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Brent Baker

Editor At Large
@ BrentHBaker

Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center (MRC), the publisher of NewsBusters. He’s been the central figure in the MRC’s News Analysis Division since the MRC’s 1987 founding and in 2005 spearheaded the launch of NewsBusters.

Baker oversaw the selection of the award nominees and “winners” for the MRC’s “DisHonors Awards” (highlight video clips on NewsBusters), presented at an annual gala, and each week he helps the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard select a “Liberal Media Scream.” Those picks are added, on a one week delay, to NewsBusters.

In 2001, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes dubbed Baker “the scourge of liberal bias.”

For 13 years, 1996 through 2009, he compiled and edited the daily CyberAlert e-mail and online report. In late May of 2009 the CyberAlert became an e-mail-only product based on BiasAlert postings on the MRC's Web site until it was discontinued in 2015. 

From 1988 through 2015 he served as Editor of Notable Quotables (archive), a two-page newsletter which delivered a bi-weekly compilation of quotes from the liberal media which reflected biased reporting. At each year-end, an annual “awards for the year’s worst reporting” were selected by a panel of judges. (NQ collections on NewsBusters since 2016). From 1988 to 1999 he also oversaw MediaWatch, a monthly and later bi-weekly newsletter which the MRC discontinued in order to concentrate efforts on more timely analysis via the Internet.

Baker is the author of How to Identify, Expose & Correct Liberal Media Bias, a 1994 book which offers detailed explanations and suggestions for what the average citizen can do about media bias. Baker was co-editor of And That’s the Way It Isn’t: A Reference Guide to Media Bias, a 1990 book containing excerpts, reprints and summaries of 45 studies documenting the media's liberal bias during the 1980s.

Baker lived in Massachusetts through high school, whereupon he fled the liberal commonwealth for George Washington University in DC and, since graduation, a life in Northern Virginia. He edited the conservative college student newspaper The Sequent and graduated from GWU with special honors in political science in 1985.

After a stint at Conservative Digest magazine, Baker joined Brent Bozell at the National Conservative Foundation (as editor of the newsletter Newswatch) before helping to create the MRC in 1987.

An avid fan of the Washington Capitals NHL hockey team, in January of 2009 the Washington Post's "DC Sports Bog" took note of Baker's attendance at a Caps game with John Kerry: "The Caps, John Kerry and a Scourge."

Bio on MRC.org.


Latest Blogs

Four Times More Journalists Identify as Liberal Than Conservative

Brent Baker
March 19th, 2008 9:52 AM

'Extraordinary' Obama Speech a 'Gift' for 'Confronting Race in America

Brent Baker
March 18th, 2008 10:29 PM

ABC Finds Optimistic Iraqis and Kids Playing Safely on the Street

Brent Baker
March 18th, 2008 2:27 AM

Ongoing Blackout of Wright's 9/11 Rant, Only ABC Covers Him Monday

Brent Baker
March 17th, 2008 9:40 PM

Instead of Wright, NBC Touts Childhood Friends: 'Good Luck Barry

Brent Baker
March 15th, 2008 5:21 PM

O'Donnell on Wright Blaming U.S. for 9/11: 'How Do We Get Away from Th

Brent Baker
March 14th, 2008 6:05 PM

Hell Freezes Over? NBC Finally Calls Spitzer 'Democratic Governor

Brent Baker
March 13th, 2008 8:27 PM

ABC Finally IDs Spitzer as Democrat, NBC Fails to for Third Night

Brent Baker
March 13th, 2008 2:10 AM

For Second Night, ABC and NBC Refuse to Utter Spitzer's Party ID

Brent Baker
March 11th, 2008 9:44 PM

USA Today Never Labels Spitzer as Dem, But Tags Craig and Vitter

Brent Baker
March 11th, 2008 5:13 PM

'Straight Arrow' Governor 'Eliot Ness' Spitzer (?-NY

Brent Baker
March 10th, 2008 9:25 PM

In Obama Interview ABC's Gibson Imitates Saturday Night Live

Brent Baker
March 7th, 2008 1:53 AM

CBS's Foreclosure 'Crisis' Hype: 'American Dream Slipping Away

Brent Baker
March 6th, 2008 7:48 PM

Friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton Takes Over CBS's Early Show

Brent Baker
March 6th, 2008 4:54 PM

Nets Turn on McCain: Just 30% Positive; Obama: 67% Good Press

Brent Baker
March 5th, 2008 12:31 AM

Matthews: 'Nothing's Done' to Fix Problems 'Since '65 Civil Rights Bil

Brent Baker
March 4th, 2008 9:24 PM

Couric Scolds Ohio Voter Disturbed by Clinton's 'Emotional Outbursts

Brent Baker
March 4th, 2008 8:36 PM

NBC Excited About Slap at Obama, Not So About Slam on McCain

Brent Baker
March 4th, 2008 12:55 AM

CBS Devotes 3% of Hillary Profile to Scandals, 42% in Obama Piece

Brent Baker
February 29th, 2008 9:50 PM

Buckley Hailed, But NBC Chastises Him on McCarthy, Race & AIDS

Brent Baker
February 27th, 2008 8:54 PM