Profile picture for user Brent Baker

Brent Baker

Editor At Large
@ BrentHBaker

Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center (MRC), the publisher of NewsBusters. He’s been the central figure in the MRC’s News Analysis Division since the MRC’s 1987 founding and in 2005 spearheaded the launch of NewsBusters.

Baker oversaw the selection of the award nominees and “winners” for the MRC’s “DisHonors Awards” (highlight video clips on NewsBusters), presented at an annual gala, and each week he helps the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard select a “Liberal Media Scream.” Those picks are added, on a one week delay, to NewsBusters.

In 2001, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes dubbed Baker “the scourge of liberal bias.”

For 13 years, 1996 through 2009, he compiled and edited the daily CyberAlert e-mail and online report. In late May of 2009 the CyberAlert became an e-mail-only product based on BiasAlert postings on the MRC's Web site until it was discontinued in 2015. 

From 1988 through 2015 he served as Editor of Notable Quotables (archive), a two-page newsletter which delivered a bi-weekly compilation of quotes from the liberal media which reflected biased reporting. At each year-end, an annual “awards for the year’s worst reporting” were selected by a panel of judges. (NQ collections on NewsBusters since 2016). From 1988 to 1999 he also oversaw MediaWatch, a monthly and later bi-weekly newsletter which the MRC discontinued in order to concentrate efforts on more timely analysis via the Internet.

Baker is the author of How to Identify, Expose & Correct Liberal Media Bias, a 1994 book which offers detailed explanations and suggestions for what the average citizen can do about media bias. Baker was co-editor of And That’s the Way It Isn’t: A Reference Guide to Media Bias, a 1990 book containing excerpts, reprints and summaries of 45 studies documenting the media's liberal bias during the 1980s.

Baker lived in Massachusetts through high school, whereupon he fled the liberal commonwealth for George Washington University in DC and, since graduation, a life in Northern Virginia. He edited the conservative college student newspaper The Sequent and graduated from GWU with special honors in political science in 1985.

After a stint at Conservative Digest magazine, Baker joined Brent Bozell at the National Conservative Foundation (as editor of the newsletter Newswatch) before helping to create the MRC in 1987.

An avid fan of the Washington Capitals NHL hockey team, in January of 2009 the Washington Post's "DC Sports Bog" took note of Baker's attendance at a Caps game with John Kerry: "The Caps, John Kerry and a Scourge."

Bio on MRC.org.


Latest Blogs

Couric Has Cushy Chat with Biden, Will She Be as Warm with Palin

Brent Baker
September 22nd, 2008 9:03 PM

Pelley Can't See Palin as President, Kroft Insists It's 'Fact' Being B

Brent Baker
September 21st, 2008 9:46 PM

Weekend 'Treat'? Streisand: 'Lovely Democratic Mem'ries/Of the Way We

Brent Baker
September 21st, 2008 1:48 AM

PDS in Action: Sullivan's Vitriolic 'S**t Fit' Too Much for Maher

Brent Baker
September 20th, 2008 4:01 PM

NBC Raises 9/11 & Pushes Quote to Hurt McCain, ABC Ties in Iraq

Brent Baker
September 19th, 2008 8:47 PM

E! Delivers Free Obama Ad as Host Sports 'Obama 08' Shirt

Brent Baker
September 19th, 2008 3:31 AM

CBS's Chip Reid, an Ex-Biden Adviser, Touts Hagel's Blast at Palin

Brent Baker
September 18th, 2008 9:39 PM

On NBC, CNBC's Liesman Raises 'Banana Republic' Spectre

Brent Baker
September 18th, 2008 8:27 PM

NBC's 'Fact Check' on Palin's False Claims Not So Convincing

Brent Baker
September 17th, 2008 9:46 PM

ABC: McCain Would Help 'Wealthiest,' Obama to Cut Taxes for

Brent Baker
September 16th, 2008 10:35 PM

Washington Post Derides Palin's Wasilla for Typical Suburban Sprawl

Brent Baker
September 15th, 2008 1:32 AM

Gibson Advanced to Palin What Hume Calls an Obama 'Dishonesty

Brent Baker
September 14th, 2008 9:25 PM

60% of Washington Post's Biden Tax Story Devoted to Palin

Brent Baker
September 14th, 2008 6:04 AM

CBS Channels Liberal Fretting Over Obama: 'Where's the Fight

Brent Baker
September 14th, 2008 1:52 AM

On 20/20, Gibson More Aggressive on Taxes, Abortion and Guns

Brent Baker
September 13th, 2008 2:02 AM

Gibson: Economy 'Sick,' Makes Palin Affirm Conservative Social Views

Brent Baker
September 12th, 2008 8:47 PM

Newsweek's Smalley: McCain 'Down & Dirty,' Obama Must Fight Back

Brent Baker
September 12th, 2008 2:02 PM

Gibson Pushes Palin to Concede Global Warming 'Man-Made

Brent Baker
September 12th, 2008 1:32 AM

Gibson Accuses Palin of 'Hubris' and Seeing Iraq as 'a Holy War

Brent Baker
September 11th, 2008 9:46 PM

By 5-to-1 Public Thinks Most Journalists Trying to Help Elect Obama

Brent Baker
September 11th, 2008 3:38 AM