Labeling

After the shock resignation of John Boehner, should you fear and dread the rise of a revitalized right wing in Congress? Sunday's New York Times front page featured a "news analysis" on the surprise retirement announcement of House Speaker John Boehner. The takeaway from Jonathan Weisman and Michael Shear's label-heavy story was encapsulated in the headline: "The Post-Boehner Congress and…

On Saturday morning, the major broadcast networks were at it again in bashing the “far-right” and “unruly hardliners” in the House Republican caucus for causing Speaker John Boehner’s impending resignation announced Friday that CBS added could hurt the party’s chances in 2016 if the “infighting” continues.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews revealed his loathing for a part of his Catholic upbringing on Wednesday's Hardball, and ended up mangling the theology behind a beautiful and ancient Church ritual for new mothers. Matthews turned to Catholic dissident Sister Simone Campbell for her take on Pope Francis's visit. Sister Campbell touted her liberal "Nuns on the Bus" campaign as a supposed way to "take the…

Two journalists on Friday's NBC Nightly News played up how the supposed "far right" of the Republican Party pushed out Rep. John Boehner, who announced earlier in the day that he would be stepping down as Speaker of the House. Lester Holt underlined that Boehner is "resigning from Congress at the end of next month in the face of a challenge from members of the far right of his party, who believe…

Thursday morning at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Christopher Rugaber opened his coverage of the Census Bureau's New Residential Sales report as follows: "Buoyed by steady job gains and low mortgage rates, Americans purchased new homes in August at the fastest pace in more than seven years." Sorry, pal, it was the "fastest pace" in — wow — three months. The bureau's not…

CNN's Christiane Amanpour wildly claimed that "top" Republican presidential candidates "have decided to make a war on Moslems...1.5 billion members of another faith." Amanpour didn't name any names, but since she pointed out how Pope Francis referenced "Thomas Merton, a Cistercian friar" during address to Congress, who, in her words, "had tolerance and interreligious dialogue as his leitmotif;"…

The competition for the most annoying aspect of establishment press business reporting is fierce. One which immediately identifies a reporter as hopelessly biased and ignorant is any reference to "laissez faire" as a condition allegedly present in any modern economy anywhere on earth. "Laissez faire" is an economic concept involving "an economic system in which transactions between private…

It would appear that Hillary Clinton's act is wearing thin even among the people at that liberal bastion known as NPR. Tuesday afternoon, the headline at an NPR story about Mrs. Clinton's sudden decision to publicly announce her opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline project indicated that her announcement was deliberately timed to coincide with Pope Francis's visit to the United States (HT…

The media have a knack of turning giving liberal activists a platform when it covers the Catholic Church. The latest example is CNN's Chris Cuomo turning to Episcopalian bishop/LGBT activist Gene Robinson moments after Pope Francis spoke at the White House on Wednesday. Cuomo noted that Robinson was part of "a number of people that were seen as controversial" among the invited guests at the…

Word on the street is that ESPN is planning to lay off "200 to 300" employees in the coming months. The go-to euphemism surrounding the impending layoffs, according to Variety's Brian Steinberg, is "the changing media landscape," primarily the "cord-cutting" phenomenon. In July, the Big Lead blog, in discussing Keith Olbermann's expected departure from ESPN, explained that "millennials are…

In what appears to be a mixed result in the quest for clarity, the Associated Press has announced that its reporters and those who wish to adhere to its Stylebook guidelines will henceforth refer to those who don't worship at the altar of the global warming/climate change absolutists "doubters" instead of "deniers" and "skeptics." The specific change reads as follows: "To describe those who don’…

The Associated Press's report yesterday on the law license suspension of indicted Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, a Democrat, apparently bore too much resemblance to how the wire service typically reports on troubled Republicans and conservatives. The Monday afternoon report by Marc Levy and Mark Scolforo identified her position in its headline ("Court suspends Pennsylvania attorney…

Thomas Roberts set aside four full segments on his MSNBC Live program on Monday and Tuesday to a panel of six Catholics who dissent from the Church's teachings on sexuality and abortion. Roberts hyped his guests as "Catholics like me who have been deeply wounded in life by the Church." He noted how a divorced woman stayed with the Church and asked, "Do you feel as if you're almost on a cyclical…

The Associated Press, serving as the left's de facto Praetorian guard, came through for its abortion-supporting masters once again today. The wire service's Alan Fram, in a sentence describing the Center for Medical Progress's Planned Parenthood videos, told readers that they show "how they sometimes send fetal tissue to medical researchers" without noting that doing so routinely generates money…