Covert Liberal Activists

Newsweek's Howard Fineman has some stellar advice for President Obama in his recent column: stop governing for the press. Though Fineman makes the right diagnosis for Obama's ailment -- his "journalistic" style -- his assessment of its consequences is facile and ignores the intricacies of electoral politics.Fineman insists that it is not really important to cater to the journalistic establishment…

April Castro and the headline writers at the supposedly "objective" Associated Press are obviously not pleased with changes the Texas State Board of Education made to the Lone Star State's social studies curriculum. Castro's report (HT to an NB e-mailer) makes almost no attempt to hide her clear disdain. She includes references to a "far-right faction" (a "faction" that happened to constitute a…

CNN.com has an article on its website extolling the virtues of the Coffee Party. The glowing language the piece uses to describe the movement stands in stark contrast to the cable network's treatment of Tea Party groups over the past year. CNN doesn't like the Tea Party movement, that much is clear. The cable network's on-air staff and guests have proclaimed it an "anti-government" group of "…

New York Times reporter James McKinley Jr. was in Austin to cover a controversy over school curriculum in Texas, with conservatives on the state Board of Education trying to soften the liberal tone of the state's textbooks and include more records of conservative accomplishments. His Thursday story, "Texas Conservatives Seek Deeper Stamp on Texts," was positively sodden with "conservative" labels…

Over the weekend, Time Magazine published a long, glowing profile of Tom Hanks to help promote his upcoming HBO miniseries “The Pacific.” And as with all things entertainment media, the subject is never challenged or even made to shift uncomfortably in his seat. The push to ascend Hanks to “national treasure” status is clearly on. Hanks does seem to be a genuinely nice man and the work he’s done…

When the networks get a story involving food, labeling and health, they know just how to cover it: get reaction from their favorite lefty advocacy group, and paint consumers as defenseless patsies. That's what CBS' "Early Show" and ABC's "Good Morning America" did on March 4. In an alleged violation of the Federal Food Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the FDA has issued its biggest crackdowns in fifteen…

Why can't President Obama get a health care bill through Congress? Nope, it has nothing to do with the fact that a clear majority of the country doesn't want the federal government overhauling seventeen percent of the economy. The problem is he is just too darn reasonable.So posits Newsweek's Andrew Romano, who notes that Obama could have gone wholesale-government-takeover on health care and a…

Remember Van Jones? He's trying to make a comeback, and the mainstream media seems to be lending him a helping hand in getting back into the Washington power structure. Jones, in case you don't remember, was the administration's Green Jobs Czar. He resigned after it came to light that his name appeared on a 9/11 Truther petition.That, it turned out, was not the extent of his wackiness. He led a…

What good is the liberal media's "truth squadding" or "fact-checking" when it doesn't reveal any facts and is completely divorced from the truth? MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell gave a stark answer to that question this morning, when she appeared on "Morning Joe" to discuss yesterday's health care summit. O'Donnell heaped praise on the President for being "in command of some of the facts", like the "…

After Barack Obama's election as the first black president of the United States, we were supposed to have entered a new, post-racial era. However, as many feel it has turned out, any dissent or criticism of the most powerful man in the free world or his agenda draws allegations of "racial tones," as happened on the New York Times Web site on Feb. 18.  And on Feb. 18 at the 2010 Conservative…

Sometimes it gets frustrating when the liberal media refuses to admit that it is just that--liberal. But every now and then, some light shines in on its true ways.It should hardly be a surprise that a newspaper called the Atlanta Progressive News would be the one to lift the veil of objectivity. But it is nice to see at least one liberal media outlet admit that--in the words of David Axelrod--it…

Liberal TV show host? Want to guarantee that the post-Stack finger will be pointed at conservatives?  Choose as your sole guest on the subject someone from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center. That's precisely what Chris Matthews did this evening, with utterly predictable results. Right on script, SPLC director Mark Potok twice associated Austin plane-bomber Andrew Stack with "the radical…

Update - 7:15 PM | Lachlan Markay: The questions from the poll phrase the issue in similarly misleading language. Details below.The news media have a tremendous potential to shape public opinion. So when they misreport important events, it has significant consequences for public opinion and public policy.An ABC News/Washington Post poll released today shows that 80 percent of Americans disagree…

The New York Times has apparently discovered its inner patriot. The paper decided after a request from the White House to hold off publishing key information about the war effort in Afghanistan for fear of alerting the enemy to key U.S. intelligence.The Times and its executive editor Bill Keller, who defended the decision, have left the nation collectively uttering, "It's about time." Now that's…