L.A. Times Article Fixates on 'Really Heavy' Gov. Christie's 'Big Fat

August 29th, 2012 1:26 PM
The online aggregator Fark.com asked “We need an entire article, from a major newspaper, on how fat Chris Christie is?” The newspaper was the Los Angeles Times, and media reporter James Rainey was playing with the weight issue. The headline was "Chris Christie, the Republican heavyweight, is really heavy." “Those getting their first impression of Christie will be comparing him to a battalion…

LA Times Touts Reid's Lies as Winning Issue

August 7th, 2012 4:59 PM
Politifact has set Harry Reid's pants on fire with the lie that Romney hasn't paid taxes in ten years.  Even the Washington Post called out Reid's paranoid rants about Romney, labeling his statements as baseless drivel. However, the L.A. Times seems to think this whole sordid episode is scoring points for Obama. In an obnoxious piece by James Rainey published today, the columnist wrote that "…

Smug Incoming NPR Chief: 'I Think Critics...Don't Even Listen' to NPR

October 20th, 2011 5:09 PM
Incoming NPR president Gary Knell smugly dismissed NPR critics in an interview with James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times. "If you listen over a period of time you hear voices from all ends of the political spectrum on NPR," Knell argued. "I think a lot of the critics, by what they say, don't even listen to the service." (Dear Mr. Smug: read the NPR section of NewsBusters, with links to your…

Only After Awful Attacks on Logan: LAT’s Rainey Doesn’t Like Tone

February 27th, 2011 7:57 PM
"It seems long past time for reputable news sites to clamp down on the gutter talk." That is James Rainey, the "On the Media" critic at the Los Angeles Times, fretting in an article today (Sun., 2/27/11) about the tone of readers' comments that are posted on news web sites. If Rainey wants to "clamp down on the gutter talk" by readers, he needs to take a closer look at his own employer's…

Cenk Uygur: The Next Leftist MSNBC Star

September 8th, 2010 10:45 PM
Cenk Uygur (pronounced Jenk You-gurr) is profiled by media reporter James Rainey in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times, and it becomes quite clear the exotically-named Young Turks radio host could be the next leftist star at MSNBC. Since his friendship with Dylan Ratigan led to some guest-hosting gigs (in which he bested Ratigan in the ratings), Uygur is now part of the "family" of Bush-hating…

National Enquirer's Edwards Scoops 'Did Not Even Make the Top 10' on P

April 15th, 2010 7:02 AM
Los Angeles Times media reporter James Rainey discovered the Pulitzer Prize jurors weren't going to touch the National Enquirer with a ten-foot pole over their expose of John Edwards: One juror told me that, among that competition, the Enquirer's stories about Edwards did not even make the top 10. The tabloid had first revealed Edwards' relationship with his campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter,…

LA Times Columnist Rainey Wonders How MSM 'Missed' Edwards Scandal Sto

January 13th, 2010 8:50 AM
Are you putting me on, Jim?Yeah, I'm talking to you, James Rainey, of the Los Angeles Times.It seems that the Times columnist just can't figure out how the MSM missed out on reporting the John Edwards scandal story despite the fact that the L.A. Times was Gound Zero for media refusal to report on this matter even after the National Enquirer broke an important aspect of the story in Rainey's own…

ACORN Controversy Provides Case Study in Combating Media Liberalism

November 20th, 2009 2:11 PM
The scandal surrounding the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has provided a number of case studies in liberal media bias. The initial silence of the vast majority of media outlets on the story, the attempts by leftist commentators to excuse ACORN and discredit the group's critics, and Andrew Breitbart's strategy of rolling out video exposes periodically to counter those…

LA Times Columnist Cheap Shots CNBC’s Larry Kudlow

March 13th, 2009 6:39 PM
Could this be a sign of things to come? Now that CNBC Chicago Mercantile Exchange reporter Rick Santelli has mysteriously disappeared from the spotlight after his criticism of President Barack Obama's mortgage proposal in February and now that CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has been marginalized after his lackluster appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on March 12, could the new…

LAT Headline: 'Nobody's Asking' For Fairness Doctrine

November 16th, 2008 5:48 PM
Check out the headline from the November 14, 2008, column by Los Angeles Times "media critic" James Rainey:Right-wing radio sounds false alarm on 'Fairness Doctrine': Impose a mandate on broadcasters to balance their political views? That would be onerous indeed. But memo to Rush: Nobody's asking for that."Nobody's asking for that"? Not quite. As Patterico and Hot Air's Ed Morrissey have pointed…

LA Times Portrays Right Wing Media as Bitter and Angry

November 9th, 2008 10:31 PM
In what can only be described as delusional, Los Angeles Times writer James Rainey attempted to castigate the right wing media as a bitter and resentful group of shameless journalists - attributes that can only describe the liberal media's behavior for at least eight years now. The title itself, ‘Right-wing media feeds its post-election anger,' demonstrates that Rainey will not be pulling any…

CNN Graphics Highlight 'Palins & the Fringe,' Obama 'Braving... Attac

October 29th, 2008 5:57 PM
CNN practiced a more subtle form of bias during two reports in October by using its on-screen graphics. On October 14th's Newsroom program, a graphic accompanying a segment on Sarah and Todd Palin's connections to the Alaskan Independence Party proclaimed “The Palins and the Fringe.” On the other hand, a chyron from a report on Tuesday's Situation Room about Barack Obama making campaign stops in…

LAT's Rainey: Palin Not Most Likely to Secede

October 15th, 2008 11:29 AM
Rather than deliver a single revelation, the 24-hour cable news channel coughed up a reheated, overwrought and misleading story that seemed designed to yoke Sarah Palin and her husband to the most extreme secessionists in Alaska.That's how Los Angeles Times's James Rainey characterized an October 14 effort by CNN's Rick Sanchez to portray Gov. Sarah Palin as a shady secessionist who would like…

Surprise! LAT Finds Media Treating McCain, Obama Similarly

August 13th, 2008 12:45 AM
At least, that's what James Rainey would like you to believe. Further review of Rainey's piece shows that the examples he highlights of supposedly equal and fawning treatment of John McCain and Barack Obama is not so equal.In fact, so ridiculous are the comparisons, I thought for a moment  the joke was on me--that Rainey's piece was a send-up of local media, a SNL-style parody.But there's no joke…