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The recent murders of local prosecutors in a north Texas county -- possibly at the hands of white supremacists -- was the news hook for MSNBC's The Cycle to bring  Heidi Beirich of the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on to the April 2 program. In introducing the guest and justifying her expertise, co-host Ari Melber merely described the SPLC as "a group that documents that state of hate groups in America."  [video follows page break; MP3 audio here]

It fell to token conservative co-host S.E. Cupp to remind viewers that SPLC leans to the left and has been criticized by conservatives for "smearing religious and far-right groups and ignoring far-left hate groups." "Shouldn't people be aware of your ideological biases before they take seriously [SPLC's] claims of who they should be afraid of?" Cupp argued. A bemused  Beirich insisted she had to "dispute the notion of the question on its premise," adding that:

It's amazing how within a single one-hour television program, the same host can provide balanced reporting on one story but provide completely one-sided coverage of another.  For once on the issue of gun control, MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts provided a balanced perspective of the issue at hand. 

The same unfortunately cannot be said of abortion, as on April 2, Roberts featured Ilyse Hogue, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America for a one-sided discussion on, “another western state cracking down on abortion rights.”  Of course, Roberts failed to bring on a pro-life activist on to challenge the abortion lobby activist, who trashed as unconstitutional and dangerous for women's health recent pro-life measures passed by state legislatures in North Dakota and Kansas.   [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

It's not often that media outlets ignore their own scoops, but that's what ABC is doing. The network has (thus far) relegated to its website the latest details on the decision by the Obama Defense Department to deny Purple Hearts to the victims of the Fort Hood massacre. The rest of the networks have also skipped this story. ABC "obtained" a Pentagon position paper on the subject, but still failed to give it network coverage.

It was ABC alone that highlighted the story back in February. On February 12, Brian Ross explained the impact of the decision to deny Purple Hearts: "...Former Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning, who still has bullets lodged in his body, says he has lost almost $70,000 in benefits otherwise available to those with combat-related injuries." So far, World News, Nightline and Good Morning America (as well as NBC and CBS) have failed to cover the newest details of the story. In fact, ABC has done nothing since February.

Editor's Note: What follows is a speech delivered by Neal Freeman from March 23 in Amelia Island, Fla., entitled "Lessons for Today From the Immortals: Buckley and Reagan." Mr. Freeman is an award-winning TV producer credited with more than one thousand programs for national broadcast. He served as an executive with the Hearst Corporation before founding his own advisory firm, the Blackwell Corporation. Mr. Freeman also served in the Reagan administration as the director of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Looking over this audience, I sense that I may have been around the political track a few more laps than most of you. I can tell you that every lap is unique in its own way -- and that the lap we completed last November was uniquely disappointing. Rarely in my experience has a winning candidate appealed to meaner spirits. Never has a winning candidate seemed less interested in calling his countrymen to reconciliation and common purpose. When has an American President, even in the afterglow of victory, seemed so small?

As you all are painfully aware, it is the settling judgment of the commentariat that the light of the American day is beginning to fade. They say that we are on the downslope of history and headed for inconsequence. That’s highly unlikely, in my view, but it may help to remember that ours is not by a wide measure the darkest day in the American story. Heed the words of Abrhama Lincolm, speaking from the pitch-blackness of December 1862: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion . . . We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”

MSNBC’s gun control push has its limits, apparently, as anchor Thomas Roberts today distinguished himself by actually doing a journalist's job: presenting both sides of a political debate. 

On his April 2 MSNBC Live program, Roberts actually played video of Mark Mattioli, whose son was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, speaking out in support of the National Rife Association's call for trained armed guards in schools across America.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

While most people have never heard of Roger Ailes, they have heard of his famous creation, the Fox News Channel. As basically the sole national mainstream news entity which is not operated on a left-of-center paradigm, Fox News has become almost public enemy number-one to the far left. For many of today’s illiberal liberals, the mere existence of Fox News is enough to induce spittle-flecked rants calling for its forceful closure by the government.

The sheer hatred leveled against Ailes and Fox News was why I was very interested to interview Zev Chafets, about his new biography, Roger Ailes Off Camera.