Media Bias Debate

Presumably after having read NewsBusters Senior Editor Rich Noyes's January 14 blog on the matter, the hosts of "Fox & Friends" today discussed the Associated Press's double standard on presidential inauguration spending.STEVE DOOCY: When you look back at how the mainstream media described his [George W. Bush's second] inaugural, back when he spent about $40 million on it... critics, for…

Yesterday, details discovered about Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's tax situation moved it to well past the level of an "honest mistake."You wouldn't know it from the Associated Press's Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who, as I noted yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), continues to run interference for him. A story from Thursday afternoon that has since been dynamically updated had a…

It ain't easy being green, and in the case of Barack Obama's inaugural, it seems like he's not even trying to green it up. According to the Institute for Liberty, the Obamathon in Washington will produce about 575 million pounds of CO2 emissions. In a study titled Carbon Bigfoot, the IFL concludes that the CO2 glut will be substantial. From the global warming wrecking celebs flying all over the…

TIME magazine got a twofer on a recent screed headlined "Is Israel Losing the Media War in Gaza?." Not only did TIME use its article to take a few swipes at Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher (known as Joe the Plumber) but it also took the opportunity to once again blame the Jews for everything going on in Gaza. Naturally, TIME's description of Joe the Plumber was more a cut at him than an accurate picture…

Mayor Gary Becker of Racine, Wisconsin, received some unwanted attention from the Old Media and the local police today because of his arrest for using a computer to solicit sex from a child. According to the Associated Press, Becker is "tentatively charged with attempted second-degree sexual assault of a child, child enticement, possession of child pornography, exposing a child to harmful…

President-elect Barack Obama is truly the man to "change the tone in Washington," something at which outgoing President George W. Bush failed miserably. That's the tacit argument one could infer from Washington Post staffer Lori Aratani's January 14 Metro section front-pager, "At Rallies, Giving 'Please' a Chance: Activists Weigh How to Push Message While Abandoning Adversarial Tacks." Aratani…

In a post last night, I criticized the Associated Press for glossing over the 15 years of personal and domestic self-employment tax filing and payment problems of Timothy Geithner, Barack Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary (pictured at right in an AP photo). It turns out that Brett Blackledge's Tuesday evening report was relatively hard-hitting in comparison to Julie Hirschfeld Davis's…

Apparently, Time Magazine doesn't think that politics is a proper subject for social-networking sites such as FaceBook. In fact, one almost gets the feeling that Time thinks the Internet would be wholly free of passion and even vitriol were it not for politics making its evil presence known in cyberspace. And whose fault is all this vitriol? Why it's the Jews, of course. At the very least, Time…

Jan. 14 Update: "AP's Early-AM Revision Flushes Many Details, Calls His Tax Problems 'Goofs'" Timothy Geithner, pictured at right in an AP photo, is Barack Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary. Mr. Geithner will, among many other duties, oversee the Internal Revenue Service.How odd, to say the least, that Mr. Geithner has had persistent tax filing and payment problems going back over 15 years…

Now that Barack Obama is assuming the presidency, partisan criticism is suddenly so passé.  Just ask Chris Matthews. In the course of cheerleading anchoring the MSNBC coverage of Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing today, Matthews suggested that the media shouldn't cover the Republican National Committee's criticism of Clinton.  The comments came during the Hardball host's chat with Newsweek's…

Far be it from me to sow discord in MSNBC ranks, to stir up old animosities between colleagues there.  But if Joe Scarborough is going to do a mocking imitation of Keith Olbermann in full Special Comment rant, well then, blogging ethics compel me to report it.The jumping-off point on Morning Joe today was Eugene Robinson's current WaPo column. After claiming that he didn't want to kick the…

According to Sun-Times columnist and long-time Chicago journalist, Carol Marin, journalists at Barack Obama news conferences have come to realize that Obama has pre-picked those journalists whom he will allow to ask him questions at the conference and many of them now "don't even bother raising" their hands to be called upon. One wonders why journalists are allowing this corralling of the press…

USA Today's religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman apparently has little use for Christian ministers who believe the Bible's teachings on sexual ethics. Apparently already annoyed with evangelical pastor Rick Warren's stance on California's Proposition 8, Grossman took the California preacher to task for a letter offering use of  his Saddleback Church to conservative Anglicans who have left the…