This Week in Media Bias History

While nearly all Americans were united in celebrating the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden 13 years ago, the Sourpuss Left instead deplored fretted the “mindless jubilation” and “jingoistic hubris” of those cheering the elimination of an avowed enemy who had ordered the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

Every day in 2018, for 365 days, the Media Research Center's Rich Noyes brought you This Day in Media Bias History. Combing through the archives of the MRC, Noyes delivered the worst of the worst, the top examples of awful liberal media bias. 

What better Christmas present for Washington Post readers could there be? On December 25, 2008, Post writer Eli Saslow gushed over Barack Obama as a “paradigm of a new kind of presidential fitness.” Saslow narrated creepily, “The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week.” Get a room, liberal journalists. 

Delusion. That’s a good word to describe some journalists and hosts who deny liberal media bias. A good example of that was found on December 21, 2011. Far-left MSNBC host Rachel Maddow told Slate: “I think the thing that is underappreciated about MSNBC is that we don’t really do anything as a company, that we all sorta get to do our own thing. There may be liberals on TV at MSNBC, but the…

Liberal journalists have an interesting concept of what’s “sexy.” In the December 12, 2007 Washington Post, writers Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan wrote about Al Gore’s Nobel Prize. After mentioning actress Uma Thurman praise his global warming work, the reporters enthused, “Al Gore, sexy man. The thinking girl’s thoroughbred.” 

Liberal journalists don’t like conservatives bringing up religion and faith, but it’s apparently okay for them to insist God supports Democratic political opinions. On December 4, 2013, then-MSNBC host Ed Schultz weighed in on what God thinks about ObamaCare: “I’ll tell you what I think God thinks of the Affordable Care Act. It’s a big ‘amen.’” 

Remember back when journalists were skeptical of independent investigations into presidents? In the days when Ken Starr was looking into Bill Clinton, journalists weren’t so supportive. On November 25, 1998, 20/20's Diane Sawyer grilled Starr, saying of the Starr Report: “This has been called demented pornography, pornography for puritans.” 

Conservatives, you can blame them for everything. On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Washington Post featured an essay by University of Texas journalism professor Bill Minutaglio blaming the Tea Party for killing of JFK. He offered this bizarre, nutty take: “To find the very roots of the Tea Party of 2013, just go back to downtown Dallis in 1963, back to the…

Before journalists were fantasizing about having sex with Barack Obama, they were musing about sex with another Democrat, Bill Clinton. On November 16, 1992, Time Senior Writer Walter Shapiro cheered that “for the first time in more than 30 years the nation has elected a President with sex appeal.” 

It’s been eight years since Barack Obama was elected. So, you may be forgiven forgetting just how effusive journalists were towards the Democrat on election night. On the November 5, 2008 Good Morning America (the day after), Bill Weir gushed over Obama’s election: “Last night was transcendent.... Voices from around the world shouted the greatness of America.” 

Journalists have been bashing conservative Supreme Court judges for decades. Even after Clarence Thomas was confirmed, reporters never liked him much. On November 2, 2007, Jeffrey Toobin sneered that Thomas is “angry,” “bitter,” and “isolated.” 

As readers of This Week in Media Bias History know, journalists aren’t good at hiding their partisan agenda. Yet, there’s some subjects they don’t want to take a stand on. For instance: Whether the terrorist attack on the Pentagon was wrong. ABC News President David Westin on October 23, 2001 mused, “The Pentagon as a legitimate target? I actually don’t have an opinion on that.” Talking to…

Remember when Chris Matthews fantasized about the death of Rush Limbaugh? Describing the conservative radio host as a James Bond villain, Matthews on October 13, 2009 fumed, “Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody's going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he's going to explode like a giant blimp.” 

Do these people hear themselves when they talk? On October 11, 2002, ABC’s Barbara Walters offered this bizarre validation of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship: “If literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth.” Of course, if your yardstick for freedom is freedom, Cuba doesn’t do so well.