Race Issues

Imagine if you will a Republican city councilman anywhere in the United States railing against Asian-American small businesses and Filipino immigrants who work as nurses in local hospitals. The national media would swoop in with critical attention to the matter and demand Republican politicians all the way up to apparent presidential nominee Mitt Romney to renounce the racist politician. But…

Despite NBC's refusal to engage in any transparency regarding its internal investigation into the airing of two fake audio recordings of George Zimmerman, information about how they made it onto the air is continuing to leak out. According to a Southern Florida television news blog, the creator of at least one of the false audio clips was a correspondent with NBC's Miami affiliate WTVJ named…

Sunday must have been reverse racism day for past and current New York Times employees. After David Brooks and Helene Cooper expressed concern about there possibly being two "white guys" on the Republican presidential ticket, former Times columnist turned New York magazine flame thrower Frank Rick wrote "Sugar Daddies: The Old, White, Rich Men Who Are Buying This Election":

Is the New York Times afraid of white men? One certainly got that feeling watching Sunday's Meet the Press as guests David Brooks and Helene Cooper both expressed concerns about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney potentially picking a "white guy" to be his running mate (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday asked Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) if he had more concerns for the safety of President Obama because he’s African-American than he had for George Bush. This came near the end of a discussion on State of the Union dealing with the recent Secret Service sex scandal in Colombia (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Geraldo Rivera on Friday accused MSNBC anchors of not caring at all about the evidence concerning the shooting of Trayvon Martin and instead "cheerleading for the conviction of George Zimmerman." Appearing on Fox New's The O'Reilly Factor, Rivera specifically pointed his finger at Martin Bashir, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell, Al Sharpton, and Ed Schultz (video follows with transcript and…

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…