NewsBusters Archive

The Washington Post tiptoed gently on Friday around Joe Biden’s hopes of being elected president in 2016. “For Biden, dreams vs. realities” is the story’s headline, but at the very top of Page One, it says “At the top of his political game, the vice president shines as Obama’s personable No. 2. But events may conspire against a 2016 promotion.”

Post reporter Philip Rucker rather comically took 30 paragraphs to establish one series of “events” that threaten Biden are gaffes. The front page says Biden is a “long shot at best,” but insists he’s seen as “genuine, down-to-earth, rock solid on the issues" and “clearly has the experience and gravitas to ascend to the presidency.”

The New York Times's Julia Preston watched parades on May Day for evidence that the fight for amnesty for illegal immigrants was at last gathering public support in "Showing Grass-Roots Support for Immigration Overhaul." Preston hit the jackpot when a protester quoted her back the same line she and the Times have been using for years about illegal immigrants: "I think it is time that we come out of the shadows...."

Preston did her part by helping spin away the small size of rallies held by amnesty supporters; supposedly the turnout was lower because they wanted "more local supporters:"

Live Action, a "new media movement dedicated to ending abortion and building a culture of life," hosted a "Stop the Killing" infanticide protest in front of abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s clinic in Washington, D.C. on May 1, 2013.

At the protest, MRC’s Culture and Media Institute asked speakers about the media's coverage of infanticide, especially in connection with the Kermit Gosnell case – watch their answers below.

Forty six days after the grisly trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell began, ABC still has not uttered one word about the case. Gosnell is charged with the murder of four infants and one patient, yet the network has conducted a total blackout. During the same period, ABC's Good Morning America has aired 53 segments and 148 minutes– almost two and a half hours– of coverage for other sensational criminal trials.

Although GMA hasn't found time to discuss the shocking details of the Gosnell case, the morning program on Thursday did tout the story of two rival Sno-Kone truck operators in upstate New York, the deeply irrelevant criminal complaints of "Sno Kone Joe vs. Mr. Ding-A-Ling." [See a picture below.] The other networks have given the Gosnell story minimal coverage, but ABC is alone in completely ignoring it.

On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah noted start of the National Rifle Association's convention in Houston, Texas by declaring that it "gets under way as the country engages in a heated gun control debate." In the report that followed, correspondent Gabe Gutierrez described the event as "a nine-acre gun show in the middle of a national gun fight."

Gutierrez acknowledged the recent "major congressional victory" of the gun rights group and lamented failure to pass gun restrictions: "After mass shootings in Aurora and Newtown, the NRA's opponents seemed to have momentum....But two weeks ago, a bipartisan compromise on expanded background checks for commercial gun sales was shot down in the Senate."

When MSNBC announced in March that Ed Schultz's weeknight program, “The Ed Show,” was being replaced by “All In,” which is hosted by 34-year-old Chris Hayes, the executives of the "Lean Forward" network hoped that the new hour-long program would hold onto the channel's liberal audience and even draw in younger viewers.

Instead, the ratings for Hayes' broadcasts in April were down 18 percent in total viewers from that month's numbers in 2012 for “Ed,” and it appears that “All In” is also dragging down the viewership for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” which was off by seven percent from its ratings during that period a year ago, and “The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell,” which also fell eight percent in a year-to-year comparison.

Politico’s Dylan Byers reported “The Daily Beast is dropping Howard Kurtz, the veteran media critic who made headlines this week for his erroneous report about NBA star Jason Collins.” Kurtz erred in suggesting Collins hadn’t been forthcoming about his fiancee, even though he discussed her on both ABC and in the Sports Illustrated cover story that made “history.” Kurtz’s story was retracted on Thursday.

On top of Kurtz losing his $300,000-a-year Beast gig (which started in October of 2010), TV Newser reported “A source at CNN tells TVNewser that Kurtz’s current deal with the cable channel will likely be his last.” The New York Times had a source claiming it wasn't just a Collins thing:

If you read local newspapers on the ground in the Granite State, it becomes pretty clear that the national media's drive-by attack on Kelly Ayotte is rooted in the liberal media's desire to push gun control, not the actual facts on the ground. The faux fury over Ayotte's vote against the Manchin-Toomey gun background check bill is rather underwhelming, in fact.

To make one thing absolutely clear, there were more Ayotte supporters than detractors at the town hall where Erica Lafferty attacked Ayotte for her vote. Lafferty, you may recall, is the daughter of the slain Sandy Hook Elementary School principal. Shawn Millerick of the New Hampshire Journal reported today that anti-Ayotte protests outside a town hall appearance were staged by Organizing for Action -- which is basically an undead form of the Obama for America presidential campaign:

On Wednesday's The Last Word on MSNBC, host Lawrence O'Donnell used a recent commencement speech delivered by Mitt Romney to slam the former GOP presidential candidate as taking the "most dishonorable posture that was possible for an able-bodied man of Mitt Romney's age" for refusing to serve in the Vietnam War while supporting the existence of the draft.

But the MSNBC host also called it "honorable service" for young people to protest against the Vietnam War while refusing to serve. O'Donnell: