The number of digital media outlets completely destroyed in the wake of Facebook's newsfeed purge earlier this year is unknown. We've experienced the devastating effects of their war on journalism at the Banter, and have been brought to our knees after they took roughly 70% of ...read more
For its 2018 Person of the Year, Time Magazine has selected a group of journalists who have faced prison time, put themselves at great risk, and, in some cases, given their lives for reporting the truth. Billed as "The Guardians and the War on Truth," they include the staff of ...read more
Update: There have been complaints about the misleading nature of this article because the French is media is not legally allowed to publish anything about the election during the blackout period. However, not every outlet obeys this law and Le Monde choosing to honor the ...read more
by Matthew Casper Along with the rest of the nation, I have been inundated this week by the media coverage of yet another instance of President Donald J. Trump's casual relationship with the truth. Whether on TV, radio, or the Internet, not a day has passed where another ...read more
Yesterday, Lawrence O'Donnell tweeted out a very simple message to his colleagues in the media reminding them of their job going forward: O'Donnell's simple message is an incredibly important one, and if the media fails to hold Donald Trump accountable for his incessant lying, ...read more
Donald Trump waged an astonishing war against the press in the lead up to his unlikely victory in November, labeling them "scum", "lowlifes" and "enemies". He threatened to sue various newspapers and promised to “open up” libel laws should he be elected. In response to this ...read more
The Daily Beast has published a story confirming that Chuck Johnson, who once wrote for “mainstream” conservative outlets but now primarily publishes to his own blog, paid for one of the women to attend Donald Trump’s press conference stunt prior to Sunday’s debate. It’s a great ...read more
A couple of days ago, Anderson Cooper did his job. Now, more than a lot of broadcast and cable journalists, Cooper does his job fairly regularly -- but on Tuesday he absolutely did his job during an interview with Florida Attorney General and Rick Scott ...read more
In this week's edition of Banter M, our long form digital magazine for members: The Facebook Death Star and the End of Clickbait - Daily Banter founder Ben Cohen reports on what it is like navigating a website in the post clickbait era of the internet and coming to terms with ...read more
Photo: Chuck C. Johnson* By now, many of you are familiar with conservative blogger and hack-fraud Chuck C. Johnson (not to be confused with Little Green Footballs blogger, Charles Johnson), who's made a name for himself by exposing and smearing alleged rape victims, among ...read more
We want people to read the stuff we write here. If we claimed otherwise you'd know that The Daily Banter wasn't worth your time because it was staffed by a bunch of liars. Despite that, we'd appreciate it if the reason you came here, read the material we crank out, and shared it ...read more
You may or may not have heard about Glenn Greenwald's forthcoming "grand finale" article, to be pulled from his Snowden NSA files. Greenwald has been teasing it as being similar to the end of a fireworks display -- the biggest bangs, the "wow-factor," etc. What we know so far is ...read more
A couple of years ago, The Daily Banter was getting shout-outs in stellar publications like examiner.com. "Some site called The Daily Banter, whatever that is," wrote one of the unpaid conservative columnists, after laying into us for some perceived slight. At that point, we'd ...read more
This is how real reporters talk to politicians (h/t The Dish): Farage is gaining popularity in Britain on a platform of thinly veiled racism and outright stupidity. Thankfully, the British media isn't having any of it. US journalist - please take note. ...read more
Last Friday night, I got into a Twitter fight with Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti about his site and the general state of journalism in America. It kicked off because of an admittedly snarky piece I wrote about 'The Wolf of Buzzfeed' viral video making the rounds on the ...read more
Glenn Greenwald actually said this to a reporter: “One of the problems of old media organizations is this incredibly homogenized, narrow range of viewpoints that get expressed. That comes from a really homogenized range of backgrounds—going to the same schools, coming from the ...read more
Don't ever refer to Glenn Greenwald as "blogger Glenn Greenwald." Whenever some poor bastard in the traditional press describes him as such, he strenuously objects in classic Greenwaldian fashion, usually involving the word "drooling" and 5,000 others, give or take. He's a ...read more
This week marks two new low points in journalism. As we've reported over the last couple of days, they are, 1) Glenn Greenwald's effort to conflate malicious hackers with political activism via a leaked Snowden document, and 2) the broadly misreported analysis of the ...read more
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report today showing that the Affordable Care Act would reduce the labor force by an estimated 2.4 million workers by 2024. Cue shrieking about how Obamacare is killing jobs and the economy. Headlines: CBO: O-Care slowing growth, ...read more
They say you're never really a true political journalist until an esteemed politician threatens bodily harm upon you... And if that's the case, Michael Scotto of NY1 was coronated last night after a post-SOTU interview with Rep. Michael Grimm, a Republican out of New York who ...read more
During times of massive wealth inequality and economic uncertainty, our tolerance for the whims of the super rich tends to wane a bit. That's why multi-millionaire media mogul Arianna Huffington's announcement that she would be launching a new website for the likes of Tony ...read more
Yesterday I popped up a quickie post here about a piranha attack in Argentina that injured a bunch of people, including several children. I called it "my favorite story of the day," which it was only insofar as it gave me something I could easily write a crappy joke about on a ...read more
As we enter the third month of The Story of the Summer, the Edward Snowden NSA saga, I thought it might be a good time recap some of the most ridiculous and inaccurate claims made by various reporters covering this beat. I hasten to note that I'm leaving out anything from ...read more
As news of Edward Snowden's one year asylum in Russia and his subsequent departure from his stay at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow (a story for another day) broke across the internet, yet another wild claim about government surveillance circumnavigated the globe. I'm not ...read more
If you want to understand just how screwed the print industry is, consider this (from PaidContent): After adjusting the figures for inflation, total print ad spending last year of about $19 billion was below the level set in 1950. It took 50 years — a generation, in other words — ...read more
by Ari Rutenberg Editor's Note: Ben Cohen is on vacation for a few days, so I'll been posting in his stead. If there are any topics of particular interest to readers that have not been covered, please let me know and I'll do my best to get something going. Also I love ...read more
If you want serious political analysis, good journalism and real debate, you cannot rely on American network news to provide it. CNN, MSNBC and Fox are all engaged in a laughable ratings war that has seen journalistic standards disappear and political commentary plunge to the ...read more
by Ben Cohen Michelle Malkin has a venomous presence in the American news media. Her vicious attack style journalism is much adored by her audience, but it is symptomatic of a crumbling profession, devoid of ethical standards or quality control. Malkin is so absurd, she would be ...read more
by David Glenn Cox Last month the number of Americans who lost their jobs was revised down to 467,000, just under a half a million. The total number of newly unemployed now stands at 14.7 million people. That number was revised downward 358,000 by a government technique used ...read more
