Media Bias Debate

FNC’s Fox Newswatch on Saturday highlighted a winner in the MRC’s online balloting, in which many NewsBusters readers took part (Friday NB post announcing who you picked for Quote of the Year), for the annual awards for the year’s worst reporting. Host Jon Scott announced: The results are in. The Media Research Center conducted an online poll asking the public to vote on the worst biased…

Today liberal Senate Democrats failed to garner the 60-vote threshold to end debate on and move to a final passage vote for the DREAM Act. In covering the story, the news wire credited Republican opposition for "doom[ing]" the legislation, but the math doesn't work out when you look at the breakdown of the votes on the motion to end debate -- also known as invoking cloture. [h/t reader Kevin…

Did you know that the "big new tax law" signed by President Obama yesterday "will save taxpayers, on average, about $3,000 next year," and that it will have "tax breaks for being married, having children, paying for child care, going to college or investing in securities"? Don't spend that extra $3,000 yet, because it mostly won't be there. With the only major exception being the 2-point cut…

Leave it to the Associated Press, with the assistance of the "magic" of seasonal adjustments, to make the November housing market appear as if it was a bit better than the two months that preceded it. It wasn't. Thursday, the wire service grabbed the single crumb that was available, namely the Census Bureau's report earlier that day that annualized, seasonally adjusted housing starts had…

Before the media got thrills and chills over Obama, they were enthralled with Bill Clinton. They still have that lovin' feeling for him to this day, judging by their reaction to President Clinton's return to the White House briefing room lectern on December 10. "This was really a bad moment for Obama. I don't think he realized just how much the media love Bill Clinton," NewsBusters publisher…

"Why is the press accepting [Obama Afghanistan policy] at face value?"  Good question, and one posed by Richard Haass this morning.  The president of the Council on Foreign Relations and Joe Scarborough ripped a "compliant press" on Morning Joe today for failing to ask the tough questions about Pres. Obama's prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. Scarborough suggested a theory as to why…

It seems to be almost required by now that any indictment of Kwame Kilpatrick must be accompanied by two or more establishment media outlets reports that fail to inform readers that the former Detroit Mayor is a Democrat -- in fact, a Democrat who was singled out for copious praise during the early stages of Barack Obama's campaign for president. In unbylined reports, CBS News in Detroit and…

Maybe we need to add the word "Palinography" to the dictionary. Its definition would be: "The process of preparing news photographs and accompanying captions about Sarah Palin in a deliberately negative light." One example many will likely remember involved the amateurish wire service shoes-and-calves-only photos frequently seen during Palin's vice-presidential run. Lori Ziganto at the…

All you need to know about the MSM: two of its stalwarts don't think Barack Obama is a real liberal . . . Time editor Mark Halperin, and Jon Meacham (until recently head Newsweek honcho) expressed--to the astonishment of Joe Scarborough--their fact-defying views on today's Morning Joe. View video after the jump.

Some refreshing frankness from Chuck Todd today.  Commenting on the MSM hoopla about Bill Clinton's recent White House press room solo, NBC's political director and chief White House correspondent acknowledged that there are "a lot of Clinton Kool-Aid drinkers" in the media. Chris Matthews, who had played a couple Clinton clips and gushed over his brilliance, protested that Todd was…

A useful guideline in evaluating the significance of a national security-related news story first revealed by someone in the establishment press is whether other media outlets pick it up. If they don't, it's probably significant. Such is the case with the Washington Post's Saturday story about Venezuela acquiring 1,800 Russian antiaircraft missiles. That appears to be 1,700 more than…

How did the nation ever survive without the government telling its schools what foods they should serve? This is one of many questions the Associated Press's Mary Clare Jalonick did not explore in her brief de facto press release this morning trumpeting the wonders of the "nutrition bill" President Obama is signing into law these days (presented in full for fair use and discussion purposes):

One of the press's longest campaigns to systematically obfuscate the truth about a specific government program is the one that has protected Social Security from reasonable scrutiny for most of the 75 years of its existence. The Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher did his part to continue the misdirection in his coverage of the possible effects of the payroll tax cut President Obama and…

A New York Times "Learning Network" graphic informs us that under the proposed Obama-GOP tax and spending compromise, "rates will not change for at least two years for anyone." Wow. Somebody at the Learning Network needs to tell the Old Gray Lady's beat reporters, editorial board, and opinion columnists. Just today, reporter Helene Cooper, in noting how Vice President Joe Biden is playing a "…