to eat afterwards.

    That’s all for now, and I’m signing off. Happy budget vacation hunting!

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Ayrton Senna: A Racing Legend Remembered

    He was a Formula One driver who transcended his sport, a man who amassed 161 Grand Prix starts, 41 wins, and three World Championships, and did so with a rare humility rarely seen in sports today.

    Ayrton Senna died on May 1, 1994, when his car crashed into a concrete barrier while he was leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, a crash that shocked the world and became the turning point for new safety regulations for Formula One.

    On May 1, 2014, the 20th anniversary of his death, fans and Formula One racers alike paid tribute in remembrance of the man who transcended the sport, both with his passion and with his personality.

    Statistics, in the end, don’t do him justice but always seem to bear listing. In addition to the ones listed above, Ayrton Senna had a 25 percent winning percentage and holds the records for most consecutive wins at the same Grand Prix (five, at Monaco), most consecutive pole positions (eight, from 1988 through 1989), and most pole positions at one circuit (eight, at Imola).

    But he was and still is just as well-regarded for his personality as his accomplishments.

    “He was the best and most charismatic race driver F1 has ever had,” Niki Lauda, non-executive chairman on the Mercedes team, said on the league’s official website. “An unbelievable character. He had personality, he was fast and he had charisma – no wonder that he won everything.”

    A memorial service was held at the Imola Circuit this past Thursday, the track that took the life of both Senna and Austria’s Roland Ratzenberger on the same weekend. There was a minute’s silence at 14:17 local time, the exact time when Senna crashed 20 years earlier. Motorsports legends, past and present, were in attendance.

    Fans paid their own tribute to Senna, laying floral wreaths down at the feet of the bronze statue of the driver, a statue which sits near the section where Senna crashed.

    Ron Dennis, McLaren group CEO, said, “On the racetrack, Ayrton was passionate about motor racing – and it was his life to the exclusion of many, many things that other people enjoy on a regular basis. He was completely dedicated and completely focused. He derived tremendous satisfaction and gained uplifting emotional experiences from racing and winning. He was completely unique in the sense of how much of an adrenaline rush he used to get. Ayrton did not really have a bad side; he was a caring guy, he was a team player, and he was prepared to admit he was wrong when he was wrong – and those are unusual qualities for a Grand Prix driver.”

    For the impact he made he is remembered, both for his personality and his achievements on the track.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Beef Recall Investigation Reveals Company Deception

    It’s a case that previously had been known for the sheer volume of the recall—millions of pounds of bad meat, retrieved from thousands of stores across the country. But CNN is now reporting that the case has a far more sinister tone.

    According to an article by CNN, federal investigators began surveillance on the slaughterhouse owned by Rancho Feeding Corp. and located in Northern California, after receiving a tip from a former employee. In January, federal marshals raided the Petaluma plant and seized the company records. Days later, the first recall went out, a recall that eventually amount to 9 million pounds of bad meat.

    The recall involved thousands of retail chains, including Kroger, Food 4 Less, and Walmart. It led to the voluntary recall by Nestle of its Philly Steak and Cheese flavored Hot Pockets after the company learned it had bought beef from Rancho Feeding Corp.

    But according to documents obtained by CNN, supplemented by interviews with federal officials, that was just the beginning of a long investigation into the practices of Rancho Feeding Corp., an investigation that now has investigators believing that Rancho Feeding Corp. was not just shipping off meat that was “unfit for human consumption,” but that they were deliberately doing so with full knowledge and covering up the evidence to boot.

    Investigators believe that Rancho Feeding Corp. was buying diseased dairy cows and processing them when government inspectors were not there. After the cows were killed, employees would hide signs of cancer by trimming off the diseased parts, using a fake stamp of approval or even replacing the heads of sick cows with heads from healthy ones.

    And if that wasn’t enough, one of the government inspectors who is responsible for protecting the public from practices such as these was having a romantic relationship with the plant foreman, according to a USDA email obtained by CNN.

    The inspector, Lynette Thompson, declined to be interviewed by CNN but an email with pictures of text messages from the assistant plant manager to the USDA show that the plant foreman admitted to seeing Thompson and that he had gone to her trailer three times, where they became intimate.

    Thompson seemed worried about their relationship being exposed. “Play dumb please 4 my kids delete every thing k [sic].”

    She had good reason to be worried. The USDA’s ethics manual states that employees should not be assigned to an establishment where they have a personal relationship with an establishment employee.

    Since the recall, Rancho Feeding Corp. has been sold. The USDA has declined comment, pending an ongoing investigation.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Steve Israel: GOP Base Is Unfortunately “Animated by Racism”

    Steve Israel, Democratic congressman of New York and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that “to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by racism. And that’s unfortunate.”

    Israel has not been the only high ranking Democrat to call out the Republican Party on racism. “I think race has something to do with the fact that they’re not bringing up an immigration bill,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told ABC News, “I’ve heard them say to the Irish, if it were just you, this would be easy.”

    Republican Greg Walden was quick to deny the accusations, calling them “both wrong and unfortunate,” according to the Associated Press.

    Despite Walden’s denial, racism remains an ugly topic for GOP lawmakers. Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast pointed out how many Fox News articles are plagued with racist comments made in the support of Republican policy. “Now I don’t know if the people making these comments and the larger group they represent constitute 5 percent of this base or 15 or 50. It depends in part on how you define ‘base,’” Tomasky wrote, “But look at the matter this way. Say you were a Republican political consultant. Would you ever in a jillion years suggest that your candidate take on racism within the GOP as a speech topic? You most certainly would not. Your candidate would be dead immediately.”

    One use of race in Democrats’ rhetoric may be due to anticipation of midterm elections this fall. “Very risky to accuse the GOP of outright, overt racism,” an anonymous Democratic strategist told the Washington Post, “midterms are about motivating your base, so perhaps that is what’s going on. I think more Democrats should take their cues from President Obama, who to my knowledge has never accused his opponents of being racially motivated.”

    According to the Washington Post, Democrats face an uphill battle in the polls. They speculated that a house changeover would be unlikely and asserted that several senate seats held by Democrats remain vulnerable.

    “There are still deep elements of racism in this country, and that element has indeed energized the GOP rank-and-file base,” wrote Susan Mulligan of US News & World Report, “Most Republicans in Congress oppose Obamacare, and it’s not because they have some racial issue with it; it’s because they believe it’s unwarranted and unwise federal government involvement with health care. But [racists] will vote for the GOP candidate for senator because the Democrat voted for the African-American president’s signature law.”

    Image via CNN, YouTube

  • George W. Bush Painting Exhibit Panned by Critics

    The George W. Bush Center began a new exhibit today of the former president’s portraits of world leaders. His artwork is being universally condemned by art critics.

    “George W. Bush paints like a beginning college art major,” Mat Gleason of the Coagula Art Journal told CNN, “The haste in which these pictures appear to have been completed reveal an artist who wants to finish what he starts, pleased with delivering something good and pleasant instead of great and overwhelming. This is the kind of artist who will never make a masterpiece but will remain a favorite with his core audience.”

    The center has titled the exhibit The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy which, according to their website, “will explore the relationships that President George W. Bush forged with world leaders to shape international policy and advance American interests abroad.”

    “My feeling about George W. Bush’s art is that it lacks any sort of conceptual depth or skill,” Evan Pricco of Juxtapoz Art and Culture Magazine wrote for CNN, “It appears to be the work of someone who is trying to establish himself as a creative, introspective artist, but lacks both the technical chops or even knowledge of painting to make it something more than a hobby that should happen between clearing brush on the ranch or eating breakfast.”

    “I was inspired partially by Winston Churchill, who wrote a great essay called ‘Painting as a Pastime,”’ the former president told TODAY News. “I wanted to make sure the last chapters of my life are full, and painting, it turns out, would help occupy not only space, but kind of open my mind.”

    The George W. Bush Center posted this video to accompany the exhibit:

    “This sounds like a more comforting place for him than in the hot seat,” Michelle Edelman, founder and CEO of Traffic Creative Management, told CNN, “Why is he sharing this with the public? Is he looking for a gallery? Maybe he should talk to the big art dealers who are expert at inflating prices for art with little content.”

    Image via TheBushCenter, YouTube

  • West African Virus Death Toll Rises Above 80

    West Africa is bracing itself for the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus in nearly a decade. CNN is reporting that the death toll has risen to 85 with dozens more ill. The deaths are among 137 cases reported by the World Health Organization, which said the outbreak has “rapidly evolved” since starting in southeastern Guinea. Other suspected affected areas include Sierra Leone and Liberia.

    Doctors Without Borders is calling the outbreak “unprecedented” in a press release because of the spread of the virus, a virus which is usually confined to a smaller area.

    “We are facing an epidemic of a magnitude never before seen in terms of the distribution of cases in the country,” said Mariano Lugli, coordinator of MSF’s project in Conakry. “MSF has intervened in almost all reported Ebola outbreaks in recent years, but they were much more geographically contained and involved more remote locations. This geographical spread is worrisome because it will greatly complicate the tasks of the organizations working to control the epidemic.”

    According to the World Health Organization, the Ebola virus disease has a case fatality of up to 90 percent and outbreaks typically occur in Central and West Africa, near tropical forests. It first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    It’s transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission, generally through close contact with blood, secretions, or other bodily fluids.

    It is characterized by a sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat. It is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases internal and external bleeding.

    There is no specific treatment or vaccine available for use in people or animals.

    Doctors Without Borders says that field workers include doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, and water and sanitation experts. More than 40 tons of equipment has been flown into Guinea to try to curb the spread of the disease.

    To break the chain of the transmission of the virus, isolation of the patient is oftentimes necessary.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Piers Morgan Bids Adieu With Shot at NRA

    Piers Morgan Bids Adieu With Shot at NRA

    Piers Morgan bid adieu to his television viewers on Friday, replete with a shot at the NRA and a plea for Americans to become more stringent about gun control. Morgan’s show was canceled due to low ratings. Critics say the British native is “out of touch” with American culture.

    “We gave everything we had and loved every minute of it. Well, almost every minute of it,” Morgan said before signing off for the last time.

    Morgan’s show was supposed to fill the open hole Larry King left with his retirement. Things didn’t quite pan out the way CNN had planned.

    During the last few minutes of Piers Morgan’s final commentary, the talk switched to gun control. He had in fact pre-empted his last show with a tweet that indicated he had something more to say before his official goodbye.

    Saying first that he respects Americans, the CNN host quoted something his brother, a colonel in the Royal British Army, once told him.

    “You always want an American next to you in a trench when the going gets tough.”

    “But that’s where I think guns belong, on a military battlefield,” Morgan said. “Not in the hands of civilians.”

    Piers Morgan went on to say that gun violence in America is “a disease.”

    “The gun lobby in America, led by the NRA, has bullied this nation’s politicians into cowardly [sic] silence even when 20 children are blown away in their classrooms,” he said.

    Long criticized for his anti-gun stance, Morgan once lost his cool during an interview with a woman whose brother died from gun violence. He crumpled up his papers and promptly ended the interview.

    During his sign off, however, Piers Morgan insisted that his beliefs were shared solely for the good of Americans.

    “I’m so pro-American I want more of you to stay alive,” he said.

    While many are opposed to Piers Morgan’s beliefs about gun control, it is interesting to learn what someone from another country feels about safety and violence. Were you a fan of his CNN show or did you think he was better suited to being a judge on America’s Got Talent?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Piers Morgan Ends Show’s Run With Gun Control Plea

    Piers Morgan ended his CNN show’s 3-year run with a final shot at the NRA, pleading with the country to take another look at gun control policies.

    The cancellation of “Piers Morgan Live” was announced last month with Morgan admitting that his stance on gun control issues hadn’t made him very popular with many of his viewers.

    “Look, I am a British guy debating American cultural issues, including guns, which has been very polarizing, and there is no doubt that there are many in the audience who are tired of me banging on about it,” he said. “That’s run its course and Jeff (Zucker, president of CNN) and I have been talking for some time about different ways of using me.”

    Morgan gave one final plea on Friday night for Americans to see how politicians have been influenced by gun lobbying, referencing the shootings in Aurora and Newtown as instances when the laws should have been tightened but weren’t.

    “The gun lobby in America, led by the NRA, has bullied this nation’s politicians into cowardly silence even when 20 children are blown away in their classrooms,” said Morgan.

    It’s not clear where Morgan will go next in his career, although he said last month that he may have opportunities waiting for him in another aspect of the network.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • CNN Producers Arrested Trying to Get into World Trade Center Site to Cover Recent Break-ins of the WTC Site

    Two CNN producers have failed at something a set of BASE jumpers and a 16-year-old parkour enthusiast succeeded in doing: getting past security and scaling the World Trade Center.

    Reuters reports that 35-year-old Yon Pomrenze and 26-year-old Conner Fieldman Boals were arrested and charged with criminal trespass, obstruction of governmental administration, and disorderly conduct after attempting to bypass security at the site not once, not twice, but three times. The last attempt wasn’t the charm.

    The producer’s first attempt was pretty straightforward–they simply walked up to a main gate and tried to enter the premises. Unsurprisingly, the pair was stopped by a Port Authority officer and a New Jersey Police officer. According to those officials, the CNN producers argued that they should be able to get in if a 16-year-old kid could get in.

    Of course, the producers were referencing Justin Casquejo, the teenager who was able to slip past security, make his way to the top of the new WTC, traverse the spire, and snap some selfies.

    Rebuffed but resolute, Pomrenze and Boals reportedly tried to scale a fence in break-in attempt number two–but were caught.

    Finally, the pair apparently tried to muscle their way through a manned gate and were subsequently arrested.

    Not exactly the smoothest tactics, guys. The aforementioned Casquejo had to crawl through a hole in a fence, possibly don a construction uniform to hitch a ride up an elevator, and sneak past a sleeping guard. That’s how to do it.

    A spokesperson for CNN said that the producers were looking into doing a story on the recent security breaches at the World Trade Center:

    They were not asked to sneak onto the WTC site. They were in the surrounding area to do a story about the recent incidents at the WTC and other sites–and the notion that daredevils are being drawn to them.

    As you may recall, four BASE jumpers were arrested this week after turning themselves into police following an illegal jumping exercise performed at the WTC site back in September of last year.

    I say we keep the chain going. Who’s up for getting arrested trying to break in to report on the producers who were arrested trying to break in?

    Image via WTC Progress, Facebook

  • Elephants Escape Circus In Missouri

    Elephants Escape Circus In Missouri

    Three elephants escaped their enclosure and went on a stroll this past Saturday—through the employee parking lot of the St. Louis Moolah Shrine Circus.

    Eyewitnesses told CNN that the elephants had become spooked by noises from the circus goers and managed to find a way out of their enclosure into the parking lot, where they were eventually rounded up by their handlers.

    One handler tried to corral the elephants with food, Allie Tunncliff told KSDK.

    “She yelled to one guy, ‘I need anything, just pretzels, any kind of food,’” Tunncliff said.

    Dennis Burkholder, spokesperson for the St. Louis Shriners said that the elephants dinged two cars, which belong to circus employees, who are called Shriners and according to the St. Louis Moolah Shrine Circus website are men in “funny red hats, who drive little the yellow cars, dress like clowns, ride horses, march, ride motorcycles, and in general have a great time helping kids.”

    On the website, it also states that you should “watch the elephants as they trumpet around the ‘Three Rings’” and that you can get up close and personal with the elephants “as you and your family can ride them.”

    Although the elephants themselves were not harmed, they were given Saturday night off to rest and recuperate. On Sunday, the show went on.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • The World Wide Web Turns 25 This Week

    The World Wide Web Turns 25 This Week

    In 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee turned on the World Wide Web. Since then, it has become one of the most pervasive technologies ever created. In fact, one could argue that it’s the most important invention in human history.

    To celebrate the Web’s 25th anniversary, CNN has shared the very first news report it put out on the Web. Unfortunately, the video can not be embedded so you’ll have to head over there to watch it.

    CNN’s non-support of standard HTML aside, it’s interesting to see all the skepticism and doubt surrounding something that we all take for granted now, but it’s even more fascinating to see how some things still haven’t changed.

    You’ll see that some critics in the early 90s believed that the Internet would create inequality or a split between the haves and have nots. In short, they believed that the price of Internet would create an upper class of technological elites who would gain unfair advantages thanks to the information at their fingertips.

    While that particular scenario hasn’t quite played out, there is still inequality in regards to Web access around the world. Even in the U.S. where a large majority of Americans are online, a lot of them don’t have access to decent service. Even those living in cities are oftentimes subjected to high prices, data caps and other unfair business practices that continue to get worse.

    Despite troubles in the U.S., it’s even worse in developing regions where Internet access is either absurdly expensive or non-existent. In those regions, Internet access really is a sign of inequality as only those fortunate enough to have a lot can afford the benefits the Internet brings while those on the bottom rung of society are left without. Thankfully, there are groups working to bring affordable Internet access to these regions.

    Of course, we got some things wrong as well. Vice President Al Gore said that the Internet will one day make children want to conduct research in the Encyclopedia Britannica instead of playing on the “Nintendo.” Sorry to break to ya, Al, but you’re wrong on both counts. The modern doesn’t even know what Encyclopedia Britannica is anymore thanks to Wikipedia and kids are using the Internet to play games more than ever.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Ted Turner Hospitalized In Buenos Aires

    Robert Edward Turner III, more commonly known as philanthropist and cable TV network CNN founder Ted Turner, has been hospitalized in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

    The 75-year-old media tycoon owns property in the Patagonia region of Argentina. On Friday morning, Turner went to the nearby San Carlos Sanatorium in the city of Bariloche, complaining of acute abdominal pain. He then took a jet and set off for Buenos Aires to receive treatment at the Argentine Institute for Diagnosis and Treatment in Barrio Norte. He is currently under observation, and Argentine media sources say Turner will have to undergo an operation for appendicitis.

    Phillip Evans, the spokesman for Turner Enterprises, confirmed in a statement that Turner has been admitted for observation, but they will not provide further details on Turner’s personal health, in view of the company’s policy.

    Born in Ohio, Turner and his family moved to Georgia when he was nine, and he attended a private prep school for boys in Tennessee. Turner went on to study the Classics and later on Economics at Brown University. When he was 24, he became the president and CEO of the Turner Advertising Company after his father’s death. He expanded the business, purchasing an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 and establishing the Turner Broadcasting System. He created the Cable News Network or CNN ten years later, and it became the world’s first 24-hour cable news channel.

    Turner’s media empire includes MGM, Turner Entertainment Co., Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, and the Cartoon Network. He also created the Turner Foundation, which concentrated on giving grants for environmental conservation. He was the man behind the animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and most of his assets are devoted to environmental causes. He now focuses on charity and green initiatives, with many projects dealing with the fight against climate change.

    Turner was named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1991, the first time a media figure was given the honor. He was also inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in the same year.

    Image via YouTube

  • Newt Gingrich Eyeing Sec. of State Position?

    In a Twitter rant last month, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich sounded-off against current Secretary of State John Kerry for comments he made in a speech to students in Jakarta, Indonesia, going as far as to ask John Kerry to resign from his position as Secretary of State. So what was the subject of the comments that got Gingrich in such a tissy? None other than the Republican Party’s greatest enemy: climate change.

    In speaking to Indonesian students, Secretary of State Kerry stated that climate change is “the greatest challenge of our generation” and that “climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”

    Gingrich took great exception to both comments, going to Twitter to speak his disapproval:

    One could debate the validity of Kerry’s or Gingrich’s statements all day and wind-up achieving zero progress. Thus, perhaps the more interesting question is, “Why in the world would Gingrich care so much about what Kerry has to say?”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfktxYF5x4Q

    While Gingrich was a presidential candidate in 2012, he has been irrelevant on the political scene for quite some time. He now spends his days hanging out as the lone out-spoken Republican at CNN.

    His position at CNN allows him the perfect opportunity, though, to have a national media outlet serve as his personal soap-box and campaign platform. Gingrich took full advantage of this situation yesterday by publishing an essay at CNN.com entitled “Beyond empty symbols, a serious strategy for dealing with Russia.”

    In his scathing critique, Gingrich states that the United States needs to do something more than spout “liberal symbolism” in order to deal with the threat of Russia: “What we have so far is symbolic liberalism offering words, symbolic liberalism flying around the world from capital to capital having meetings, and symbolic liberalism targeting narrowly a handful of people in a way that will have no impact on Putin. What we could have is serious, robust action that would have a genuine and immediate impact and would weaken Russia’s ability to act aggressively toward its neighbors.”

    What is Gingrich’s plan to for action, you ask? Well, it’s fairly simple, actually. All Gingrich wants to happen if for President Obama to create multiple executive orders which lead to the construction of the Keystone Pipeline and also opens up the exportation of natural gas to Eastern Europe. Through this plan, Gingrich hopes to lower the international price of natural gas so much that it will cripple Russia’s economic stranglehold on Eastern Europe and thus save the day…. Just like Gingrich’s good ol’ pal Reagan did in order to bring down the Soviet Union….

    One can only think that by lambasting John Kerry on Twitter and by releasing his plan of action to solve an international crisis that no one has been able to properly assess and address yet that Gingrich is prepping himself to become the next Secretary of State for whichever Republican presidential candidate wins the 2016 election.

    Or perhaps Newt is just being Newt. Who knows? It’s American politics, after all.

    Image via YouTube

  • Flipboard Acquires Zite From, Partners With CNN

    Flipboard has acquired news reader Zite from CNN, and the two have partnered to put more content from CNN personalities on the Flipboard app.

    “As a news-loving entrepreneur, I’ve long admired the work of both of these companies: Zite has always amazed me with its ability to give readers great content centered around specific topics—tens of thousands of them—and CNN has long been a pioneering force for 24/7 news coverage around the world,” says Flipboard founder Mike McCue. “We acquired Zite from CNN to address something we’ve heard from a lot of you: although you can already read thousands of sources from over 20 regions on Flipboard, you want easier and better ways to discover content about the things that matter to you. Adding Zite’s expertise in personalization and recommendations to Flipboard’s product experience and powerful curator community will create an unparalleled personal magazine for our millions of readers.”

    Zite co-founder and CTO Mike Klaas writes on the Zite blog:

    Flipboard has been linked with our history since the moment we decided to build a news product. What they were able to accomplish on the barely-capable hardware of the first-gen iPad amazed us and inspired us to build Zite exclusively for the iPad (a decision that seemed crazier then than it would now). When we launched people instantly wondered if we were a “Flipboard killer”, and I’ve had to answer more questions about being in their shadow in the last three years than I care to count. At times, I found the comparison frustrating: Zite’s focus was on topics, while Flipboard was mostly about publications; Flipboard was a reader for social media but Zite tried hardest to find articles you couldn’t find on your Twitter feed. The two products look superficially similar but couldn’t be more different under the hood.

    I should have realized that the comparison kept coming up because both companies share the same vision. As I have gotten to know the folks behind Flipboard, I’ve met a group of people whose commitment to building an amazing news reading experience rivals our own. We’re both trying to help people discover great content that feels like it was hand-picked just for them. We’re both dissatisfied with a world where ads force an article to be the second-class citizen on the screen. We both refuse to accept that monetization must be antagonistic to content.

    Our goals are the same, and if our methods are different, that is not a source of weakness but of strength: Flipboard has an impressive curation team, unrivalled publisher network, and incredible scale. Zite has world-class recommendations technology and expertise in topic-based discovery. Both companies have amazing design and mobile engineering talent. I’m absolutely convinced that joining forces with Flipboard is the right next step in achieving the vision we started with back in 2005.

    The Zite and Flipboard teams are being integrated, but at least for now, Zite will continue to be available as a separate app. That will change, however. Klaas says the goal is to get the Zite experience in Flipboard right before shutting down the app down. They’ll also build a way to transition Zite data to Flipbard. Just don’t expect anything for at least six months.

    Zite CEO Mark Johnson will not be joining Flipboard. He says in an LinkedIn Influencer post:

    Personally, my situation is a bit different and I won’t be joining Flipboard. I’m really glad that I ignored the odds and shepherded Zite through our CNN years. I’ve grown as a CEO and I’m very proud of my team. However, after being at four different successful startups, I’ve never started one myself and it’s time to change that. Though I’ve got a number of ideas, I haven’t settled on what I’d like to do next. So, I’ve decided to take some time off to think, hike, consult, travel, advise, meet, write, dream, read, study, and – probably most importantly – relax. For me, the best ideas come when I’m not looking for them.

    As mentioned, Flipboard is getting more content from the CNN crew. This includes several magazines: The Lead with Jake Tapper, GPS Daily (from Fareed Zakaria) and Go “Inside Politics” (from John King).

    CNN Money says the deal is valued at $60 million.

    CNN acquired Zite nearly three years ago.

    Image via Flipboard

  • Ted Nugent: Obama is a “Liar” and “Bad Man”

    Ted Nugent: Obama is a “Liar” and “Bad Man”

    After conservative rocker Ted Nugent called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and “liar,” he promised not to call him any more names.

    “I won’t call him names anymore. I’m going to get right down to the nitty-gritty and identify the criminal behavior by the people abusing power in the United States government,” he said, according to the Washington Times.

    Last month in an interview with Guns.com, the 65-year old called the president a “subhuman mongrel.”

    “I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame, enough Americans to be ever-vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America.”

    After negative reaction from all sides, Nugent (halfway) apologized via CNN.

    “They think I’ll be more effective if I back off that Detroit street fighter rock ‘n’ roll stage rhetoric,” he said. “I’m here to tell you that I’m going to do that because I do respect people like Gov. Perry and the great Greg Abbott and Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.”

    He added, “Instead of using terms like ‘subhuman mongrel,’ I’m going to get right to the meat of the matter where our president is a liar. He lies about you can keep your doctor period. Over and over again he lies about Benghazi. He’s lying about the IRS.”

    However, immediately after the apology, Nugent complained about the amount of bias in the media, attacking CNN, the very network he was on at the time. He pointed out comments made by Obama on The View where he himself used the word “mongrel.”

    In the 2010 interview on The View, Obama had said,”The interesting thing about the African-American experience in this country is we are sort of a mongrel people. I mean we’re all kind of mixed up. That’s actually true for white America as well, but we just know more about it. So I’m less interested in how we label ourselves and more interested in how we treat each other.”

    Nugent continues to argue that the president is intentionally “creating class warfare.”

    Then on Monday night in an interview with Erin Burnett, Nugent once again lashed out with the name-calling after promising to subside.

    “The president is a bad man,” Nugent said on OutFront. “I want to make sure that Americans are encouraged to be the best that they can be, not to be compensated for not even trying. I really believe history will show that I’ve been right and the president and CNN was wrong.”

    In the Monday night interview, Nugent also took credit for the cancellation of Piers Morgan’s show. “I got Piers Morgan’s ass thrown out.”

    When he vowed to do the same with Don Lemon and Wolf Blitzer, Burnett said, “Don’t talk about my colleagues that way.”

    Later in the show, Nugent insisted that he never used the word “chimpanzee” when referring to Obama.

    Ironically, all of this controversy falls here in February: Black History Month.

    “I have nothing against any race,” Nugent said. In fact, my whole life is dedicated to my black heroes, my black musical heroes. I have no – not a racist bone in my body.”


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG6e784IPE4

    Image via YouTube

  • Garrick Utley: Former NBC TV Correspondent Dies at 74

    One of the most legendary broadcast news correspondents has passed away from prostate cancer.

    Garrick Utley was 74-years-old when he died in his New York home Thursday night.  He’s been battling the illness for two years.

    In a very extensive interview, Utley’s wife Gertje, 40, described to CNN News some of his most memorable moments as a traditional journalist.

    “He was really the old kind of journalist. He was the old kind of trenchcoat-clad journalist who wrote his own copy — always wrote his own copy,” she recalled of her husband.

    Utley’s life entails many accomplishments within the Broadcast Journalism field.

    In 1963, he started his career with NBC News as an office assistant. After just a year, the Huntley-Brinkley Report promoted Utley as a journalist in London.

    He then went on to become a renowned TV correspondent for the next three decades.

    Utley was mostly recognized for his overseas work.

    “They were heady days for foreign correspondents. It was not unusual for NBC to send Utley for three weeks to report a story in China or for two weeks to cover a story in Zimbabwe. It was still the journalism where you actually had to have the knowledge and explain a situation,” his wife said.

    Utley became a trailblazer for NBC’s news coverage during the Vietnam War. From 1966 to 1979, he was involved in multiple foreign jobs in Berlin, Paris, and Britain.

    The multilingual TV pioneer reported in over 70 countries and for numerous capitals around the world.

    In 1993, Utley left NBC News for a chief foreign correspondent position with ABC News, but it wasn’t on a positive note. He once told the Associated Press in an interview how his years of substantial work at the station might have been taken for granted.

    “I may have been the only person at NBC News who did every type of programming as host or anchor,” he said. “There’s a risk in being the utility infielder.”

    He ended his TV career with CNN from 1997 to the early 2000s, where he is also remembered for anchoring the events of 9/11.

    CNN reported how Utley’s career also encompassed many other achievements such as: serving on the board for Carlton College and Public Radio International and being the recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award.

    In memory of Utley, Editorial Director Richard T. Griffiths of CNN sent out a mass email Friday detailing how he “was the consummate gentleman in every encounter. He was relentlessly curious, passionate about storytelling, and unafraid to take on the controversial topics…He left a mark. We can all hope to do the same.”

    Here is a segment done by TODAY:


    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Anderson Cooper Guest Speaker at UT Arlington

    During a recent appearance at UT Arlington’s Maverick Speaker Series, Anderson Cooper shared emotional life stories as well as some funny anecdotes about women that still been ask him out on dates.

    While the CNN news anchor announced that he was gay only two years ago, he’s apparently been getting asked out by females like crazy.

    He even called them “very determined young ladies.”

    Cooper captivated the 6,000 members of the audience with personal stories from his past. He even grew emotional when remembering his father’s death when he was only 10 years old.

    Cooper also mentioned the tragedy of his brother’s later suicide.

    “Sometimes I wish I had a physical scar so people would see the pain I felt,” he said. “I know what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera, and it’s not a good feeling.”

    Cooper also addressed his struggle with separating his life from the lives of those within his intricate news stories.

    He went on to say that over the years, it’s become increasingly difficult for him to separate his own life from the work that he does.

    “There are times when I feel like my heart is too full with the people that I met,” he shared.

    Cooper’s had many struggles to deal with, but he made it very clear that revealing his sexual orientation wasn’t one of them. Cooper said he had never kept being gay from his friends or family. It’s been two years since Cooper has publicly announced his sexual orientation.

    “Being born gay is one of the greatest blessings in my life,” he told the crowd.

    You can catch Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN.

    Image Via YouTube

  • Carol Costello Takes Atlanta’s Mayor to Task [VIDEO]

    By now, most people have probably heard about the city of Atlanta coming to a halt after it snowed earlier this week, and believe it or not, the snow accumulation was only two inches, but it still caused plenty of havoc.

    To this day, people are still fighting traffic, kids are still out of school and some folks are just now reuniting with their families after a tumultuous commute.

    One of the people who had to combat the weather and traffic was CNN anchor Carol Costello, who lives and works in Atlanta, and when she sat down with the mayor, Kasim Reed, things got heated pretty quickly.

    Especially when the CNN anchor mentioned that people could have died after leaving their cars and walking on the highway. “That’s easy to say from your anchor seat,” said Reed.

    “No! I was out stuck in the traffic,” Costello replied. “I was one of those people…..I’m just expressing the frustration of a city, as a person who was stuck in traffic for hours and hours and hours.”

    And when Costello asked Reed how come schools remained opened after weather reports indicated there would be snow, he said that it’s not his call to close the schools, it’s the Atlanta Public School System, and throughout the interview, the Mayor remained combative and chose to pass the blame instead of taking it on himself.

    “I was amazed that he kept passing the buck,” said Costello after the interview was over. “Pointing fingers everywhere but at himself. I think that’s where my frustration came from. I wanted him to say, ‘I’m angry and frustrated at the response and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.’ He didn’t say that. Being a citizen of Atlanta and caught in the mess, I know what it felt like…I wanted to get answers from the man who was supposed to be protecting me from that and I didn’t get that.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Anderson Cooper Has a Dummy and a Stalker

    Anderson Cooper Has a Dummy and a Stalker

    Anderson Cooper is a dummy. No, really, he is.

    The CNN personality even admits it himself. Of course, he’s talking about the Anderson Cooper ventriloquist dummy his staff found for sale on eBay. The host addressed the hand-crafted item Thursday night on his AC360 show’s RidicuList.

    “Why do they have such a bad reputation?” he asked, while showing a clip from The Twilight Zone. “They’re not creepy at all.”

    The doll features Cooper’s signature white hair, piercing blue eyes and chiseled jaw-line. If you’re interested in purchasing “Mini Cooper,” it’s going to set you back a cool $360,000.

    Who knows? Maybe Cooper will buy it himself, as he expressed an interest in finding out more about the art of ventriloquism.

    “Except before I learn how to throw my voice, I think I should learn the art of regular talking,” he joked.

    Cooper surely welcomes this break from the creepy experiences he has endured by the hands of his stalker, Alex Hausner, who was declared fit for trial, this week. He is accused of attempting to kick down Cooper’s door and threatening Cooper and his boyfriend, Benjamin Maisani.

    The 38-year-old Hausner, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 12, appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday, where Judge Charles Solomon reviewed a report filed by Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, where Hausner received treatment last year.

    Solomon postponed the trial until February 25, to give prosecutors time to discuss a plea with Hausner’s lawyer, Wendell Cruz, who will attempt to get additional medical treatment for Hausner, instead of jail time.

    Hausner received harassing, menacing and stalking charges after his arrest this past July for his altercation with Cooper. His bail was set at $75,000.

    Image via Facebook

  • CNN’s Twitter, Facebook Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

    Late Thursday night, CNN had a bunch of social media accounts hacked. The group responsible, the Syrian Electronic Army, announced their intent to “retaliate against CNN’s viciously lying reporting aimed at prolonging the suffering in Syria.”

    According to CNN, “the affected accounts included CNN’s main Facebook account, CNN Politics’ Facebook account and the Twitter pages for CNN and CNN’s Security Clearance. Blogs for Political Ticker, The Lead, Security Clearance, The Situation Room and Crossfire were also hacked.” Here are the tweets that the SEA managed to post before CNN wrestled back control:

    CNN has deleted all tweets and Facebook posts made while breached.

    The SEA announced the hack, and gave their own reasons on Twitter:

    CNN isn’t the first victim of the SEA – the group recently hacked Microsoft (again), and was the cause of a lengthy attack on the New York Times’ website last August.

    Image via Twitter