The MRC@25: The Worst Media Bias of 2007

NewsBusters continues to showcase the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala on Thursday, September 27.

Click here for blog posts recounting the worst of 1988 through 2006. Today, the worst bias of 2007: ABC fawns over newly-installed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; Rosie O’Donnell insults the troops; and a McClatchy headline writer finds a downside to good news in Iraq. [Quotes and video below the jump.]

“For the first time in the 218-year history of the Congress, a woman was voted by her colleagues to be Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, took the gavel. But in a picture perhaps even more symbolic, the new Speaker was on the floor for a time, holding her 6-year-old [6-month-old] grandson, all the while giving directions on how events were to proceed. It seemed the ultimate in multitasking: Taking care of the children, and the country.”
— ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson, January 4, 2007.


 

“What do you think the bigger obstacle is for you in becoming president, the Clinton campaign machine or America’s inherent racism?”
— ABC’s Chris Cuomo to Barack Obama in a December 20, 2007 interview on Good Morning America.
 

“As Violence Falls in Iraq, Cemetery Workers Feel the Pinch”
— Headline over an October 16, 2007 story by McClatchy News Service reporters Jay Price and Qasim Zein.


 

“I just want to say something: 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?...If you were in Iraq, and another country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?”
— Co-host Rosie O’Donnell on ABC’s The View, May 17, 2007.

Check back each morning for more classic bias quotes, or visit our “25th Anniversary” section for the entire collection.