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Best-selling author, syndicated conservative radio host and friend of NewsBusters Mark Levin has sent along his warm wishes for our fifth anniversary.

We thought we'd let you hear The Great One for yourselves.

Click here for the MP3.

Transcript included below the page break:

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named MRC president Brent Bozell Wednesday's "Worst Person in the World" for my NewsBusters post on Jon Stewart's sneering attack on  conservatives as supposedly being opponents of religious freedom over the Ground Zero Mosque controversy. (Audio here.)

Predictably, in choosing this dishonor, Olbermann was playing rip-and-read from certain Hillary Clinton-founded Fox-and-Rush watchdogs, as he routinely acts as the TV Xerox of the Bush-Hating Left-Wing Blogosphere. Olbermann also re-tweeted them yesterday. None of these analysts on the left evaluated their own tendency to see grave threats to freedom of religion and church-state separation from Christian evangelists, but nothing at all threatening to their swaggering secular coolness from Islamic advocates of "dialogue." (See, for example, one take on the Ground Zero Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf's views on America's "Shariah compliance." Hello, Barry Lynn?)

Here's the transcript:

In the summer of 2005 the Media Research Center (MRC) launched a pivotal project that would quickly transform the speed and breadth of exposing liberal media bias into real-time documentation: NewsBusters.org.

Within 24 hours, top talker Rush Limbaugh raved to his millions of listeners that "NewsBusters rocks" and today, five years later, the award-winning blog has become a hub for conservative media personalities who daily cite and source its work. 

The blog has authored more than 40,000 posts that have generated more than 1.2 million comments; produced the recurring political comedy showNewsBusted; and created a community of more than 40 around-the-clock contributing analysts including Charlie Daniels and other notables. NewsBusters has become the online clearinghouse for instantaneous evidence of liberal media bias and is backed by the MRC's gargantuan archive of more than 390,000 hours of broadcast and cable news recordings dating back to 1987. 

As part of the 5th anniversary celebration of NewsBusters we have started a weekly Five for Five feature to list the blog's top twenty five posts. Last week, we looked at the top five posts of embarrassing media moments. Today we continue with the top five posts that broke news.

We have picked out a couple posts from each of the five categories and asked the authors to reflect back on writing them up. In this series of short videos, they share their thoughts on how they caught the particular media moment and describe the impact their post had.

We continue our video look back by reflecting on two of top posts that broke news: "Hillary Shot At in '96? No Media Mention of Bosnia 'Sniper Fire'" by Rich Noyes and "MSNBC: ObamaCare Protesters 'Racist,' Including Black Gun-Owner" by Kyle Drennen.

Check out last week's video of NewsBusters' Matthew Balan and Geoffrey Dickens remembering some of the top posts embarrassing the media. 

Editor's Note: For the list of NewsBusters T-shirt contest winners, skip to the end of this post. Click here to enter the contest.

It's time once again for "Five for Five," this time our list of the Top Five News Stories Broken or Advanced by NewsBusters.

We start with an honorable mention that just barely failed to make the cut, but is worth noting for its impact on the blogosphere, Noel Sheppard's August 1, 2009 post, "Obama Joker Poster Popping Up in Los Angeles."

As for our top five, they are blog posts that uncovered:

• The beginnings of ClimateGate ["Possible Conspiracy to Falsify Temperature Data Uncovered" from Nov. 20, 2009] 
• The early beginnings of the Tea Party movement ["CNBC's Santelli Explains His Anti-Obamanomics Call for Revolt" from February 19, 2009]

After watching a highlight reel of network news reporters lamenting how President Obama was spending his 49th birthday alone and that the office is discernibly graying his hair, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News viewers last night that the same media outlets ignored how, the day before Obama's birthday, "The voters of Missouri absolutely crushed, clobbered, masaquered his ObamaCare program by 71 to 29 percent."

Bozell appeared on the August 5 edition of Sean Hannity's program for the latest installment of "Media Mash," a look at the media's most egregious bias of the past week. The second topic in last night's segment was this doozy from CBS's Harry Smith:

HARRY SMITH to President Obama:  Do you feel sometimes that your administration is not given the credit it deserves?

President OBAMA: Yes.

"You know, this wah-wah whining has got to stop. What they're saying is that the media aren't pro-Obama enough," Bozell observed, adding:

Managing Editor's Note: NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell issued the following statement about The Washington Post Company selling Newsweek to the guy from RoboCop Sidney Harman, for a grand total of one dollar:

There’s something entirely believable about the Newsweek sale.  A left-winger pretending to be centrist sold it to another left-winger pretending to be centrist. Newsweek is a dying magazine because no one wants to read their left-wing propaganda masquerading as ‘news.’ The $1 price tag, then, is probably just about right.

For more information on the sale, read the NewsBusters’ story here.

"You're talking about brainwashing, when by a 10-to-1 margin, they [the broadcast media] attack Arizona," Media Research Center (MRC) founder Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity on the "Media Mash" segment on the July 30 "Hannity" program.

The NewsBusters publisher was commenting on an MRC study that found in a 3-month survey [April 23 - July 25] of the three broacast networks, that of 120 stories Arizona immigration law stories aired, 77 were negative compared to just 8 positive and 35 neutral. Additionally, there was a roughly 2-to-1 disparity [ 216 to 107] when it come to anti- vs. pro-SB1070 comments on those news stories.

"Here's the reality of the situation: the American people by 10-to-1 want border security. So the media are doing the exact opposite of what the American people want," Bozell concluded.

For the full segment's MP3 audio, click here. To watch the segment, click here to download the WMV video file or click the play button in the embed above.

On this weekend's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim Pinkerton proposed a simple way to clear up much of the murk surrounding JournoList.  Let the Washington Post respond to the 20 questions about the matter that MRC head Brent Bozell has posed to the Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, in an open letter.

JournoList was created by lefty blogger Ezra Klein in 2007, who continued to run it after becoming a Post staffer in 2009.

Responding to Pinkerton's proposal, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican, a liberal member of the News Watch panel, swung and missed at Bozell . . . 

Editor's Note: For the list of NewsBusters T-shirt contest winners, skip to the end of this post. Click here to enter the contest.

Last week we debuted the first installment of "Five for Five," a set of five top five lists comprising the best NewsBusters posts of our first five years.

Last week we began on a light note with The Top Five Media Flubs Caught by NewsBusters.

We continue on the lighter side of things with the Top Five Times NewsBusters Embarrassed the Media. (Also check out a short video-cast with NewsBusters bloggers talking about how they embarrased the journalists)

They are, in no particular order...:

• ...that time we blinded a CNN anchor with science ["Rick Sanchez: 'Too Cold' in Iceland 'To Have a Volcano There'" from April 15, 2010]
• ...when we noted a U.S. soldier in Iraq telling Matt Lauer, "I'd be depressed too if I got my news from the newspapers" [August 17, 2005]

As our readers know, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of NewsBusters we have started a weekly Five for Five feature to list the blog's top twenty five posts, starting with the top five media flubs caught by NewsBusters. Today we continue with the top five posts embarrassing the media.

As part of the anniversary celebration, we have picked out a couple posts from each of the five categories and asked the authors to reflect back on writing them up. In this series of short videos, they share their thoughts on how they caught the particular media moment and describe the impact their post had.

We continue our video look back by reflecting on two of top posts embarrassing the media: "Rick Sanchez: 'Too Cold' in Iceland 'To Have a Volcano There'" by Matthew Balan and "Global Warming Scare On Today, Vieira Frets: 'Are We All Gonna Die?'" by Geoffrey Dickens.

Check out the video of NewsBusters' Mark Finkelstein and Scott Whitlock remembering top media flubs here. 

As our readers know, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of NewsBusters, we have started a weekly Five for Five feature to countdown the blog's top twenty five posts. Last week we began with the top five media flubs caught by NewsBusters and on Friday we continue with the top five posts embarrassing the media.

As part of the anniversary celebration, we have picked out a couple posts from each of the five categories and asked the authors to reflect back on writing them up. They share their thoughts on how they caught the particular media moment and describe the impact their post had.

We begin with a look back at two of the top media flubs: "Up a Creek: Accusing Bush of Video Stunt, 'Today' Gets Caught in Stunt of Its Own" by Mark Finkelstein and "Dog Urinates on Katie Couric Ice Scultpture" by Scott Whitlock. 

Managing Editor's Note: What follows is a statement from NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell regarding Shirley Sherrod's announcement that she will sue conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart.

Andrew Breitbart is going to be fine. He's done nothing wrong. I wonder if Ms. Sherrod, who is such a champion of transparency, will publicly disclose who is putting her up to this. And I also hope this champion of honesty will stop lying about Fox News. I'm also waiting for Ms. Sherrod to publicly apologize for accusing anyone opposed to nationalized healthcare of being racist. Last time I checked, that was more than half the country.

The TV networks have aggressively demonstrated their dislike of Arizona’s state law “cracking down on illegal immigrants,” a law that “pits neighbor against neighbor.” An MRC review of morning and evening news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC from April 23 to July 25 found the networks have aired 120 stories with an almost ten-to-one tilt against the Arizona law (77 negative, 35 neutral, 8 positive).

The soundbite count was also tilted over the last three months -- 216 to 107, or an almost exact two-to-one disparity. Network anchors and reporters sided against defenders of border control and championed sympathetic illegal aliens and their (usually American-born) children. In 120 stories, they never described “immigrants rights activists” as liberals or on the left.

Between them, the three networks described the Arizona law as “controversial” on 27 occasions, despite its popularity in opinion polls. The Obama administration’s decision to sue file a lawsuit against Arizona to crush the law was never described as “controversial.”

As you probably already know, August 9 is the fifth anniversary of the launch of NewsBusters. We're celebrating with a number of events, including a t-shirt giveaway (sign up here) and, for those in the Washington, DC area, a celebratory happy hour (Facebook event page here) on Friday, August 6, beginning at 6 pm.

There will be a number of prominent DC conservatives there, including MRC President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell! We'll be giving out door prizes, and the first 300 people through the door get two drinks on us!

The happy hour will take place at Rocket Bar, 714 7th St. NW, just across the street from the Verizon Center and in the same block as Metro's Gallery Place station served by the Red, Yellow and Green lines.

Please feel free to join us and invite your friends to the event as well. We look forward to seeing you there if you are able to make it!

Editor's Note: For the list of NewsBusters T-shirt contest winners, skip to the end of this post.

As we approach our 5th anniversary at NewsBusters, our celebration would not be complete without a recap of our best posts. It was a tough call, but we came up with the top 25, broken down evenly into five categories of five each.

We call it our Five-for-Five.

Each Friday through August 13 we'll publish a Five-for-Five list.We've saved the very best for last: On Monday, August 16, we'll publish the Top Five Outrageous Outbursts.

But we start today with a much lighter note. The first category for Five-for-Five is The Top Five Media Flubs Caught by NewsBusters. (Also check out a short video-cast with NewsBusters bloggers talking about how they caught the flubs.)

In no particular order we remember...:

• ...how CNN's Kyra Phillips was the original Gossip Girl ["Oops! CNN Airs Anchor's Girl Talk Over Bush Speech" August 29, 2006]

Managing Editor's Note:  NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell today reprimanded members of the press in light of the recently exposed e-mails from the now-defunct JournoList that show a blatant, deliberate campaign to smear conservatives. That statement is published below. Click here for more background on JournoList.

The revelation of these e-mails simply proves that we have been right all along.  The liberal media have no interest in being fair or unbiased.  In fact, they are deliberately violating any sense of journalistic ethics.

There is no excuse – none- for the attitudes and lack of professionalism these so-called journalists displayed not only in these e-mails but in their reporting.  Any member of the media that was privy to these Journolist emails, and remained silent, is just as much to blame as the folks that crafted these e-mails. Their silence indicts them. 

We said in 2008 that the media were making excuses for Jeremiah Wright and now we have the proof. Just today we learned from the Daily Caller that these people went so far as to say that Rush Limbaugh ‘deserves’ their hate.  Sadly, I am not surprised, as this is what we have been exposing year after year about the media.  And it’s exactly why Americans refuse to trust them.

Managing Editor's Note:  Earlier today, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell demanded that the media cover the explosive video footage of an NAACP banquet speaker admitting her racist views and abuse of power that led to her resignation as a Department of Agriculture official yesterday. The full text of that statement is found below:

The liberal media are deliberately spiking the shocking video that reveals an NAACP banquet speaker admitting her racist views and actions. We’ve waited a full 24 hours to see if any coverage of this exposé would surface.  So far, nothing but crickets. The ABC, CBS and NBC evening and morning ‘news’ shows have all failed to even mention the damning video admission that is dripping with disdain for white people and that caused the official to tender her resignation.

Worse yet, it comes from the NAACP, the same organization that has feverishly accused the Tea Parties of racism. The thoroughly untrue accusation against the Tea Parties has been propped up and propelled by the incessant reporting of these same networks. Yet they decide to thwart this story about the NAACP.

The only thing more newsworthy than the charges of racism are the hypocritical charges of racism.  The media must report this scandal.

MRC Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham appeared on Saturday morning’s Fox & Friends to discuss the emerging examples of liberal "mainstream" media meltdown over the Democrats being abandoned by the voters – and how the public is now a collection of "spoiled" brats, according to liberal talk show host Bill Press.

Fox also highlighted Washington Post columnist/blogger Ezra Klein suggesting the voters are "schizophrenic" when they say they trust Democrats more on issues like the economy, and then say they’ll be voting for Republicans in the fall. What the Post actually found is the full sample trusted Democrats more, 42 to 34, but among likely voters it was 40 percent trusted Republicans more to 39 percent Democrat.

Tim suggested Press and others were already sounding life the aftermath of the 1994 elections, when then-ABC anchorman issued a radio commentary denouncing the country being a "nation of uncontrolled two-year-old rage." (Audio here.)

"This is the Left's absolute search-and-destroy character assassination campaign in full gear."

That's how NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell characterized ABC's Dan Harris for his unbalanced coverage of the NAACP's anti-Tea Party resolution.

"For ABC to be giving aid and comfort to these lies is absolutely disgraceful," Bozell argued on the July 16 "Media Mash" segment on FNC's "Hannity."

Also discussed on Friday's appearance was how the media persistently insisted that ObamaCare would not allow for federal funding of abortion and that conservative critics were misleading the public by claiming as much. Now, months after Democrats strong-armed generally pro-life Democrats into scuttling their objections and voting for the health care overhaul, MRC's CNSNews.com is reporting on how abortion will be covered on health insurance in at in at least two states under ObamaCare provisions.

"The reality is Doug Johnson and the National Right to Life Committee nailed this one  right on the head.... It was true, it's perfectly true," Bozell noted of conservative warnings of taxpayer-subsidized abortion under ObamaCare.

For the full segment's MP3 audio, click here. Click here for a WMV video download or watch the embedded video above at right.

We are fast-approaching NewsBusters's fifth birthday! In celebration of this milestone, we will be commemorating some of the site's best work over the next few weeks. We will also be giving away five NewsBusters t-shirts every weekday as our way of saying thank you for your continued readership and support.

To sign up, simply fill out this form. The week's 25 winners -- 5 for each weekday -- will be announced each Friday, beginning July 23, along with a "best of" recap put together by NB editors. There will be 100 t-shirts given away in all.

Once again, thank you for five great years, and for making NewsBusters the tremendous success that it is. Together we have made a notable contribution to keeping the liberal media honest, and with your continued support we will do so for another five years and beyond.

The Obama/Holder Department of Justice closed down an investigation into voter intimidation on Election Day 2008 by the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. Yet the broadcast news media have been virtually silent on the matter, making it the first item in last night's "Media Mash" segment on Fox News Channel's "Hannity."

Noted NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell:

Here you had a whistleblower from the Department of Justice saying how Eric Holder, the Attorney General, and his office stepped in and stopped the prosecution of these Black Panther people. He claimed it was the easiest prosecution in his career. He said everything was on video, everything was on tape.... It was a slam dunk.... Look, the media are refusing to cover just how radical this attorney general is...

"You have people in paramilitary uniforms, you know, spewing racial epithets at voters as they go into the polling place... obviously a case of voter intimidation. Still no coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, several major newspapers in this country," host Sean Hannity observed.

"You would think that if you are NASA, your mandate is return us to the moon, take us to Mars.... No, according to the President of the United States, the mandate of NASA is to make Muslim people feel better about themselves," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell quipped this morning on "Fox & Friends."

The Media Research Center founder was referring to the under-reported story of how NASA administrator Charles Bolden told Arab news network al-Jazeera in an interview that President Obama had tasked him with outreach to the Muslim world to "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."

"We have to hitch a ride with the Russians if we want to go to outer space, but the mandate of NASA is to make Muslims feel better about themselves. You figure that one out," Bozell complained, adding, "You'd think that might be a news story."

"Has the mainstream media -- which turns left -- have they abandoned the president on his economic policies?" Stuart Varney asked NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell in a brief interview held shortly after 10 a.m. today.

The Media Research Center founder answered in the affirmative, noting that staunch liberals in the mainstream media think Obama is too conservative on his spending plans:

BRENT BOZELL: It's the columnists, particularly for the New York Times. It's the four horsemen of the apocalypse from the Times. It's Paul Krugman, it's Frank Rich, it's Maureen Dowd, it's that crowd, they are out to get Obama now. Not from the right, from the left.

STUART VARNEY: Yeah. I mean Bob Herbert, I think it was just yesterday, talking about the failure of the president's policy. Missed opportunity. He wants another trillion dollar stimulus program. So does Paul Krugman.

To watch the full interview, click the play button on the embedded video above at right.

Fox & Friends invited me on air today to discuss how The Washington Post could run a small obituary on left-wing domestic terrorist Dwight Armstrong and describe in the headline only as a "Vietnam War protester." In 1970, Armstrong and three others bombed Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin, killing researcher Robert Fassnacht and injuring three others. [Audio available here]

Growing up in Wisconsin, this bombing was revisited in the newspapers every five years or so, and someone always tried to revise history to explain why blowing up an innocent man was defensible. After Armstrong died, Madison’s local alternative newspaper Isthmus defended the bombing “in perspective” again. Their feelings of being government targets were not a “paranoid fantasy,” the writer, Dave Wagner, insisted, after police shot students at Kent State and Black Panther radicals like Fred Hampton.

But even if you felt you were at war with the government, why would you blow up an innocent man? That’s simply terrorism. I imagine when Bill Ayers dies, the Washington Post will described him as an “author and educator,” not as a “bomber.”

Of the more than 300 corporate sponsors who have sponsored Comedy Central in the past, not a single one has indicated their intention to buy advertising time on the planned "JC" program should it ever be set to go to broadcast.

That's the victorious announcement today from Citizens Against Religious Bigotry (CARB), a group co-founded by NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell and a handful of other social conservative activists.

"The sponsors understand what the programming department at Comedy Central does not: Religious bigotry is bad business," Bozell noted in a statement. "With literally zero advertiser support for this program, the only reason Comedy Central would put it on their broadcast schedule is in an effort to offend Christianity and Christians. There is no valid business reason for airing 'JC,'" the Media Research Center founder argued. 

Full the full press release, click here.

Managing Editor's Note: The following is a statement that NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell released earlier today.

Americans have spoken and they are livid with the media.

A new Rasmussen poll found an astonishing two thirds of American voters are at least somewhat angry at the media, including an entire one third who said they are ‘very angry.’ That’s disturbing but unfortunately, not surprising. The liberal media lost touch with the public and fair reporting long ago, and Americans are sick of their lavish praise for a President that is leading our country and economy into a disastrous state. The American people are abandoning the old media by the millions because they are simply fed up.”

Now is the time for the national, so-called "news" media to Tell The Truth! and report the facts. The American people are furious and are demanding answers.

Earlier this week, NewsBusters senior editor and MRC Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham appeared on CBN to talk about Helen Thomas's comments that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany and Poland.



Click here for complete NewsBusters coverage of the Thomas and the supportive comments she has received from other journalists in the wake of her anti-Israeli remarks.

If you ask the media, George W. Bush is to blame for everything from the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill to Al and Tipper Gore's broken marriage. What's more, the media are insisting, it's Democrat Hillary Clinton who deserves praise for paving the way for Republican women having success on Tuesday's primaries, not Sarah Palin.

That's just skimming the surface of the loopy stuff the liberal media have churned out recently and which NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell was brought on last night's "Hannity" to address.

Also discussed on the June 10 "Media Mash" segment, the media's sensitive treatment of disgraced columnist Helen Thomas, who abruptly "retired" following a controversy regarding her suggestion that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Germany and Poland [MP3 audio available here; WMV video for download here]:

BRENT BOZELL: If I were Helen Thomas, I wonder, what is she more offended by, conservatives who call her a socialist and a radical, or her liberal friends who've all gone on national television to say she's senile? And if it is true that she is that senile, what was she doing in the White House all these years? Here's a woman who has spent decades with this anti-Semitic vicious vitriol that she spews out. And here they are all marching behind her.

On last night's "O'Reilly Factor," host Bill O'Reilly and guest analyst Arthel Neville discussed the possibly impending Comedy Central show "JC" - as in Jesus Christ.

Given the network's past treatment of Christianity, the portend for this show is hardly positive.

Which is why the Media Research Center has put together a coalition to ask advertisers to publicly pledge to not underwrite/support the show. 

Citizens Against Religious Bigotry (CARB) (which Ms. Neville graciously mentioned by name) is made up of many organizations - made up of Christians, Jews and Muslims - who would like to see religion not be the butt of raunchy/tasteless jokes, and who don't think America's advertisers should help fund said alleged humor.

A petition to advertisers (to be found on the CARB website) has garnered more than 115,000 signatures thus far.

And if you aren't familiar with how Comedy Central does Christianity, watch this video and you'll get an idea of what can be expected should JC ever make it to the airwaves.