Labeling

Since Wednesday, ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning and evening newscasts have all played up the social media frenzy over Texas State Senator Wendy Davis' multi-hour filibuster on Tuesday against a pro-life bill. On Friday's Today, NBC's Tamron Hall claimed that the Davis story is "another example of how social media can turn a story into a whole other stratosphere. I think without Twitter and…

Before the government released its first estimate of first-quarter economic growth in late April, the establishment press, particularly Bloomberg News and the Associated Press, salivated at the chance to report the then-predicted "robust" annualized growth of 3 percent and to describe how the economy had "accelerated" from the previous quarter's pathetic 0.4 percent. When that first estimate…

Thursday's CBS This Morning heralded pro-abortion Texas State Senator Wendy Davis as a "new star in Democratic politics" for her "marathon filibuster that went viral". Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell tossed softball questions at Davis, and wondered if she would "run for governor or for national office now" because of her "new role in the national spotlight". [audio available here; video below…

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer has posted what he says is the substance of his entire email exchange with James Brooks of the Associated Press in the wire service's coverage of the UK Home Office's decision to ban Spencer and fellow Stop the Islamization of America leader Pamela Geller, so we can compare what actually transpired to what was published. Brooks apparently did not contact…

CBS This Morning led its Thursday broadcast with overwhelmingly slanted coverage on the Supreme Court's pro-same-sex "marriage" rulings. Ben Tracy played up the "long night of celebrating in West Hollywood", after the Court paved the way for the termination of California's Proposition 8. Tracy also prominently featured a homosexual couple's informal ring ceremony, who "after being blocked by…

First, they buried the lede, then they excised it completely. An initial report yesterday at the New York Times on President Obama's speech on "climate change" at Georgetown University by Mark Landler and John M. Broder -- a report which was still up at least as late as 6 p.m. Tuesday evening, according to this story pull posted at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (go to the bottom of the article…

ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning newscasts on Wednesday spotlighted Texas State Senator Wendy Davis's filibuster against pro-life legislation, hyping how she stood for hours in "comfortable pink sneakers" to stop a vote on the bill. The networks trumpeted how "the unfolding drama topped the list of worldwide Twitter trends", but ABC and NBC failed to include any tweets or soundbites from supporters…

Continuing the business press's slavish devotion to seasonally adjusted figures in government reports to the exclusion of looking at what actually happened, Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, began his Tuesday dispatch on May's new-home sales report from the Census Bureau as follows: "Sales of new homes rose in May to the fastest pace in five years, a…

Charlie Rose forwarded the latest liberal spin about the IRS scandal on Tuesday's CBS This Morning. The anchor hyped how the agency apparently placed liberal groups on "be-on-the-lookout" lists, and asked Rep. Paul Ryan, "Does it look less partisan with this new information?" Moments earlier in the morning newscast, correspondent Nancy Cordes reported that "groups were flagged for a whole…

CBS kept up its slanted reporting about the proposed border security amendment to the Gang of Eight's immigration bill on Saturday and Monday's CBS This Morning. Nancy Cordes trumpeted how "the plan, worked out by Senate Republicans, devotes even more resources to border security than conservatives were calling for". Cordes also spotlighted how "some Democrats called it overkill." The…

Before taking a series of cheap shots at Howard Kurtz, the former Daily Beast Washington bureau chief and CNN "Reliable Sources" host who has moved to Fox News to host its "Fox News Watch" program, Salon political reporter Alex Seitz-Wald characterized Kurtz's new employer as "a stable for journalists who have fallen on hard times." In related news, the New York Yankees and the Miami Heat,…

Netroots Nation, the leftist annual convention currently in progress in San Jose (next year it's in Detroit; can't wait), bills itself as a "connector of awesome progressive activists." Based on Emily Schultheis's Saturday morning report at the Politico on the viewpoints of those in attendance, the gathering's slogan should really be, "Blame it on Bush and Boehner." The Politico reporter also…

On the June 15 Evening News, reporter Elizabeth Palmer noted that all the candidates in the Iranian presidential election had been "very conservative" and all of them met the approval of the country's Islamic theocrats. "In U.S. terms, it was as if all the candidates for the presidency came from the Tea Party," Palmer explained to viewers at home. After watching that clip on the June 20 "…

Thursday's CBS Evening News all but hinted that the border security measures included in a new compromise attached to the immigration reform bill in Congress was overkill. Scott Pelley emphasized, "To win over Republicans, negotiators today added a military-style surge for the southern border." NBC's Tamron Hall echoed Pelley on Friday's Today: "It [the bill] would involve fortifying the U.S.-…