Bias by Omission

On Tuesday's Early Show, CBS's Cynthia Bowers let abortion advocates decry new pro-life legislation at the state level, barely letting supporters speak in her report. Bowers slanted by a three to one margin in the number of sound bites that she played from "abortion rights" supporters versus those from pro-lifers. She labeled Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback a "staunch abortion opponent," while giving…

Washington Post Style section editors gave freelance writer Mark Jenkins space for a 9-paragraph, 9-illustration feature item today entitled "Nothing shy in the art of Occupy." "The occupiers don't have a single agenda, so there's no way any of the posters can be off-message," Jenkins gushed. "They might slaughter Wall Street's bull or show the takedown of the Monopoly icon, or they can send…

CBS's Barry Petersen lined up three radicals who back feminist and other left-leaning ideologies inside the Catholic Church on the December 4 edition of the Sunday Morning program, letting only one bishop speak in support of the Church's teachings on abortion and the role of women. The correspondent omitted the dissenting beliefs of his guests, labeling one as merely an "outspoken critic of the…

On December 2, the Associated Press carried a story by Terry Collins with the following headline: "Murder charge filed in Occupy Oakland slaying." What? I thought that the related November attack, despite a statement from an actual eyewitness, "was unrelated to the ongoing protest of U.S. financial institutions" -- i.e., that it was unrelated to Occupy Oakland. After all, the San Francisco…

Acting again as a video press release service for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), MSNBC today has repeatedly highlighted the DNC's complaints about new voter ID laws on several programs today. In the 10 a.m. hour, Jansing & Co. anchor Chris Jansing gave a platform to the DNC's "director of voter protection" Will Crossley to plug he party's new website, protectingthevote.com. The…

On yesterday's Rainbow PUSH Saturday Morning Forum, broadcast nationally on the Word Network, Jesse Jackson spoke of Christmas.  The activist, 1984 and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate, and former Clinton spiritual adviser told (video here) of "non-Christian" merchants who "use Jesus to lure you in to Santa Claus's birthday party."  Here's what he said:

Not that it took keen insight to catch it, but yours truly was one of a very few people who pointed out that General/Government Motors unduly dressed up its financial statements in advance of its late-2010 initial public offering by foisting an unreasonable level of vehicle inventory on dealers. The effect of this was to enable the company, which in accordance with general industry practice…

CBS's Jan Crawford played up Newt Gingrich's "baggage" on Friday's Early Show, underlining how the Republican presidential candidate is "going to be hit hard for his ties to corporate interests, the ethics allegations...even his personal relationships- his adulterous affairs." Crawford also spotlighted the claim that only Herman Cain's "die-hard supporters...think that he can stay in this race…

Amidst all the media coverage of Rep. Barney Frank's (Mass.) retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives, the media largely praised the retiring Democrat while overlooking the scandals of his tenure in office and his crucial support to government policies that helped fuel the housing bubble, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told viewers of the December 1 edition of Fox News Channel's…

It appears that cleanup crews around the country aren't the only ones engaging in sanitation exercises in the wake of the largely disbanded Occupy encampments around the country. At the Associated Press, which made the goings-on in the waning days of Occupy LA national news, the aftermath is apparently just a local or regional story. Here's a list of results at the AP's national site of a…

"The media loves the idea of being able to push someone out of the race by saying they're dead," not because they want to show off they are political prognosticating geniuses but simply because they want to push them out of the race, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham noted on today's Your World program on Fox News. "I think you can really hear this with Cain" as we're now into "day three"…

Acting as a televised press release for the Democratic National Committee, MSNBC's Martin Bashir today brought on DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) to argue that new voter ID laws in several states of the Union are an attempt by Republicans to "suppress" the votes of "minorities" and college-aged voters, two groups that historically trend Democratic. True to MSNBC form, no…

A frequent emailer who happens to be a retired and now-disgusted journalist sent me a link to an Associated Press item by Philip Elliott and which is so over-the-top that you hope that Phil is on the White House payroll. At least then he'd have a justification for a hit piece which might as well have been written by David Axelrod (well, maybe it really was). By the time I got to "FACT CHECK:…

Kate Zernike, whose reporting on the Tea Party for the New York Times is often hostile, on Wednesday devoted a full story to an outside poll, from the Pew Research Center, claiming falling support for the Tea Party “may be dragging down the Republican Party heading into a presidential election year." (“Support for Tea Party Falls In Strongholds, Polls Show.”) Yet the Times has ignored recent…