Seattle P-I Blogger Laments Disgrace of Spitzer, 'Hero to Consumer Cru
Saying that he's "breaking our hearts," Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Big Blog" breaking news editor Candace Heckman is chagrined about the probable demise of Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.). Yet while Heckman praised Spitzer as an intrepid friend of Everyman, the populist defender of the masses against powerful Big Business.Not once did Heckman note Spitzer's party affiliation in her March 11 post (…
CBS ‘Early Show’ Makes No Mention of Spitzer Being Democrat
At the top of Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show"a 1,612 word story on New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s sex scandal did not feature the word ‘Democrat’ even once, nor was the word used in any further coverage of Spitzer during the show. A 'D' did appear briefly next to Spitzer's name on screen at two points during the show, for a total of 14 seconds. In addition, the story portrayed Spitzer as a great…
NB's Noel Sheppard on 'Glenn Beck' Dissects Anatomy of Left-wing Smear
NewsBusters Associate Editor Noel Sheppard appeared on the March 10 "Glenn Beck" program on CNN Headline News to discuss the left-wing Web's recent smear of the radio host. Beck was taken out of context for comments he made about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). [See Sheppard's related March 8 blog entry here.]Video (4:18): Windows Media (15.7 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.94 MB). Here's the transcript:…
Party Labels by the Numbers: Democratic Affiliation Often Ignored by A
ABC News has a photo montage of political sex scandals, featuring both Republicans and Democrats. But a few bloggers have noted that the captions for these photos often ignore the Democratic Party affiliation of Democrats while highlighting the GOP affiliation of Republican.Out of 13 pols featured, there were five Democrats, four of whom (80 percent) were unidentified by party. Of the eight…
CNN’s Costello Focuses on GOP Scandals, Mentions Democrats in Passin
CNN correspondent Carol Costello, in a report on Monday’s "The Situation Room," tried to put the Eliot Spitzer scandal into a better light by focusing entirely on past Republican scandals, and only mentioned two examples of Democrats caught in scandal -- Bill Clinton and Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank -- in passing.Other than Idaho Senator Larry Craig, Costello brought up Republicans who…
Scandal-Ridden 'Hip Hop Mayor' Superdelgate's Dem Power Links
A few days before Eliot Spitzer went down in flames, a highly-connected Barack Obama* superdelegate was mired in accusations of corruption, bid-rigging and a dead-stripper sex scandal. Usually the media love to report the downfall of party bigwigs, but not in the case of Detroit's youngest mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Much of the media downplayed the mayor's scandals and did not report his party, let…
CBS’s Pelley Grills McCain, Kroft & Couric Chatted With Democrats
On Sunday’s CBS "60 Minutes," anchor Scott Pelley interviewed Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, and the tone of the questions was this: "The United States is going to be in Iraq for years to come. Afghanistan is not going well. Osama bin Laden is at large. And the economy is slipping into recession...How do you make a case for a third Republican term?"Compare that to how Steve Kroft…
BBC Removes Initial Democratic Label on Spitzer Story
Update (18:18 EDT): BBC has updated their article to note the Democratic party affiliation in the 3rd graf (link). Our tipster DB informs us that the BBC's North America editor Justin Webb replied to his e-mail with a promise to "try to get it changed." The BBC initially noted Gov. Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat, in an early draft of an online news article. The mention was in the 6th paragraph. But…
CBS’s Smith: Republican Campaign Ads Have Taken ‘Low Road
On Monday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith did a segment on the effectiveness of television ads in presidential campaigns, in which he gave credit to Ronald Reagan’s ‘optimistic’ "Morning in America" ad, which he incorrectly said was run in the 1980 campaign rather than 1984, but he followed quickly by condemning more recent Republican ads: "There's a high road and a low road. Remember…
AP Ignores Spitzer's Democratic Party Affiliation
Update (16:50 EDT): Clay Waters of MRC's TimesWatch informs me the 3rd paragraph reference in a NYT article to Spitzer's Democratic Party affiliation has been removed. Only an oblique reference to his party remains in the 15th paragraph, notes Waters. It's the first major political sex scandal of 2008 (aside from Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick) and it involves a Democrat. So of course the Associated…
'Today' Pans Hil's Obama-for-VP Ploy: Ignorant, Arrogant, Illogical, C
If Hillary Clinton's latest gambit--floating Obama as her VP--were a play not a ploy, and the Today crew the theater critics, they would have left at intermission to begin penning a blistering pan.Interviewing Tim Russert, Matt Lauer kicked off the kicking around of Hillary's idea.MATT LAUER: Let's talk about this idea. Is it being floated seriously? Is this light-hearted, and who's behind it?…
Oprah Abandoned 'The Hot-Flash Cohort
Look for NOW to be setting up picket lines outside Rush's Southern Command, protesting the way Limbaugh has demeaned mature women, writing them off as the "hot-flash cohort."Outrageous! When will these right-wing men realize we will no longer tolerate their misogynist --What? It wasn't Rush? It was that avatar of elite liberal thought Tina Brown, writing in Newsweek? Never mind.Here's how…
No Party ID for NY Dem Who Stole From Little League, Bought Mistress C
The New York Times reported Democratic NY state assemblyman Brian McLaughlin pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges on Friday. As usual, no party identification in the headline, picture, caption or article, but there's a twist in this March 8 piece. The NYT also didn't report that he was in office at the time the crimes were committed. In the lede, the Times described McLaughlin as the “…
