On Friday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann suggested that Fox News is a racist organization that would hold race or religion against its employees in awarding promotions, as he used the show’s "Worst Person" segment to slam Fox and Friends co-hosts Brian Kilmeade, Gretchen Carlson, and Peter Johnson, for raising questions about whether Muslims serving in the military should be treated with more attention. While every show in MSNBC’s primetime and morning lineups has a host who is white and non-Muslim, Olbermann suggested that the Fox and Friends hosts would have trouble succeeding at FNC if they were Muslim or non-white. Olbermann: "Since we’re asking questions, I have one for Carlson, Johnson, and Kilmeade. You guys ever wonder if you all succeeded inside a company like Fox mostly because you’re not Muslim or black or Asian or Hispanic?"

Olbermann's allegation ignores FNC personalities like Geraldo Rivera and Julie Banderas, who have hosted their own shows; and Juan Williams and Michelle Malkin who have both guest hosted for The O'Reilly Factor in addition to their work as contributors. Even on Fox and Friends, Lauren Green used to read the show's news briefs.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the "Worst Person in the World" segment from the Friday, November 6, Countdown show on MSNBC:

Gregory Hall, a former employee of scandal-plagued ACORN, labeled the organization “the most corrupt group in the country” on Wednesday’s Fox and Friends on FNC. Hall placed the blame squarely on the national leaders of the left-wing group: “They’re the ones that are constantly giving the orders that say- make the money, no matter what- lie, steal, cheat- and I’ve got the witnesses to prove it” [audio clips from the segement are available here].

Anchor Steve Doocy first asked the ACORN critic if he was surprised by the recently released undercover videos showing employees of the organization trying to abet underage prostitution, tax evasion, and other crimes. Hall answered, “No, I’m not surprised,” and explained that “there is not much good in ACORN anymore, as far as its mission, and definitely not through its executive board.”

Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater suggested conservatives in general and Fox News in particular are hypocrites for questioning why President Barack Obama failed to publicly observe the National Day of Prayer.

Slater wrote in his May 7 Religion Blog post:

Fox & Friends is on fire this morning stoking the controversy over President Obama not publicly observing the National Day of Prayer as predecessor George W. Bush did. Lots of graphics about how many churches are near the White House. Much gnashing of teeth over the president slighting godly expression. No mention of Matthew 6:5-6:

"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret."

Based on Slater's timestamp and his note about the graphics, it appears his post was a response to the 7:08 AM EST discussion on "Fox & Friends" between co-hosts Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade:

We hope Chris Matthews isn't too jealous of Bill Weir. Conquering fierce competition, the ABC reporter pulled out a victory last night in the "Obamagasm Award" at the MRC's DisHonors Awards. [audio available here]

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell chatted about the ceremony this morning on "Fox & Friends."

JULIET HUDDY, co-host: There's something called the Obamagasm Award. Who won that and explain the significance of that award?

BRENT BOZELL, MRC President: Well, the Obamagasm Award is given to that reporter who has swooned the most, and I mean there are all manner of descriptors --

BRIAN KILMEADE, co-host: Tough category here!

BOZELL: for the media's coverage.

STEVE DOOCY, co-host: Exactly right. Brent, we've got the clip, let's look at Bill Weir of ABC.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell had already been scheduled to appear on today's "Fox & Friends" to discuss last night's MRC Gala and Media DisHonors Awards, but President Barack Obama's laid a golden egg with his joke about the Special Olympics last night on NBC's "The Tonight Show." So the latest Obama gaffe and the media's interest in it was the first topic co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade asked the NewsBusters publisher about (audio available here) this morning:

KILMEADE: Brent, that comment. How big a deal?

BOZELL: Well, in the eyes of the regular press, no big deal at all. They're just simply going to overlook it. If past is prologue, they refuse to do any serious kind of journalism work on Obama, candidate or president. But, this is the kind of thing that is beginning to percolate out there. What is becoming evident is when you turn the teleprompter off, this man is capable of making all manner of mistakes, and the more he stays in the public eye, doing this type of thing without a teleprompter, the more mistakes he's going to make.

It’s not a cartoon of a turban-shaped bomb, and probably nobody will threaten violence over it, but members of a religion are outraged over a depiction, and the networks aren’t interested. Only Fox News covered the story about a blasphemous condom advertisement.

Catholics and Protestants alike are furious over a flier that appeared on the University of Georgia campus displaying the famous Michelangelo painting of God reaching out to touch Adam’s hand. The fliers included a condom between God and Adams’ fingers, accompanied by the text, “Condom Tip #5: Carefully open condom wrappers with your fingers- don’t use a sharp object.” The fliers were posted around campus as a promotion for the university’s Sexual Responsibility Week.

"Sometimes, Brian, I think we live in a parallel universe, where the media see the world one way when it's a Democrat in power and another way when a Republican is in power," NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News Channel's Brian Kilmeade. [audio of segment available here]

The Media Research Center president appeared on the January 16 "Fox & Friends" to discuss an astounding contrast that illustrates the media's liberal biases: the Associated Press scorned the roughly $40 million spent on the 2005 Bush inauguration but is assuring readers that it's okay to glam it up for the 2009 Obama inauguration.:

BRENT BOZELL: Look at these headlines. We found this, this is from AP. Four years ago on the eve of George Bush's second inauguration. This is the lede: "President Bush's second inauguration will cost tens of millions of dollars. Forty million alone in private donations for parties, balls, etc. Then it goes on to say, what else could that money buy..... Now, four years later, same AP news outlet. A story on Barack Obama. According to the Guardian newspaper, he could spend as much as $150 million. That would be three times more than George Bush spent. This is their [AP's] lede: "So you're attending an inaugural ball saluting the historic election of Barack Obama in the worst economic climate in three generations. Can you get away with glitzing it up and still be appropriate not to mention comfortable and finacially viable? To quote the man of the hour, 'Yes, you can.' Veteran ballgoers say you should, and fashionistas say you must."

Appearing on the Election Day eve edition of "Fox & Friends," MRC's Brent Bozell reacted to the how the media, starting with the San Francisco Chronicle, hit the proverbial snooze button with Sen. Barack Obama's remarks about bankrupting the coal industry:

Everyone talks about the need for alternative energy.... The problem is that everytime an alternative comes forward, someone on the Left always shoots it down. That's why you don't have more growth in the coal industry or in the nuclear industry. The reason these things never come to the fore is because on the Left, they're always shot down in the final analysis. And Barack Obama just said it again, he's going to do it.

During the segment, co-host Brian Kilmeade noted that a McCain staffer Rick Davis said simply of the media's coverage of the campaign, "it sucked." Bozell agreed, hitting the media for bias by omission:

"What you've got here is a situation of the bias by commission at work where they are just promoting Obama at every opportunity, and then the bias by omission which is even more egregious, which is refusing to challenge him on anything," Media Research Center President Brent Bozell argued on the October 27 "Fox and Friends."

Bozell appeared on the Fox News Channel morning show to discuss an MRC study showing the broadcast networks by a 3:1 margin attack McCain ads for factual errors over Obama ad inaccuracies.

The NewsBusters publisher also discussed the Obama campaign shutting out a Florida TV station from access to interviews after a news anchor asked Sen. Joe Biden about charges that Sen. Barack Obama's policies were "Marxist" being predicated on "spread[ing] the wealth around.":

Rush Limbaugh on Friday called the New York Times "the public relations department for the Barack Obama campaign and the Democrat Party."

Speaking by phone with the folks on "Fox & Friends," the conservative radio talk show host depicted the media's coverage of Obama during this presidential campaign as "the most irresponsible journalistic exhibition I have seen in my life."

Limbaugh also claimed these same biased news outlets do polls today exclusively "to shape opinion, not reflect it."

What follows is a partial, rough transcript of this discussion (video embedded right):

As NewsBusters previously reported, the same broadcast networks that two years ago could not get enough of the Mark Foley scandal, are offering little to no coverage of Foley’s successor, Tim Mahoney, now embroiled in a sex scandal of his own. The networks on October 21 completely ignored the news that Congressman Mahoney’s wife is now filing for divorce. Fox News’ "Fox and Friends" only provided a brief news read. After co-host Brian Kilmeade read the brief, Steve Doocy editorialized "I think [the Foley] scandal got more ink, didn’t it?"

In related news, Mark Foley himself recently announced his endorsement for Barack Obama. Though Obama won over another Republican, it’s a safe assumption it will not receive the same news coverage as Colin Powell.

Update: Mark Foley issued a statement denying his support for Obama:

It is no surprise that Barack Obama receives much better treatment in the media than John McCain, but the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs actually conducted a study that concluded just that. The Center’s evaluation found that since both candidates were formally nominated "Senator Obama on the network evening news shows have been 65% positive, compared to only 36% positive about John McCain."

While the networks ignored the study, the October 20 edition of "Fox and Friends" interviewed CMPA’s founder Robert Lichter. Lichter noted that Obama fits the media’s template of a "fresh face," "some sort of special dimensions," and "charismatic quality." He did note that the media eventually sours on such candidates, but curiously have not done so for Senator Obama.

Liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz stormed out of a "Fox & Friends" debate Friday morning with conservative talk radio host Steve Malzberg that involved Barack Obama's tax plan and the now famous Joe the Plumber.

After discussing the state of the current presidential campaign, the issue of Joe Wurzelbacher -- the Ohio man who recently challenged Obama over how the candidate's tax plan would negatively impact him if he bought into a plumbing business he was looking at -- surfaced.

Malzberg was first up, and claimed that Obama's plan "takes the incentive out of America; that's Marxism, my friend. Marxism."

After a loud guffaw, Schultz responded (video embedded right):

While the networks and much of the mainstream media channeled their outrage at Sarah Palin for daring to mention Barack Obama’s ties to terrorist Bill Ayers, the October 9 "Fox and Friends" featured a victim of Mr. Ayers, John Murtagh, whose home was bombed at the age of nine. Murtagh explained that the Obama-Ayers relationship goes back to the 1980's, when they met at a law firm.

Further elaborating on the activities of a Weather Underground splinter group when Obama was attending college in New York City, Murtagh editorialized "for Barack Obama to attend Columbia shortly after these events, being in New York at that time and not know who the Weather Underground was, frankly, makes him the dumbest man that ever graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law School." When Brian Kilmeade replied "we know he’s not," Murtagh agreed.

To explain the high level of hatred for Governor Sarah Palin, the September 18 edition of "Fox and Friends" invited Bloomberg News columnist Caroline Baum. Ms. Baum, who claims to have studied it extensively, later used a vulgar term to describe which direction women voters will lean.

The Bloomberg columnist explained that Governor Palin "made the Democrats’ road to the White House less inevitable." Democrats, feeling a sense of entitlement, are outraged that, in a very hostile political environment for the Republicans, this election remains competitive. When Gretchen Carlson asked what this close election means "for the future of the Democratic party" Baum hypothesized that the Democrats are "bankrupt in terms of appealing to the population in terms of ideas."

Warning: vulgarity below.

Barack Obama, who boasts about his alleged "post partisan" philosophy, can not seem to resist appeasing the left wing blogosphere by making cheap shots at Fox News. Obama, who enjoys overwhelmingly positive coverage from the mainstream press, blasted Fox News for daring to interview an author critical of him.

"I don’t find myself particularly scary or particularly risky. But, but, you know, I mean they’re good at it. So they got these ads with Paris and Britney. They’ve got some guy who just wrote a book. He’s just making stuff up. Just make stuff up. But it gets a lot of play on Fox News."

The co-hosts of "Fox and Friends" responded to this attack on the August 21 edition. Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy acknowledged that Jerome Corsi, author of "Obama Nation," did appear on "Fox and Friends," but to debate Democratic partisan Bob Beckel.

Steve Doocy also noted Fox News was not the only venue that gave Jerome Corsi air time. Both CNN and C-SPAN interviewed Corsi.

The entire transcript is below.

"Fox and Friends" called out left wing anchor Keith Olbermann on his own lies. The co-hosts on the June 4 edition of "Fox and Friends" discussed the TV Newser story that NBC veteran Tim Russert is reportedly taking orders from Olbermann. Steve Doocy noted Olbermann’s rising in the ranks at NBC and also a blogging for the hard left site, "Daily Kos."

After Gretchen Carlson responded to Olbermann’s intelligence insult, Doocy noted Olbermann’s claim he does not go after public figure’s children, but named Doocy’s own son "Worst Person in the World." Doocy fumed "So next time you see Keith Olbermann on TV, just remember he is somebody who picks on people’s children. And he is a liar."

Olbermann also named Doocy’s son "Worst Person in the World," after issuing an apology for David Shuster’s Chelsea Clinton "pimped out" comment.

The entire transcript is below.

The news media have covered recent economic trials with four times as much negativity as they covered the worst economic period in the nation's history - the Great Depression - a new study from the Business & Media Institute shows.

"They were four times more negative during the Bear Stearns buyout than the worst economic couple days in our country's history," BMI Vice President Dan Gainor said on "Fox & Friends" May 27, announcing the release of the new study, "The Great Media Depression."

This morning's "Fox & Friends" repeated some misreporting on a dozen nuns who were supposedly "barred" from voting yesterday at their South Bend, Indiana, polling station due to lack of proper ID. As I noted in my May 6 blog entry, the sisters were not refused the vote, they chose not to vote using the provisional balloting option. [audio available here]

As the AP's Deborah Hastings reported in an early draft that was later excised from her story:

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

Of course last night's race between Clinton and Obama was close, but not by a margin of 12 votes. Simply put, these sisters could have voted and opted to not follow up with the validation process should none of the races they voted in remain undecided within the 10-day window. In other words, no one barred these sisters from voting but the sisters themselves.

[This was first posted on January 1, 2008] On the Tuesday, January 1 Fox and Friends, Democratic strategist and FNC contributor Bob Beckel found amusing Hillary Clinton's contention that her trip to Bosnia in 1996, which Clinton has been accused of exaggerating as a dangerous mission despite the presence of daughter Chelsea and comedian Sinbad on the plane as she mentioned the need for a "corkscrew" landing and running on the tarmac in case of sniper attack, was evidence of her foreign policy experience. Clinton's comments, which were a response to Barack Obama's charges that her foreign policy experience consisted only of talking and "having tea" with foreign dignitaries, evoked an amused and cynical reaction from the liberal Beckel: "It's almost too hard to say this straight. I mean, I've had a few corkscrew landings myself, but I was not, well, it had been a long night before I did it. I mean, I don't know what that gives you in terms of foreign policy experience except a bad case of heartburn. I probably would have thought of something else besides that. I wonder what Sinbad did during that landing. I wonder if she hid behind him or not. Dangerous that would probably be." (Transcript follows)