Media Bias Debate

What follows was eminently predictable, but noting it is nonetheless necessary. Shirley Sherrod, and to a lesser extent her husband Charles, were media celebrities for a while in late July. Readers might have noticed their near absence from establishment media news reports during the past seven days. It would be easy to think that this has occurred because the story played itself out, with…

In what I believe is the first direct acknowledgment by the wire service of what so many have known for so long, the Associated Press's Tom Krisher wrote the following in an August 5 story about plans for an initial public offering by government-controlled General Motors (bolds are mine throughout this post): Ever since the Obama administration gave the automaker a $50 billion dollar survival…

Good Morning America's Yunji de Nies on Friday touted Michelle Obama's "five-star," "luxurious" vacation to Spain, skipping any discussion of controversy over the $148,000 trip. In January of 2009, however, the very same program chided Laura Bush for introducing new presidential dinnerware, despite the fact that the bill was being paid by a private organization. De Nies gushed, "They toured the…

Ah yes - liberalism, or as its recent branding has labeled it, progressivism, is the most open-minded and culturally sensitive place to be on the ideological spectrum. Those who subscribe to those beliefs are far more enlightened and far more able to respect those from all over the globe, or least all over the United States, right? Not the case with liberal talk show host Bill Press. On his…

On Wednesday, CNN's daytime coverage of a federal judge's decision on California's Proposition 8 leaned mostly towards those who opposed the voter-approved amendment to the state's constitution, which banned same-sex marriage. When the judge's ruling was released, which found Prop 8 to be unconstitutional, the network went so far to get immediate reaction to the ruling at a "gay" bar in West…

Want more evidence of an elitist vibe coming from the upper echelons of the mainstream media? You ought to remember the Sept. 24, 2008 Katie Couric interview of Sarah Palin. It's been celebrated time and time again as a heralded part of American journalism. However, raw footage appearing to be from Aug. 29, 2008 shows that Couric, anchor of the "CBS Evening News," was already predisposed not…

Army Spc. Bradley Manning may face some serious charges for allegedly leaking tens of thousands of classified military documents to the website WikiLeaks. The leak could have serious consequences for the war effort. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen claimed that WikiLeaks "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."In…

It seems that not even the truth can possibly overturn the narrative that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have brought transparency to Washington.Last Wednesday I wrote about how the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill Obama signed into law last month contains a provision exempting the Securities and Exchange Commission from Freedom of Information Act requests. Such an exemption…

CNN's Rick Sanchez again hinted that Fox News wasn't a legitimate news organization during his Rick's List program on Monday. When colleague Ed Henry mentioned that several news outlets were petitioning for a front-row seat at White House press briefings, Sanchez replied, "I understand the Associated Press. I even understand Bloomberg, but don't have you to be a news organization to get that seat…

Today I am thinking about all the reasons William K. Black detests me. Last Tuesday, I reported how MSNBC promoted the findings of June Carbone and Naomi Cahn, co-authors of Red Families v. Blue Families, without acknowledging their affiliation with the Roosevelt Institute, a left-wing think tank. On Friday, Black, associate professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, devoted almost 1,…

When the defining event of your life is shooting at U.S. Congressman from a House visitors gallery, you'd think the Washington Post obituary, if any, for such a person would have enough sense to treat that event with the appropriate condemnation.But in Emma Brown's August 2 treatment of 90-year old Lolita Lebron -- "A fervor for Puerto Rico's freedom led her to violent act at U.S. Capitol"* --…

UPDATE, 6:20 p.m. ET: AP now has a 5:28 p.m. item on the bounty. It's enough to make you wonder if the item below shamed the wire service into covering it. (original post) A look at the Associated Press's raw national feed (saved and stored here at about 1:30 p.m. ET for future reference) informs us that the wire service considers the following items worthy of at least some countrywide attention…

"You're talking about brainwashing, when by a 10-to-1 margin, they [the broadcast media] attack Arizona," Media Research Center (MRC) founder Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity on the "Media Mash" segment on the July 30 "Hannity" program. The NewsBusters publisher was commenting on an MRC study that found in a 3-month survey [April 23 - July 25] of the three broacast networks, that of 120 stories…

On this weekend's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim Pinkerton proposed a simple way to clear up much of the murk surrounding JournoList.  Let the Washington Post respond to the 20 questions about the matter that MRC head Brent Bozell has posed to the Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, in an open letter.JournoList was created by lefty blogger Ezra Klein in 2007, who continued to run it after…