Labeling

Participation in youth football is down. As economic ignoramus David Leonhardt of the New York Times explained yesterday at the paper's "The Upshot" blog, this is particularly pronounced in "the highly educated Democratic-leaning areas of major metropolitan areas." Yesterday, as he was interviewing Leonhardt about his post on NPR's "The Takeaway" program, John Hockenberry asked, "Are you…

MSNBC and CNN zeroed in on the supposed radical right-wing views of Senator-elect Joni Ernst during their live election night coverage. Just after 2 am Eastern on Wednesday, MSNBC's Luke Russert played up how Ernst was "able to have these rather extreme Tea Party views; and then, moderate them closer to the election." Just over two hours earlier, CNN's Dana Bash gave the Iowa Republican a similar…

CNN's Carol Costello hyped how "Republicans have managed to use fear so successfully in these midterm elections" during interviews of two former governors on Tuesday's CNN Newsroom. Costello contended that "Republicans may be on the verge of winning Senate control – thanks, in large part, to a campaign of fear. If you examine the political ads that many Republican candidates have put out, they…

Left-wing academics Candida Moss and Joel Baden blasted conservative and traditionalist Catholics in a Sunday post on The Daily Beast website for their opposition to Pope Francis's change in tone on social issues. Moss and Baden made their loathing of orthodox believers clear by hyping how supposedly, "conservative Catholics have had their chastity belts in a twist over Francis and apparently,…

NBC's Today and CBS This Morning both led their broadcasts on Monday with euthanasia advocate Brittany Maynard's drug-induced suicide. The morning shows' anchors sang the praises of the "beautiful, brave young woman," as Gayle King labeled Maynard. Charlie Rose touted how the cancer patient's "short and meaningful life is over." Savannah Guthrie gushed, "What a remarkable young woman, and to…

Doug Schorpp at the Quad City Times had a really bad day yesterday. The sad thing is that he still probably doesn't even know it. His report (HT Gateway Pundit) on Michelle Obama's visit to Moline, Illinois had two whoppers. One of them was spoken by Mrs. Obama, while the other error was completely unforced. They have been present at the paper's web site since Saturday at 6 p.m., humiliating…

New Jersey Governor Christie rebuked a heckler during his visit to the area affected by Superstorm Sandy on Wednesday. His rebuke is still a major headline item at ... the Weather Channel. The headline ("Gov Loses It During Speech") also makes a claim not supported by the circumstances, or Christie's history of dealng with such critics:

An unbylined "Q&A" column at the Associated Press yesterday began with the following false declaration: "The $4 trillion experiment is over." That just isn't so. Maybe the Federal Reserve is done building up its debt holdings — that is by no means certain — but the "experiment" known as "quantitative easing," or "QE," won't be over until the Fed fully unwinds those balances. In the meantime…

At NewsBusters yesterday, P.J. Gladnick justifiably went after the over-the-top hackery pervading Alexander Burns's Politico story on how "Scott Walker limps toward 2016." Burns bitterly criticized Walker's "divide-and-conquer strategy," and the governor himself as "confrontational" and (of course) "polarizing." Given that his column was allegedly updated this morning, I expected Burns to revise…

On Saturday, Erika Rawes at USA Today's Wall Street Cheat Sheet engaged in some impressive gymnastics as she discussed the middle class and identified seven things its members "can't afford anymore" (the headline) or that "a larger percentage of people have trouble paying for" (the content). It's a sloppy list. One of the items — debt — isn't a "thing" at all, but rather the result of buying too…

Carol Costello's liberal bias emerged yet again on Tuesday's CNN Newsroom, as she covered the catastrophic failure of the Antares rocket during a launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. Costello wondered, "Can NASA really trust private companies to do its business?" The anchor later pressed on with her skepticism of private business: "Well, you know, it's a concern, because NASA also plans to…

MSNBC's Daniel Berger trumpeted on Tuesday that "Pope Francis broke with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real." Berger later asserted that Pope Francis's "language was a significant departure from Benedict XVI and his close advisers, who had voiced support for the idea that intelligent design underpins evolution."

Apparently Ann Romney believed that no one was going to call Democrats and the press onto the carpet over their disgraceful conduct and non-reaction, respectively, after South Carolina Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen called incumbent Palmetto State Governor Nikki Haley a "whore" — and failed to "apologize" for it for four days. Mrs. Romney, sadly, is presumptively correct.…

On Monday's Morning Joe, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough prompted hippie icon Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, and Nash fame to promote his new song about the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Nash wildly contended that "what happened with...almost, the execution of Michael Brown, we had to say something." He also took a shot at a regular boogeyman for MSNBC: the Koch brothers.