Alessandra Stanley

When one of the nation's most liberal papers thinks the nation's most liberal cable news network is too biased, the owners of said network should sit up and take notice.

Consider what Alessandra Stanley wrote about MSNBC at the New York Times Tuesday:

Wrapping up the New York Times' coverage of Rep. Peter King’s Congressional hearings Thursday on Islamic radicalism in the United States:

The front-page New York Times story Friday on King’s hearings strangely featured not a hard news story, but a quasi-review by television-beat reporter Alessandra Stanley, “Terror Hearing Puts Lawmakers in Harsh Light.”

One member of Congress broke down and cried. Another was so incensed that she waved a pocket-size copy of the Constitution and declared, “This breathing document is in pain.” And there were so many angry charges of McCarthyism and countercharges of “political correctness” that it sometimes seemed that the topic at hand on Thursday in Washington was the radicalization of the House Homeland Security Committee, not American Muslims.

Why put “political correctness” in delegitimizing quotes but not “McCarthyism”?

The last time a major disaster threatened the U.S. Gulf Coast, journalists dropped any pretense of objectivity and openly scorned what they saw as the ineffective response of the Bush administration to Hurricane Katrina. And top media writers found it just wonderful that the press was taking a side, with New York Times’ critic Alessandra Stanley saluting “a rare sense of righteous indignation by a news media that is usually on the defensive.”

Now, there are gentle suggestions that the Obama administration dropped the ball in the days after the oil rig explosion that triggered a 5,000 barrel per day leak that threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill as the worst in U.S. history. Today’s lead story in the New York Times determined that “a review of the response suggests it may be too simplistic to place all the blame for the unfolding environmental catastrophe on the oil company. The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP,” a theme echoed in an editorial, as Noel Sheppard notes below.

Not exactly “righteous indignation,” but the story isn’t over, yet.

In contrast, here’s some of what the critics had to say about the media’s adversarial approach when George W. Bush was in the White House:

Two of the three network evening newscasts are going to offer women as the lead anchors, and yet, the New York Times is still whiny. TV critic Alessandra Stanley dropped this ridiculous line in a Sunday Week In Review piece:

As in other fields, women seem to break through the glass ceiling just as the air-conditioning is being turned off in the penthouse office suites. Women anchors may turn out to be what women doctors once were in the Soviet Union, a majority without status or financial advantage.

"Without status" is just silly, but not as silly as "without financial advantage." Katie Couric makes $15 million a year at CBS; Diane Sawyer reportedly makes between $12 and $15 million a year. How they're disadvantaged is anyone's guess.

Stanley also uncharitably placed Brian Williams in a self-pitying category:

Mr. Williams, who ascended to the position of NBC anchor on the shoulders of an old boys’ club, now has to reposition himself as a member of a persecuted minority, the white male anchorman.

Rich Noyes posted a funny item Saturday on the hypocrisy of Katie Couric's catty Internet commentary attacking the New York Times for seven errors in one Cronkite appreciation piece by Alessandra Stanley. All the news that's still unfit for print? Let's just add the actual, mind-boggling text of their correction, taken apart, one by one:

1. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30.

2. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches.

3. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26.

4. "The CBS Evening News" overtook "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970.

5. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar.

After the winner of "American Idol" is crowned, the appropriate action is to congratulate the newly crowned Idol on his success. Yet on May 21 media focus was clearly elsewhere. That day, reports on all three networks' morning broadcasts, marveled at how Kris Allen beat Adam Lambert and gave unusual attention to contestants who did not win, but are still successful, leaving little doubt that these hosts and reporters believe something wasn't right about Allen's victory.

Allen and Lambert are very different. Allen, a married twenty-three year old, is a college student from Arkansas. He grew throughout the season as a performer and was often labeled as humble. Lambert, on the hand, was an edgy performer who has become known for his "guyliner," or extensive use of black eyeliner. Although he was a frontrunner and often praised by the judges, his sexuality was often questioned, especially after photos hit the Web in which he appeared to be kissing another man.

The Obama-loving media might hate Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, but according to preliminary estimates, the Alaska governor's guest appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" gave the program its highest ratings in over fourteen years.

This seems to go hand in hand with the great reception Palin got Saturday evening from the audience in attendance for the live broadcast who enthusiastically applauded as she walked onto the stage during the program's opening sketch.

Maybe even more surprising, they weren't the only typically liberal New Yorkers enthralled with the Alaska governor, for the New York Times' television critic actually gave Palin a very solid review.

But before we get there, here's what Reuters reported moments ago (emphasis added):

On Wednesday, New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley rejected the notion of a pro-Obama bias as the junior senator from Illinois traveled abroad. The media wasn’t boosting Obama. They merely noticed the fact that he is "supremely confident" and looks like he’s already president. He is displaying "classic Kennedy style" and practicing "statesmanly restraint." McCain can’t complain about media bias because his stagecraft is "unflattering."

The "effusion of coverage" is just "the news" that Obama is already so unusually presidential in appearance, she wrote:  

But it’s not pro-Obama bias in the news media that’s driving the effusion of coverage, it’s the news: Mr. Obama’s weeklong tour of war zones and foreign capitals is noteworthy because it is so unusual to see a presidential candidate act so presidential overseas. Mr. Obama looks supremely confident and at home talking to generals and heads of state, so much so that some viewers may find the pose presumptuous -- as if Mr. Obama believes that not only is his official nomination at the Democratic convention in August a mere formality, so is the November election...

New York Times reporter Alessandra Stanley watched Michelle Obama's performance as co-host of the morning chat panel "The View" for her Thursday "TV Watch" report, "Michelle Obama Highlights Her Warmer Side," and came away raving about Obama's "all but flawless performance."

But before that, Stanley worked in some snipes against Republicans. After stating unconvincingly that Michelle Obama had "endured far more virulent attacks by her critics" than had Cindy McCain, Stanley succumbed to smug liberal stereotyping and, in a stretch bizarre even for her, reached back to the Equal Rights Amendment to explain why Republican presidential spouses are supposedly passive housewives:

Alessandra Stanley, the New York Times's reporter on the TV beat, framed the 2008 presidential campaign in her own inimitable way in the lead story of the special Emmy section of Sunday's paper, terming the Barack-Hillary contest the hit of the season in "No Debate: It's Great TV."

But Stanley really stretched things when, in a slanted attempt to get John McCain into the mix, she cited hypothetical people who prefer the original, rather campy Battlestar Galactica series, starring Lorne Greene, to the award-winning re-launch on the Sci Fi Channel.

New York Times TV-beat reporter Alessandra Stanley reviewed "Recount," the HBO film about the controversial aftermath of the 2000 presidential campaign vote in Florida. 

Many have commented on how the movie clearly visualizes the contest through a Democratic prism. Predictably, Stanley loved it, and let her opinion of one major GOP character (often loathed by liberals who accuse her of handing the election to Bush) very clear.

"Recount," an astute and deliciously engrossing film on HBO this Sunday night, retells the tale of Florida in all its bizarre and inglorious moments, from haggling over the "hanging chad" and "butterfly ballots" to the ruckus between the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, and the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. "Recount" is not satire; it's a mordantly serious look at a moment when character, political influence and luck fatefully collided.

Then it was time for some Katherine Harris-hating:

Based on what Times Watch has read, “Friends of God: A Road Trip With Alexandra Pelosi,” the documentary on Christian evangelicals airing on HBO tonight (Pelosi being the daughter of you-know-who) seems more respectful than the contemptuous anti-Christian commentary it's generated, including a paragraph Thursday from television critic Alessandra Stanley.

Stanley claims, in her own inimitable way:

After comparing Al Jazeera's core audience to that of Fox News, Alessandra Stanley's review of the Arab-language channel's American debut notes: "A promo for an upcoming program described American policy in Iraq as George Bush's 'alleged war on terror.'"

Sound familiar?

From Wednesday's lead Times editorial: "The nation's image is at stake, as well as the safety of every man and woman who is fighting Mr. Bush's so-called war on terror."

The Times can't get enough of the RNC's ad mocking Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford Jr., running for Senate against Republican Bob Corker. The Sunday Week in Review featured a front-page "TV Watch" column by television-beat reporter Alessandra Stanley, "Scary, Like Funny Scary."

"The much-seen Tennessee ad against Harold Ford Jr. placed by the Republican National Committee in support of his opponent, Bob Corker, was seen as racist."

The New York Times' reliably liberal television-beat reporter Alessandra Stanley offered up a surprising assessment in her mostly favorable review of “The Path to 9-11," a review which ran on Friday when there was still some doubt as to whether or not ABC would cave in to the Clintonistas and various left-wing bloggers furious at the network. The first part of the miniseries ran last night with some selective edits but with the essence of the story intact, further infuriating the left with its picture of a Clinton administration unwilling to take terrorism seriously.

Ever since the "controversy" was ignited by Bush enemies like Joseph Wilson three years ago, The New York Times has run almost 40 front-page stories on the leak of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame (Wilson's wife) to Robert Novak. But now that the prime anti-Bush angle has fizzled out, the Times has been notably reluctant to return to the scene of the non-crime.

This Saturday, the Times finally put the Plame-gate aftermath on the front page, in an interesting piece by David Johnston, "Leak Revelation Leaves Questions -- Prosecutor Knew Identity but Still Pushed Inquiry."

New York Times TV writer Alessandra Stanley reviewed George and Laura Bush's Thursday night interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" as a desperately needed chance for a softball interview. "The standoff with North Korea over its missile tests, the war in Iraq and ever-sliding ratings in the polls have given the president little reason to celebrate. Mr. King gave the president a chance to defend his policies without risk of interruption or follow-up."

This adjective, "ever-sliding," may be what Miss Stanley wishes and hopes for, but it could not be described as accurate. Bush fans would look silly to describe Bush's poll ratings as good. But they have been creeping upward since the killing of Iraqi al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The PollingReport.com summary shows that several polls have him up a bit since a low point in early May: