Media Bias Debate

One's bias can come out in subtle ways depending on your world view, and try as National Public Radio may to be fair, their leanings are transparent. In a March 2 story on NPR's "Morning Edition," Nina Totenberg reported on a pending Supreme Court case involving the Second Amendment and how it applies state and local laws. Her story is specifically about a Chicago handgun ban and how those on…

On Monday, I noted how the Washington Post editorialized against repeal of Virginia's 1993 one-handgun-per-month law. The Post reasoned in its top March 1 editorial that without the law "straw purchasers" could "serve as front men for criminals who come to the state to buy guns in large quantities."But today, in a Metro section front page story, Post reporter Fredrick Kunkle noted that experts in…

Now, there’s always a scene in zombie movies, when one non-zombie character will turn to another, and say, “If I ever turn into that, I want you to kill me.” Then they make love, and reload. Well, I want you, dear viewer, to make the same promise to me. Except instead of killing me if I become a zombie, I want you to kill me if I ever turn into Dylan Ratigan. I am not joking. If you see symptoms…

This one's a particularly egregious example of party-ID dodging, even for those of us who are used to seeing the establishment media avoid mentioning the political party of almost any disgraced or troubled Democratic public official. Former Racine, Wisconsin mayor Gary Becker, a Democrat, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for child enticement and attempted sexual assault of a…

Why can't President Obama get a health care bill through Congress? Nope, it has nothing to do with the fact that a clear majority of the country doesn't want the federal government overhauling seventeen percent of the economy. The problem is he is just too darn reasonable.So posits Newsweek's Andrew Romano, who notes that Obama could have gone wholesale-government-takeover on health care and a…

Define hypocrisy: Arianna Huffington claiming that Fox News President Roger Ailes plays off of Americans' fear and paranoia.Indeed, while Huffington Post columnists call American political leaders criminals, terrorists, and Nazis and occasionally fantasize about their deaths, Huffington has the gall to claim, "If you’re looking for the usual flame-throwing, name-calling, and simplistic attack dog…

LoHud.com reports (HT to an NB e-mailer) that White Plains, New York Mayor Adam Bradley "turned himself in to police headquarters ... (Sunday) morning after his wife filed a complaint with police that he jammed her finger in a door around 9:30 a.m. Bradley was then arraigned on a third-degree misdemeanor assault charge at White Plains City Court." The web site does not identify Bradley's…

In a week where several news outlets recognized significant happenings involving the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Associated Press seems to have decided that none of them merit mention. A search on "acorn" at the AP's main site returns the following: This search doesn't completely eliminate the possibility that AP ran local or regional stories, but I didn't…

The Washington Post issued a correction on Saturday in which it apologized for a mischaracterization of the House Republican Whip's use of a printout of the Senate-passed health care bill:In a Feb. 26 editorial, we said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was "posturing" during the Thursday health-care summit by stacking the voluminous Senate bill before him. Mr. Cantor says that he had the bill with him,…

Remember Van Jones? He's trying to make a comeback, and the mainstream media seems to be lending him a helping hand in getting back into the Washington power structure. Jones, in case you don't remember, was the administration's Green Jobs Czar. He resigned after it came to light that his name appeared on a 9/11 Truther petition.That, it turned out, was not the extent of his wackiness. He led a…

Yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted Fannie Mae's $72 billion loss announcement and the ward of the state's simultaneous $15.3 billion handout request. Late Friday was also the occasion for the release by the Treasury Department of the "2009 Financial Report of the United States Government." The report shows how seriously the government's financial situation deteriorated during the…

Unable to defend ObamaCare with reasoning or facts, many of the Democrats at Thursday's health care summit resorted to anecdotes or, as Rush Limbaugh appropriately characterized them, sob stories.  The recycling of a dead woman's dentures and a letter from a struggling farmer who just happens to be the brother of a staffer for the Democratic senator sent the letter were the order of the day.CNN…

After the closing bell on Friday, just in time for everyone to stop paying close attention, mortgage behemoth and ward of the state Fannie Mae ("Fan") released its fourth-quarter and full-year financial results. Its press release (PDF) informs us that its $74.4 billion loss in 2009 (inclusive of dividends paid to the government) followed a $58.8 billion loss in 2008. For those keeping score at…

Poor Joe Klein. The Time magazine writer missed yesterday's epic health care lecturefest summit. I can't blame him. Olympic curling is much more fascinating. Anyway, he's catching up and he's come to the conclusion that Professor Obama totally schooled the GOP. Why? Because the president talked a lot but observers found the event boring, ergo proving both Obama's brilliance and the dimwittedness…