Media Bias Debate

Wednesday evening, the Associated Press's Sam Hananel, with predictable help from Scott Bauer, tried to do a Bing Crosby imitation ("Unions look for silver lining in Wisconsin recalls") in an attempt to "Accentuate the Positive" in reporting on the results of yesterday's attempts to defeat six Republican Badger State Senators in recall elections. Democrats, leftists, and public-sector unions…

Five years ago Post fashion writer Robin Givhan scoffed at the notion of modest swimwear in a July 14, 2006 column "Ultimate Coverup." Fast forward to today and the Post's Alison Lake gave Style section readers a gushy look at how "Muslim women shop for ways to bare little." "Web sites offer modest fashions suitable for summer and pool wear," noted the subheader to Lake's story.

Today CNN's Politics Web site carries the story "Republicans name fiscal conservatives to debt committee," written by Deirdre Walsh and Tom Cohen.  The piece begins: "Republican leaders on Wednesday named fiscal conservatives for their six picks for a new congressional "super" committee charged with crafting a plan to cut the country's deficit." OK, the GOP's selections would be seen by…

Newsweek editor Tina Brown defended her magazine's controversial cover portraying Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as the "Queen of Rage" on the August 10 edition of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," offering no apology since the three-term congresswoman could become America's first "crazy" president. "Some people look at this picture and think, you know, Michele Bachmann looks crazy," remarked Brown. "…

NOTE: This post replicates one which originally appeared on August 10 but was inadvertently deleted due to system complications two days later. For some reason, Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker and Thomas Watkins, in a story about the wave of flash mob crime in the U.S. this summer, felt compelled to find an "expert" who would express some sympathy for its participants. Well, they…

Newsweek's embarrassing cover photo of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) garnered attention not only from conservative blogs, but also from the major networks and cable news. CNN ran Bachmann's wide-eyed picture on the latest Newsweek cover multiple times Tuesday morning, asking if the picture and harsh headline were examples of media maltreatment of conservative women presidential candidates…

Communist Cuba's Castro brothers may be asking themselves why they need to engage in any propaganda on their own when they have Associated Press's Images Division promoting photos of Dear Leader Fidel Castro as "iconic" and the brutal Ché Guevera as a "revolutionary hero." What follows is the text of an email NewsBusters and BizzyBlog commenter/correspondent Gary received from AP Images on…

While anchor Brian Williams described Newsweek's controversial cover photo of Michelle Bachmann as "clearly a misfire" on Monday's NBC Nightly News, on Tuesday's Today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell saw an opportunity to portray Bachmann as "extreme." Meanwhile, CBS completely ignored the story and ABC only provided a news brief on the topic. On Tuesday's Today, while Mitchell described the…

We've just spent the past month or so having politicians and the press tell us that if there was no debt-ceiling deal by August 2, the government might default on its debts (of course, Tim Geithner and Barack Obama could indeed have strategically defaulted if they had wished, but work with me here). But Sunday on Meet the Press, in a remark I expect will not be relayed much if at all by the…

In an otherwise typically dismal column about President Barack Obama which is one part pity party and another part an attempt at building him a he-man reputation (not kidding), New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd describes an upcoming movie featuring the exploits of Navy SEAL Team 6 in the operation which killed Osama Bin Laden on May 1. Dowd celebrates the fact that the movie's currently…

On August 2 on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed that the economy under George W. Bush lost eight million jobs. PolitiFact, which occasionally seems to engage in verbal gymnastics to give Democrats and leftists the benefit of the doubt, was more than a little annoyed with Reid's claim, giving it a rating of "Pants on Fire." As will be demonstrated later, virtually no…

The predictable MSM reaction to Standard & Poor's downgrading of the US government's credit rating? Kill the messenger, of course.  Yesterday, we noted how Jeff Glor at CBS' Early Show parroted the Obama line about the downgrade being "political." Today it was ABC's turn.  Good Morning America had on Mellody Hobson, a regular ABC "financial contributor" and former host of her own ABC…

The past three weeks in the stock market have gone as follows: Week ended July 22 -- Pretty good; week ended July 29 -- Really bad; week just ended -- Absolutely awful. After I received a remarkably vague e-mail from CNN just after 4 p.m. today, I thought I'd go back and see how it handled its closing-bell emails during the previous two weeks. It was quite revealing. The three emails follow…

While the liberal media scoffed at George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" in 1999 and 2000 as gimmicky and insufficient compared to traditional big government social welfare spending binges, they're starting to miss it now. Just ask Time's Amy Sullivan: