PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler has to be getting uncomfortable for calling out unbalanced liberal programs on the taxpayer-funded network. After he agreed with critics last week that a pro-Kerry editorial was wildly out of place on the show "History Detectives," now he has noticed the incredibly one-sided Bill Moyers Journal hour on impeaching Bush and Cheney and mildly noted it could have used a smidgen of balance. Despite Nancy Pelosi’s promise to avoid impeachment hearings, he wrote, "I would argue that it is still a newsworthy topic. So, as a viewer, I'm grateful that it is being addressed....On the other hand, there was almost a complete absence of balance, as I watched it, in the way this program presented the case for impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney."

UPDATE: Woman to be President in Episode Seven (h/t NBer msh1973)

Remember all that media chatter in January about the hit TV series "24" being conservative?

Well, likely to the applause of Jack Bauer's green fans, the producers announced the following Saturday (emphasis added, h/t NBer amber):

"24," the Emmy Award-winning series from Imagine and Twentieth Century Fox Television, will strive to become the first television production ever to save enough energy and reduce enough carbon emissions over the course of a season to render its entire season finale "carbon neutral."

Star Kiefer Sutherland has already filmed a public service annoucement which begins: "Global warming is a crime for which we are all guilty!"

Think that will put to rest all the "24" is conservative nonsense? No, I don't either. Regardless, here's their plan:

Last Saturday, NewsBusters shared a truly disgraceful Ted Rall cartoon that depicted a United States soldier as a suicide bomber.

On Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in its "Cartoons From Around The World" section, featured a rather revolting "comic" by German cartoonist Rainer Hachfeld. In it, a panel showed children in Afghanistan shooting toy guns playfully at an American military plane, with panel two dramatizing the same plane attacking the kids with gunfire clearly hitting one as the other ran screaming for cover.

How delightful.

As this is the property of cartoon syndicator Daryl Cagle, copyright laws prevent unauthorized distribution. However, as the above link indicates, Hachfeld's piece was also published at Cagle's MSNBC.com webpage.

NewsBusters' member Saw the Light, who forwarded this piece to me, made the following sage observations about the cartoon which he has given me permission to share:

See Update below: Michelle back on the flooding beat!

If you're Michelle Kosinki's agent, you surely have a verboten vocabulary list. Words you don't want your ward ever to say on air. Above all, of course, "canoe." But others too. Ones like "puddle," "slosh," and certainly . . . "row."

But there was Michelle on this morning's "Today," reporting from London on Potter-mania. And you guessed it . . .

Original caption:

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, center, from Hearst Newspapers, takes her seat located in the front row, before the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the renovated James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, Wednesday, July 11, 2007, at the White House in Washington.

It appears the BBC condones faking...audience phone calls, that is.

In a not so stunning revelation, the BBC admitted to allowing employees to call in to shows either asking for audience involvement, or offering prizes, when the network wasn't receiving enough real feedback.

Gotta love it.

One truly delicious example occurred during Comic Relief back in March (emphasis added, h/t Tim Graham):

As NewsBusters has been reporting this week (see this and this), as the stock market hit new all-time highs, the media have been dour Nervous Nellies carping and whining about gas prices, the low value of the dollar, the housing slump, and the rising trade deficit.

Yet, there are a variety of issues that press outlets have conveniently ignored during this record bull run that not only explain rising stock prices, but also give a more accurate view of what is going on in the global economy.

For instance, Bloomberg was one of the only major media outlets Tuesday which reported record purchases of U.S. securities by foreigners in May (emphasis added):

The recent additions of Justices Jonathan Roberts and Samuel Alito have admittedly changed the balance of power in the Supreme Court. It was inevitable that the Court would take a conservative turn. Equally inevitable was the media's hysterical reaction.

A narrow decision on partial birth abortion was described as reversing the precedent of Roe vs. Wade. A school zoning decision was touted by irresponsible commentators as having overturned Brown v. Board of Education. These decisions, and others, have led to personal attacks upon Roberts and Alito, as well as public pleas from legal analysts to the Court's new swing vote Justice Kennedy to "moderate" his position.

Ah, Saturday morning. Is there a better time of the week?

What is the deal with 24 going carbon neutral.  This is so assinine I do not even know where to begin.  I hope I do not have to start boycotting a great show.  However, I can not support someone who licks the shoes of Al Gore.

From their site:

EMMY-WINNING DRAMA “24” MAKES LANDMARK COMMITMENT TO FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE  

Show Will Take Significant Steps to Reduce its Carbon Footprint
For Season Seven with the Goal of Accruing Enough Emissions Savings
To Render Entire Season Finale Carbon Neutral;
“24” Hopes to Inspire Other Series and Millions of Viewers
To Join Fight to Curb Climate Change

A recent article by writer Manish Vij, The Apu travesty, in The Guardian has stirred up something of a hornets nest of controversy as was chronicled here in NewsBusters. Vij took a strictly PC approach and condemned the portrayal of Apu from "The Simpsons" as being racist. However, his opinion is far from universal among people of ethnic Indian background. Journalist Saptarshi Ray who is based in the Washington, D.C. bureau of The Guardian has a very different view of the Apu character in his response, The wonder of Apu:

The willing "mainstream" media promoters of NBC anchor Brian Williams have touted his credentials as a blogger. He’s so "with it." But NRO’s Greg Pollowitz points out that Brian talked to journalism students at New York University and exposed himself as yet another snob who wants people to know that bloggers are a nerdy stereotype named Vinny in a bathrobe "who hasn’t left the efficiency apartment in two years" and that people who depend on online media for news are "watching cats flushing toilets" – and missing the big stories from NBC’s "oasis" of reasoned, serious news people, no doubt.

Apparently, MSNBC's Tucker Carlson is getting fed up with hearing Democrats talk about the need for reinstitutiing the Fariness Doctrine.

All those that agree say "aye."

With this in mind, on Thursday evening, Carlson absolutely demolished the absurd positions his guest, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-New York), was espousing for the need to bring back this archaic doctrine that was thrown out by a court back in 1987.

Unfortunately, Hinchey and his ilk live in the past concerning free speech on the airwaves, and Carlson adroitly exposed his many hypocrisies with this opening question (video available here, h/t Hot Air):