Media Bias Debate

The Department of Labor reported today that initial claims for unemployment benefits increased to 362,000 from an upwardly revised (as usual) 354,000 the previous week. Expectations were for a reading of 351,000 (Business Insider's email) or 352,000 (Bloomberg). Over at the Associated Press, also known as the Administration's Press, the headlined reaction in its 9:17 a.m. report was: "…

On the Chicago Tribune's Web site and in its print edition today, columnist Clarence Page asks hopefully "Could this be the end of Limbaugh?"   Seizing on the usual Democratic points regarding Rush Limbaugh's comments about law student Sandra Fluke, Page writes that Limbaugh wasn't suspended, "despite his breathtaking assault against a private citizen whose only crime, after all, was to…

Michele Bachmann complained that although the media are outraged over an insult of Sandra Fluke, "there is no level of vitriol that's beyond the pale" when the victims are conservative women. CNN's Howard Kurtz questioned that assumption since Bachmann ran for president and should have expected "a lot of criticism." Apparently, running for president nowadays subjects you and your family to vile…

Jan Crawford spotlighted Karen Santorum's "frustrations with the media" on Tuesday's CBS This Morning, adding that it was "understandable. They've been mocked by some for how they grieved the loss of their infant son." Crawford also noted how Mrs. Santorum's "life...has been under a microscope. In nearly every story written about her, it's mentioned she lived with a doctor...[who] performed…

A few days ago, conservative author Ann Coulter summed up the left's reaction to the death of Andrew Breitbart with this statement:  "Even in death he shows liberals in their true colors".  With that, those true colors, the same rage and venom being spewed in Breitbart's direction, continues. Last week, we saw Rolling Stone publish a piece in which author Matt Taibbi lamented how happy he was…

Over at the Associated Press in a report with a Tuesday morning time stamp, Christopher Rugaber produced yet another predictable lemonade-from-lemons story about how the economy is allegedly "improving faster than economists had expected. They now foresee slightly stronger growth and hiring than they did two months earlier - trends that would help President Barack Obama's re-election hopes."…

NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd gave an interview to Dylan Byers of Politico where he suggested the media's coverage of politics is often wrong: "we incorrectly cover American politics 60 percent of the time." What? What would explain this tilt? Todd insists there hasn't been liberal/ideological bias for a long time, but "we don't understand their day-to-day lives" outside the New…

The Drudge Report has linked to MRC TV's Stephen Gutowski, who dug up that the Radical Feminist Heroine of the Week Sandra Fluke thinks insurance policies shouldn't just pay for contraceptives, but for "transgender" amputations and implants. If the national media thinks this scandal-ette deserves to go for weeks on end, where is this story? Steve reports Fluke makes her view of an amputation…

Have we reached a point where a positive story about a political candidate whose views are considered unacceptable by the media elites won't get widely covered even when it's virtually dropped in their laps? One can't help but suspect that's the case with Rick Santorum. February 13, the Detroit Free Press carried a moving story by Kathleen Gray about how the parents of a Michigan girl with…

Today NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) president Brent Bozell launched a new website: IStandWithRush.org, where visitors can sign a petition denouncing "attempts by radical left-wing organizations and the media to censor Rush and his commonsense conservative message." Rush apologized for his initial comments, "but the Left won't accept the apology" and "won't be satisfied…

In the wake of Rush Limbaugh calling a Georgetown law student a "slut," CNN hosted the president of the liberal National Organization for Women who called for Limbaugh to be fired, on Monday morning's 10 a.m. hour of Newsroom. They did not give such a voice to supporters of conservative women last year when those women were under attack from liberals. When liberal radio host Ed Schultz…

In public accounting, there's a concept known as "independence," which has two aspects: independence in fact and independence in appearance. If you are auditing a company, you may in fact be the most independent person in the world, willing to follow the audit trail wherever it leads, but no matter how much you object, if you own stock in the subject company, you won't be allowed to participate…

Jon Meacham has come down with a particularly virulent strain of Limbaugh Derangement Syndrome that is bringing him to the brink of insanity. How else could one explain the Time magazine writer hailing an anti-Limbaugh speech as "timeless"  just like Jesus's Sermon on the Mount or Lincoln's Gettysburg Address? Yes, I kid you not, he really went there, and in a Time.com "Ideas" blog post…

Saturday morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appeared alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson on his weekly Rainbow PUSH program, prior to her endorsement of Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) in this month's Democratic primary.  The Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, WLS AM, and the local affiliates of NBC and ABC all covered the the event. Moments after saying it's "a badge of honor" for…