Media Business

"It’s an outrage that federal money has been an enabler for NPR and PBS since 1967 in their efforts to undermine conservatives and Christians," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained in a statement released this morning that accompanies the release of a new Media Research Center (MRC) study detailing a comprehensive compilation of the 20 most memorable leftist excesses of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.

"In this current era of huge deficits, surely this is the most non-essential spending. The pattern of bias from PBS hosts and contributors is more than severe. Now is the time for Congress to finally put an end to it," the MRC founder argued.

Some of the 20 instances in the MRC’s report on NPR & PBS include:

Update: Click here to make your voice heard!

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell has issued a letter  to the heads of NBC, CBS, and ABC television networks calling on them to end their bias against GOP presidential hopefuls in their reporting and interviewing.

The MRC recently released an analysis of 53 weekday morning show interviews with either potential or declared Republican candidates from January 1 through September 15, and compared the results with our study of the same programs’ treatment of the Democratic candidates during the same time period from four years ago. The analysis revealed, among other things, that by a 5-to-1 margin, ABC, CBS and NBC morning show hosts employed an adversarial liberal agenda when questioning this year’s Republican candidates.

This latest proof of blatant bias has prompted a letter from Bozell to each of the network heads which reads in part:

One of the finest recent examples of liberal media bias has been the press's hostile treatment of author Ron Suskind for having the nerve to write a book critical of the Obama administration.

As Suskind told CNN's Howard Kurtz Sunday, these are "[m]any of the folks who were praising me mightily during the Bush era" for books criticizing the previous president (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The media "are so vested" in Obama "not being a failure that it's going to be amazing to watch the lengths they go to protect him," Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) told NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell in an exclusive for CNSNews.com earlier this week.

"There's going to be a real desperation" as the media ramp up their attacks on conservatives who are taking on the president, Walsh noted.

That's something the Illinois Republican can personally attest to, having sparred with MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Martin Bashir recently.

We've embedded the video after the page break:

A new Gallup poll once again confirmed what NewsBusters and its parent the Media Research Center have been saying for years.

America's media are biased, and a majority of Americans agree:

"The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules," Politico's Brooks Boliek reported this afternoon:

It's been a bad week for Michelle Goldberg. Last Monday the Daily Beast columnist laid out a loopy conspiratorial post about how Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry were theocrats-in-waiting, Christian "dominionists" who were bound and determined to destroy the separation of church and state.

Since then, former Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers shot holes in Goldberg's argument, liberal religion reporter Lisa Miller dismissed Goldberg and other alarmists as misinformed,  and now Daily Beast contributor and former Billy Graham spokesman A. Larry Ross is weighing in with an August 21 story entitled "Christian Dominionism Is a Myth" (emphasis mine):

"I don't know what's worse," Tina Brown's selection of the wild-eyed Michele Bachmann cover photo for Newsweek or her "bold-faced lie" defending the choice, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on his program last night.

"There's not a person in the face of this Earth that looks at that picture and says, 'she looks more presidential,' which is what Tina Brown" insisted on the August 10 edition of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

[video follows page break; MP3 audio is available here]

Is the Obama Administration inappropriately disclosing classified data to movie producers in the hopes of getting a film about the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden released before the 2012 election? That is the question that Congressman Peter King (R-NY) is asking after word got out that the White House is giving inside information about the military raid that killed bin Laden earlier this year to the creators of the Oscar-winning film "Hurt Locker."

"This alleged collaboration belies a desire of transparency in favor of a cinematographic view of history," King wrote in a letter addressed to officials at the CIA and the Department of Defense which asked for full details on the government's involvement with the film. The Defense Department acknowledged the collaboration in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:

Probably in response to a firestorm of criticism over their cover photo of Rep. Michele Bachmann, Newsweek today released a slideshow of "outtakes" that they say show that, in essence, the Minnesota Republican is unphotogenic and didn't give them much to work with in terms of a flattering photo.

For his part, left-leaning Mediaite.com reporter Tommy Christopher isn't buying it, calling "bulls**t" on the Tina Brown-edited publication (emphasis mine):

Well, the Washington Post reported it, but it was in the 21st paragraph of a 24-paragraph story on page A11, in an article entitled "White House is divided on how to portray Obama," no less:

New polling numbers suggest that voters have been unimpressed with Obama’s performance — with his once-sizable reelection advantage evaporating in a matter of weeks.

A survey published this week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds that 41 percent of voters want to see Obama reelected next year, compared with 40 percent who favor a Republican. In May, Obama led by 11 points, 48 to 37. The explanation: The number of independents wanting an Obama victory fell from 42 percent in May to 31 percent now.

The media’s unwillingness to release all the facts concerning the debt ceiling debate is nothing short of censorship. In their enthusiasm as cheerleaders for this President, the media are deliberately hiding and distorting the truth to further their own ideologically driven, leftist agenda.

These so-called 'news' outlets are ignoring the voice of the American people.

It is a tragedy that we even have to demand this: Tell the truth, the whole truth. Report the news.

Editor's Note: For the full press release, click here. Click here for the MRCAction.org petition to stand up to the media's distortion of the national debt issue.

A poll commissioned last Thursday by the inside-the-Beltway political newspaper The Hill finds that "[l]ikely voters hold a dismal view of the news media, generally regarding reporters as biased, unethical and too close to the politicians they purport to cover."

Hill reporter Niall Stanage noted that the poll shows "68 percent of voters consider the news media biased" with "[m]ost, 46 percent, believ[ing] the media generally favor Democrats." What's more, fully 44 percent of voters polled "believe the media are too friendly with politicians."

Also of note, nearly 4 out of 10 of self-described centrists see the bias as skewed in favor of Democrats, while only 19 percent of moderates think the media favor Republicans.

For the full story at TheHill.com, click here.

Andy Barr is just the latest political reporter to go through the revolving door into the realm of partisan politics.

Oddly enough Barr is leaving the inside-the-Beltway tabloid Politico just as a former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) staffer is joining the paper.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell discussed the MSM-Democratic politics nexus in an interview on "Fox & Friends" on Friday.

You can watch the full segment in a video embedded below the page break:

While the media have been busy persistently denouncing the Cut, Cap and Balance plan as Republicans "wasting time" with a "show" plan that has "no chance of passage," the public aren't accepting the media spin.

A CNN poll shows nearly 2/3rds of Americans favor that approach to tackling the national debt and balancing the budget, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the July 21 "Hannity" program (video follows page break):

The nation's elite journalists are forever denying that they have a liberal bias. Of course, the evidence in their reporting proves that claim false every day. One other thing belies their claims--the revolving door between the self-described "mainstream media" and Democrats. There simply is nothing like it for conservatives and Republicans looking to get into elite journalism.  

The latest example of this phenomenon comes from Beltway insider publication Politico where the revolving door spun both directions on the same day with one reporter leaving the paper to work for Democrats in Arizona and another coming into the paper fresh from a gig working with Senate Democrats.

While some leftist bloggers are positively delighted that the FBI has opened an investigation into NewsCorp regarding possible hacking of 9/11 victims' voicemail accounts -- dreaming of an existential threat to Fox News -- Time's Massimo Calabresi is perplexed as to what could justify the investigation other than political pressure (emphasis mine):

Appearing on Thursday's NBC Today, MSNBC host Martin Bashir shared his thoughts on the tabloid phone hacking scandal in Britain and proclaimed that News Corporation owner Rupert Murdoch was "...a combination of Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist, and someone like James 'Whitey' Bulger, the mobster." [Audio available here]

Despite Bashir's outrageous comparison – Abramoff was convicted on corruption charges and Bulger is accused of 19 murders during his time as the head of the Irish mob in Boston – co-host Matt Lauer offered no objection to the claim.

View video after the jump

On Wednesday's NBC Today, correspondent Stephanie Gosk reported the latest details on the phone hacking scandal in Britain involving a Rupert Murdoch owned tabloid and declared: "Damage to the company [News Corporation] may have already been done. And some say it is about time."

Gosk noted that included, "actor Hugh Grant, who in recent months has led his own campaign against the tabloids." A sound bite was played of Grant: "we're talking about pretty nasty people." Gosk went on to speculate that the scandal may spread and put "pressure on Rupert Murdoch's worldwide media empire," which of course includes Fox News. She also argued that in Britain, Murdoch's "political support...has all but disappeared."

The broadcast networks are guilty of giving undeserved credibility and attention to a story that is stupid and silly. There are numerous times when these same networks chose to ignore serious issues that actually put people’s lives at risk.

This Bachmann hit piece was reported by ABC World News and ABC’s Nightline last night and perpetuated by ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today Show this morning. It’s nothing more than a swipe at a leading conservative presidential candidate by an anti-Christian gay activist, but the media’s overreaction has made the clinic out to be guilty of a crime.

Where were these networks when Planned Parenthood was caught on tape – multiple times and in multiple states – willing to aid and abet in sex trafficking of young girls? Or when they covered up sex abuse of minors? Or when ACORN was caught on tape willing to help a pimp cover up his sex ring?

After letting it wither on the vine for a while, CNN has canceled the nightly television program hosted by disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer.

The show, known as "In the Arena," had initially paired Spitzer with moderate conservative Kathleen Parker who proved no match for her much more vociferous liberal counterpart. AP reports on the lineup shuffle:

Via TV Newser, we learn that MSNBC has "suspended indefinitely" its senior political analyst Mark Halperin for stating on Morning Joe that President Obama was "kind of a [male appendage]." This is not exactly what the "No Labels" crowd at Morning Joe were expecting. The official MSNBC statement:

Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable. We apologize to the President, The White House and all of our viewers. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air.  Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.