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For a long time, the San Antonio Express-News was unique, not in its predictably liberal editorial page or in its port-skewing news coverage. No, instead, it was one of the few American newspapers to have two editorial cartoonists, one liberal and one conservative.

That is no longer the case. Under pressure to cut jobs and staff in the midst of the overall decline of print media, Express-News editorial page editor Bruce Davidson decided that the paper should drop conservative cartoonist Leo Garza, a fixture at the paper for over 20 years. Liberal cartoonist John Branch will remain on the staff.

You'd think that given the Express-News's posture of demanding accountability from government and (other) businesses, that it would be consistent and respect the "public's right to know" what prompted this politically charged decision. Alas, no such explanation seems in the offing for us plebs.

On Monday evening, CNN began a three-part special entitled "God, Sex and Greed." At issue: in a supposedly religious country like ours, why are sex and greed so prominent?

With that as the premise, who do you think CNN chose as one of the examples of greed in our country?

Disgracefully, a 24-year-old Jewish hedge fund manager who took his Bar Mitzvah money and turned it into millions.

Nice stereotype of a greedy Jew, wouldn't you agree?

Anchor Roland Martin introduced the segment (h/t Steve Malzberg):

A Kansas court of appeals has ruled that it's illegal for an illegal alien to enter the country, but not illegal for an illegal alien to be in the country if the illegal alien can illegally make it past the Border Patrol without getting caught.

Huh? What? I like to think I can wield the mighty power of semantics with the best of them - but, huh? What? I thought the "illegal" in illegal alien spoke for itself. Apparently not.

Ruling that it is illegal to enter the country without the proper documents and permissions, but it is not necessarily illegal to be in the country if you don't get caught upon entry, the court threw out the sentence of an illegal immigrant who pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and endangering a child.

Times Watch hasn't dealt with arts editor-liberal columnist Frank Rich in a while (especially since the Times Select pay to read program walled him and other columnists out of view).

Folks, you haven't been missing a thing. Rich's anti-Republican frippery simply lights on different targets each week. This week it's retiring Bush advisor Karl Rove ("He Got Out While the Getting Was Good").

Rich introduced the main villain, Rove, through the side character ex-Virginia Sen. George Allen and his overblown "macaca moment":

Try to imagine what the New York Times did with the following data:

Go ahead. Then go to the full post to find out.

Rather than attack the government for its inability to manage air traffic, the August 20 “NBC Nightly News” shifted the blame to the airlines – specifically attacking American Airlines.

“So far this summer, Flightstats.com has reported American Airlines has had the lowest on-time arrival rate at 65 percent. But yet another Dallas-based carrier, Southwest, has had the highest on-time rate at 78 percent,” said correspondent Tom Costello making the case against American.

However, Costello’s comparison was faulty because it ignored major differences between the two airlines.

It's not a scientific survey, but a recent poll of Chicago Tribune readers showed an overwhelming majority of readers support the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrant and Social Security fraudster Elvira Arellano. You'll recall I wrote about the Trib's bias on Monday.

The results of the four poll questions were published in an August 21 post at Eric Zorn's "Change of Subject" blog:

We asked chicagotribune.com readers for their views on the Elvira Arellano case. Here are the results after approximately 23,900 votes were registered:

The Hollywood Reporter has the news that actress-comedian and former Air America talk show host Janeane Garofalo will be joining the cast of Fox's "24" next season:

The political left and the political right are going to meet on Fox's "24" this coming season.

Actress-comedian Janeane Garofalo, an outspoken liberal, is set to co-star on the conservative-leaning real-time drama, whose co-creator/executive producer Joel Surnow jokingly describes himself as a "right-wing nut job."

On the Imagine TV/20th Century Fox TV series, Garofalo will play a government agent who is part of the team investigating the crisis befalling Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and company in the upcoming season.

Charges of bias leveled at PBS yesterday in this post here at Newsbusters about PBS's airing nationwide tonight of "Gold Futures," documentary regarding a proposed gold mine in Romania, are backed up today with new information revealed by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal.

"Gold Futures," by Hungarian filmmaker Tibor Kocsis, apparently is based on Kocsis' 2004-released documentary titled "New Eldorado," which had the subtitle "Gold. The Curse of Rosia Montana," and is clearly biased against the mining project.

Fund writes:

Reacting to an MRC press release, Chicago Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper lashed out at MRC President Brent Bozell and Culture and yours truly for applauding the record-breaking viewer numbers racked up by Disney Channel’s "High School Musical 2." Roeper makes the nonsensical argument that Disney is known for wholesome stuff, so what’s the big deal? But then he wraps up his piece with this shot:

CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer responded on his August 20 program to the August 20 Barron’s article that showed how his stock picks lag gains in the Dow, NASDAQ and Standard & Poor’s 500.

“In the face of what I … what we all think was a baseless, ugly article about me by a partner, which I found insulting to my audience and to your intelligence, I’ve been overwhelmed the past two days by words of kindness and support from you guys,” said Cramer.

Cramer referred to Barron’s as “a partner,” possibly referring to the agreement between Dow Jones & Co., which publishes Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC. The deal allows CNBC to use Wall Street Journal content through 2012.

For general debate and discussion...

So, what we have here is the only hate-speak that the MSM will allow. Attacks on white men who vote Republican. In this case we see our friendly Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist, Dorothy Parvaz, reveling in her hatred of Bush supporters. Not only is she attempting to malign white Republican men, but she is also doing so on the basis of physical appearance alone. And here I thought that the left was fond of scolding people who judge others by their looks?

Apparently he's broadened his hatred from simply "black people" to now hating an entire generation of children from middle-income families... if you believe the bias in Reuters.

The Bush administration has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for states to extend health coverage to children in middle-income families, The New York Times reported on Monday.

But what's really going on?

The letter from Dennis Smith, the director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, set a high standard for states that want to raise eligibility for the program above 250 percent of the poverty level, the Times said.

Dispatch from the Department of Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, MSM Division . . .

Today's New York Times contains an article about sleight of hand. Elsewhere in the paper, the Times engages in some statistical prestidigitation of its own.

You're the New York Times and its minor-league subsidiary, the Boston Globe. You obtain government data showing that Americans' incomes have risen every year since 2002. So how do you spin it in your headline? If you're the Times: Average Incomes Fell for Most in 2000-5. The Globe had its own gloomy take: More Americans making ends meet with less money.

What-t-t? How did the papers manage this statistical shell game? How did they transform income growth into income decline? Read the opening sentence of the Globe article:

The AP's headline gravely informs us that Alcohol-related driving deaths up. Yet, here is a wonderful case where a headline screams an alarmist message that the story itself does not really substantiate. Now, it is true that columnists and journalists rarely, if ever, write their own headlines so maybe we shouldn't tsk tsk writer Natasha T. Metzler. But, one would hope that the so-called professionals who write the headlines that appear at the top of a story would actually read the story before creating such a header. In this case, it seems that the headline writer went straight for sensationalism without bothering to read most of the story he was capping. And, naturally, the sensationalism is that alcohol related deaths have "increased" over the 2005 stats.

Granted the first paragraph of the story makes the bald faced statement that "fatalities increased" in 2006, but as you read the story closer, that claim proves chimerical if not practically false even by the stats cited in the story itself.

NBC announced Monday that the broadcast network will greatly expand the potential audience for MSNBC's far-left nightly ranter Keith Olbermann, airing a live edition of his Countdown show this Sunday night at 7pm EDT/PDT, 6pm CDT, before a pre-season NFL game. TVNewser on Monday highlighted an August 20 NBC press release:

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann will bring his unique take on the day's events, from politics to pop culture, to a primetime network audience this Sunday night. A special edition of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" will air on Sunday, August 26th at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT on NBC, leading into the network's "Sunday Night Football" pre-season NFL matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers, live at 8 p.m. ET. Olbermann is joining the network's "Football Night in America" studio team this season. The special edition of "Countdown" will be broadcast live from MSNBC's studios.

Looking to sample the political opinions of regular Americans? What better cross-section than the denizens of MSM newsrooms! That seems to be Mike Barnicle's attitude, at least. The former Boston Globe columnist-turned-MSNBC contributor is guest-hosting for Chris Matthews on this afternoon's "Hardball."

Chatting with guests Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post and Holly Bailey of Newsweek, talk turned to the topic of Americans' desire for political change. At one point Barnicle made this observation:

MIKE BARNICLE: The force for change that's out there, if you talk to regular people, people like me, people like you, the idea that they want a change is a very powerful force.

View video here.

Almost a year ago, the "Today" show went out of its way to promote the "legendary" Jane Fonda's new liberal radio network but since the Women's Radio Network's final broadcast on Friday, "Today" has yet to mention the latest liberal talk radio failure.

The following excerpt is from an announcement by GreenStone Media's CEO, Susan Ness. Ness blamed the network's demise on, what she believed, was the ignorant perception that they were "too feminist."

Here's another file for the Elvira Arellano bias folder. The Los Angeles Times joined its Windy City sister publication the Chicago Tribune in describing the fugitive illegal immigration as an activist in an August 20 article, "Immigration activist deported to Mexico."

As in the Tribune write-up, Arellano's conviction for Social Security fraud was buried deep into the article (paragraph 11).

After giving Joseph Turner of the Federation for American Immigration Reform some token space to applaud the arrest and deportation, reporters Sonia Nazario and David Pierson devoted the rest of the article to a dispute amongst illegal immigration advocates about how far they should go in challenging federal authorities:

It’s been a bumpy ride in the markets and as with any news with such a serious downside, the NBC “Nightly News” has been all over it.

But who they chose to be front and center for their coverage has been a bit curious. CNBC’s Jim Cramer has appeared on the “Nightly News” five times in 2007 and eight times on the “Today” show – the majority of those appearances in recent weeks. (Kudlow, anyone?)

There are a few chinks in Cramer’s armor, though. Beyond his infamous meltdown on August 6 and his admission in December 2006 on TheStreet.com (NASDAQ:TSCM), a financial Web site he launched in 1996, of manipulating the press to influence the markets when he was working at a hedge fund, he’s not an all-knowing stock guru.

Update with YouTube video below.

When is it unimportant to the MSM to inform viewers of a congressman's party affiliation?

At 3:51 P.M. EDT today, CNN aired a "Just In" report on filing of assault and battery charges against California Congressman Bob Filner. Anchor Kyra Phillips said the CNN report was in turn based on a report from its Arlington, VA affiliate, WJLA-TV.

According to the WJLA report:

On Monday's "Today" show, NBC's Bob Dotson profiled Will Steger, a polar explorer who is indoctrinating America's youth about "collapsing" ice shelves and global warming. Dotson never doubted the explorer's theories, instead he chose to portray Steger's work as nothing short of much needed charity work:

"Pitching back in between and forth between the Poles, Will began to notice our warming world, wrote one of the first books about it. Now the old explorer has set himself a new challenge. Here in his home of the great northern Minnesota woods he's teaching the next generation how to rally support and solve the problem."

While a picture says a thousand words, certain words set the tone for news articles...a tactic the media is well aware of. Consider the following Reuters headline:

Mexican immigrant who sought U.S. sanctuary deported

An immigrant seeking sanctuary? Was she being politically persecuted in her homeland? Did she fear for her life? No. It turns out that Elvira Arellano was an illegal immigrant who hid out in a Chicago church over the past year, with the church offering her sanctuary. Arellano had a child here in the U.S., an anchor baby, and claimed she should not be deported because she had to stay and care for her son.

The first paragraph of the Reuters article continues:

CNN's upcoming miniseries "God's Warriors," hosted by left-wing bias exemplar Christiane Amanpour, looks like it will play the old liberal game of moral equivalence. Amanpour reportedly compares Christian chastity advocates to the Taliban in the miniseries. Even the promos for the miniseries which have been running on CNN for the past few weeks demonstrate the probable "game plan" that Amanpour and CNN have in mind, grouping together pro-life Christian college students protesting in front of the Supreme Court, Jewish settlers on the West Bank, and Islamic radicals. To paraphrase an old children's jingle, "two of these things are not like the other."

An "unprecedented six-hour television event," the miniseries will examine "God's Jewish Warriors" on Tuesday night, "God's Muslim Warriors" on Wednesday night, and "God's Christian Warriors" on Thursday night. A preview of "God's Christian Warriors," which ran on Friday's "The Situation Room," featured an interview of Jerry Falwell, which was conducted a week before the evangelical pastor's death. As one might expect, Amanpour asked Falwell about his much-publicized connection of the 9/11 attacks with secularism in America, in particular, the legalization of abortion.

A new study published in the journal Science last Friday concluded that the continued burning of oil-related energy products combined with the planting of additional forests is better for the environment than the manufacture and use of biofuels such as ethanol.

In fact, the authors suggested that governments across the globe move away from biofuels as a global warming solution completely, and instead focus moneys and energies on reforestation and increasing the efficiencies involved with the burning of fossil fuels.

Of course you didn't hear about this because no major American press outlet thought it was newsworthy despite media's fascination with anthropogenic global warming.

Fortunately, several British outlets covered this interesting study, including the Guardian (emphasis added):

In an August 19 post at PajamasMedia, journalist and bestselling author Richard Miniter delved into the question of "How the New Republic Got Suckered" in the case of the fabricated stories of military blogger Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Among the questions Miniter raised was if TNR's fact-checking operation is "structurally flawed":

Let’s go into the fact-checking department. Elspeth Reeve was one of three fact-checkers at the magazine.

Did she fact-check her husband’s articles? While it is hard to believe that an established magazine would make such an elementary error, so far no one at the magazine has bothered to address the question. That’s an interesting omission.

On Monday, "Good Morning America" reporter John Berman ignored any role that journalists might have in the developing scandal of anonymous individuals altering Wikipedia entries. On the ABC program, Berman alerted viewers to the fact that companies such as Wal-Mart and Starbucks have changed sections in their Wikipedia bios. However, he skipped the recent revelation that both the BBC and New York Times have been linked to derogatory, childish alterations in President Bush’s entry. (CNN covered the story on August 16.)

Berman began the segment by asking viewers how they would feel if they knew "the entry on Wal-Mart was edited by someone inside Wal-Mart? The Starbucks entry? By someone inside Starbucks." He also noted that the CIA has changed its section. However, the ABC reporter failed to explain that a new computer program, which can determine who alters Wikipedia information, traced the culprit behind the addition of the words "jerk, jerk, jerk" to President Bush’s Wikipedia profile. The source? A New York Times computer. There was also no discussion of a similar incident involving the insertion of the word "wanker" to Bush’s entry from a BBC computer.

Even as one of them heatedly denies that she advocates "socialized medicine," it is a fact that each major US presidential candidate on the Democratic side favors some form of nationalized health care. Additionally, while governor of Massachusetts, Republican candidate Mitt Romney was firmly behind health-care legislation that, as commentator John Stossel noted back in May, the Wall Street Journal described as "a death warrant for small business in the Bay State."

Given its potential as a top-tier 2008 presidential campaign issue, you would think that there would be Old Media interest in how nationalized health care is working out in other countries.

But if there was, you would have surely heard about this news a week ago without having to go to British newspapers to learn of it:

Drug companies and campaigners yesterday lost a high court appeal for people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's to be prescribed on the NHS a £2.50-a-day drug (about $5/day in $US -- Ed.) which is said to provide relief from the symptoms and respite for families.

Over the weekend, Michael Deaver, the PR strategist and campaign manager known best for his work for Ronald Reagan passed away. John Fund has a nice tribute in today's OpinionJournal that focuses on Deaver's innovative work, beginning during the time Reagan was governor of California.

When Reagan became president, Deaver continued to innovate, arranging such cinematic settings as the famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" moment and finding out ways to get around the endemic liberal bias inherent in most of the elite press corps.

Where is that innovative spirit today within the conservative movement?