Steve Malzberg

Here's something you don't see every day: a prominent anchor from CNN offering the same opinion as a prominent anchor from Fox News.

Such seems even less likely when the subject involves President Obama, but that's exactly what happened on Thursday's Steve Malzberg Show on WOR radio.

The conservative host spoke separately to FNC's Bret Baier and CNN's John King about the following remarks Obama made during Wednesday's press conference:

I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don`t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it`s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That`s just a fact.

Neither Baier nor King seemed at all pleased with the President's comments (Baier audio available here, King's available here): 

On Tuesday evening, the new host of the "Tonight" show, Conan O'Brien, got a great plug from President Obama all made possible by "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams (video embedded right).

On Thursday, CNN's John King told WOR radio's Steve Malzberg that Williams asking the President to do such a promo wasn't from his school of journalism and was "way over the line."

What follows is a partial transcript of this exchange (ten-minute audio available here with relevant section beginning at 7:40):

While network evening news broadcasts were covering for Joe Biden's swine flu gaffe, Fox News's Chris Wallace called the Vice President's advise that folks avoid getting on airplanes or riding subways "a serious mistake" and "reckless" leading the "Fox News Sunday" host to ask, "Is he nuts?"

Appearing on WOR radio's "Steve Malzberg Show" Thursday, Wallace also discussed how "exquisitely sensitive to anything that's negative, any criticism" President Obama is, adding how the recent attacks of Tea Party attendees and Fox News commentators "doesn't strike me as very presidential."

Wallace also said Obama's press conference Wednesday night wasn't "very newsy" lacking both good questions and good answers, and later took the President to task for claiming the information we received from interrogated terrorists that led us to thwart a string of second attacks on our nation could have been gotten other ways.

Highlights below the fold (14-minute audio available here): 

Everywhere it's been tried - liberal, or progressive as it's sometimes described as, talk radio hasn't taken off with the success conservative talk radio has.

Case and point - the top six of March 2009 Talkers magazine "Heavy Hundred" talk show hosts are conservative.  The top liberal host, Thom Hartmann, come in at number 10. However, liberal talk show host Stephanie Miller appeared on CNN's April 5 "Reliable Sources" and insisted there is more at play than just pure market forces holding the liberal format back.

"Well, you know - I just did a panel on the Fairness Doctrine," Miller said. "I have to tell you, I brought ratings information. And people like me and Ed Schultz are consistently beating conservative shows in many, many markets. And yet - there is 10 percent liberal radio in this country. Ninety percent of the stations are conservative. You just cannot argue anymore it's because liberal radio can't compete."

After getting smacked around by Fox News's Megyn Kelly Monday, liberal talker Bill Press went on WOR radio's Steve Malzberg Show and accidentally exposed his real goal in supporting a re-enactment of the Fairness Doctrine: he wants to be heard.

In fact, he also wants the Fairness Doctrine back for his own financial gain:

I know why I'm interested in it because I get up every morning at 3:45, I do three hours of talk radio every day from six to nine, that's my life, it's my business, I want to make money at it, and I want to be heard.

Wow. Talk about your inconvenient truths!

Those interested in hearing Press's greedy admission should forward to minute 8:50 of this audio link (relevant section transcribed below the fold):

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):

CBS News's Bob Schieffer falsely claimed Monday that he had reported one of the racial slurs Democrat vice presidential candidate Joe Biden made in 2007.

The record proves otherwise.

Speaking with WOR Radio's Steve Malzberg about the differing media coverage for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Biden, Schieffer made the case that the various gaffes and racially insensitive remarks uttered by the Delaware Senator aren't being discussed by mainstream media members now because they were already reported, including by him (eleven-minute audio available here, relevant section at 6:18): 

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- NewsBusters Editor Matthew Sheffield and Associate Editor Noel Sheppard appeared on the Steve Malzberg Show live from Radio Row at the Republican Convention at 4:30 p.m. EDT today. The topic: Gov. Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican convention and the intensely biased coverage of her nomination.

Introducing Sheffield and Sheppard, Malzberg praised NewsBusters as "one of the greatest Web sites of all time" and said he frequently refers liberal friends to the site for documented evidence of liberal media bias.

A few highlights follow below the fold (video embedded right):

NewsBusters readers should remember Judith Miller as the New York Times reporter that was jailed for 85 days in 2005 for refusing to reveal to a federal grand jury information related to the Valerie Plame affair.

Having resigned from the Times in November 2005, Miller is now an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. On Monday, she spoke to WOR radio's Steve Malzberg about first amendment issues related to the press.

In particular, she discussed her views concerning some rather controversial reports that have been published including Dana Priest's foreign prisons piece as well as the NYT's revelations regarding terrorist surveillance (audio link below the fold).

Now that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has written a tell-all book about the Bush administration, he's being lauded with so much praise from the usual liberal media suspects that it must be making MSNBC's Keith Olbermann a tad jealous.

This makes Chris Wallace's interview Thursday with WOR radio's Steve Malzberg even more timely, for the "Fox News Sunday" host showed his colleagues what the term "journalism" really means by going after both of these press darlings.

First, Wallace discussed a key question he'd like to ask McClellan that's been completely absent as media applaud the former press secretary's claims (17 minute audio available here, relevant section at minute 6:00):

The day after it was revealed that former ABC News Capitol Hill correspondent Linda Douglass was going to be joining Barack Obama's presidential campaign, "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace said this was a perfect example of how liberal and biased the mainstream media are.

As my colleague Brad Wilmouth reported Wednesday, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wrote at his blog that Douglass was going to be leaving her position at National Journal to "join Barack Obama's presidential campaign as a senior strategist and as a senior campaign spokesperson on the roadshow."

The following day, Wallace was interview by WOR radio's Steve Malzberg, and was asked, "Do you have a problem with media people, you know, switching to go to work for political campaigns like that?

Wallace responded (audio available here, relevant section begins at minute 2:40):

The Democrat presidential candidates are squaring off against one another Wednesday in Philadelphia, and, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, co-moderator George Stephanopoulos thinks this could decide the nomination:

"There hasn't been a debate in weeks and the stakes couldn't be higher, there's no question about that," he said. "That's especially true for Sen. Clinton. Pennsylvania is a must-win state. It's the first debate since Texas and Ohio and a lot has happened since then."

With this in mind, Stephanopoulos was interviewed Tuesday by WOR radio's Steve Malzberg who had some marvelous questions he'd like asked of the two candidates (seven minute audio available here, picture courtesy ABC):

Who's the best political talk show host on television every Sunday? Tim Russert? George Stephanopoulos? Bob Schieffer? Wolf Blitzer?

Get real! There's nobody on the television landscape that comes close to Fox News's Chris Wallace. And, there's nobody on Fox News that better exemplifies and understands what the network's slogan "fair and balanced" means.

To drive home the point, Wallace was Steve Malzberg's guest on WOR radio Wednesday, and quite candidly discussed how his little tiff with the good folks at "Fox and Friends" last Friday demonstrates vividly why FNC is indeed the only fair and balanced news network on television (15-minute audio available here):

Unless you've been asleep or out of the country for a month, you're well aware of claims by Hillary Clinton and NBC's "Saturday Night Live" that media are totally in the tank for Barack Obama.

On Wednesday, conservative author Ann Coulter was Steve Malzberg's guest on WOR radio, and she couldn't agree more with this assertion about the mainstream media's love affair with the junior senator from Illinois.

After Malzberg mentioned Michelle Obama's recent despicable comments about our country published in The New Yorker magazine and reported by NewsBusters Wednesday, he asked his guest what impact Mrs. Obama might have on the election. Coulter responded (seven-minute audio available here):

Count Fox News's Chris Wallace in the group that believes the New York Times recent hit piece about John McCain might end up helping the GOP presidential candidate woo disgruntled conservatives in time for this November's elections.

Wouldn't it be just exquisitely delicious irony if it turned out the Times spent 3,000 words to diminish McCain's candidacy only to end up furthering it?

According to Wallace, who was interviewed Thursday by WOR radio's Steve Malzberg, such is definitely possible (11-minute audio available here):

While press outlets such as the New York Times grieved over the death of Imad Mugniyah last week, they disgracefully ignored the hundreds of innocent people directly and indirectly killed by this terrorist the past three decades.

One such was Robert Stethem, a Navy Seabee diver that was assassinated on June 15, 1985, during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847; Mugniyah was one of the hijackers.

On Thursday, during an interview with WOR radio's Steve Malzberg, Patrick Stethem made his feelings known about how the press covered the death of one of his brother's slayers (9-minute audio available here):

On Monday, my colleague Brent Baker reported on the "silly girl talk" that occurred the prior evening when CBS's Katie Couric interviewed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on "60 Minutes."

24 hours later, former CBS reporter Bernie Goldberg was Steve Malzberg's guest on WOR radio, and he not only concurred with Baker's impression of this "60 Minutes" segment, but also called it "seriously embarrassing."

In fact, this was such bad journalism that Goldberg quipped, "If Mike Wallace were dead, he'd be turning over in his grave" (audio available here):

Last week, NewsBuster Geoffrey Dickens introduced readers to Maureen Faulkner, the wife of a Philadelphia police officer killed in 1981 by former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal.

As Dickens reported, Faulkner was rudely treated by NBC's Matt Lauer on last Thursday's "Today" show as the host seemed to take the side of Mumia supporters who to this day avow his innocence.

One week later, Faulkner was WOR radio host Steve Malzberg's guest, and took the opportunity to not only air her feelings about Lauer's performance, but also to address a reporter that spit on her leg outside of a courtroom in 1982, as well as others that shouted things out at her like "We're glad your pig husband is dead."

After an introduction and some background, Malzberg asked his guest (eleven-minute audio available here):

For years, NewsBusters and its parent, the Media Research Center, have been reporting on the disparity in economic coverage by mainstream media outlets during the Clinton and Bush administrations.

In the past seven years, economic data that would have been praised when Bill Clinton was in the White House has continually been presented as recessionary, or even depression-like.

With that in mind, CNN's Lou Dobbs was discussing the economy, and, in particular, the recent holiday sales figures with WOR radio's Steve Malzberg Monday. The conservative host asked Dobbs, "If these numbers were the numbers nearing the end of a Clinton administration or a Democrat's administration, wouldn't they be touting it as a wonderful, strong economy?

Dobbs amazingly answered (14-minute audio available here, relevant section begins at 8:30):

For years one of the great unanswered questions along Main and Wall streets has been why, in the midst of 24 consecutive quarters of uninterrupted growth, polls have regularly found Americans sour about the economy.

On Tuesday, a battle between the New York Times liberal economics columnist Paul Krugman and WOR radio's Steve Malzberg offered a clue.

In fact, after 16 minutes of sparring on subjects from healthcare to the Iraq war, a truly inconvenient truth became evident concerning the left's continued bearishness since the economy emerged from recession in the fourth quarter of 2001: too many folks listen to people like Krugman.

As a perfect illustration of just how separated this man, and anybody who reads him, are from reality, when Malzberg asked Krugman where he'd seek medical treatment if he was really ill, the Times columnist said (16 minute long audio link available here):

As NewsBuster Justin McCarthy reported Monday, "View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who grew up during the "Jim Crow" era, actually said that America is "not as free as it was when [she] was a kid."

A few hours after this aired, Congressman Peter King (R) of New York was Steve Malzberg's guest on WOR radio.

Malzberg read Whoopi's comments to King, who responded by first saying, "They are absolutely insane these people," and then explained how they "reflect that hardcore base which is driving the Democratic Party, and which is causing otherwise fairly responsible politicians in the Democratic Party to do really wrong things, and to act totally irresponsibly" (audio available here with relevant section beginning at 8:30, partial transcript follows):

People that don't foolishly depend on the mainstream media for current events are painfully aware of the most recent round of racially insensitive statements made by Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

As is typical, this went largely ignored by press outlets that would have been all over the remarks had a Republican presidential candidate made them.

Of course, these same media members are also hesitant to share any good news from Iraq.

With that in mind, "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace was WOR radio Steve Malzberg's guest Thursday afternoon, during which time he made some observations about media bias that few in the industry would dare.

What follows is Wallace's marvelous view of what would have happened to a Republican presidential candidate if he had made similar racist comments as Biden's, as well as bonus coverage you will surely enjoy (audio available here):

While media outlets like Essence magazine, CBS, and others assist the Clintons in remaking the image of their marriage in order to whisk them back into the White House in January 2009, almost no one has had the nerve to peel back the curtain and expose the truth about the former first couple's real relationship.

This all changed Wednesday when WOR radio's Steve Malzberg interviewed best-selling author Sally Bedell Smith about her recent book on the Clintons appropriately titled "For Love of Politics."

Malzberg not only asked questions of Smith that virtually no mainstream media representative would ever dare, but also his guest quite surprisingly was extremely candid with her answers.

For instance, when Malzberg asked, "What was the true, in-house reaction of Hillary to the whole Monica Lewinsky, did she ever doubt the authenticity of the charges from the beginning?" Smith responded (17 minute audio available here):

Well, sports fans, the conservative hit parade continued last week, for having first accused Fox News's Bill O'Reilly of being a racist, and Rush Limbaugh of being anti-military, the whackos on the left have now branded Ann Coulter an anti-Semite.

Expectedly, Hillary Clinton's Media Matters for America was once again right in the middle of the controversy.

Fortunately, much like Limbaugh and O'Reilly before her, Coulter wasn't taking the attacks lying down, and, instead, explained what was meant by her statements - which was clearly lost on the secular media - to Steve Malzberg of WOR Radio Thursday (audio available here):