Media bias doesn't operate by outright lies (usually). Instead it operates by settling on and relentlessly repeating an overly-simple and therefore deceptive narrative. The Washington Post's article yesterday morning about how meaningful climate change legislation is being stifled (but only on this side of the Atlantic) by economic concerns in Climate Change Debate Hinges on Economics. There are those of us who are grateful for such concerns, but the Post seems disturbed by them. Naturally, the issue is cast as a morality play, with the selfless Europeans facing off against the narrow-minded Americans. The truth is, naturally, a little more, ah, nuanced.

The potential economic impact of meaningful climate legislation -- enough to reduce U.S. emissions by at least 60 percent -- is vast. Automobiles would have to get double their current miles to the gallon. Building codes would have to be tougher, requiring use of more energy-efficient materials. To stimulate and pay for new technologies, U.S. electricity bills could rise by 25 to 33 percent, some experts estimate; others say the increase could be greater.

Someone at the AP must really like Stephen Colbert. A bait-and-switch June 3 article was supposedly about a new book by Afghanistan-born author Khaled Hosseini, but gave readers stealth fanboy journalism that wrote a play by play of Colbert’s shtick without discussing the book. From the reporting, the BookExpo America breakfast was more like a segment of the “Colbert Report” than a national book fair discussion. Instead of any information about the book, it was line after line of Colbert coverage, "That Stephen Colbert sure is funny, and he sure has some funny ideas about books. Just ask "The Kite Runner" author Khaled Hosseini."

Video update below- 11:52 EST:

 “Entertainment Weekly's” online site, EW.com, is usually politics-free, but not this week. Who would have thought that EW's “Lost” blogger could inject a little Bush Derangement Syndrome into a review of the show's May 23 season finale? Somehow, writer Jeff Jensen managed to find a way (spoilers ahead).  

In case you aren’t a “Lost” viewer, here’s what you need to know to help explain this article about the show's season closer entitled “Through The Looking Glass.” Ben, the leader of the Others, intercepted the retreating Losties to negotiate with their leader Jack. Three Losties stayed behind to attack the Others’ but were taken hostage in the process. Ben threatened to have them killed by their captors if Jack didn’t follow his demands. So, now that the scene is set up, here is the BDS in full glory (emphasis mine):

Did you know that the Palestinian Authority believes Al Qaeda-linked groups are trying to assassinate Palestinian political leaders and are responsible for Sunday's deadly attack on a co-ed children's festival at a UN-run elementary school in Gaza? What about the attackers using sharia law as the reason? No? Well, if you weren't reading a handful of the foreign press, you wouldn't know. What little US reporting there was, as is often the case,  was based on the AP. Unfortunately, the AP omitted any Al Qaeda references, the rise of Salafism [which the article explained is a branch of Islam that is often referred to as Wahhabism—"a derogatory term...” to many adherents] as well as the “other al-Qaida-linked groups” terrorizing Gaza and the resulting violent enforcement of sharia:

The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh led with what should be the most important parts of this story, especially to US readers (emphasis mine throughout):

Palestinian Authority security officials accused supporters of al-Qaida in the Gaza Strip of carrying out Sunday's attack on a UNRWA-run school [U.N. Relief and Works Agency] in Rafah in which one person was killed and six others were wounded.

"There is no doubt that al-Qaida is operating in the Gaza Strip," a senior PA security official said. "Today's attack carries the fingerprints of al-Qaida." (...)

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Real Earnings News Release yesterday:

Average weekly earnings rose by 4.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March 2006 to March 2007. After deflation by the CPI-W, average weekly earnings increased by 1.6 percent.

And here's one for Paul "the rich are getting it all" Krugman of the New York Times -- Note who is being surveyed when these numbers are determined:

Earnings series from the monthly establishment series are estimated arithmetic averages (means) of the hourly and weekly earnings of all production or nonsupervisory jobs in the private nonfarm sector of the economy.

It's Joe and Josephine Sixpack whose earnings have "really" increased in the past year.

Even more confirmation came from BLS today:

Lordy, Lordy (HT Instapundit), the economic "surprises" don't stop. The report is from AFP:

Economists are hastily upgrading their forecasts for the US economy after a series of surprisingly strong reports suggesting the so-called "soft landing" may be over and growth is accelerating.

Over the past week, surprises have come in stronger-than-expected reports on US job creation, the trade balance and retail sales -- all key contributors to economic activity.

Lehman Brothers chief US economist Ethan Harris on Friday boosted his forecast for fourth quarter 2006 growth to an annualized rate of 3.3 percent, a leap from the firm's prior call for just 2.0 percent growth.

"After slowing in November, the economy seems to have regained its stride," Harris said.

..... The latest data defy predictions that the slump in real estate would filter into other areas of the economy, notably consumer spending.

The latest data showed US employers added a healthy 167,000 new jobs in December (196,000 with revisions to prior months -- Ed.), with unemployment holding at a low 4.5 percent. Average wages were up 4.2 percent annually.

That's what happens when economists like Ethan Harris read too much Paul Krugman and Rex Nutting, and not enough of yours truly (see cautious "3% or more" prediction about halfway through the post).

This past week saw The Washington Post ask a classically liberal question: Is America more racist or sexist?

Following the lead of this major paper, ABC’s Diane Sawyer asked the same question, adding a surreptitious angle. She wondered, "Is the nation, secretly, I guess, more racist or more sexist?"

The "Good Morning America" host wasn’t through, however. On Tuesday, she offered the query again. This time, Sawyer added a new spin, "secret genderism." The recipient of the question, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, readily agreed. America is guilty, she asserted, it just isn’t "very secret."

Speaking of The Washington Post, ever wonder how many times the paper mentioned "macaca?" According to MRC President Brent Bozell, the paper featured the phrase no less then 112 times!

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann absurdly linked domestic terrorism to "right-wing blogs."

While Olbermann slimed conservatives, CNN labeled the current low gas prices "a recovery." Why, just a few weeks ago, the falling costs represented a link between "Big Oil" and the GOP. What a difference an election makes!

First there was "Dowdification," named after the NYT columnist's deliberate truncation of a speech by President Bush to falsely imply he had said al Qaeda was "no longer a problem. Now, Patterico (aka Patrick Frey) suggests a new term, "Isikoffed" for the Newsweek reporter who similarly truncated a memo by Alberto Gonzales to make the Bush admin look like it considers all the Geneva Conventions to be "quaint" when it comes to the war on terrorism. Instead, Gonzales was making the sensible point that some of them, such as the requiring prison guards to provide inmates with scientific instruments and athletic clothes, are obsolete.

That the MSM has not sufficiently corrected the record on this point continues to be a problem since many liberals in and out of the blogosphere continue to believe this bit of misinformation.

Update 11:02. While you're over at Patterico's, be sure and read his post about how the LA Times is providing cover for a left-wing church leader who basically said voting for Republicans is a sin.

Don't let the title of the article by Washington Post staff writer Dan Balz fool you. Though the title reads: "Bush's Midterm Challenge--Rebuilding Public Support May Bolster GOP Candidates," one comes away after reading the piece thankful that the elections are not till November.

Still, one cannot help but feel anything but optimistic if one depended on such as the mainstream media for its cues.

Balz opens the piece in typical Bush-bashing fashion, a hallmark of liberal writers and observers, stating that the State of the Union Address to be given by the president on Tuesday is "eagerly anticipated by Democrats and fraught with worries for Republicans, whose hopes in November may depend in large part on how successfully Bush can turn around his troubled presidency."

     It is all too common these days to see former U.S. Presidents rush off overseas and proceed to overtly and negatively criticize the current administration in office. 

     In the latest test to the adage of "politics stopping at the water's edge," former U. S.  President Bill Clinton went to Davos, Switzerland and the World Economic Forum and proceeded to blame the U.S.--via the current administration--for everything the ails mankind, and maybe a few things that don't. 

     On Thursday, angry liberal readers of the Washington Post forced the ombudsmen of the paper, Deborah Howell, to shut it down.  In her Sunday column, written on 1/15, Howell wrote that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties," prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog. 

     So much for our open-minded, elitist friends on the left, who are all to glad to once again enact another episode of "Do as I say, and not as I do."  This is the same bunch that screams for openness and truth in media reporting, but only IF it hurts the GOP.

Sometimes a story comes along that may look to be something particular, but then turns out not to be.  The story written by Associated Press (AP) journalist Patrick Condon titled: "Sign Tallying Iraq Casualties Causes Stir" is just such a story.

Condon seeks to portray Vietnam veteran Scott Cameron as anything but an anti-war, politically motivated Democrat, who just so happens to have his "modest memorial" to U.S. forces posted in the Campaign office of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Steve Kelley. Kelley's office just also happens to be next door to the Army's military recruiters office.

In a somewhat sad but, unfortunately, true article, the UK Guardian Unlimited ran a story written by the Guardian's Jamie Wilson Titled: "Stars turn backs on America's troops in Iraq". 

Wilson goes on to directly charge that today’s Hollywood elites cite "danger" as well as an "anti-war stance" as to what keeps celebrities away. Wilson also cited, perhaps a bit too distressingly, that the "Show now depends on Christian hip-hop groups."

Almost immediately into the story titled "Mexico Retaliates for Border Wall Plan," written by Associated Press staff writer Mark Stevenson, it easy to see where the AP's sympathies lie, and that is squarely with law-breaking illegal aliens, or what the AP calls "migrants" or "migrant workers."

The piece is an out and out condemnation of the House of Representatives recent bill that passed just last week that will employ tough new immigration deterrents, among them a 700-mile security fence, and an end to the 50,000 per-year diversity visa lottery.

UCLA political scientist Tim Groseclose releases results from a study that objectively quantifies media bias.

Take a wild guess how that came out.

Yes, Virginia, there is a leftist media bias. The only real surprises are that the Wall Street Journal news pages and the Drudge Report are more liberal than they get credit for.

While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left. ...

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) noted the bias of the New York Times on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal." The show's host quoted from a pessemistic NYT story about the military situation in Mosul, Iraq. Kingston, who recently returned from an extensive trip to Mosul and first-hand talks with GI's and officers questioned the story thus: "Now, would that be on the New York Times editorial page or their regular page?" The host said the regular page. Kingston replied with a smile: "And there is a difference? I would only have to say that when you cite the New York Times, it is not exactly objective."

Rep. Kingston also blasted the major networks as "overwhelmingly pessimistic" and increasingly negative." He further cited the MRC study, TV's Bad News Brigade, to buttress his arguments.

In its usual over-the-top manner, the New York Times has once again treated the destruction of New Orleans due to ravages of Hurricane Katrina as a product of the Bush administration.

The Times's Sunday lead editorial, "Death of an American City," waits until two-thirds of the way down the article to place blame on something other than the federal government: the local and state government officials who run New Orleans and Louisiana. The Times neglects to mention that it is Democrats who primarily run the government in both New Orleans and the State house.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, an outspoken Democrat, seems to catch lots of attention, locally. Will it stay that way? The Democrats in Nevada want him to run for governor, to replace their Republican Governor, Kenny Guinn. According the Las Vegas Sun, 5 October 2005:

But some close to him have said the mayor is seriously considering a run, and the latest poll suggests he's the best hope for the Democrats.

A Zogby International poll released Tuesday found Goodman was the only Democrat to top Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., the Republican front-runner and early favorite in the 2006 governor's race.

This is all a bit amazing. In March of 2005, the Los Vegas Sun story line is, "Mayor endorses gin to fourth graders." Other times, he's more politically movivated on the national level, out attacking President Bush's conservative judicial nominations. But yesterday, he's out promoting the idea of cutting off the thumbs of graffati artists who deface public property. Wait! He’s not finished. He even suggests that the government step in and start whipping and caning the kids that are in trouble. Anyone see the ACLU coming?
By the way, here's how you find out the Mayor's political leanings. Well, you'll have to go search. The media just leaves it out. If the politician does or says something outrageous, possibly illegal, and he is a Democrat, his party affiliation won't be mentioned - good luck finding out. That is, if the story is even printed. If he/she is a Republican, it will be right up top, and then the news will miraculously appear all over the media. Here's the news - oh, too bad Aaron Brown is gone, we're sure that this one would have been covered in tomorrows news segment. Right. In the November 03, 2005 Las Vegas Sun:

The October 28, 2005 Print Edition of Entertainment Weekly features a column entitled "Good Witch? Narnia gets a double-edged endorsement." (Pg. 16)

Writing for EW, Michelle Kung notes that a religious endorsement by James Dobson's group "Focus on the Family" can hurt the upcoming movie Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, giving the group the introduction as being a "controversial conservative group led by Dr. James Dobson that's known for a staunch anti-gay marriage platform."

Kung states: "Sure, the prospect of 2 million ticket buyers is alluring. But is the endorsement of a potentially polarizing political/religous interest group worth it?... Aggressively publicized thumbs-ups from groups like FOF could turn off secular audiences."

Shortly, the 2,000th death of an American serviceman or woman will occur in Iraq. That will generate an orgy of coverage in the American press on how “deadly” the war is. Sidebars will suggest that citizens are becoming “increasingly doubtful” about the conduct of the war. This Newsbusters article denounces that coverage as dishonest, in advance.

I wrote on 24 April, 2004, that the War on Terror is the LEAST bloody war in the history of the United States, measured by deaths per month. This is true going back to the Revolutionary War, even though the nation’s population then was only 1 percent of what it is today. (In impact on the population, every death in the Revolution was equivalent to about 100 deaths today.)

Source: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=7041