Labeling

During the panel discussion on the Sunday edition ABC’s This Week, panelist and PBS host Tavis Smiley declared that he was “tickled” by the birtherism surrounding Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz being perpetuated by “an unrepentant, irascible religious and racial arsonist” in Donald Trump who also “troubles” him in that the media haven’t supposedly tried to project Trump on the entire…

It’s an old New York Times labeling trick: Find the bad guys, and stamp the “conservative” label on them -- even if they are Soviet Communists -- the enemy of U.S. conservatives during the Cold War. The Times insists on describing Muslim migrants, in the news for sex attacks in Germany, as hailing from “conservative” societies (then turning around and accusing Western conservatives of “…

At the Associated Press, as seen at its "Top Business News" page Friday afternoon, Christopher Rugaber opened his song of praise for yesterday's jobs report ("US EMPLOYERS HIRE AT ROBUST PACE, DEFYING GLOBAL TRENDS") as follows: "American employers added a robust 292,000 jobs in December, suggesting that the U.S. economy is so far defying global weakness and growing solidly. ..." Rugaber's…

Andrea Mitchell touted how "the [Bill] Clinton-[Tony] Blair relationship was, indeed, special" on Friday's NBC Nightly News, as she reported on the release of transcripts of conversations between the two former leaders during the former's presidency. Mitchell spotlighted how "Blair calls Clinton 'mate.' Clinton offers to babysit Blair's son. They chat about everything from Pink Panther movies to…

Yesterday at NewsBusters, Ken Shepherd noted how quickly and gleefully the New York Times jumped ("an impressive sprint capping off a year of solid job growth") on December's relatively strong jobs report. The Associated Press joined the parade — "US EMPLOYERS HIRE AT BLISTERING PACE, DEFYING GLOBAL TRENDS" – and kept its story as its lead in its Business "Top Stories" until late afternoon.…

Tricia Bishop, the deputy editorial page editor at Baltimore Sun, also writes a biweekly column. Bishop was impressed three years ago when the White Plains, New York-based Journal News published an interactive online map showing "the addresses (and names) of all pistol permit holders" in two Empire State counties. Very few others were. Though the outrage over the paper's move was (excuse the…

Don Lemon acted less as an anchor and more like a liberal activist during two segments on Wednesday's CNN Tonight — tag-teaming with Igor Volsky of Think Progress to repeatedly interrupt and shout down conservative radio host Ben Ferguson over his support for gun rights. Lemon dismissed Ferguson's concern over President Obama's executive orders: "Does anybody in their right mind out there in…

Wednesday's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN ran a report by correspondent Drew Griffin fretting over NRA-inspired laws in some "conservative" states that forbid police departments from destroying confiscated guns, with such laws aiming to encourage the police to sell the weapons and use the funds raised to help pay for law enforcement activities.

Near the top of the Wednesday monologue of his eponymous TBS show, Conan O’Brien joked that Donald Trump reminded him of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in the way he sculpts his hair and interacts with crowds. Upon pretending to form his hair into more like Trump’s, O’Brien remarked: “I like that Mussolini thing he does. He looks out at the crowd. He's got this guy on his head.”

Don Lemon granted the heckler's veto to Igor Volsky of Think Progress on Tuesday's CNN Tonight. Volsky repeatedly interrupted conservative talk show host Ben Ferguson during a segment about President Obama's orders on gun control, and unleashed on the pro-gun lobby: "They want to silence any reasonable discussion about what can you do when a guy walks into a school and kills twenty first graders…

Today was a fairly brisk day for economic data, as four noteworthy reports were released. One of them contained good news, but with a heavy asterisk. The other three were either not good, period, or came in below expectations. Readers here probably know which one the Associated Press was still carrying at its Top Business Stories page as of 2:39 p.m. Of course, it was the one with good news.

The liberal media, especially the Big Three networks, have been so caught up in President Obama's "deeply emotional appeal," as he issued his executive orders on gun contro,l that they haven't bothered to check the effectivity of the actions. On Wednesday, the AP's Michael R. Sisak pointed out that "the gun control measures a tearful President Barack Obama announced Tuesday would not have…

In November and December, the New York Daily News characterized the NRA and its CEO Wayne LaPierre as a jihadists and terrorists. Now it has set its sights on Republican Party presidential candidates and leaders who are defending the plain, Supreme Court-upheld wording of the Constitution's Second Amendment and Congress's power to make laws over lawless presidential actions. Wednesday's NYDN…

In 1992, late-night TV host Arsenio Hall made a bad joke comparing the Pat Buchanan for President campaign to black-and-white Nazi footage. In 2016, the target is Ted Cruz. Alex Nazarayan, a writer for the shell of a publication branded as Newsweek, caused a Twitter frenzy when he compared Cruz to the Nazis, as captured by John Nolte at Breitbart: "Ted Cruz has a strong ground game in Iowa,"…