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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 Uses Sex Scandal to Illustrate Bush Admin 'Close' to Big Oil

Brent Baker
September 10th, 2008 10:00 PM

New Line of Attack on Palin from Behar on CNN: 'She's Very Mean to Ani

Brent Baker
September 9th, 2008 11:16 PM

CBS & NBC React to Palin Bounce with Fact Checks to Discredit Her

Brent Baker
September 9th, 2008 9:36 PM

NBC: McCain's Charge an Assertion, Obama's Shows 'Bluntness

Brent Baker
September 8th, 2008 9:18 PM

Stephanopoulos: 'Subtle Racial Code' in Ridicule of 'Community Organiz

Brent Baker
September 8th, 2008 2:35 AM

Sarah Palin Whacked as 'Wacko Right-Winger' by Kondracke on FNC

Brent Baker
September 7th, 2008 1:04 AM

Maher Buys Into Claim Sarah Palin's Baby Son Really Her Grandson

Brent Baker
September 6th, 2008 1:41 AM

Stephanopoulos Corrects McCain But Last Week Defended Obama

Brent Baker
September 5th, 2008 6:20 AM

Schieffer Pleased McCain Speech 'More Inclusive' Than Palin's

Brent Baker
September 5th, 2008 4:01 AM

Rasmussen: By 10-to-1 Public Says Reporters 'Trying to Hurt Palin

Brent Baker
September 4th, 2008 7:20 PM

Stephanopoulos on Giuliani and Palin: 'A Little Too Ugly? A Little Too

Brent Baker
September 4th, 2008 6:32 AM

'Dr. Phil' Chastises Letterman's Deriding of Palin's Bad Parenting

Brent Baker
September 4th, 2008 4:48 AM

Pegged to Palin, Couric Interrogates Cindy McCain on Abortion

Brent Baker
September 3rd, 2008 8:22 PM

Prime Time Focus on Palin's Deficiencies, Couric: She's a 'Turnoff

Brent Baker
September 3rd, 2008 7:00 AM

MSNBC Obsesses Over Palin's Damaging 'Hard Right' Pro-Life Stand

Brent Baker
September 3rd, 2008 5:03 AM

CBS Evening News Most Aggressive in Besmirching Palin

Brent Baker
September 2nd, 2008 8:32 PM

Giuliani Scoffs at Blitzer's Claim Obama 'Scrutinized for Months

Brent Baker
September 2nd, 2008 6:41 PM

CBS's Greenfield: Conservative Might Have Been Hypocrites on Pregnant

Brent Baker
September 2nd, 2008 3:19 AM

Bennett, Live on CNN, Rebukes CNN for Exploiting Palin's Daughter to S

Brent Baker
September 1st, 2008 8:55 PM

Kroft Cues Up Obama to Agree Palin 'Has Less Experience than You

Brent Baker
August 31st, 2008 10:33 PM