Media Bias Debate

At his January 14 press conference, in response to a question from Major Garrett of CBS News and the National Journal about raising the federal government's debt limit, currently at $16.394 trillion, President Barack Obama said: "I’m not going to have a monthly or every-three-months conversation about whether or not we pay our bills." On Wednesday, a Fox News dispatch to which the Associated…

Discussing Barack Obama's second inaugural address with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) shortly after 4 p.m. EST today, MSNBC host Martin Bashir approvingly noted how the president "critiqued some of the negative things" in American politics today, such as when he said "name-calling is not a reasoned debate" and "I've taken an oath to God and country, not to party and faction." "I was thinking,…

Decades ago, to demonstrate the leftist biases of most establishment press reporters, one needed to study their body of work over time. Many of them didn't make their political beliefs totally obvious until they retired or went elsewhere (e.g., Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw). These days, we usually don't have to wait too long for reporters' biases to show. Over the weekend at Slate, CBS…

At the Associated Press today, Darlene "Supine" Superville filed a report on Barack and Michelle Obama's church attendance "at the historic Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church." Ms. Superville told readers that "The Old Testament reading during the service came from the book of Exodus, Chapter 14, in which the Israelites cross the Red Sea as Moses leads them out of Egypt." That's…

It should surprise no one that the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, often first learns of stories when other outlets break them. When this occurs with a story about a Democratic Party politician in trouble, we get to see how the self-described "essential global news network" revises (i.e., cleans up) the outlet's original content to make it render as little damage as possible…

It's hardly news to those who have followed Bill Clinton for the past two decades, and it's probably even more of the same-old, same-old for those who had to endure having him as governor during the 1980s in Arkansas. Nonetheless, something Mr. Clinton said in a speech at "a joint meeting of the Obama National Finance Committee and a group of business leaders," which was captured without even…

There were eight coaching changes in the National Football League during the past few weeks. It must be assumed in the absence of contrary evidence that each franchise's owners made their choice based on who they believe has the best chance to take their team to the playoffs and Super Bowl. The "problem" is, according to league's human resource people (are those really full-time jobs?) and…

When in 2008 Senator Ted Stevens was indicted on corruption-related charges, the very first word in ABC News's headline was "Republican."  And the R-word was mentioned four more times in the story.   But when ABC's Good Morning America ran a segment this morning on the indictment on charges of corruption of Ray Nagin, former Mayor of New Orleans, it never revealed—either by spoken word or…

It turns out that the Romney campaign was right to claim that Fiat, who owns Chrysler, would be making Jeeps in China instead of America, even though the media disparaged that case at the time with PolitiFact going so far as to declare the ad "Lie of the Year." According to PolitiFact, the campaign falsely implied the jobs would be outsourced, among other claims. As Reuters reported yesterday…

Another home included in an interactive map of gun permit holders published by the Lower Hudson Valley’s Journal News shortly before Christmas has been burglarized. This time, according to the related report at Newsday, "The thieves ransacked the house Wednesday night, breaking into two safes on the home's third floor and stealing a third safe." The third safe, in what was either an amazing…

When it comes to the Washington press corps, it seems journalists have two modes: garden variety liberal bias and rah-rah, fist-pumping Obama boosterism. The cover of today's Express tabloid exhibits both. "Obama Draws the Line on Guns," exults the headline on the front of the January 17 Washington Post-published tabloid. The photoshopped image accompanying the headline is an upturned…

In a 14-paragraph Style section front-pager today headlined "Ceremony is a civic ritual for all of us," the Washington Post's Sally Quinn waxed philosophical about how we as Americans need the pomp and circumstance of the quadrennial presidential inaugural ceremonies to unite us as Americans and swell our hearts with civic pride, regardless of who is president.  "[T]his is America's chance to…

None of the three major wire services covering today's report from the Department of Labor on initial unemployment claims is reporting the major news: For the first time in a long while, actual claims filed during the most recent week ended January 12 were almost 6 percent higher than the number filed during last year's comparable week, an indication that the current employment market may be…

As MediaBistro's TVNewser blog noticed on Wednesday, an image of NBC Meet the Press moderator David Gregory was featured in the newly released ad by the National Rifle Association, labeling him to be one of several "elitist hypocrites" on the gun control issue. [Watch video of the ad after the jump]