MRC's Free Market Project just released its first major study of 2006,  "Hit Job: Networks Emphasize Layoffs In A Year of 2 Million New Jobs." Dan Gainor and R. Warren Anderson found:

More than 2 million new jobs were created in 2005 but that wasn’t the story presented by the evening news. The three broadcast networks downplayed strong growth and, instead, emphasized negatives such as corporate layoffs and outsourcing in more than half the stories about jobs or unemployment. As Trish Regan of “CBS Evening News” put it in the July 20 broadcast, “Twenty-five thousand layoffs and more on the way. I’m Trish Regan with why the jobs picture is looking very ‘pink’ these days.”

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan visited Venezuela on January 24th and joined President Hugo Chavez at a speaking event for the sixth annual World Social Forum in Caracas. You may not have heard this story because it wasn’t mentioned on Today, the Early Show or Good Morning America, among others. This is one of those cases where the bias is in what’s not reported.

Last December, CNN’s American Morning did a "Top Five in ‘05" segment, featuring the year’s most interesting people and stories. Ms. Sheehan ranked number three, higher then Pope John Paul II. Earlier in the year, they gleefully covered her trip to England. CNN has, thus far, not bothered to report on Cindy Sheehan’s appearance with a dictator who imprisons his critics and, according to U.S. News and World Report, is "flirting with terrorism." CNN’s website did mention the anti war activist’s appearance at the event, but only in the article’s 19th and final paragraph. Is it possible that the mainstream media doesn’t want to point out the irony that Cindy Sheehan, who once described George Bush as "the biggest terrorist in the world," is now meeting with Hugo Chavez?

On the Jan. 19, "NBC Nightly News," introducing a story on Google's refusal to comply with a subpoena for Web search records, anchor Brian Williams alerted viewers to "a developing story in this country tonight that involves the collision of technology and privacy...The giant and successful search engine company has been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. They want to see exactly what people are searching for."

Fifteen additional reports graced the newscasts of the broadcast networks since then, according to a Nexis search, most of these focusing on the concerns of privacy advocates who fear overreaching by the Bush administration.

Five days later, the Associated Press reported that Google will censor Web sites the Chinese government deems objectionable:

Over at NRO, Jay Nordlinger is on his annual jaunt to observe the global hoi polloi at Davos, Switzerland, but he has a telling tidbit of New York Times bias if you keep with it. Apparently, it's surprising that the President is reading books again, even those distasteful tomes about the dark days of mass murder in the communist bloc:

You may have seen, in the New York Times, that President Bush has been reading that big new book about Mao: Mao: The Unknown Story, by the husband-and-wife team of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. (Actually, I should have written "wife-and-husband team" — sorry about that.) Did you catch what the Times's writer, Elisabeth Bumiller, had to say about this? (Her story is here.) Very interesting.

On Monday, President Bush gave a speech and took questions at Kansas State University. It's been a couple of days, and the last wire stories on that have probably been written. So it's interesting to look and see what the Associated Press thought was newsworthy about the speech.

First, they ran a story from Jennifer Loven, which focused on the NSA's surveillance program.

President Bush pushed back Monday at critics of his once-secret domestic spying effort, saying it should be termed a "terrorist surveillance program" and contending it has the backing of legal experts, key lawmakers and the Supreme Court.

Notice that the term "domestic spying effort" is used to describe the program, while the phrase "terrorist surveillance program" is in quotes, emphasizing that, while the President may want to call it a "terrorist surveillance program," the AP knows that it is actually a "domestic spying effort."

Bush's remarks were part of an aggressive administration campaign to defend the four-year-old program as a crucial and legal terror-fighting tool. The White House is trying to sell its side of the story before the Senate Judiciary Committee opens hearings on it in two weeks.

An "aggressive administration campaign" to "sell its side of the story." Maybe, just maybe, that's necessary, because the stories that have been published have only told the other side. Certainly, the AP, in this story, has emphasized that they don't think that the President's characterization is accurate. They've implicitly called him a liar by continuing to call the program "domestic spying" when the White House has repeatedly pointed out the inaccuracy of the term.

In any event, there was another AP story from the KSU event, a non-bylined story which focused on the President's assertion that "the war on terror is an 'ideological struggle'," and appears to have been mostly written before the speech occurred.

A day after igniting furor over his Los Angeles Times column that began, "I don't support our troops," Joel Stein is still defending the piece and says he has no regrets about writing it.

Reuters news service interviewed Stein,

"Asked if he had regrets, [Stein] said: 'No, because I'm against the war. (I have no regrets) if this helps us get out of that war and bring our troops home safely'."

The Reuters interview is published a day after a grilling interview of Stein by conservative Los Angeles radio host Hugh Hewitt. A full transcript and audio is available at Radio Blogger. For a unique insight into a sheltered, out-of-touch, Hollywood-liberal mindset, the interview is a must-read/must-listen. Check it out.

HT: Drudge Report.

There’s an old rule in marketing – stick to what sells. Lately, it appears that America’s media are doing exactly that.

Since the significant rebound in the president’s poll numbers from their October lows, along with an apparent lack of outrage by the public concerning the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and revelations of domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, the media seem to be downplaying reports on current events, and, instead, focusing attention on last year’s big story that was largely responsible for the decline in Bush’s favorability ratings.

In the past three days, the media have given more air time and print space to issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina, an event that occurred at the end of August 2005, than a one and a half-hour question and answer session in Kansas that the president held on Monday, and a one-hour address that the second most powerful intelligence figure in our nation gave concerning terrorist surveillance the same day.

The New York Times makes a point to cast the Canadian election as a non-ideological victory for the Conservatives on Wednesday. Canada-based reporter Clifford Krauss marks the country’s groundbreaking election of a Conservative government over a headline seemingly meant to reassure the Times’ timorous liberal readership: “Canada’s Shift: To the Right, Gently – Harper Defeated Liberals More Over Scandals Than Policies.”

Last May, the Canada-based Krauss assumed the liberal view that international treaties and gay marriage laws were signs of political virtue and tolerance: "Canadian cities are among the most ethnically diverse and safest in the world. Canadian tolerance took real form during the past two years with the extension of marriage rights to gays and lesbians in most of the country."

Yesterday's Canadian election confirmed what polls and pundits had been reporting: Millions of voters strongly favored the Conservatives and were disgusted by the Liberal Party's stumbling social policies and massive corruption.

But The Washington Post apparently couldn't locate any of those voters. At least, none were quoted in its post-election story, "Canadians Move Right, Elect New Leadership."

The Post only quoted one person who even claimed to have voted Conservative. And it told its readers said she did so “reluctantly:”

"I think we have to give it a try. But I am very afraid that it will be too far right," said Florence Koven, 72, emerging from the polls after voting -- reluctantly, she said -- for the Conservative Party. "The unknown always concerns you. Mr. Harper (the Conservative leader) says he is a changed man; we'll see how much he has changed."

Yes indeed, all of us on both sides of the border need to be sooo careful about voting for Conservatives. And if they win, we must always hope they change once in office.

The Post's management continues to insist the paper doesn't have a liberal bias. What's more, the editors tell us that when covering an election, their reporters find out what voters are saying and tell us.

Well, if that's the case, how did The Post miss all the Canadians who would have been happy to tell its reporters: "We're sick and tired of the Liberals and glad the Conservatives are going in?"

The Associated Press reported late last evening that NBC is dropping the controversial series “The Book of Daniel” from its lineup: “Although the network stopped short of saying the low-rated show was canceled, a spokeswoman said Tuesday it has been dropped from the schedule.”

For those unfamiliar, the story line was potentially a bit over the top, even for network television: “The series, which starred Aidan Quinn as an Episcopalian priest with a pill habit who holds regular conversations with Jesus, has a promiscuous son and a daughter who deals marijuana, proved better at drawing criticism than viewers.”

According to the report, this show was largely a failure right from the start:

I know how hard it is to write a headline that's accurate and short and grabbing. But we really should shoot for all three -- accurate, short and grabbing. I don't think 'domestic spying' makes it.

- General Michael Hayden, former NSA director, speaking to the National Press Club on January 23

On CBS, The Early Show opened this morning with a discussion of the NSA's electronic surveillance program on Al-Qaeda suspects that it continues to call "domestic spying." It was the first item teased at the open. Rene Syler:

Using the National Security Agency as a backdrop, President Bush today will once again defend his domestic spying program as vital to the war on terror.

Less than a minute later, as they introduced the various stories they'd be covering, it was mentioned again. Julie Chen:

As we noted, President Bush has been defending his covert program to spy on Americans, and we'll have the latest on that in just a moment.

John McCain is a straight talker. You can take it to the bank. Assuming, that is, that you're willing to rely on the Today show's say-so. During much of McCain's interview with Matt Lauer this morning, Today 'helpfully' displayed the legend "Straight Talk from John McCain." Guess that wraps it up - the man is as square a shooter as the day is long!

Some of us watching the interviewing might otherwise have thought that John McCain was positioning himself to run for president as the Know-Nothing candidate.

The topic was the NSA surveillance program, which President Bush has now dubbed the "terrorist surveillance program." When it came to the program's legality, McCain was more agnostic than a Unitarian lay minister.

David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute spotted an undeniable pattern of media unease in the network and newspaper coverage of the nomination of conservative Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, compared to how those same outlets treated Bill Clinton's 1993 nomination of liberal ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Cato's executive vice president asked rhetorically, in an article last Thursday for Reason Magazine:

"Remember all those news stories in 1993 about how the nomination of former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace conservative Justice Byron White on the United States Supreme Court would 'tilt the balance of the court to the left?' Of course you don't. Because there weren't any. In the past three months, the major media have repeatedly hammered away at the theme that Judge Samuel Alito Jr. would 'shift the Supreme Court to the right' if he replaced retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. According to Lexis/Nexis, major newspapers have used the phrase 'shift the court' 36 times in their Alito coverage. They have referred to the 'balance of the court' 32 times and 'the court's balance' another 15. 'Shift to the right' accounted for another 18 mentions. Major radio and television programs indexed by Lexis/Nexis have used those phrases 63 times.

Brent Baker's dispatch on ABC's "Nightline" showed a dramatic liberal bias, with ABC providing left-wing comedians Kathy Griffin and Al Franken a platform to mock more conservative performers like Mel Gibson and Rush Limbaugh for not doing their part to entertain troops on the USO circuit.

Author and blogger Alan Skorski is America's most determined Al Franken watchdog, author of the new book "Pants On Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears, and Deceives." In December, Skorski noted on his blog one angle that ABC has yet to explore: whether the allegedly troops-loving Franken should be allowed to entertain the troops when behind their backs, he laughs at them as prisoner abusers. He reported in December there is a brief clip from a song called "Sorry," an Abu Ghraib-ish parody of our marauding troops from his "Very Best of The O'Franken Factor" CD.

California’s upcoming GOP primary just got interesting. Former U.S. Rep. and decorated veteran Paul "Pete" McCloskey recently announced that he will challenge Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) in June.

Often described as a "maverick Republican" (code word for liberal) by the mainstream media (MSM), McCloskey is being lauded as a "moderate" who will restore the conservative principles of small government to a scandal-plagued Washington. To drive the point home, Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay’s names are invoked frequently in articles on the subject.

McCloskey ran against President Richard Nixon in 1972 as an antiwar candidate and testified in congress along with Vietnam Veterans Against the War organizer John Kerry, who he also endorsed for president in 2004. All this, combined with having been co-chairman of the first Earth Day in 1970 and one of the authors of the Endangered Species Act, makes McCloskey a "good" Republican in the eyes of the media.

President Bush went to Kansas yesterday to discuss a number of important issues facing the nation including the war in Iraq, and terrorist surveillance. Yet, what seems to have most captured the attention of America’s media is a question asked of the president by a reporter in attendance yesterday concerning whether or not he has seen the controversial film “Brokeback Mountain.” In fact, the media found this such an important issue that all three broadcast networks addressed it during their morning news programs today.

The “Today Show’s” Matt Lauer ended his segment with guest Bill O’Reilly this morning by playing a video clip of the exchange between President Bush and this reporter at Kansas State University, after which he asked O’Reilly: “So, O'Reilly, have you seen it? Should it be given the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year?”

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In a tough interview conducted by CNN's Wolf Blitzer live on the 7pm EST hour of Monday's The Situation Room, and re-played during Tuesday's 5pm hour, radical-left singer Harry Belafonte stood by his recent declarations that President Bush is both “the greatest tyrant in the world” and the “the greatest terrorist in the world,” as well as how the Department of Homeland Security is the "new Gestapo." Blitzer ridiculed Belafonte's ludicrous comparison: "But no one has taken you or anyone else, as far as I can tell, to an extermination camp and by the tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, even millions decided to kill them, which is what the Nazis did." Blitzer soon pressed: “Are you saying that President Bush is worse than Osama bin Laden?" Belafonte responded that "I'm saying that he's no better,” and proceeded to reiterate how “I do believe” that Bush is “a terrorist. I do believe that what our government does has terror in the center of its agenda.”

Blitzer read what the Raleigh News and Observer last week quoted Belafonte as charging: “When you have a President that has led us into a dishonorable war, who has killed tens of thousands, many of them our own sons and daughters, what is the difference between those who would fly airplanes into buildings killing 3,000 innocent Americans? What is the difference between that terror and other terrors?” Blitzer then asked: “Now that raises the issue of moral equivalency. Are you saying what the Bush administration, what the President is doing is the moral equivalent of what al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden ordered on 9/11?" Belafonte maintained that “I don't want to make those kind of comparisons,” but then ran through how “al Qaeda tortures. We torture. al Qaeda's killed innocent people. We kill innocent people.” (Complete transcript follows.)