Hannity

"You know, in Journalism 101, if you're going to ask a question of someone like the president, what you do is, you take, respectfully, you take the opposition's best argument and you play devil's advocate," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued on the July 14 edition of "Hannity."

But instead of taking that approach -- which, Bozell noted, the famous liberal reporter Sam Donaldson took both with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton -- the media have been actively working with Obama to forward the Democratic narrative regarding the debt ceiling negotiations.

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Chris Wallace told Don Imus Thursday he intended to fully respond to the fallout from last week's interview with Jon Stewart.

True to his word, at the conclusion of the most recent "Fox News Sunday," Wallace struck back at Stewart's claim that Fox watchers are the most misinformed media viewers by demonstrating that folks who watch "Hannity" and "The O'Reilly Factor" were actually better informed than "Daily Show" viewers (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, Jon Stewart earlier this month did a segment on "The Daily Show" wherein he impersonated Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain using an Amos and Andy voice.

On Tuesday's "Imus in the Morning," Fox News's Juan Williams said that if Sean Hannity had done that, "He'd be out there barking with the dogs after they threw him out" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Fox News contributor Andrea Tantaros might have had the best take on this week's Ed Schultz-Laura Ingraham affair.

Appearing on "Hannity" Thursday, Tantaros accurately said, "It is the last acceptable form of misogyny in this country - hatred, prejudice towards conservative females" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberal radio host Ed Schultz's May 23rd attack on conservative talker Laura Ingraham as a "slut" was "reprehensible" and "could not have been more vile," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told viewers of the May 26 "Hannity."

That said, Bozell added, he should be commended for owning up to his transgression and offering a "man's apology" Wednesday night on his MSNBC "Ed Show" program.

"It is edgy to have people on the mainstream of Hollywood who celebrate cop killers," but it's quite another thing when the president of the United States invites such a person like rapper Common to the White House for a poetry event, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity last night.

Although Common wrote a rap song defending a convicted cop killer and has been known to be critical of interracial dating, the media largely ignored the controversial figure to protect President Obama from another Rev. Wright-like row, Bozell noted.

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On Friday night, the Fox News Channel debuted a Hannity special, ‘Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media.’ The promo declared: “Double standards? Groundless attacks? Blatant bias? Sean calls out the mainstream media! Don’t miss Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media.”

The Media Research Center made available to Fox News Channel producers video clips from our archive going back more than 20 years and they are scattered throughout the hour – as are soundbites from MRC President Brent Bozell.

The hour began with what Sean Hannity described as “how and why this bias began,” illustrated with several classic examples of left-wing journalistic advocacy and/or denigration of conservatives. Watch the segment, about seven minutes in length, after the jump:

Tonight (Friday) the Fox News Channel will air a Hannity special, in Sean Hannity's usual time slot, ‘Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media.’

The promo declares: “Double standards? Groundless attacks? Blatant bias? Sean calls out the mainstream media! Don’t miss Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media.”

It will run for the hour at 9 PM EDT/8 PM CDT/7 PM MDT/6 PM PDT. It will re-run at midnight EDT/11 PM CDT/10 PM MDT/9 PM PDT.

In the lead-up to the Iraq War, the media "hammered Bush" about getting congressional approval, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on last night's "Hannity" during the "Media Mash" segment. Yet such scrutiny has been missing in President Obama's actions on Libya, he noted.

What's more, the media have failed to press Obama on violating his own standards on presidential use of military force:

The liberally-biased mainstream media didn't let a catastrophe go to waste, using the Japanese tsunami as an opportunity to suggest, falsely, that Republicans would like to cut the budget for NOAA in such a way that would threaten the Pacific tsunami warning system.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told the audience of last night's "Hannity":

In the wake of a stunning video revealing the truly deplorable opinions of one of its executives, NPR has accepted the resignation of President Vivian Schiller while putting Ron Schiller (no relation) on administrative leave.

Fox News's Juan Williams, who was disgracefully fired by the radio network last year for having the nerve to voice his opinion, lashed out at NPR Tuesday evening on the "Hannity" show (videos follow with transcript and commentary):

It's certainly not surprising that the New York Times would publish a hit piece on Glenn Beck, but coming hours after CNN's Howard Kurtz spent almost ten minutes bashing the Fox News commentator makes me smell a rat.

Add to this the increased pressure Beck has come up against from MSNBC personalities since Keith Olbermann surprisingly left America's most liberal television news network in January, and one has to wonder what Times author David Carr had in mind with his Monday piece "The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms":

Leftist blogger Ian Murphy is "a liar who broke every rule of journalism," with his phone call to Gov. Scott Walker in which he pretended to be conservative donor David Koch, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told the audience of last night's "Hannity."

The Media Research Center founder was reacting to CNN having practically promoted Murphy's prank by awarding him the title "Most Intriguing Person of the Day" on February 24 and by plugging his website, BuffaloBeast.com, on air.

Had Murphy been a CNN employee, he'd have been fired for his unethical and highly partisan manuever, Bozell noted, citing none other than CNN's own media reporter/critic Howard Kurtz. What's more, Bozell added, the media have been silent about Murphy's rabid left-wing rantings in the past, such as in 2008 when he wrote a piece entitled, "F**k the Troops" in Iraq.

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"It's like they have the same writer!" Fox News' Sean Hannity marveled after watching a montage of liberal journalists comparing the labor union protests in Madison, Wisconsin, with the anti-Mubarak demonstrations weeks ago in Cairo.

"Sean, this is really goofy. These reporters should be embarrassed," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell agreed on last night's "Hannity."

"If you want to find a comparison, I'll give you a comparison. What do Mubarak, Qadhafi, and the Democratic legislators have in common?" the Media Research Center founder asked Hannity, answering with the punchline, "They're all in hiding."

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  Twice this week on the Ed Show, MSNBC host Ed Schultz has paid attention to FNC’s Shepard Smith for not approaching the Wisconsin labor union controversy from the right, and also added in FNC’s Greta Van Susteren on Thursday. On Wednesday, the MSNBC host began his regular "Takedown" segment:

Tonight, in the "Takedown" segment, how about Shepard Smith? I’ll tell you what, he's bucking the Fox News Republican agenda by actually telling the truth about what's happening in Wisconsin. But first, Bill O'Reilly made a big admission on his show last night while reading viewer mail about George Soros and fairness and Fox News.

After responding to a clip of Bill O’Reilly enumerating some of FNC’s hosts and calling them "fair," Schultz went after Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade for misreporting a poll on the public’s attitude toward the Wisconsin situation. After gloating over Kilmeade getting the poll results wrong, Schultz eventually admitted to MSNBC viewers that Kilmeade had, in fact, already corrected the mistake.

As NewsBusters previously reported, a left-wing blogger last Saturday racially attacked Herman Cain calling him a "monkey" and a "minstrel."

On Thursday, Fox News's Sean Hannity and Juan Williams had a fabulous discussion about the prevalence of bigotry towards all black conservatives from supposedly open-minded, colorblind liberals (absolutely must-see videos follow in two parts with transcript and commentary):

Conservative author Ann Coulter returned to MSNBC Thursday to spar with admittedly socialist commentator Lawrence O'Donnell.

At the end of a highly-entertaining segment dealing with Coulter's previously expressed support for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ann marvelously told her host after he besmirched Fox News's Sean Hannity, "He knows more than you - you’re a Democrat" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared on Tuesday's Hannity and recounted the harm Newsweek did in 2005 with a false report about U.S. soldiers flushing a Koran down the toilet at Guantanamo Bay.

Discussing the story with host Sean Hannity, he complained, "Later [Newsweek] said 'if part of our story wasn't correct, we apologize.' Of course, the people they were apologizing to were dead. Now, how does that happen?" 15 people died in rioting resulting from the article. Rumsfeld lamented, "Well, I suppose people want to be first instead of accurate and that's too bad."

He added, "Of course, a lie races around the world 15 times before the truth even gets its boots on." Rumsfeld, who was promoting his new book, also appeared on Monday's World News, Nightline and Tuesday's Good Morning America. None of those ABC hosts questioned the ex-Defense Secretary about Newsweek's false story or the impact it had on America.

"These reporters are going to eat their words in a big way,"  NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell predicted on last night's "Hannity" regarding the mainstream media personalities who have credited President Obama with the popular uprising against dictator Hosni Mubarak in Egypt:

What happens when the government crumbles? What happens when this country is reduced to utter anarchy? What happens when the killings begin and the death begins? Are they still going to credit Barack Obama's soaring oratory for that, or are they going to separate them? What happens if an Islamic caliphate takes over? Are they going to credit his soaring oratory at that point? No they won't.

Indeed, Fox News host Sean Hannity noted during the February 3 "Media Mash" segment, the media have glossed over the radicalism of the Islamic Brotherhood, portraying the Islamist movement as a benign force for democratic reform, not as an extremist group that would impose sharia law in Egypt.

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On Tuesday's CBS Early Show, congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes reported on Sarah Palin's first interview since the Tucson shooting: "She accused the Left and the news media of trying to destroy her message, trying to destroy her, said she was being accused of being an accessory to murder." Cordes forgot to mention her role in furthering those accusations against the former Alaska governor.

After playing a clip of Palin's Monday interview on Fox News' Hannity, Cordes mentioned: "The early response I'm hearing from some on the Left about this interview is, 'Look we never said she was an accessory to murder, we simply said she was an accessory to in-civility in politics.'" On the day of the shooting, reporting for the CBS Evening News, Cordes implied Palin played a role in inciting the violence: "Giffords was one of 20 Democrats whose districts were lit up in cross hairs on a Sarah Palin campaign Web site last spring. Giffords and many others complained that someone unstable might act on that imagery."

Appearing on FNC's Hannity on Thursday, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell slammed left-wing media coverage of the incoming Republican Congress, from ABC's Good Morning America bashing John Boehner while praising Nancy Pelosi, to all three networks dismissing a scheduled vote to repeal ObamaCare as simply "a fool's errand."

In 2007, Good Morning America called then incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "galvanized steel with a smile," but blasted John Boehner as "harshly partisan" and "the weeper of the House" in 2011. Bozell wondered why the program never questioned the "dishonest smile" of Pelosi since it seemed to concerned with analyzing Boehner's emotions.

Following a series of clips of NBC, ABC, and CBS all labeling a vote by House Republicans to repeal ObamaCare a waste of time, Bozell observed that the November election was "all about the American people repudiating this unconstitutional power grab." He added that the media coverage was "the beginning of the spin control." [Audio available here]

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During his impromptu press conference in the White House briefing room Friday, former President Bill Clinton favorably referred to comments Charles Krauthammer made at the Washington Post earlier in the day.

On Fox News's "Hannity" that evening, Krauthammer joked, "When you get praise from President Clinton and you are from my side of the aisle that means that my career is done, I mean, I'm toast. Maybe NPR will take me" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Katie Couric's boosterism of "moderate Republican" Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and NPR's cheap shot at former President George W. Bush's recovery from alcoholism were just two of the "Media Mash" topics NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell and Fox News host Sean Hannity addressed on the November 20 edition of "Hannity."

"When will you ever hear the word 'liberal' attached to a Republican?" Bozell asked, noting that Murkowski is in fact a liberal Republican.

"In eight years, she was on [CBS] one time. In the last week, she's been on there twice," the Media Research Center president noted after viewing a clip of CBS "Evening News" Katie Couric's November 15 interview with the Alaska senator.

[Video of the full "Media Mash" segment is available after the page break]

NBC's Matt Lauer and MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan last night found themselves just two of the targets in the latest "Media Mash" segment on Fox News Channel's "Hannity" show.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell appeared on the November 11 program to dissect NBC's biased coverage of former President George W. Bush's new memoir, "Decision Points," an ABC News puff piece on Michelle Obama's fashion sense, and MSNBC's Ratigan giving a platform to a leftist calling for violent revolution.

"Matt Lauer is absolutely delusional," opined Bozell, pointing to Lauer's criticism of the former president's defense of his signature tax cut legislation. "The tax cuts caused the recession? The reality is, the Bush tax cuts gave us four million jobs. Those are the facts; you can't go against these facts."

[Video of the segment available after the page break.]

 On a special edition of Sunday’s Hannity show, FNC host Sean Hannity informed viewers that Restoring Sanity Rally participant and singer Cat Stevens - who converted to Islam in the 1970s and changed his name to Yusuf Islam - several times declared that Salman Rushdie should be killed after Iranian leader, the Ayatollah Khomeni, issued a fatwa on the British author in 1989 for publishing his book the Satanic Verses.

A recounting of Stevens’s history of verbal attacks on Rushdie at hotair.com includes both video of a Stevens appearing on a British television program, and a New York Times article quoting from the program.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday, October 31, Hannity show on FNC:

The folks at MSNBC are for some reason still under the impression that they are anything but a far less successful liberal alternative to Fox News.

The former channel's president, Phil Griffin, tried to perpetuate that delusion in a blog post by New York Times media blogger Brian Stelter on Sunday. Griffin claimed that MSNBC, unlike Fox News, does not help guests who are political candidates solicit funds on air.

In fact, MSNBC talker Ed Schultz has done just that on multiple occasions. “Show me an example of us fund-raising,” Stelter quotes Griffin as saying. Perhaps he should have reviewed his own channel's coverage before making that challenge.

If Juan Williams knew at 9:45 p.m. yesterday that he was out of a job, he sure didn't show it.

The same night he was fired by NPR, Williams appeared on Sean Hannity's "Great American panel" segment in an ostensibly cheerful mood, exchanging playful banter with the host and panelists.

"I love the sartorial splendor of his mutton chops," quipped Williams, referring to New York gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillian's facial hair. "And I'm thinking what would you look like with this? A little bit of that deputy dog look. You know what I'm talking about? You would look marvelous, my friend. That would be you as more liberal. That was a hip, younger Sean."

"You calling me fat, old Sean?" retorted Hannity.