Fox News Channel

Appearing on Fox News's America Live on Thursday, Daily Beast columnist and Democratic pundit Kirsten Powers ripped the liberal media for expressing more outrage over Mitt Romney's reaction to Tuesday's embassy attacks, than toward the attackers themselves: "I mean, it is just absolutely utterly insane the way that they have elevated this." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Powers worried that the blatant bias had "overshadowed any kind of outrage that you would see over the fact that you have Islamic flags being hoisted over American embassies, the fact that an American ambassador is dead."

As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, CBS and NPR reporters were caught on a hot mic plotting to ensure Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would be asked if he regrets scolding Barack Obama for his response to the recent anti-American hostilities in Egypt and Libya.

On Thursday's Fox & Friends, conservative author Michelle Malkin said the people involved were Obama's "tools' and "stenographers," and that this represented "an underline and exclamation point on the obituary of main stream objective news" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Conservative author Ann Coulter on Wednesday called the media out for its attacks on Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's criticism of Barack Obama's response to Tuesday's anti-American hostilities in Egypt and Libya.

Appearing on Fox News's Hannity, Coulter said, "You know that Romney’s statement was devastating to President Obama because the media is screaming bloody murder" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the horrendously liberal website Salon published a piece with the truly absurd headline, "Fox News’ War on Muslims: Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have stoked Islamophobia -- and encouraged right-wing ignorance."

The contents - excerpted from Nathan Lean's book “The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims” - were stocked with misinformation about America's leading cable news channel:

Earlier today, an angry Cairo mob stormed the U.S. embassy, ripped down the American flag, and flew in its place a black al Qaeda banner. The mob is reportedly angered about a documentary film that supposedly offends Muslim religious sensibilities with critiques of the Prophet Muhammad.

While CNN and Fox News have both mentioned the developing story, MSNBC has not as of the time of this publication, a review of our DVR systems shows.

After offending religious Americans by appearing to boo God, the Democratic National Convention had the top ranking Catholic official in the country perform the closing Benediction Thursday night. Cardinal Timothy Dolan did the same for the Republicans last week in Tampa Bay, but those delegates didn’t seem to have a problem with a party platform that included God and Jerusalem.

The only networks respectful enough to show the prayer in its entirety without interruption was Fox News, Fox Business and C-SPAN. ABC, CNN, and PBS kept it in background while talking over it. MSNBC completely ignored it, cutting the audio feed to let their pundits share their opinions without distraction. CBS and NBC returned to local news affiliates as soon as he began.  

[See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

On the final day of last week's Republican National Convention in Tampa, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sat down with NewsBusters to discuss amongst other things our favorite topic - liberal media bias.

In the course of our lengthy discussion, McConnell addressed Chris Matthews's claim that Republicans are being racist when they accuse President Obama of engaging in Chicago-style politics (video follows with transcript, Matthews section at minute 8:30):

New York Times "TV Watch" columnist Alessandra Stanley focused Friday on MSNBC's embarrassingly partisan coverage of the Republican National Convention and tried to contrast it with the struggle of NBC's more objective reporters to remain above the fray: "MSNBC, Arch Counterprogramming to Fox." The online head was more interesting: "How MSNBC Became Fox’s Liberal Evil Twin." Stanley even accused MSNBC host Chris Matthews of "thuggish" behavior in an interview with a female Republican governor.

But do NBC reporters Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd (or anchor Brian Williams) really "keep their opinions to themselves" as Stanley claims? Hardly. In fact, they fit in quite well with the liberal partisans at MSNBC.

Jim Pinkerton of Fox News Watch says the MSM has a problem: groups like NewsBusters are paying attention and "nailing them" when they let their liberal bias show.

Pinkerton made his comment in an interview with NewsBusters at the RNC today.  The subject was a story NewsBusters broke this morning regarding Yahoo's Washington bureau chief David Chalian, who was caught on a hot mike saying that Mitt and Ann Romney were "happy to have a party with black people drowning."  Chalian was fired not long after the NewsBusters story broke. View the Pinkerton video after the break.

Just like his counterparts at MSNBC on Tuesday night, Fox News Channel political analyst Juan Williams thought it fit to continue forwarding the left's main attack on Ann Romney - that she just can't relate the average American woman. Minutes after Mrs. Romney's RNC speech, Williams bluntly remarked that she "looked to me like a corporate wife...[T]he stories she told about struggles – ah, it's hard for me to believe. I mean, she's a very rich woman. And I know that, and America knows that." [audio available here; video below the jump]

When anchor Megyn Kelly asked the former NPR personality what he meant by this loaded term, Williams claimed that Mrs. Romney wasn't "speaking, I think, for the tremendous number of single women in this country or married women...she did not convince me that, you know what? I understand the struggles of American women in general."

Geraldo Rivera on Monday praised the fairness of Fox News and NewsBusters while not being so kind about how the mainstream media will cover the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Speaking with NewsBusters about how the press will report the event, Rivera said, "We’ll be fair, you’ll be fair – we’ll leave them to their own just deserts" (video follows with commentary):

On Saturday's Fox News Watch, as the panel discussed the substantial attention the media devoted to Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin's claim that forcible rape victims rarely become pregnant as opposed to Vice President Joe Biden's "chains" gaffe, two recent studies by the Media Research Center -- parent organization to NewsBusters -- were cited. Host Jon Scott cited MRC analyst Scott Whitlock's study from Tuesday:

"The other reason I think Biden’s gaffes aren't that damaging to the president is because the media is so playing a part in this campaign. I think this is going to be the worst media bias we’ve seen since the 1992 election. We can bring back those old bumper stickers. It was 'Annoy the Media - Vote Bush.' Now it’s 'Annoy the Media – Vote Romney.'”

So said conservative author Ann Coulter on Sunday's Fox & Friends Weekend (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Saturday's Fox News Watch, as the group discussed the media's tepid attention to Vice President Joe Biden's "chains" gaffe, panel member and left-leaning FNC analyst Kirsten Powers asserted that "There is a glaring media standard, no question about it."

After noting that there was a similar double standard in Biden and Sarah Palin's treatment during the 2008 campaign, Powers complained:

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas made a statement on Saturday's Fox News Watch that is guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows.

"An African-American president can divide racially in this country - as I believe this one has done quite effectively - and he gets a free pass from the media" (video follows with transcript):

A small business owner in a crucial swing state has found herself losing business from loyal customers due to her ad being featured in a Mitt Romney campaign ad. It seems her customers believe she is a Romney backer, but in fact she prefers to keep politics out of her business. And so this business owner demanded that the Romney camp either pull the ad or blur her deli's name from the frames that it's in. The campaign, she says, ignored her pleas.

You didn't hear about that story? Well, you certainly would if it actually happened, but, you see, this is the case of deli owner Debra Krause-McDonnell whose complaint is with President Obama's reelection campaign, reported Jane Prendergast in today's Cincinnati Enquirer:

At the top of Tuesday's O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, host Bill O'Reilly rightly observed "the American media overwhelmingly favoring Barack Obama over Mitt Romney" and predicted that the slanted news coverage "will give the President about 3% or 4% of the popular vote" in the general election.

O'Reilly cited numerous studies over several years that demonstrated the media predisposition that "clearly favors the more liberal candidate, and has for decades." In 2004, then-assistant managing editor of Newsweek magazine, Evan Thomas, made a prediction remarkably similar to O'Reilly's when he admitted that media bias in favor Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was "going to be worth maybe 15 points," a number he revised down to five points months later.

Tuesday was just another day for “The Five,” the boisterous discussion panel program on the Fox News Channel, until liberal pundit Bob Beckel sank to a new low by referring to the Republican National Chairman's name -- Reince Preibus -- with a vulgar word for a particular part of a woman's body.

The incident occurred when “Five” co-host Eric Bolling referred to an upcoming e-book entitled “Obama’s Last Stand” that's being produced by the Politico.com website and indicates President Obama intensely dislikes former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Bill O'Reilly and commentator Bernard Goldberg on Monday night touted a new Media Research Center study that found 86 percent of stories on Mitt Romney's international trip emphasized "diplomatic blunders." Goldberg derided the soft coverage Barack Obama receives, asserting, "...Journalists are Barack Obama's most loyal base. They will not abandon him." [See video below.]

He added that reporters have "too much invested in [Obama]." Describing the MRC's study, The O'Reilly Factor anchor marveled, "86 percent of all the media coverage on Mitt Romney's overseas trip was negative. Eighty-six percent."

In his Monday online column, "The Leak Police," former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller worked in a cheap shot against Mitt Romney while arguing that the Obama administration "without really setting out to do so, already surpassed all previous administrations in its prosecution of leakers, has begun new investigations into disclosures by The Times, Newsweek, The Associated Press and others." Keller wrote:

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell appeared on Thursday night's Hannity and angrily denounced the big three networks for trashing Mitt Romney's foreign trip, what Bozell called "a clear-cut example of an agenda to kneecap" the presumptive Republican nominee. During the "Media Mash" segment, Bozell cited a new MRC report that found an astonishing 86 percent of stories about Romney's international visit wallowed in supposed "gaffes." (See Bozell's statement on the subject here.)

While in London, Romney highlighted Olympic security problems.  Bozell exposed, "The very same thing that Mitt Romney was accused of gaffing about is exactly what Brian Williams reported as news one week before." "It's shocking," the MRC president added.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said something on Fox News's Hannity Wednesday that so-called journalists across the fruited plain should be embarrassed by.

"The media bias towards President Obama is just, it's something we have to accept. It is just the air we breathe in the political environment" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Yesterday on Fox News's Special Report, senior national correspondent John Roberts did a segment on the controversy surrounding gay marriage.  A version of his report also appears on the Fox News Web site.  In it, Roberts interviewed a gay marriage proponent saying that young Republicans "overwhelmingly support the freedom to marry." And then:

Roberts:  It isn't just young Republicans who are changing their minds. Conservative David Blankenhorn fought fiercely for Prop 8, California's measure to ban gay marriage.  In June, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times with the headline: "How My View On Gay Marriage Changed".  Blankenhorn is now fully in favor of same-sex marriage.

"There is absolutely no way Barack Obama can win reelection running on his record and the news media know this," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Eric Bolling at the top of today's Your World with Neil Cavuto.

Newsweek's current edition, featuring the headline, "The Wimp Factor: Is he [Mitt Romney] just too insecure to be president?" is just the latest example of the media's attempt to distract the American public from the president's dismal economic record, the Media Research Center president told Bolling, who was substituting for Cavuto. [MP3 audio here; Video follows page break]

During Tuesday night's edition of “The O'Reilly Factor,” the Fox News host got into a heated exchange with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) over the concept of Congress passing legislation that the FBI would be notified whenever anyone purchases “heavy weapons.”

Bill O’Reilly said it makes sense for Congress “to pass a new law that requires the sale of all heavy weapons to be reported to the FBI. In this age of terrorism, that law is badly needed.”

As NewsBusters previously reported, in the wake of the tragic shootings in Aurora, Colorado, last week, PBS's Bill Moyers posted an online video essay excoriating the National Rifle Association as "enabler of death -- paranoid, delusional, and as venomous as a scorpion."

Fox News's Bill O'Reilly began his program Monday blasting Moyers for his remarks calling them "so dumb it hurts" and saying, "You're a genius, Bill. PBS is very lucky to have you" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):