NPR's Totenberg: Kagan, Sotomayor 'Not Nearly as Liberal' as Predecess
NPR's Nina Totenberg strangely cast doubt on the liberal credentials of Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor on Saturday's Early Show on CBS, claiming that "they're not nearly as liberal as justices were...thirty years ago." Totenberg also hinted that the other members of the Court were right-wing radicals: "Compared to the much more conservative members of the Court, they are…
Name That Party: Blago's Dem Affiliation Left Out of Seven AP Stories
Earlier today, a grand jury convicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, on 17 of 20 counts of corruption. 11 of of the guilty verdicts related to attempts to profit from the "sale" of the U.S. Senate seat Barack Obama vacated when he became president.
At USA Today's On Deadline blog (as of its 5:33 p.m. update), Michael Winter failed to identify Blagojevich or any other…
As Connecticut Nears 7,500 Layoffs, AP Nearly Ignores Over 75 Tax Hike
Susan Haigh's report Friday evening on the current status of budget negotiations between Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and the state's public-sector unions contains two glaring errors which mar the entire enterprise.
Haigh conveniently withheld the fact that the Nutmeg State's legislature has already approved $2.6 billion in new taxes over two years until her report's final paragraph,…
FBI Official And US Attorney Abruptly Cancel on Rachel Maddow; Go Figu
... And after Maddow had spoken so glowingly of an FBI strategy for capturing notorious fugitive mobster Whitey Bulger. Or did she?
Rachel Maddow made a curious disclosure on her MSNBC show Friday after interviewing former Boston Globe reporter Dick Lehr, co-author of "Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob," about Bulger's court appearance that…
WaPo TV Critic Slams Conservatives in Review of Documentary on Lawsuit
Washington Post staffer Hank Stuever started off with a fair point in his review of the new HBO documentary "Hot Coffee." But before his June 27 Style section front-pager was concluded, the Post TV critic was bashing conservatives and free marketeers for advocating tort reform.
Update: AP Still Won't Acknowledge Both Sides of Wis. Supreme Court Ju
Given a chance to revise and extend its 9:58 a.m. report (covered this afternoon at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) on the June 13 altercation between Wisconsin Supreme Court Judges David Prosser, Jr. and Ann Walsh Bradley, the Associated Press's 5:29 p.m. version persists in telling its national audience only one side of the story.
Although the fact is that accounts as to who was the aggressor…
AP Predictably Tells Only One Side of Wis. Judges' Altercation
Despite the accumulated reportage and commentary available to the Associated Press this morning, the wire service, at 9:58 a.m Eastern Time (saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes), only reported on one side of the story relating to an altercation that took place between Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices David Prosser, Jr. and Ann Walsh Bradley. In doing so, it…
RFK Jr. Claims Air America Was More Popular Than Conservative Radio
... which helps explain why conservative radio continues to dominate the airwaves while Air America Radio, uh, went kaput.
During a recent appearance on Tavis Smiley's PBS show, enviro lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose "Ring of Fire" show ran on Air America, made what reasonable souls among us might construe as a questionable claim.
Here's Kennedy responding to a question from Smiley on…
A Tale of Two State Trios, and Their Comparative Press Coverage
I can't say that I'm up on what every state is doing, but it's hard not to notice contrasts between two trios of states singing decidedly different tunes:
Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey, three states with recently elected conservative Republican governors, have either put their budgets to bed, or are on the verge of doing so, by cutting costs and not raising taxes.
Connecticut,…
WaPo Notes Dem Party Connection in 'Whitey' Bulger Arrest Story... In
"TV, Twitter were Boston mobster's undoing" the below-the-fold page A1 Washington Post headline informed readers this morning.
In the 21-paragraph story that followed, Post staffer Jerry Markon detailed how the FBI closed in on the alleged serial killer and wanted mob boss.
Yet Markon waited until the very last paragraph to note James "Whitey" Bulger's familial connection to Bay State…
Matt Lauer Says It's 'Fair' to Grill Christie on Sending Kids to Priva
In an exclusive interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer played a clip of a woman attacking the Republican as hypocritical for sending his children to private school while cutting funding for public schools. Lauer agreed with her premise: "I thought it was a fair question."
Lauer sympathized with the woman and argued: "...what she was asking…
Shock and 'Awww' at the NYT Over 'Once-Unthinkable' New Jersey Govt. U
It took well over a year, but New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has gotten his way.
Covering the story for the New York Times, Richard Perez-Pena seemed to alternate between shock and "Awww." His biggest journalistic distortion was understating the degree to which Christie needed -- and got -- Democratic Party help to pass legislation which, in Pena's words, "will sharply increase what state…
NPR Trumpets 'Gender Neutrality' Advocates, Wonders 'Do We Really Need
On Thursday, NPR's Linton Weeks spotlighted several extreme proponents of eliminating gender differences and hinted at support for such an endeavor: "In a country with the ideal of treating everyone fairly and equitably, do we really need to know if someone is a boy or a girl?" Weeks portrayed the cause as just part of the normal progression of society: "As history shows, one enterprise in…
NBC's Lauer Asks if Voters Have 'Buyer's Remorse' of GOP Governors, No
Talking to former Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer touted low approval ratings for some newly elected Republican governors and theorized: "They went into office with messages of austerity. And now a year later, you look at their approval ratings and they're falling. Is this buyer's remorse?"
A graphic appeared on screen showing Wisconsin Governor…
