Spectacular Fib: How Horrid PBS Health Care Reporting Morphed Into an
Over the weekend, poor and biased media reporting, dysfunctional politics, blindly ambitious activism, and economic ignorance fed on each other to produce a phenomenally false narrative that went out to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. The result not only doesn't pass the smell test; it fails the stench test from a mile away. The first origins of the activist narrative burst…
MRC Video: Is Mandatory Health Insurance Even Constitutional
It's the central question of the health care debate to liberty-loving Americans: Where in the Constitution does our charter of government grant the federal government the power to make us buy health care (or make us buy anything, for that matter)? But to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it's an illegitimate question. "Are you serious?!" she shot back at a CNSNews.com correspondent Matt Cover. Pelosi…
Sarah Palin's Media Strategy Proves Instructive for Right
Whatever your feelings about Sarah Palin or her politics, she literally represents the future of conservative messaging. She has shown the nation that a public figure who is absolutely reviled by the mainstream media can not only make a splash, but can dominate the public stage and attract the eyes and ears of the nation in ways almost no other figure can.For the conservative movement, Palin…
Vanishing Viewers: Feb. 4 CNN, MSNBC Down Over 50% in 25-54 Demo From
Ordinarily, one wouldn't take much notice of a gallon jug losing only a drop or two of water a day. But if you came back a year later and saw it half-empty, that would get your attention. Such is the case with the steep ratings declines at CNN and MSNBC. A year ago, they already trailed Fox News badly -- so badly that Fox's audience in a given hour of prime time was sometimes greater than CNN,…
AP Throws Pity Party for Dems In Illinois Lt. Gov. Nominee Stories
In stories currently carrying Friday afternoon and early Saturday time stamps, the Associated Press weighed in with supportive articles about Illinois Democrats who are desperately trying to convince Scott Lee Cohen (pictured at right; image is captured from his web site), who won the party's nomination for Lieutenant Governor, to step aside. In the Friday afternoon's report ("Embattled Dem Ill…
AFP Asks: 'Is US Bullying Toyota on Recall?' Rest of Media Indifferent
In a post late Thursday afternoon (at NewBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that the half of the teases (6 of 12) for the Associated Press's short videos in business stories at its web site were about Toyota, specifically its recent product quality issues and falling sales.In that post, I noted a conflict of interest in the relationship between the U.S. government and Toyota, and wondered when…
Left-wing Websites Don't Bother With Truth in Smearing James O'Keefe
When the far-left finds a character to assassinate, it doesn't let facts get in the way. That, at least, is the lesson we can draw from the latest bout of liberal character assassination, this one aimed at James O'Keefe.The slandering of his reputation has occurred mostly at Salon.com, the Village Voice, and an obscure hard-left organization called the One People's Project. Together, they have…
Editor Tina Brown Admits: Obama 'Got the Best Press Known to Man,' WaP
Two prominent journalists appeared on Friday's Good Morning America and casually admitted that Barack Obama has received glowing coverage from the press. Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown announced, "No, [Obama] got the best press known to man. Let's face it."Howard Kurtz, host of Reliable Sources on CNN and a Washington Post columnist, corrected, "In the history of civilization…
Predictable: CNNMoney.com E-mail Alert Notes Unemployment Rate Drop, I
My supposedly informative but in reality selective CNNMoney.com E-mail just alerted me to the fact that the unemployment rate dropped in January, but "somehow" forgot to reveal that 20,000 seasonally adjusted jobs were lost (see related post by BMI/NB's Julia Seymour): CNNMoney.com also "forgot" to say anything about a downward 900,000-job revision (actually, even worse) to previous data (text is…
Piling On: 6 of 12 Vids in AP's Web Site Rotation are About Toyota
Why are the Associated Press's video people piling on Toyota? Moments ago, in going to business-related stories at hosted.ap.org (example here), I found that the rotation of video teases the AP is presenting to readers has 12 items. Six of them, presented consecutively, relate to Toyota. Each is negative. No doubt the situations in which the company is involved are newsworthy, but is one…
AP Plays 'Hide the Numbers' In Its Unemployment Claims Report
You would think that someone going to the trouble of reporting on something would at least provide the most basic of relevant numbers so that readers could understand what they're telling us.That isn't the case with the 11:51 a.m. version of Uncle Sam's report on unemployment claims by the Associated Press's Stephen Bernard and Tim Paradis. Their report failed to specifically state what analysts…
MSNBC Execs Scramble to Defend Olbermann as 'Countdown' Ratings Declin
Keith Olbermann's appeal has generally been his incendiary, attack-dog approach to the news. The approach paid off during the Bush administration when bashing the president was good business for a television host. Since Obama's inauguration, Olbermann's ratings have been in free-fall, but MSNBC brass are still more than willing not only to keep him on the air, but to defend him against any and…
Santelli: Media's Coverage of Economy, Tea Parties 'Very Much Lacking
Rick Santelli is the star of perhaps the most politically consequential online video, viral to the extreme, of the past year (right). On February 19, 2009 he let loose on the Obama administration's economic policies on CNBC's "Squawk Box", calling for a "tea party", and inspiring millions of Americans to speak out against what he and many others see as collectivist economics policies pursued by…
NYT Lauds Obama Lobbyist Regulations, Ignores Numerous Lobbyists in To
For much of the liberal media, President Obama operates in a vacuum. In their minds, if he says he will do something, he will most likely do it, even if he has a blatant record of not following through on similar promises.
Take Obama's lobbyist rhetoric, for instance. When the President claimed the White House has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs" he was telling the truth, sort of.…
