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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

Flashback: On Election Night 2000, NBC News Staffers Were 'All Cheerin

Brent Baker
August 17th, 2007 2:02 AM

Top Seattle Times Editor Admits Majority of Newsroom Votes 'Blue,' Dri

Brent Baker
August 16th, 2007 5:40 AM

NBC Nightly News Joins Newsweek in Smearing Global Warming 'Deniers

Brent Baker
August 16th, 2007 3:10 AM

Couric Astounded Rumsfeld's Resignation Letter Omitted Words 'Iraq' an

Brent Baker
August 15th, 2007 8:31 PM

ABC Blames Karl Rove for Swift Boat Ads, All Nets Scold Him for Plame

Brent Baker
August 14th, 2007 1:47 AM

More See 'Surge' Success, But CBS Buries Poll Finding 20 Minutes Into

Brent Baker
August 13th, 2007 8:10 PM

Margaret Carlson: 'Democratic Base Is Really the Middle American Base

Brent Baker
August 13th, 2007 3:40 AM

Flashback: Merv Griffin Blasts CBS as 'Cowardly' on Reagan Movie

Brent Baker
August 13th, 2007 1:35 AM

CBS Evening News Connects George H.W. Bush to Trapped Miners

Brent Baker
August 10th, 2007 9:07 PM

At Presidential Press Conference, Reporters Push Bush to Agree to Rais

Brent Baker
August 10th, 2007 1:44 AM

Confirming Limbaugh's Prediction, CBS Ignores Study Casting Doubt on G

Brent Baker
August 9th, 2007 9:06 PM

Universal Health Care Backer's 'Moment of Truth' Championed by CBS Eve

Brent Baker
August 8th, 2007 9:15 PM

Another Hot Summer, Another Chance for Nets to Blame 'Man-Made Global

Brent Baker
August 7th, 2007 10:15 PM

Dow Down 281 Points Big News Friday, Dow Up 287 Points Not So Newswort

Brent Baker
August 6th, 2007 8:52 PM

At Debate, Yepsen Cites GOP 'Dogma Against Taxes' as Obstruction to Fi

Brent Baker
August 6th, 2007 7:24 AM

WSJ Decline Blamed on 'Vitriolic Right-Wing Attack Editorials' Scaring

Brent Baker
August 4th, 2007 5:19 PM

Margaret Carlson Regrets Lack of 'Will' to Raise Taxes as '$4,000 a Mi

Brent Baker
August 4th, 2007 1:21 AM

CBS: 'Cash-Starved' Governments Must 'Collect...More Tax Dollars' for

Brent Baker
August 3rd, 2007 9:25 PM

Couric Presumes Taxes Must Be Raised to Repair Infrastructure

Brent Baker
August 2nd, 2007 9:43 PM

Bridge Collapse Provides Cafferty with Fresh Angle to Stigmatize Iraq

Brent Baker
August 2nd, 2007 7:42 PM