Media Bias Debate

Today was a fairly brisk day for economic data, as four noteworthy reports were released. One of them contained good news, but with a heavy asterisk. The other three were either not good, period, or came in below expectations. Readers here probably know which one the Associated Press was still carrying at its Top Business Stories page as of 2:39 p.m. Of course, it was the one with good news.

In November and December, the New York Daily News characterized the NRA and its CEO Wayne LaPierre as a jihadists and terrorists. Now it has set its sights on Republican Party presidential candidates and leaders who are defending the plain, Supreme Court-upheld wording of the Constitution's Second Amendment and Congress's power to make laws over lawless presidential actions. Wednesday's NYDN…

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's New Day on CNN, Candy Carson -- wife of GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson -- complained about the tendency for the media to "attack people with untruths," asserting that "some of the media is unethical," when she was asked about the scrutiny her husband has received during the campaign.

After having spent seven and a half minutes on Tuesday trumpeting President Obama’s executive actions on gun control, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley eventually turned his newscast to the 2016 election and invoked Ronald Reagan in lecturing Republicans that “he wouldn't recognize the melee just four weeks before Iowa.”

On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing Index for December came in showing contraction for the second consecutive month, and with a slightly worse reading (48.2 percent, versus 48.6 percent in November; any reading below 50 percent signifiies contraction). These two results followed readings which just slipped over the expansion bar (50.2 and 50.1 percent, respectively) in…

Tuesday’s editions of ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News aired nowhere near the exhaustive coverage of President Obama’s executive actions on gun control that the CBS Evening News did, but they were not short on fawning language for Obama’s “rallying cry...after years of anger and frustration” in what ABC hyped as “[t]he showdown after the President breaks down.”

The left often downplays or overlooks differences among Republicans. For instance, plenty of liberals assumed that John McCain chose Sarah Palin mostly in an effort to attract disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters, rather than for the likelier reason that McCain needed to reassure his party’s righty base. Similarly, Penn State's Sophia McClennen lumps Fox News with Donald Trump, whose…

Offering his thoughts on Tuesday’s With All Due Respect concerning President Obama announcing his executive actions on gun control, Bloomberg TV/MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin declared that he was “touched by” the President’s tears and was “proud of his ability to show” his emotions on something that’s “a national crisis that needs to be addressed.”

At the Associated Press, Wisconsin-based reporter Scott Bauer, who has spent the better part of the past five years describing Badger State Governor Scott Walker as "polarizing," has been given the opportunity to get involved with 2016 presidential campaign coverage. Leftists and Democrats rarely earn negative descriptors in Bauer's reports, while Republicans and conservatives receive them…

On the Monday night edition of MSNBC’s All In, longtime liberal columnist Jonathan Alter reacted to President Obama’s executive actions on gun control by remarking how heartbreaking it was for Obama to have met with the families of Sandy Hook victims and “see those six-year-olds stacked up like cord wood.” Then: "After that, he was going to do everything in his power and if people don't like it,…

Following former President Bill Clinton’s first 2016 campaign events on Monday for wife Hillary, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC proclaimed that Hillary’s use of her “secret” and “most potent” weapon as a surrogate in New Hampshire was “a decisive moment” of this election season.

Moments after the White House revealed to reporters on Monday details of President Obama’s executive orders on gun control, the network evening newscasts could barely contain their approval for the President “picking a major fight with Republicans” as his “new gun checks” seek “to restrict gun sales.” CBS anchor Scott Pelley: "The President, frustrated by mass murders that seem to come every…

For the cover story of its February issue, Vanity Fair profiled FNC’s Kelly File host Megyn Kelly and while they charted her admirable rise to primetime, work ethic, devotion to her family, and fair interviewing skills, the liberal magazine heavily touted examples of her holding the feet of conservatives to the fire and praise from liberal journalists like Chris Matthews and Katie Couric. It made…

Since last night, Matt Drudge has teased his link to CNN's coverage of Hillary Clinton "heckler" Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien with the following headline: "Clinton heckled in NH by rape survivor." The headline at CNN's story by Dan Merica is quite different: "NH GOP lawmaker heckles Hillary Clinton over Bill Clinton's sex scandals." The headline difference is not unusual. What is unusual is that…