NB Podcast

As we wrap up 2021, it's time for a little cultural talk on the NewsBusters Podcast. NPR recently suggested the Beatles signified how the rock band was a white-male institution. They also recently brought on Nikole Hannah-Jones to explain that "yacht rock" like Steely Dan, Toto, and the Doobie Brothers is culturally appropriated black music.

Filling in for boss Tim Graham, NewsBusters deputy managing editor Nick “Night Train” Fondacaro and I were back in our saddles for Monday’s post-Christmas edition of the NewsBusters Podcast and, while it’s often a slower time of the year in the news business, we still had plenty to talk about.

On Wednesday’s podcast, newly minted early bird Curtis Houck and I discuss the Covid crazies in the media who are desperately trying to get America to reinstitute mass lockdowns. We also do a rundown of the fun project I worked on: “2021’s Top Dirty Dozen Fredo Moments from CNN’s Former Wise Guy.” And chatted with the newest member of the NewsBusters night crew, former intern Kevin Tober about…

On Monday’s NewsBusters Podcast, deputy managing editor Nicholas Fondacaro and I took a look at just some of the bad headlines that enveloped the Biden administration surrounding its doomed Build Back Better agenda, but before that, we went through a new documentary by liberal sports network ESPN that fawned over NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace.

Harvard's Nieman Lab looked ahead to the "news" business in 2022 and promoted an end to objectivity as a journalism ideal. "Solidarity for social justice" is the new fad, but solidarity with whom? The "marginalized" get a major boost, and if you're not "marginalized," you're going to get lectured about your advantages. They think the media's job is to create "transformational change" for the…

On the latest NewsBusters Podcast, we discuss how the networks obsess over every finding of the hyper-partisan January 6 Committee in the House, and how they tout their "historic rebukes" of Trump by "holding accountable" his former staffers (like chief of staff Mark Meadows) with "criminal charges" of contempt of Congress. But when a Republican-majority House held Obama's Attorney General…

Chris Wallace announced he was leaving Fox News, and then he joined CNN’s new streaming service. He even said he was “delighted to join Jeff Zucker and his great team.” Oh, the network of Chris Cuomo? And Jeffrey Toobin? And Don Lemon?  

Thursday marked a harmonic convergence as we wave farewell to the careers of Brian Williams and Jussie Smollett, two fabulists who counted on the Left to promote their misinformation.

On the latest NewsBusters Podcast, we discuss how the broadcast networks have been reluctant and slow in covering the Jussie Smollett trial. ABC's been almost non-existent after energetically boosting Smollett's hate-crime hoax two years ago.

Only after Chris Cuomo was suddenly fired did CNN's Brian Stelter discover he'd crossed an ethical line "many times," that there were "so many headaches here, so many journalistic fouls."

The toughest part of Jen Psaki's White House briefing is dealing with respectful hardballs from Fox's Peter Doocy. On this episode of the Podcast, our briefing specialist and Managing Editor Curtis Houck discusses how Doocy made Psaki's spin this week just too lame to take seriously. 

Chris Cuomo lied to CNN about just how extensively he was helping his brother Andrew try to survive a wave of sex-harassment allegations. So he's been suspended "indefinitely," but Stelter is already hinting it might just be a month.

On the latest NewsBusters Podcast, we reflect on the amazing lack of self-awareness demonstrated by CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter as he led off his show Sunday with a commentary suggesting that other news outlets were partisan, and disparaged the president based on "feelings over facts."

In a special long-weekend edition of the NewsBusters Podcast, we look back to answer the question: How energetically did MSNBC smear Kyle Rittenhouse as a white supremacist, white nationalist, or racist? Quite a bit. Joy Reid led a pack of smack talkers about Kyle being a little racist coward with an AR-15 menacing a violent neighborhood.