Research

Jane Mayer made the network rounds, this week, promoting her New Yorker hit piece on Brett Kavanaugh, but a look at her past demonstrates why her work should be taken with biggest grains of salt as she has become a go-to author for partisan attack stories.   

During the twelve days since Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein publicly announced the existence of an unspecified allegation against Brett Kavanaugh, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows have spent nearly six hours (344 minutes) regurgitating various unproved allegations against the Supreme Court nominee. But only a tiny percentage of that coverage — a measly eight percent — has…

On Tuesday, two of Brett Kavanaugh’s high school classmates, each named by accuser Christine Blasey Ford as witnesses to the 1982 assault she alleges, issued public statements flatly denying that they saw anything even resembling Ford’s story. Yet on Wednesday, CNN viewers barely heard a peep about these denials, even as the Kavanaugh story dominated their on-air coverage. From 4:00 a.m. to 2:00…

Hillary Clinton, on last night’s Rachel Maddow show, insisted that the FBI investigate Christine Blasey Ford’s rape accusation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh – which is pretty audacious considering that’s something Juanita Broaddrick never got. Broaddrick noticed and called out the former First Lady on Twitter. Of course Maddow never brought up the obvious hypocrisy, as she never even mentioned…

We’ve seen the media and the Democrats use this playbook before. When Justice Clarence Thomas was well on his way to being confirmed in 1991, the Democrats brought forth Anita Hill to accuse Thomas of sexual harassment, in a last ditch attempt to derail his nomination. And while it remains to be seen if the media turn the Brett Kavanaugh nomination process into a similar circus it’s instructive…

It’s not as if we haven’t seen this before. Twenty-seven years ago, a last-minute accusation of sexual harassment prompted the Senate to re-open Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings; the ‘he-said, she-said’ confrontation was a media spectacle, including prime-time coverage on the broadcast networks. When it was over, the Media Research Center analyzed the coverage, and…

In 2006 Brad Pitt came to the rescue of New Orleans residents with his plan to build affordable homes for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. There was just one problem. His liberal obsession to fight climate change – by using “cheap recycled materials” – means those homes are now falling apart.

While the networks have been obsessed with alleged Russian interference to aid Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign they have – so far – completely ignored a bombshell report that a Google employee tried to help Hillary Clinton win.   

Just when you think the media couldn’t sink any lower in their view of Donald Trump and his supporters they go lower. In the past month we’ve seen CNN’s Don Lemon insult Trump supporters as “people who will lie, steal, and cheat, lie to their mother” for their own political purposes. One New York Times columnist even suggested Trump would “like to” murder his political foes. The following are the…

While there have been many respectful tributes to John McCain in the media in the past few days, there was a time when the liberal press weren’t always supportive of the war hero and independent-minded Senator from Arizona —  particularly when he was getting in the way of their progressive agenda. A look back at McCain’s relationship with the press, over the decades, shows it was complicated at…

Liberal cable news outlets evidently had their own fairy tale ending in mind when former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations: impeachment. On Wednesday, CNN and MSNBC reporters, anchors, and paid contributors used the word an absurd 222 times in 18 hours. 

It’s always big news when a former associate of a President goes on trial, right? Well actually no. When Bill Clinton’s Whitewater business partners Jim and Susan McDougal and the former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker were tried (and convicted) for conspiracy and fraud charges the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) evening news programs devoted (on average) just 36 seconds per night (March 3, 1996 - May…

By far, the biggest news story of the Trump presidency has been the Russia investigation. As of August 15, the three broadcast network evening newscasts have devoted a combined 1,854 minutes to the probe, or nearly one-fifth (19.6%) of all of their Trump news. Yet virtually none of that airtime (just 62 minutes, or 3.3%) has been spent scrutinizing Robert Mueller’s investigation — a big shift…