Media Research Center Director of Communications and NewsBusters.org Contributing Editor Seton Motley appeared on today's Your World with Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel to discuss radical leftist Henry Rivera, President-elect Barack Obama's appointee to oversee the Administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) transition process, and its implications for the future of free speech in America.

Many members of the Democratic Party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have stated their desire for a return of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, more rightly called the Censorship Doctrine for it would force conservative talk radio hosts off the air. 

But no Congressional action is required to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. All the Obama Administration has to do is make one appointment to the FCC, turning a 3-2 Republican FCC majority into a 3-2 Democratic one, and it can again be reinstated.  Republican Robert McDowell's term ends in June 2009.

Talk about throwing Palin under the pram . . .

If any pundit should celebrate Sarah Palin, you might think it would be Judith Warner. The author of "Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" is the Times' resident expert on the challenges women face in balancing career and family.  But think again.  Politics trumps female solidarity.  Warner's column on Palin is perhaps the most vitriolic and condescending I've read.  The Mirrored Ceiling is a few days old, but Warner's fury still rings fresh.

Excerpts [emphasis added]:

• It turns out there was something more nauseating than the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate this past week. It was the tone of the acclaim that followed her acceptance speech.
• Palin sounded, at times, like she was speaking a foreign language as she gave voice to the beautifully crafted words that had been prepared for her . . . But that wasn’t held against her. Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.
  
  
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MRC’s Director of Communications and NewsBusters Contributing Editor Seton Motley discussed how the media are blaming McCain for playing the race card on today's "Your World" program. Audio available here. Video available here.

For background, check out Mark Finkelstein's post, "In Race Debate, Media Point Finger at McCain."

Today on Neil Cavuto, Monica Showalter of Investor's Business Daily was on, speaking about their editorial on Nanny Pelosi called "Feckless to Reckless." It's about Nancy Pelosi's recent reckless call to drain the strategic oil reserves in an attempt to answer our problems and pains at the gas pumps, short term. Needless to say, IBD was not impressed; in fact, the article calls for her resignation. You can read about it and watch the video interview at MsUnderestimated's site here.

On Wednesday’s "Your World" on FNC, host Neil Cavuto talked with talk show host Montel Williams about the election and asked if Williams was backing anyone, to which Williams responded: "You know, I'm into the election year, but I got to tell you I'm -- here I'll do something controversial, so it'll get us both fired. But I'm sick right now of the way the media is attempting to control this election rather than just report the news." [audio available here]

Williams' condemnation of media went further: "People keep being called or claim to play a race card, when it's really us in the media that are playing the race card, trying to bait people to play into the race card. I'm sick of some of what I feel is some of the most divisive politics that I've seen in the last 20 years."

Cavuto again attempted to find out if Williams was supporting any particular candidate, but instead Williams articulated his responsibility as an influential television personality not to endorse anyone:

Appearing on the March 5 "Your World" program with guest host Brenda Buttner, MRC Director of Media Analysis and NewsBusters Senior Editor Tim Graham lambasted the mainstream media for its gauzy treatment of Democratic frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.):

It's really sad that at this point in the presidential campaign, when we're in a situation where they are saying now that the math is impossible for Hillary Clinton to get the Democratic nomination, that now suddenly the media is going to try to vet Barack Obama's record. And really, obviously, the media itself are saying, 'Well, obviously the Saturday Night Live skit had something to do with this.'

They're taking their cues on when to be a professional journalist based on comedy sketches?!

Video (2:55): Windows Media (10.7 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.31 MB)

"Is this anything more than the media building up a candidate, particularly a woman, and then tearing her down because it makes a good story?" Fox News Channel's Terry Keenan asked to open her December 4 interview with NewsBusters senior editor and "Whitewash" co-author Tim Graham.

Video (3:20): Real (2.45 MB) and Windows (2.04), plus MP3 audio (1.52 MB).

Brought on "Your World w/Neil Cavuto" to discuss media coverage of Hillary Clinton's slippage in some recent polls, Graham dismissed Keenan's suggestion that Clinton is a victim of a soft form of sexism by the media:

Update (Nov. 8 | 13:00 EST): International and Beijing Olympic officials are denying any such Bible ban exists. Click here for the story.

"Olympic agencies of the free world shouldn't tolerate this kind of intolerance. But will the media notice?" NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham asked in a Sunday blog post, referring to a November 2 Catholic News Agency article reporting the Communist Chinese government's plan to bar athletes from bringing Bibles along with their other personal effects in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Unfortunately, a full four days after the CNA article, it seems major print and television media have ignored the story. A Nexis search of major newspapers from November 2-6 yielded no stories on the matter. Ditto with a search of ABC, CBS, and NBC news transcripts, as well as a search of MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News.

A notable exception to the general media silence: Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto. Just after the half-hour mark to his November 6 program the host of "Your World with Neil Cavuto" covered the controversy as he interviewed evangelist Bill Keller, who is urging the United States government to boycott next year's Summer Games should China not repeal the policy.

Cavuto and Keller noted that the Koran, unlike the Bible, was not similarly on the censorship list.

Katie Couric "really sounds like... a light-headed Hillary [Clinton] and it sounds like she's trying to claw back into the good graces of MoveOn.org and maybe she's trying to rub the belly of the Buddha, Frank Rich, and everybody who attacked her for being some sort of Bush tool when she went to Iraq."

That's how MRC director of media analysis and NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham described Katie Couric's recent conversation with Marvin Kalb in which the CBS anchor laid out her liberal opinions of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.

We knew that'd get you hooked. You can view the entire segment on the September 26 "Your World w/Neil Cavuto by checking out the Video (3:57): Real (2.91 MB) and Windows (2.43 MB), plus MP3 (1.80 MB).

When I saw this at the office yesterday, I was in stitches. Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto aired B-roll of a saucy Paris Hilton burger ad while talking with conservative talk show host and author Laura Ingraham about her complaints in her book Power to the People and elsewhere about how cable news networks tart up their programming with skin. Asked by Ingraham if he was rolling such B-roll, Cavuto denied it, but the look on his face was priceless. (video embed below fold)

It's nothing new for Neil, who has a penchant for incorporating scantily-clad women in B-roll in his eponymous "Your World w/Neil Cavuto" program, and/or interviewing in-studio Hooters waitresses and Victoria's Secret models, always finding some business news angle of course.

I was going to clip the video for the heck of it, but Allahpundit at Hot Air beat me to it. You can read his post here or see the embedded YouTube video clip below the fold.

Actor and commentator Ben Stein strongly defended Larry Craig on Friday's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," arguing that the police officer who arrested the Idaho Republican senator used "Gestapo tactics" to "browbeat" him into pleading guilty when, in fact, Craig had not committed any illegal act.

"He didn't do anything. He tapped his foot," Stein said. "And I don't like the idea that people are sitting in the next stall from you at a public bathroom listening to whether or not you tap your foot. This is, as I said, Gestapo tactics, Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo. It's not America."

Video: Windows Media (5.6 MB) Real (5.1 MB) Audio: MP3

Transcript follows:

As NewsBusters reported Monday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., made some absurd statements about a number of conservative media members at Al Gore’s Live Earth concert in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

One of those Kennedy called a flat earther, ABC’s John Stossel, after debating Kennedy on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto” Wednesday, spoke quite candidly about this issue with WOR radio’s Steve Malzberg.

It’s safe to say that Stossel was less than kind with his rebuttal (audio available here):

On today's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," the host devoted a portion of his mailbag segment to viewers from across the fruited plain telling Cavuto of their local media outlets had ignored or downplayed yesterday's stock market closing. Cavuto noted that in contrast, a large market correction in February was blared on the front pages of the nation's largest broadsheets.

Video (2:26): Real (1.77 MB) or Windows Media (1.50 MB), plus MP3 audio (838 kB).

You can find more coverage on the media's biases on the economy with these articles from NewsBusters sister organization, the MRC's Business & Media Institute:

On Wednesday's Your World with Neil Cavuto, FNC's Cavuto hosted both ABC's John Stossel and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to discuss Kennedy's charge, from the stage of Saturday's "Live Earth" concert in New Jersey, that the ABC anchor, as well as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, have been "lying" about global warming and are "toadies" for corporations.

Stossel charged that some of Kennedy's comments about the environment are "silly" and brought up a number of big scares that have been promoted in recent years, some by environmentalists, that have turned out not to materialize. Asked by Cavuto if ignoring the issue may make it worse, Stossel responded: "Well, it's possible. And it's possible that the killer bees were going to come up and sting us all to death, and that Y2K was going to crash all the planes, and that the pesticides that his organization [Natural Resources Defense Council] is so upset about were causing the cancer epidemic, and the frog testicles were shrinking, were going to make us all sterile. The scares from the environmental groups have just come one after the other. None has been true."

Transcript follows. Ian Schwartz has the video.

Clay Waters, Editor of the MRC's TimesWatch site and a NewsBusters contributor was a guest this afternoon on the Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," which airs weekdays at 4 p.m. EDT. The topic: New York Times coverage of Venezuela and Hugo Chavez.

TimesWatch.org is dedicated to documenting and exposing the liberal political agenda of the New York Times.

Video (3:39): Real (2.67 MB) or Windows Media (2.23 MB), plus MP3 (856 kB)

Also of interest:

Here’s a disturbingly inconvenient truth: Students at Roger Williams University in Briston, Rhode Island, were forced to watch Al Gore’s global warming schlockumentary if they wished to graduate.

Think I’m kidding?

As reported by Young America’s Foundation (h/t NBer Dahlia Travers. Also, please watch the following video of Fox News’ Neil Cavuto interviewing one of these students on the May 9 “Your World”):

NewsBusters senior editor/MRC director of research Rich Noyes appeared on "Your World with Neil Cavuto" a few moments ago discussing the agenda of silly, liberally-biased questions in last night's GOP debate on MSNBC.

Video: Real (4 MB) or Windows (3.2 MB), plus MP3 (1.6 MB)

Discussing the agenda of questions posed by Chris Matthews and the reporters from Politico.com, Noyes observed: "It's the kind of stuff you find liberal bloggers complaining about, questions like, 'Is Karl Rove your friend,' 'Do you believe in evolution,' [questions] designed to trip up Republicans and make them look like they were against science. The question from Jim VandeHei, 'What's the deal with the corruption in your party?' This was all a series of very left-leaning questions to G.O.P. candidates. And there's no problem asking Republicans tough questions, but if you look at the tone of the Democratic debate, it was all softballs compared to what Republicans got last night. There's really two different standards for the two parties."

After running down some of the more obnoxious questions thrown at the candidates at last night's debate, Cavuto pointed out how "none of those Republicans was afraid to be at a venue where they knew they would probably get snide questions like this on a network or with a host who has a certain leaning. Yet none of their counterparts in the Democratic Party would dare appear here."

Noyes agreed: "Well, that's true. It's amazing that Democrats are trying to avoid having a debate on the Fox News Channel. Fox News had debates in the last cycle. A lot of the questioners brought in — they were not Fox employees — they were some liberal reporters like Gwen Ifill and Juan Williams, along with some of Fox's own people like Carl Cameron. Nobody had any complaints about that [debate]. Now, because they want to please the left-wing blogosphere, they're acting like if appearing on Fox is somehow a dangerous and terrible thing to do. Here you have Republicans going on MSNBC, which is a really, become a very far-left wing network in the last few months, few years, and they all seemed to have a pretty good time and got their message out."