NB Staff's blog

MRC President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell appeared on the October 4 edition of Hannity and exposed the hollowness of the media's argument against covering inflammatory quotes Barack Obama made in a 2007 speech on race, clips aired for the first time earlier this week on Hannity. [Watch the full video after the jump.]

Host Sean Hannity set up the newest "Media Mash" segment: "I just played this tape, 2007. Yeah, the speech was reported on, but they didn't report what happened in this speech. They didn't -- major portions of it where the President is accusing the United States government -- before a predominantly African-American audience -- of not taking care of Katrina victims because of race."

Yes, the media are admitting the patently obvious: Mitt Romney won Wednesday's presidential debate. But, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell observed, the media are still shielding Obama by insisting that the president was merely stylistically off his game, rather than deficient on substance.

"It's all about how Obama was lackluster, how Obama wasn't firing on all cylinders.... No," Bozell told Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney on the Thursday morning Varney & Co. "All those things may be true, but that's just the beginning of it." [watch the video below the page break]

Will you be tuning in to tonight's presidential debate which starts at 9pm ET? If so, please join fellow NewsBusters readers here for a live chat about the contest.

Please note that you will need a Flash-enabled browser to participate.

It's a standard campaign technique to downplay a politician's debating strengths shortly before a candidate face-off. That way, if the candidate performs poorly in the debate, it can be shrugged off as "old news." If he does well, it will be played as a surprising show of strength.

This year is no different as both Romney and Obama camps are doing this. One thing Romney cannot count on is a compliant "state-run" media to spin the public after the fact. It does not always work, however, as in the 2000 elections where the media spun them as a win for Democrat Al Gore but most Americans did not see it that way. Do you think that the media spin will be effective this year for President Obama? Let us know in the comments.

In their continuing push to rig the election for Barack Obama, none of the three broadcast networks – ABC, CBS, or NBC – devoted a single second of coverage to Univision’s politically devastating  investigative report about the Obama Administration’s lethal gunwalking scandal, Fast and Furious.

Media Research President Brent Bozell reacted: "“This is another example of the media deliberately rigging this election. The Obama Administration provided guns to Mexican drug cartels, and the networks have the gall to ignore it. ABC, CBS and NBC have absolutely no excuse for spiking this explosive report, and are clearly doing so because it will damage Obama’s chances of re-election. Americans shouldn’t have to learn a second language to receive real investigative reporting."

Since MRC president Brent Bozell was busy celebrating at the MRC's 25th Anniversary Gala on Thursday night, Fox News asked him to appear for a "Media Mash" segment on Friday night's Hannity. Bozell and Sean Hannity focused mostly on the emerging scandal of  Team Obama's lies about the attacks at the Benghazi consulate that killed four Americans. As we've reported, the networks have been very slow off the mark on this one. ABC's Jake Tapper showed spokesman Jay Carney pooh-poohing it was a “pre-planned attack," which now looks like a lie. Networks didn't want to underline the government knew within 24 hours it was a terrorist attack.

Bozell asked, "Who shows up to a demonstration with rocket-propelled grenades?...Where are the press? They should have been doing this two weeks ago!" Hannity lamented, "They’re covering up the death by terrorists of Americans by terrorists!" And "CBS has yet to cover this,” Bozell said. (Video below)

On September 25, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell was joined by numerous other conservatives in an open letter to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN executives protesting their blatant bias and noting that they are encouraging Americans to get their news from other, more balanced sources.

The following night, Fox News's Greta Van Susteren referenced the letter in a segment with fellow FNCer Brit Hume, who noted that while every presidential election he's covered he's observed the media's bias against the Republican candidate, that this year is markedly different in the intensity of that bias (watch the video embedded below the page break):

NewsBusters's parent company the Media Research Center (MRC) today proudly announces that perky Katie Couric is the “winner” of the DisHonor of the Worst Reporter in the History of Man for her outrageously pathetic bias as chronicled by the MRC over the past quarter century.

The competition was fierce, but Couric was selected from a competitive field of finalists that included Bryant Gumbel, Brian Williams, and Dan Rather by the more than 1000 attendees who cheered and jeered throughout the evening to roast the liberal media's worst of the worst at the MRC's 25th Anniversary DisHonors Awards Gala. The event was held Thursday evening at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. WMAL personality Chris Plante served as emcee with media personalities Stephen Hayes, Laura Ingraham, and Jonah Goldberg on hand as award presenters. The Davisson Brothers Band provided live entertainment.

Discuss the news of the day or anything else you'd like here on this thread.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell, along with more than 20 conservative leaders and media personalities, informed the heads of ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News in a letter  that they are urging the members of their respective organizations to switch off the liberal media for their deliberate and calculated attempts to rig the 2012 presidential election in favor of Barack Obama. Co-signers include Ed Meese, Rush Limbaugh, Jenny Beth Martin, Matt Kibbe, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, and Tony Perkins.

“We have never witnessed a more brazen and complete attempt by the media to decide the outcome of a presidential election.  For 25 years, the Media Research Center has been documenting liberal media bias daily.  During that time, we have covered seven presidential elections including this one.  We have never seen it this bad.  The media have decided to re-elect Barack Obama and have employed countless distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies as their means to that end,” Bozell said.

Ann Coulter is an eight-time New York Times bestselling author as well as the legal correspondent for Human Events and a syndicated columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.

She has been a dear friend of the Media Research Center’s for decades and is beloved by NewsBusters readers around the world.

We’re very pleased to have an opportunity to discuss her new book with her entitled, “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama.”

NBCWashington.com reported President Obama gave an interview Friday to D.C. soul station WKYS. he was asked if Michelle Obama would run for president, he said:  "She definitely could be the president, but she'll never run for the presidency -- 'cuz she's got too much sense. [...] She's an incredible person and an incredible talent. Politics is not her thing."

Are we sure she won't go on the Hillary Track? Add your comment, or anything else on your mind.

Both Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks and Barack Obama's pro-"redistribution" comments could be considered "inflammatory if you want to look for inflammatory comments," and yet there's a massive double standard in how the media have reported on the two, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) president Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on the September 20 Hannity program.

"In the case of Obama's comment," however, it "confirms... that he's a socialist who believes in the redistribution of wealth." Yet as an MRC review confirmed, the media gave roughly 10 times the coverage to the edited tape of Romney's comments at a May fundraiser as they did to the 1998 comments from then-State Senator Barack Obama. [MP3 audio here; video follows page break]

"The problem we have in this country is the [pro-Obama] advertising is what goes on in between the commercials" of the liberal media programs that have interviewed the president thus far this year, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham complained on the September 19 Your World with Neil Cavuto. The liberal media are in advertising mode for the president's reelection, Graham argued, judging by the way the media fail to hold the president to account for his handling of the "serious global problems that we have" while gushing over how cool his chummy chat with comedian David Letterman was last night.

"We do expect presidential candidates to do some of these lighter shows," Graham conceded, "But what's amazing about is they're not expecting Obama to do a tough show" or a "press conference" even though "our Afghanistan mission is falling apart." [MP3 audio here; video follows page break]

Discuss the news of the day and whatever else is on your mind.

One of NewsBusters' favorite conservative commentators is Charles Krauthammer.

We had the privilege of sitting down with him at last month's Republican National Convention to discuss amongst other things our favorite topic - liberal media bias.

Our conversation began with Charles telling us about how he started with the Washington Post:

"The public is waiting for Mitt Romney to say, 'I've had enough of you folks,'"  NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney this morning. The Media Research Center founder and president noted that unlike President Obama, Romney actually entertained questions from the media after his September 11 statement, where he was subjected to six different iterations of the same question about the appropriateness of his statement the evening prior.

As we now know  because of a hot microphone catching an exchange among reporters before the presser, that was a planned ambush by the journalists, Bozell argued [watch the full video below the page break].

"In a press conference, it's not uncommon for reporters to get together before to make sure that their important question is asked. That's not the issue," however, with how the media prepared their attack on Mitt Romney at his September 12 press conference, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity.

"This wasn't the coordination of a question, this was the plotting of an ambush" when you consider that "six of the seven" questions focused on hitting Romney for the alleged impropriety of his statement on September 11 about the attacks by Islamist mobs on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the embassy in Cairo, Egypt. [video embedded below page break]

"We got about 10 minutes on the three evening newscasts" last night about "how Romney must have made a mistake" with his statement on the deadly Benghazi consulate attack instead of devoting any significant attention to the question of "What is wrong with the state of our security at our embassies in the Middle East?" NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham complained to Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto on his September 13 Your World program.

The liberal media are a "pathetic pack of politicizers" who have "done nothing" but "politicize this issue," Graham added. Indeed, when President Obama was interviewed by 60 Minutes, "he gets asked, 'did Romney screw this up?'" the Media Research Center director of media analysis noted. The president probably gets "tougher questions from his daughters at the supper table than he's getting from Steve Kroft at CBS," Graham quipped. [MP3 audio here; video follows page break]

Despite all appearances that the attack on the American embassy in Libya was more than just a protest gone violent, the Obama White House is still refusing to call the violence "terrorism." This is looking increasingly ridiculous as more is learned about the background surrounding the attack and Al Qaeda's recent actions:

Very appropriate for this solemn day, we thought we'd share with you our good friend Charlie Daniels's moving recitation of  the late Red Skelton's exposition of the Pledge of Allegiance. You can watch it by clicking the play button below the page break:

"Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?"

Share your memories, thoughts and prayers below.