Race Issues

Bill Maher on Friday cursed out his audience for not laughing at one of his jokes. When his HBO Real Time attendees fell totally silent after the host said the judge in Florida gave Zimmerman bail under the condition that he can shoot the kids in the British-Irish boy band One Direction, Maher raised both middle fingers at the crowd saying, "F--k you...You can get the stick out of your a--.…

Maybe it's time for MSNBC's Chris Matthews to retire. On Friday's Hardball, the 66-year-old host actually said that people's view of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case is impacted by "so much history ever since the first slave arrived in the United States" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Liberals have leapt on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida to push for the repeal of "stand your ground" laws and to demand tighter gun control. (MSNBC'S Karen Finney blamed "the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point.") This would be like demanding more funding for the General Services Administration after seeing how its employees blew taxpayer money on a party…

As NewsBusters previously reported, CNN's Don Lemon two Saturdays ago advocated journalists actually say the N-word in news reports rather than the more politically correct, sanitized version we've grown accustomed to in recent years. On Sunday, I chatted with Lemon about this issue - along with Big Journalism's Dana Loesch - on CNN Newsroom (video follows with transcript and lengthy…

MSNBC on Monday featured 9/11 truther and network analyst Toure to slam the "paternalistic" Bill Cosby for suggesting the Trayvon Martin shooting is more about guns than it is about race. Toure derided this "dangerous sentiment" as "not at all true" and implied that the popular comedian is dumb: "But in terms of nuanced political thinking, [Cosby] has not shown himself to be a big fan of that…

NBC incessantly talked about race and racism after the Trayvon Martin shooting, but on Monday race took a back seat to guns as the problem at the heart of the case. On Monday's Today show, host Matt Lauer cited comedian Bill Cosby and asked if the media has focused too much on race "when guns are the real problem?" Thus the liberal discussion shifted from race to guns as the Today's…

Bill Maher on Friday told what many would consider a rather racist joke. After commenting at the beginning of HBO's Real Time that it was Friday the 13th, the host warned his audience, "If a black cat crosses your path it is bad luck – except in Florida where you’re allowed to shoot it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last week, CNN had to walk back its assumption that George Zimmerman uttered a racial slur in his 9-1-1 call, and now an affidavit from the prosecution in the case says no racist words were voiced. CNN first suggested on March 21, according to its "sophisticated" audio editing, that Robert Zimmerman said "f***ing coons" on his 9-1-1 call. But the network had to throw water on that assumption…

In a statement totally disconnected from the reality of media coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting, on Thursday's Today show, NBC chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman proclaimed that the case, "...underscores the fact that we don't talk about race enough in this country and that race does matter, it's always under the surface." NBC alone – not to mention the other networks or MSNBC – made…

Some reporters have been so determined to prove that George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin on February 26 was due to racism that they've been willing to go to virtually any length to find evidence that supports their claim, even against the recommendations of fellow journalists not wanting to rush beyond the evidence. The case of CNN's rush to promote the idea that Zimmerman had…

The media is beginning to investigate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith and its racial history, and CNN continued the race narrative on Wednesday morning when it wondered if Romney is simply writing off the African-American vote. Apparently, CNN never got the memo that Herman Cain all but officially endorsed Romney on Tuesday. Citing a Daily Beast report that Romney has no high-profile African-…

Oh the delicious irony. On ABC's The View Tuesday, as co-host Whoopi Goldberg supported Saturday's call by CNN's Don Lemon for reporters to say the N-word when quoting folks that have, the censors actually bleeped her when she said the word herself (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart surprisingly took on NBC News Monday for the network’s dishonest editing of George Zimmerman’s 911 call regarding Trayvon Martin. Less shocking, the Daily Show host also took some punches at conservatives for how they handled this story including Media Research Center president Brent Bozell (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Following up on P.J. Gladnick's NewsBusters story about reports of non-existent neo-Nazi "patrols" in Sanford, Fla. in response to potential racial violence there, ABC News.com's Candace Smith apparently hasn't gotten the memo that there are no such patrols going on. As Gladnick reported two days ago, Professor William Jacobson of the Legal Insurrection blog did the legwork that reporters like…