Bias by Omission

Alex Wagner was noticeably gleeful on her MSNBC program on Monday about Pope Francis reassigning Cardinal Raymond Burke from a prominent role at the Vatican to patron of the Knights of Malta. Wagner hyped this move as "a strong message to arch-conservatives in the Catholic Church – reform or be removed." The left-wing host later underlined that the pontiff "demoted hardline U.S. Cardinal Raymond…

David Weigel's writeup this afternoon at Bloomberg Politics ("Meet the Mild-Mannered Investment Advisor Who's Humiliating the Administration Over Obamacare") is about the guy who has found at least two incriminating videos of Jonathan Gruber revealing the true intentions behind the Affordable Care Act. In some respects, it's well done and interesting. What's not well done is Bloomberg's choice…

A Sunday Associated Press item carried at its national news site informs readers that the town of Westminster in north central Massachusetts is seriously considering a ban on tobacco products. The Boston Globe covered the story in a lengthy report on October 28, and the Washington Post carried a brief item at its GovBeat blog that same day. None of those three items addressed an obvious question…

When I saw this item, I thought to myself: "Imagine the ridicule which would shower down on a Republican or conservative presidential administration if they did something so obviously childish and clumsy." But since a Democratic administration is involved, it will more than likely get scant attention or be totally ignored. What I'm referring to is the White House's inclusion of an artifical "…

On Friday, the group American Commitment uploaded a video to YouTube of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber telling a group of healthcare economists in 2013 that the “lack of transparency” regarding the bill’s contents and “the stupidity of the American voter” were critical to its passage through Congress in 2010. Since the video was uploaded, the major English and Spanish broadcast networks of…

On Monday, NPR's health blog touted a pro-ObamaCare item from Kaiser Health News, which is a program of the left-leaning Kaiser Family Foundation (and a partner of the public radio network). Journalist Mary Agnes Carey offered a "quick checklist" for those who "shop for coverage on the health law's online exchanges," since the open enrollment period for the exchanges begins on November 15, 2014.

Former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, celebrated the launch of her new book Stonewalled at a private residence in Georgetown among an audience that consisted of members in the media, whistleblowers from other scandals, and the outgoing House Oversight committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa. She told her media skeptics "if only you would occasionally apply that kind of skepticism to…

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Aaron R. Hanlon, an infrequent columnnist at Salon, both have an excuse for Democrats' poor performance in this year's midterm elections: pervasive voter suppression. You see, the left's new working definition of "voter suppression" — a definition which is never a subject of establishment press scrutiny — is apparently the following: "Many of the people who…

A search at the Associated Press's national site tonight on "Berlin Wall" (not in quotes) returns 14 stories. Changing that search to "Berlin Wall Reagan" reduces that number to one. That single story is a short, seven-paragraph item about sections of the wall which are on display in different parts of the world. Reagan's name gets mentioned as follows:

On November 5, Judicial Watch announced that the IRS admitted “that it failed to search any of the IRS standard computer systems for the ‘missing’ emails of Lois Lerner and other IRS officials.” The admission comes after the government watchdog group made a “request that a federal court judge allow discovery into how ‘lost and/or destroyed’ IRS records relating to the targeting of conservative…

The New York Times greeted the GOP takeover of the Senate with a mix of honest and sour reporting, emphasizing "angry" voters while downplaying the ideological significance of an "expensive" campaign "stumbling" to a close, while insisting that the Democrats succeeded in hanging on to their voting base and warning Republicans "about reading too much into their victories."

Kevin Drum and other pundits take the press to task for misleading Iowa voters by, in Drum's words, pushing a “charade” that Republican Senate contender Joni Ernst is a “pragmatic centrist.”

NBC's Today and CBS This Morning both led their broadcasts on Monday with euthanasia advocate Brittany Maynard's drug-induced suicide. The morning shows' anchors sang the praises of the "beautiful, brave young woman," as Gayle King labeled Maynard. Charlie Rose touted how the cancer patient's "short and meaningful life is over." Savannah Guthrie gushed, "What a remarkable young woman, and to…

Doug Schorpp at the Quad City Times had a really bad day yesterday. The sad thing is that he still probably doesn't even know it. His report (HT Gateway Pundit) on Michelle Obama's visit to Moline, Illinois had two whoppers. One of them was spoken by Mrs. Obama, while the other error was completely unforced. They have been present at the paper's web site since Saturday at 6 p.m., humiliating…