Campaigns & Elections

On Sunday, CNN’s Reliable Sources convened, in the words of host Brian Stelter, the “perfect panel” to discuss media coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions that was anything but perfect as it included Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan and Hillary Clinton biographer/BBC reporter Kim Ghattas with only Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik being the person that could be considered to be…

And the award for best political propaganda aimed at a teenage audience goes to … the 2016 Teen Choice Awards! Tonight, celebrities pushed gun control and Hillary Clinton to the under-18 set.

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told Chris Wallace that she doesn't want the Supreme Court's 2008 Heller decision overturned. Clinton said this after Wallace introduced the topic by referring to a statement Mrs. Clinton made at a fundraiser last year that "The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment." If we had a responsible…

Sparks flew on MSNBC’s AM Joy Sunday as host Joy Reid shouted down Amy Kremer, former Chair of Tea Party Express, for daring to mention there are roughly 30,000 missing e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server. “You just invented it an entire thing,” Reid shouted, “There’s no 33,000 e-mails that are going to harm our national security.” From there Reid refused to let Kremer speak anymore.…

Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president of the United States last Thursday, and soon after her rival Bernie Sanders announced he was returning to the Senate as an Independent. “I was elected as an independent so I'll stay two years more as an independent,” he said to the press. But this decision raised the ire of MSNBC’s Al Sharpton on PoliticsNation, Sunday, “After…

For the small handful of people who stayed up late past midnight Eastern Thursday into Friday on CNN, the conclusion of its Democratic National Convention (DNC) coverage saw some very strange scenes break out. The first such derailment of the network’s DNC analysis came upon returning from commercial break just past 12:20 a.m. Eastern when senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar was seen…

Thanks to WikiLeaks, which has released nearly 20,000 emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee — with promises of more to come — we have proof the party that styles itself as inclusive, diverse and tolerant isn’t. Among the delectable tidbits on which Republicans are feasting are these: one male DNC staffer wrote another male staffer saying “I love you” and added “no homo.” Another…

Yesterday's news about the economy was the latest in a 7-1/2 year series of mostly regular disappointments. The government reported that nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of just 1.2 percent in the second quarter, half or less of what most alleged "experts" expected. Additionally, the first's quarter's originally reported 1.1 percent growth was revised down to 0.8…

Amidst all the overwhelming media coverage gushing over President Barack Obama’s Wednesday night speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), there were a few points during MSNBC’s coverage in the early hours of Thursday that couldn’t go by without being chronicled for NewsBusters readers. 

Is media bias just smart marketing? Yes, suggests Taibbi, who claims it’s “irrelevant” that “most individual reporters” are liberals given that their profit-driven, audience-conscious corporate overlords keep them on a short leash. “Whatever their personal leanings, influential reporters mostly work in nihilistic corporations, to whom the news is a non-ideological commodity, to be sold the same…

Johnny Carson delivered, and he did so without revealing his party affiliation. That was then. Now, we have late night comics choosing sides. Some, like Trevor Noah, Larry Wilmore and Seth Meyers, are essentially signing up for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer put on his media-critic hat on the GOP.com blog  on Thursday to complain that ABC, CBS, and NBC gave several hours more live coverage of their conventions, largely the overflow into the local-news hour at 11 pm Eastern time. The GOP says across the three networks, it drew 47 minutes of overtime, compared to 261 minutes for the Democrats. Our…

Wednesday night's coverage of protests outside the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia delivered by Fox Business Network and the Associated Press could hardly have differed more. FBN reported "thousands" of angry protesters oustide who were in no way mollified by Bernie Sanders' endorsement of Hillary Clinton or calls for unity. Geoff Mulvhill and Megan Trimble at the AP only …

In a few months, Barack Obama will become the fifth post-World War II president to serve two full terms. The Washington Monthly’s Martin Longman thinks Obama tops the other four in terms of “popularity and moral credibility,” as indicated not only by the positive reception Obama got for his Wednesday-night DNC speech boosting Hillary Clinton, but by the public’s curiosity beforehand about what he…