Gretchen Carlson

According to the hosts of Fox and Friends, a NewsBusters blog is "guaranteed to make liberal heads explode.” On the April 25th program, the FNC anchors praised a NB piece by Noel Sheppard on the Dalai Lama saying he "loved" President George W. Bush.

The comment occurred during an interview with Piers Morgan.  The Fox & Friends hosts marveled at just how much liberals would hate this statement.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

Comedian Jon Stewart apparently thinks the economy is just fine and that any news outlet that says otherwise must be doing it because they don't want President Obama to get reelected.

Even more preposterous, on Tuesday's Daily Show, the host did an entire segment on how Fox News reporting the national debt, unemployment, and rising gas prices is all a Republican National Committee conspiracy (video follows with highlights and commentary):

Wednesday's Fox and Friends on FNC gave attention to the recent confrontation between HBO host and comedian Bill Maher and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the right-leaning co-host of ABC's The View, as Maher appeared as a guest on the ABC show.

Hasselbeck brought up a tasteless rape joke Maher told earlier in the year on his Real Time show after the sexual assault of CBS correspondent Lara Logan as she reported from Egypt in which he suggested sending Hasselbeck to Egypt.

On Monday's "Fox and Friends," liberal comedian George Lopez all but threw the "Oreo" racial slur at Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain: "The Republicans do know that he's darker than Barack Obama...but whiter on the inside." Lopez also half-jokingly hinted that the Tea Party was racist after host Steve Doocy mentioned Cain had won a Tea Party straw poll: "He wasn't serving the tea, 'cause that's crazy" [audio available here].

Lopez poked fun of the Republican presidential field at the bottom of the 8 am Eastern hour of the Fox News Channel morning show, and began by making fat jokes at the expense of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is rumored to be considering a presidential run: "Should he run, and should he jump in the pool? Not while I'm in there. Let me get out before he cannonballs everybody out of water."

[Video clip available below the jump]

 

"I know you'd like to focus on language, that's not what the American people are focused on."

That's how Democratic Party chairwoman and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz  dismissed "Fox & Friends" co-host Gretchen Carlson earlier today when she asked the DNC chief to repudiate Teamster president James P. Hoffa's "take these sons of bitches out" comment that was directed against the Tea Party at a Labor Day rally that President Obama attended yesterday.

By contrast, earlier this year, Wasserman Schultz insisted to "Meet the Press" host David Gregory that "we have to think about our word choices carefully" and that "we also have to realize that, someone who is unhinged, someone who is mentally unstable, we don't know the slightest thing could set them off."

Our friends at The Right Scoop have video that you can watch embedded below:

Upon receiving the Kennedy Center's Mark Train Prize for American Humor on November 9, comedian Tina Fey trashed Sarah Palin in her acceptance speech.

By the time PBS broadcast the taped ceremony, the taxpayer-subsidized network had edited out some of Fey's harsher jokes that maligned the former Alaska governor.

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell appeared in studio on today's "Fox & Friends" to address the controversy, lauding PBS for doing the right thing by making those edits.

[Video follows after page break]

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, a UCLA graduate student has published a study debunking the myth that the Tea Party is racist.

On Monday, Gretchen Carlson invited the study's author on "Fox & Friends" to do what every news outlet ought to, namely, tell the truth about what the movement that is radically changing the political landscape is really all about (video follows with transcript and commentary):

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs made the rounds of the six broadcast and cable morning news shows on Tuesday morning to help set the table for the President’s speech marking the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Of the six network anchors Gibbs spoke with, only CBS’s Harry Smith failed to ask whether President Obama would extend credit to President Bush for the successful surge strategy (a strategy then-Senator Obama denigrated as futile).

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos recited House GOP Leader John Boehner’s dig at politicians who “fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy,” and then rejected Gibbs claim that Boehner’s was “made up history.” NBC’s Matt Lauer recited Obama’s own words to Gibbs: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are gonna solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Bill O'Reilly on Monday offered an obviously satirical solution to the Gulf oil spill that has generated some ire from the usual suspects on the left: "stuff every member of NBC News in that hole."

As readers are well aware, the Fox News personality has had an ongoing war with General Electric and its television subsidiary over its dramatic left-leaning approach to covering the news.

With that in mind, while chatting with the folks from Fox & Friends by phone Monday about a variety of issues, O'Reilly made the following tongue-in-cheek remark when the subject of the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico surfaced (video follows with partial transcript):

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell appeared on today's "Fox & Friends" to discuss how the media portray Tea Parties as hot beds of extremism and/or racism -- despite the fact Tea Parties have been peaceful affairs with no scrapes with the law -- while violence-plagued rallies held to protest the new anti-illegal immigration law in Arizona law are being defended in the media as "mostly peaceful."

About 45 minutes before that segment, the Fox News hosts mentioned a related April 26 story by NewsBusters contributor Scott Whitlock on the same topic.

The video embedded at right shows both that mention and the Bozell interview (MP3 audio available here).

The three network morning shows have skipped any coverage of an attack on a Tea Party bus in Harry Reid's Nevada, reportedly by supporters of the Democratic Senator. In contrast, FNC's Fox and Friends alerted viewers to the story on Tuesday. Co-host Steve Doocy explained, "Now, apparently, they have identified who some of the egg throwers are. Turns out, they're supporters of Harry Reid."

Doocy continued, "And, in fact, a member of the IBEW, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a big union."

Back in March, when Tea Party protesters were accused of inciting violence against Democratic politicians in Washington, these same morning shows couldn't get enough of the topic. On March 25, Good Morning America reporter Pierre Thomas worried that "angry talk" from Sarah Palin and others could "push a deranged person over the edge."

Imagine the outrage and attempts to implicate hate speech by conservatives if someone planted and threatened to explode bombs, and ended up leaving a suicide note railing against President Obama. But just over a year ago, a similar individual who expressed his hatred of President Bush and Karl Rove in a suicide note received little attention. As Aspen, Colorado, delayed its New Year’s celebrations while the city faced threats from several bombs planted by would-be bank robber James Blanning as he tried to extort money from local banks by threatening to detonate the bombs, little attention was given to the left-wing sentiments expressed in his suicide note in which he railed against President Bush, Karl Rove, the rich, and the war in Iraq.

Anchors Gretchen Carlson on FNC’s Fox and Friends and Tamron Hall on MSNBC News Live mentioned some of the left-wing ramblings on January 2, 2009, while on CNN’s American Morning and The Situation Room, a clip of an Aspen law enforcement official was shown in which he recounted some of the political sentiments. The broadcast networks all reported the general story, but did not mention his political views. FNC’s Carlson informed viewers that Blanning’s note "criticized President Bush," and that he "resented the rich and was upset that Aspen had become a ritzy resort." MSNBC’s Tamron Hall noted that "he hated Bush and Rove with a passion."

CNN’s American Morning twice showed a report by correspondent Thelma Gutierrez that included a clip of Aspen’s Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn relaying that Blanning "had a problem with the Bush administration and wars in the Middle East." The same report ran twice on the same day’s The Situation Room.

Below are transcripts of relevant portions of the January 2, 2009, Fox and Friends on FNC, MSNBC News Live, and CNN’s American Morning and the Situation Room:

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell appeared on FNC's Fox & Friends Feb. 17, to discuss how the networks have covered President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package in the year since its passage.

Using research from MRC's Business & Media Institute, Bozell told cohost Gretchen Carlson that, of 172 stories ABC, CBS and NBC have run on the stimulus, just 90 of them (52 percent) included any criticism of the massive spending program.

Asserting that the media have failed in their responsibility to cover the stimulus, Bozell said, "Remember, the president said very simply - he said we needed $787 billion because we needed to create jobs, jobs, jobs. That's what he said this was all about. He said if we didn't do this, we were going to have - we were going to go from 8 percent unemployment, to 10 percent unemployment."

Holding up for the camera a paper reading "7.7%," Bozell said, "This is where we stood at unemployment when this bill was signed. We spent $787 billion. This is where we stand today." He produced a second paper that read "9.7%."

"So two things are true here," Bozell said. "No. 1: This bill bombed. No. 2: What happened to the $787 billion, and where are the national news media?"

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh believes that many of the Miss America contestants he met last week know more about politics than elected officials he's spoken to.

"I've really been impressed with all of them," Limbaugh told Fox News's Gretchen Carlson in a segment that aired on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday.

In his first interview since being rushed to the hospital in December, Limbaugh discussed the event, how he thought it was "the big one," as well as what he felt about President Obama's State of the Union address last week and the significance of Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts.

Yet, what has really caught the attention of some in the media was Limbaugh's comment, "I love the women's movement -- especially when walking behind it" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t the Right Scoop):

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:

Want to be noticed by any one of the hosts that have a primetime show on MSNBC's weeknight lineup? Just figure out a way to make Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.  the subject matter, and there's an excellent chance either Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow will take a shot at it, or her, during their shows.

In the Oct. 25 Washington Post, George Will penned a column about Bachmann, outlining her ascendancy into the national spotlight, which told of her start in politics and how she grew to become reviled by the left. And it was just a matter time before one of the charming personalities on MSNBC made some sort of remarks about the column, albeit two days later. That came on Olbermann's Oct. 27 "Countdown" broadcast.

Appearing on the September 28 "Fox & Friends," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher mocked the New York Times's admission that it was "slow off the mark" in reporting on the recent ACORN prostitution sting video scandal (audio available here):

It's just like [ABC's] Charlie Gibson days after the fact saying in an interview that he has no idea what ACORN is all about, that he was out yachting. These people just don't get it. When we say that they live in their little world somewhere between the corridors of Washington, D.C., and New York City, it's true.... When they see the real world, they see it through the lens of those right-wing zealots up to no good on Fox television.

"Fox & Friends" co-host Gretchen Carlson asked Bozell how the Times, which most certainly monitors cable news networks for breaking news, "how could they not be aware of those undercover videos?" Bozell answered:

With the recent narrow passage of the controversial Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill in the House and the ongoing debate over global warming, one should expect balanced coverage of both sides of the issue. However, much of the media has neglected to report on the alleged “hush up” of an EPA research analyst whose report on global warming prompted his supervisor to warn it could have had a “very negative impact on this office.”

At 8:45 a.m. EDT on the June 30 edition of "Fox and Friends," EPA Senior Operations Research Analyst Alan Carlin, told interviewer Steve Doocy that his 98-page study that questioned the science behind global warming and called for the EPA to stop depending on reports from the United Nations, was ignored by his supervisor who refused to forward the report on because Carlin’s “comments do not help the legal policy or case” for the EPA’s position on global warming.

Tuesday's Fox and Friends on FNC gave attention to the case of former inspector general Jerry Walpin, of the Corporation for National and Community Service, who was abruptly dismissed from his position, after he headed up an investigation of one of President Obama's political allies for misuse of AmeriCorps funds, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. Co-anchor Steve Doocy also brought up the possibility that Obama had broken the law in firing Walpin without just cause. As he was interviewed by co-hosts Gretchen Carlson and Doocy, Walpin summed up his agency's findings against Johnson:

We found out that Johnson had misused the members of the AmeriCorps volunteers for his own personal purposes, had used them in political campaigns, had used them to wash his car, and had even taken them to New York to lobby for him, and they're supposed to be working tutoring students in Sacramento. He took them to New York to lobby for him to get a charter school charter here in New York.

Walpin also charged that Johnson was never required by the Obama administration to reimburse the $800,000 he owed the government:

Many have claimed the federal government was playing fast and loose with the rules surrounding its takeover of General Motors and the circumstances surrounding the selection of which dealerships would remain open and those that wouldn't. Fox News' Gretchen Carlson came forward with evidence of this through a personal account of dealership closings.

Carlson, a co-host on the Fox News Channel's morning show "Fox & Friends," appeared on Glenn Beck's June 9 program and questioned the logic behind the decision reached by the government and General Motors (GM) to close down a dealership that has been in her family for 90 years.

"I'd like to get a hold of the car czar too," Carlson said. "Never did I think personally that I would need to get a hold of him, but now I do because my parents have owned a General Motors dealership in Anoka, Minn., for 90 years and they were terminated last week and they would like to know why. They would like to know why from the car czar."

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:

As Kathleen Sebelius was sworn in as Secretary of Health and Human Services on April 28, the media continued its biased coverage of her controversial appointment. News outlets ignored the reason GOP senators had delayed her confirmation - her pro-abortion extremism - and focused instead on the importance of having the Secretary in place to combat swine flu.

But the media failed to note that since the creation of The Department of Homeland Security epidemic-fighting efforts are no longer headed up by HHS. Homeland Security is supposed to work with the Center for Disease Control. The CDC is led by Acting Secretary Richard E. Besser since the Obama Administration has yet to nominate anyone for the top job, something the media, with exception of CNN's Ed Henry, haven't reported.

An interview with Former Secretary of HHS Donna Shalala on "Fox and Friends" April 29 asks if having no director at the department had an impact on the swine flu crisis.  Shalala said, "If you remember we transferred the emergency powers for this kind of outbreak to the Department of Homeland Security when it was created. So that power is no longer in HHS. There is no question though that the CDC plays a lead role here and it's very important to get a CDC director as well as the Secretary sworn in."

Major media began shielding Barack Obama from criticism early in the presidential primaries. It's no surprise, then, when they continue to do so today. However, the media's collective, instinctive tone-deafness in regard to grassroots activities continues to stun and amaze.

NewsBusters has so far noted several grassroots efforts that have been ignored – despite similar left-leaning efforts getting fantastic coverage. For example, there was Noel Sheppard's initial entry on the Chicago Tea Parties, and the tiny amount of coverage they received. Then, there was Warner Todd Huston, noting the San Francisco Chronicle's preferential treatment of an anti-Wall Street protest. For the magnum opus, however, we turn to the entire mainstream media's blind eye – pointed squarely at the University of Notre Dame.

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.

Tuesday's broadcast media inaugural coverage "really was over-the-top" with journalists falling over themselves to describe the Obama ceremony in glorious overtones, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell told the crew of "Fox & Friends" earlier this morning. 

"Look, Obama is their investment. They did the best they could to elect him," and now the media will avoid sharply criticizing the man they helped put in office, the NewsBusters publisher told Fox News Channel viewers, appearing via video link from the MRC's new studio in Alexandria, Va. [audio excerpt available here]

Yet even if they wanted to critically cover the new president, the downsizing of the mainstream media ensures that they don't have the staff to provide the public with hard-hitting reporting, Mr. Bozell added.

Presumably after having read NewsBusters Senior Editor Rich Noyes's January 14 blog on the matter, the hosts of "Fox & Friends" today discussed the Associated Press's double standard on presidential inauguration spending.

STEVE DOOCY: When you look back at how the mainstream media described his [George W. Bush's second] inaugural, back when he spent about $40 million on it... critics, for instance, writers at the Associated Press said, "look, we are in a time of war and we are facing all sorts of challenges." That money, four years ago, they said, should be used to armor up humvees and to protect our men and women overseas....You fast forward four years, suddenly we've forgetten all about those AP stories, where people are going, "George Bush's inauguration extravagant," now you're tripling the money. Where's the outcry?!

Vice President for the Business & Media Institute, Dan Gainor, spoke with Gretchen Carlson, host of "America's News HQ," about the decline of media and particularly newspapers.

"The model for media in general is not working. We had a great model for a long time for networks, great model for print, nobody's been able to come up with a way to deal with the internet and make a ton of cash just yet," Gainor said on the Fox News broadcast Dec. 9.

Gainor noted the advertising troubles of print media in particular -- advertising is down 9 percent.

"So you've got newspapers around the country shedding jobs. They predicted 43,000 newspaper jobs lost in the last couple years. That's devastating an industry," Gainor said.