Media Bias Debate

The budget for "Brothers," per director Jim Sheridan, is $25 million, which probably doesn’t include marketing for promotion and … well, tell me again how Hollywood is driven by profit and not ideology? We’re a month away from 2010 so it’s hard to argue “Brothers” went into production before everyone was well aware that every single war film flopped miserably. But who does the snob Sheridan…

"Unemployed, Underemployed Look to Jobs Summit for Help" is posted on ABC News's Web site today.  Authored by senior Washington correspondent John Cochran, the piece is notable in that nothing in it supports the headline.  Cochran writes:Boosting confidence is at the top of President Obama's list at the Jobs Summit he is scheduled to host on Thursday. The invitation list includes business leaders…

In a long Saturday report on the Food Stamp program that went into print on Sunday, the New York Times's Jason DeParle and Robert Gebeloff: Almost seemed to celebrate the program's explosive growth. Bemoaned the fact that many who could participate do not. Both in their title ("Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades") and text, cheered the loss of stigma that has long been associated with the…

It's a night and day difference between the media's scrutiny of former President George W. Bush and the current command-in-chief, President Barack Obama. And the coverage of three Navy SEALs now facing a court martial that captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq, who allegedly was the mastermind of the murder of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah in 2004, is proof. John Scott,…

New York Times environment reporter Andrew C. Revkin had a post yesterday that was primarily about an open letter from Judith Curry. Revkin describes her as "a seasoned climate scientist at Georgia Tech .... (who) has no skepticism about a growing human influence on climate." Revkin writes that "Dr. Curry has written a fresh essay that’s essentially a message to young scientists potentially…

It's nice that the story of Rom Houben has recently made the news. I carried it as one of my own "Positivity" posts earlier this week. A Google News Search on "Rom Houben Laureys" (not typed in quotes; Laureys is the last name of Houben's principal doctor) at about 11:30 p.m. ET came back with 1,528 results relating to the word of his amazing recovery and ability to communicate after 23 years of…

Who's denyin' now? There may not be a better example of establishment media Climategate denial than Jim Tankersley's "breaking" story at the Los Angeles Times's Greenspace blog that President Barack Obama will attend the December 7-19 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Tankersley identifies all kinds of supposed factors that seem to have influenced the president's…

This is the fifth year I have looked into how the media treats these two topics: The use of "Christmas shopping season" vs. "holiday shopping season" (note how the AP photo at right uses "holiday" and not "shopping," even though there is a C-C-, Chr-Chr-Christmas tree in the picture). The frequency of Christmas and holiday layoff references. I have done three sets of simple Google News…

Last night the Baltimore City Council became the first in the nation to pass a law that would require pro-life crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to post in writing disclaimers noting that they do not provide abortion services or contraceptives nor refer women to persons or clinics who do.Reporting the story in the November 24 paper, the Baltimore Sun's Julie Scharper quoted the bill's author and…

Bill Cathcart, Clearing Away the PC Clutter Bill Cathcart, Vice President and General Manager for CBS affiliate WTOC in Savannah, Georgia, took to the airwaves on November 9th with a blistering video editorial excoriating the hold political correctness (PC) has on our society (video and transcript below the fold).It is certainly refreshing to hear…

On today's American Morning, anchor Kiran Chetry engaged Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele in a discussion of the Democrats' health care bill.  Citing a recent CNN poll, she claimed that a majority wants "some kind of public option":CHETRY: I know one of the things that Republicans are very much against is the public option. And this is a huge hurdle that has to pass. This…

Twelve days ago I noted how the Baltimore Sun failed to mention indicted Mayor Sheila Dixon's Democratic Party affiliation in a story about an embezzlement trial. The mayor stands accused of misappropriating gift cards intended for poor Baltimoreans. Instead of making sure the donated retail gift cards got into the hands of needy folks, Dixon is alleged to have used them for her own personal…