NB Staff's blog

In the 2008 campaign, "[t]he media were awestruck, embarrassingly so," over Barack Obama and failed to vet him thoroughly, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on last night's edition of Hannity. "In the primaries in 2008, we counted 29 different times when the networks either called him a rising star, an emerging star, a rock star, or a superstar. Twenty-nine different times," but they never, of course, affixed such a label to his GOP opponent John McCain.

Shortly after that, Hannity played a montage of liberal journalists gushing over President Obama -- treating him like awestruck groupies -- since he's taken office. "This is embarrassing, this is journalism today," Bozell, the founder of the Media Research Center observed. [MP3 audio here; watch the full segment below the page break]

The liberal media generally but the Associated Press in particular are acting as mere "stenographers" for Barack Obama, failing to scrutinize the president's campaign rhetoric about the economy, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham noted on today's Your World with Neil Cavuto.

"As much as they say they hate being stenographers to power, this really is what we're seeing in this reelection year, and that is, oh, well, Obama said this today and Obama's going to do this today, and they don't seem to come up with any troublesome facts or counter-arguments," the Media Research Center director of media analysis told Stuart Varney, who was substitute-hosting the April 19 program. [MP3 audio here; watch the full segment in the video embedded below]

Earlier this week, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell announced he was calling on Congress to investigate Comcast, the parent company of NBC, given the network's malfeasance in the Zimmerman 911 audio editing.

Comcast's "continued silence on how to prevent such malfeasance in the future constitutes a serious breach of public trust," Bozell noted in letters sent to Congress on Tuesday. As the cable giant is "in the midst of a business deal with Verizon requiring approval" by the FCC and DOJ, "the public policy issues related to the approval of this deal are so critical" as to require congressional hearings, Bozell wrote in his April 10 letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee. A similar letter was simultaneously transmitted to the chairman and ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet. You can read those letters here and here.

NBC's apology for its malicious Zimmerman 911 audio edits is woefully inadequate, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on last night's "Hannity." For instance, the network has not given an on-air apology, only a written apology in a press release. What's more, the network has not disclosed the name of the producer it fired, even as it insists his error was not malicious in intent.

That's why, "we've gone to Congress now," Bozell noted, pointing out that NBC's parent company Comcast is looking for approval of a deal with Verizon that raises "potential antitrust issues." "We're asking them what about the public trust?" the Media Research Center founder noted. "This network simply just can't be trusted," he concluded. [See video below page break]

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) founder Brent Bozell announced earlier this morning that the MRC is calling upon Congress to investigate Comcast / NBC News for the intentional editing of the George Zimmerman audio that was broadcast multiple times and subsequently flamed the fires of racial hatred and animosity

“NBC is laughing at the public. Last week we said we would have more to say if their behavior in this matter didn’t change.  Given their continued irresponsibility, today we open up a new front," Bozell noted in a press release available here.

The staff of NewsBusters would like to wish you and yours a happy Easter and Passover.

NBC's "apology" for their selective editing of the  Zimmerman 911 call was "two whole sentences of nothing," complained NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell on the April 5 edition of Fox News Channel's Hannity. The network claimed it was a simple "error in the editing process." "This was no error, this was no mistake, this was deliberately done," Bozell protested during the programs "Media Mash" segment

What's more, NBC "never told its viewers," instead simply putting out a press release, Bozell noted. "How about doing it on the air, maybe just, you know, say, whoops, we were wrong," Hannity agreed. [see video below page break]

Today's starter topic: It's not often that you see an Obama Administration official admit to making a mistake, which is why stimulus creator Jared Bernstein's remarks on so-called "green" jobs are worth preserving. According to Bernstein, the Administration didn't realize before the stimulus money was being allocated that operating solar or wind plants doesn't really employ a large number of people. In other words, the promised green jobs turned out not to really exist.

Today's starter topic: President Obama clearly isn't a believer in the phrase speak softly and carry a big stick. He took another angry shot at the Supreme Court yesterday, warning it not to throw out his dreadful health insurance law:

"And I'd just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law," Obama said.

Reacting angrily to selective editing by NBC that suggested racial animus by George Zimmerman, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained to Fox News's Sean Hannity last night that NBC News was engaged in an "all-out falsehood." The story in question was a March 27 Ron Allen report on NBC's 'Today' in which 911 audio was edited to make it sound like George Zimmerman said "he looks black" immediately after saying "this guy looks like he's up to no good."

In the actual 911 audio, Zimmerman only described Martin's race after the dispatcher asked, "And this guy: is he white, black, or Hispanic?" "To edit that out is so distorting," Hannity complained. "Sean, it's not distorting, it's advancing a falsehood, it's worse," Bozell corrected the Fox News anchor. [see video below page break]

Today's starter topic: While the verdict of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of President Obama's signature healthcare law won't likely be known by most people until the end of June, the justices on the court very likely will know its fate later today when they meet to cast their first informal votes on the case.

In an interesting look at how voting on the Supreme Court works, the Associated Press talks to former law clerks who give details on how the process operates:

On the Tuesday edition of his radio program, an unhinged Ed Schultz railed on against conservative "pigs" that were out to get him, like our very own publisher, Brent Bozell. "You know, if these people want to fight every day, we'll fight every day. That's OK with me," Schultz pledged, insisting he was not afraid, unlike other liberals, to fight back.

Our friend Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer has a montage of Schultz's spittle-flecked rants. We've embedded them below the page break. Be sure to visit our Clean House at NBC website to register your disgust with Schultz:

Today's starter topic: With his chances of winning the GOP nomination decreasing as time goes by, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum said in an interview that he would accept an offer to be the Republican vice presidential candidate if he were offered it by likely presidential nominee Mitt Romney:

"It took the networks nine months before one of them made a mention of" the time that MSNBC anchor and left-wing radio host Ed Schultz slammed conservative radio talker Laura Ingraham as a "slut," and it was just "one story" compared to "46 [stories] in ten days" on the Limbaugh/Fluke controversy, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the March 23 Hannity.

The Media Research Center founder and president appeared as a guest on the "Language of the Left" special to unveil some numbers that the MRC had crunched contrasting the liberal media's obsession with Limbaugh with their silence on left-wing media personalities like Schultz and HBO's Bill Maher, who called former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a c**t. The liberal comedian donated $1 million to an Obama Super PAC, and yet the media have been silent on the matter, failing to press the president on whether his Super PAC should give the money back. Watch the full Hannity segment in the video embed below.

Today's starter topic: While the Obama Administration has refused to approve the permanent job-creating Keystone XL pipeline in its entirety, it seems that officials are much closer to giving the nod to build a high-speed train connecting Las Vegas to a town in the middle of nowhere, 100 miles away from Los Angeles. And not just approve the project, they also are poised to "loan" nearly $5 billion to the project, which happens to be connected to Nevada Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

Watching the Elite Eight this weekend? Sound off on this thread about college basketball or whatever else you'd like.

On Friday's Your World with Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel, MRC director of media analysis Tim Graham appeared to review how the media covered the politics and economic of gas prices under the Obama administration as compared to the Bush administration. Fox News ran a series of headlines showing the difference in approach -- high gas prices could doom Bush, but aren't Obama's fault, and could be a good sign.

Tim mocked Friday's headlines on the front page of The New York Times as well, which demonstrated the media urge to happy-talk President Obama to a win in the fall. [Video and transcript by Scott Whitlock below, audio here]

GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney's campaign strategy is in focus with two stories highlighting it. The first is a remark that's now become infamous by an adviser named Eric Fehrnstrom who compared Romney to the children's toy Etch-a-Sketch, stating that in the general election, Romney would become a completely new candidate and not necessarily the conservative he's presented himself as. While trying to draw in centrists is something that almost every campaign tries to do after getting through the primaries, Fehrnstrom's remarks were so blatant that they've upset many.

Speaking of Romney's general election strategy (should he indeed win the nomination), National Review's Jim Geraghty argues that the main point to it will be Romney calling President Obama in over his head as an easier way of helping people who had voted for the president in 2008 reverse their choice this time. Rather than telling such voters they're stupid, the argument goes, they should be told that Obama has had his chance but just hasn't been up to snuff.

Today's starter topic is of the non-political variety: the Sweet 16 men's NCAA basketball play starts tomorrow. What are your predictions for that round of the tournament play?

In political news, Mitt Romney won yesterday's Illinois primary. The congressional committee charged with estimating tax revenues asserted that the so-called "Buffett Rule" will do almost nothing to solve the deficits that President Obama has been racking up. Of course, this is something that conservatives have long said.