Media Bias Debate

In late July, a Government Accountability Office report circulated which analyzed stimulus funding being spent by the Department of Energy.  The main gist of that report involved the cost of each job being generated by the stimulus bill - a staggering $194,000.  Tucked away in that report was a phrase that was new to most of us, a way to calculate jobs through a term called ‘lives touched'. Last…

July's bad news in new home sales is even worse than it first appears. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units is bad enough. That is an all-time low since records have been kept and 12% lower than June's annual rate. It's also lower than what analysts predicted by about the same percentage. The lazy business press is running with those figures. But, as has been the case so many…

We've heard the knocks on NBC and the institutional bias that exists in its network - from the subtle spin in its flagship network's news coverage at NBC to the over-the-top bias at its cable news channel MSNBC. So maybe the man behind the curtains at NBC Universal would like to be more overt with his opinions - as a politician? On MSNBC's Aug. 25 "Morning Joe," Jeff Zucker, president and CEO…

It is vile bitterness put on display for America every night of the week - even though not as many people tune in as they do to his competitor. But, still Keith Olbermann seems to obsess over the Fox News Channel. On the Aug. 24 broadcast of his show "Countdown," Olbermann demonstrated just how sensible the so-called "professional left" can be when criticizing things they perceive to be…

The theater of the Sherrods continues. Earlier today, Shirley Sherrod, who, according to the current version of ruling class wisdom, was prematurely evacuated from the USDA by Director Tom Vilsack, decided not to accept an offer to return to the agency. Instead, according to Politico's Matt Negrin, "she hasn’t accepted the department’s offer to work there again, but that she wants 'some type of…

It was inevitable that someone with enough time on their hands would compile a list of the best viral campaign video ads of 2010. There sure have been some doozies this year, so I can't fault Time magazine for including hits like "Demon Sheep" and the Dale Peterson ad in their top 20 list. That said, of the 15 Republican ads in the list, most were panned by Time staffers. By contrast, two…

They'll have all sorts of excuses (but only if asked) about why it happened: It's because they had a lot of guest anchors last week, it was hot, summer vacation season is still on (though lots of kids around in Greater Cincinnati were already back in school by last Wednesday), cable is killing us, blah-blah, etc., etc. But the Big Three networks won't be able to avoid the fact that their ongoing…

Actor Jon Voight appeared on the August 22 "Huckabee" to discuss, among other things, his conservative activism and the media's misrepresentation of the Tea Party movement. Here's a sample: MIKE HUCKABEE: We heard that there were people yelling racial epithets at some of the members of Congress. Did you hear anything like that?JON VOIGHT:  You know, when you saw this, folks, and you all read…

Well, it didn't take to much digging to find people who think that the $578 million cost of the new Taj Mahal complex known as the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles (pictured at right; noted last night at NewsBusters and BizzyBlog) isn't that big of a deal. What I found makes me wonder why it took so long for waste of this magnitude to become a national story. On July 9, at LA'…

Call it "No Contractor Left Behind." The Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles, apparently opening soon, will serve roughly 4,200 students in grades K-12. Its cost is coming in at $578 million, or almost $140,000 per student ($2.75 million per 20-student classroom). This is the LA Unified District's most flagrant example of its Taj Mahal obsession, and it is far from the only one.…

File this under "Fascinating Things You Learn When Researching Other Things." The Associated Press's infamous memo huffing and puffing about how it will henceforth describe the 13-story mosque/community center/kumbaya center that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf would like to have built on a site two blocks away from where the World Trade Center Towers once stood opened with this sentence: We should…

The Theater of the Sherrod(s) is apparently not over. At AL.com last night, Mike Tomberlin of the Birmingham News reported the following: Former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will meet Tuesday with agriculture secretary Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA rural development director for Georgia, said today she plans to meet Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to discuss…

On Saturday’s Fox News Watch on FNC, substitute host Eric Shawn picked up on a NewsBusters item which recounted that, after the Justice Department dropped charges against former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay, the New York Times buried the news on page A-18 while the Washington Post, by contrast, made room for the story on its front page. Shawn: "The Justice Department has dropped its…

"When it comes to praying, Obama prefers privacy." Thus reads the page A2 headline for Michael Shear's August 20 Washington Post story that reads like an extended Obama White House campaign press release. Shear opens with a story about how Obama prayed with "three Christian pastors" over the phone as he flew to Chicago to celebrate his 49th birthday. "As he celebrated his birthday, he was in a…