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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

CBS Hails 'Landmark' and 'Historic' Efforts to Expand Federal Control

Brent Baker
August 1st, 2007 8:54 PM

Networks Fret Over Agenda Murdoch Will 'Impose' on Wall Street Journal

Brent Baker
July 31st, 2007 10:17 PM

NBC Skips Brookings's More Upbeat Iraq Judgment That ABC, CBS Find New

Brent Baker
July 30th, 2007 9:11 PM

Broder Baffled Why Bush 'Against Providing Health Insurance for Kids

Brent Baker
July 30th, 2007 12:41 AM

Olbermann Cracks: With Cheney Under Knife, 'Bush Will Actually Get to

Brent Baker
July 28th, 2007 2:46 AM

Nets Barely Notice Surge in GDP Growth as They Focus on Dow Plunge

Brent Baker
July 27th, 2007 9:50 PM

NBC Nightly News Profiles Female Sergeant Fulfilling 'Dream' of Servin

Brent Baker
July 26th, 2007 9:44 PM

Housing Prices Up from Year Ago, Yet CBS Highlights Comparison to Grea

Brent Baker
July 25th, 2007 9:49 PM

Spike Movie's Iraq War Vet Ex-Marine Earns Applause for Denouncing the

Brent Baker
July 23rd, 2007 1:20 AM

Spike TV Movie Iraq Vet Bank Robbers Upset by Treatment and 'Against t

Brent Baker
July 20th, 2007 5:55 PM

Only Couric Notes Plame Setback and Scolding of Hillary; Olbermann Sen

Brent Baker
July 20th, 2007 1:47 AM

Dow at 14,000; ABC: 'Good Deal of Worrisome Economic News These Days

Brent Baker
July 19th, 2007 8:58 PM

CBS Selectively Frames Senate Vote, Ignoring How Most of Public Suppor

Brent Baker
July 18th, 2007 8:49 PM

Iraq War Vets Are Armed, Hostage-Taking Bank Robbers in Spike TV Mini

Brent Baker
July 18th, 2007 12:53 PM

CNN's Ware Warns of Bush 'Smoke and Mirrors' Meant to Provoke 'Pavlovi

Brent Baker
July 17th, 2007 9:08 PM

Poll: By 2-to-1, Nets Biased to Left; More Libs See NYTimes as Liberal

Brent Baker
July 16th, 2007 8:06 PM

Perturbed Reid Chastises ABC's Tapper for Questioning Withdrawal: 'Thi

Brent Baker
July 12th, 2007 9:47 PM

ABC: 'Petraeus Very Optimistic About Military Battle, If Politicians G

Brent Baker
July 11th, 2007 9:27 PM

Nets Blame Iraq War Stance, Not Immigration Position, for McCain's Cam

Brent Baker
July 10th, 2007 9:13 PM

NBC Once Again Sees a 'Tipping Point' as Another Senator Breaks with B

Brent Baker
July 9th, 2007 8:39 PM