Race Issues

Rachel Maddow on Tuesday told David Letterman that scaring white people is good politics for conservatives.After the host of CBS's "Late Show" asked his perilously biased guest about the Andrew Breitbart-Shirley Sherrod affair, the MSNBCer predictably pointed her accusatory finger at Fox News and everybody on the right. "The idea is you sort of rile up the white base to be afraid of an other, to…

On Monday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric praised the heroism of the New York City Fire Department but fretted: "...a federal judge says something is missing in their ranks: Diversity." Correspondent Jim Axelrod began a report on the topic by noting: "Fire Captain Paul Washington has a big problem with his department." Washington declared the FDNY to be "all-white, lily white."Axelrod…

MSNBC News Live guest host Cenk Uygur on Wednesday railed against opposition to gay marriage, asserting that conservatives "fought against women's rights and they lost. They fought against civil rights for blacks and they lost." He also touted the supposed moral superiority of liberals, lecturing, "This country is fundamentally progressive." [MP3 audio here.]To bolster this case, Uygur quoted…

On Monday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, during the show’s regular "Tea Time" segment, host Keith Olbermann attacked a recent Tea Party event in Philadelphia that made a point of inviting minority participation and included many minority speakers.As he cited reports by the Philadelphia Inquirer of low minority attendance at the rally which also allegedly had fewer attendees overall than expected,…

On Sunday's Newsroom, CNN's Don Lemon conducted a softball interview of the Rev. Al Sharpton and helped him forward the theory that the congressional ethics investigations into Representatives Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters are being conducted because they are black. Lemon also didn't go into much detail as to what the charges against the two were and what were the circumstances of their cases.…

You know the expression "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight?"Well that's exactly what happened when Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill entered the ring against conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham on "Larry King Live" Thursday night.The subjects up for debate included the Obamas, Arizona's illegal immigration law, and racism.To put it mildly, when the final bell had rung, there…

Chris Matthews in the course of less than two hours Thursday appeared to radically change his opinion about Shirley Sherrod's pending lawsuit against Andrew Breitbart.As NewsBusters previously reported, Matthews during the 5 p.m. installment of "Hardball" got into a heated argument with former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean about the contents of the controversial video…

What will it take for the media to acknowledge that the Tea Party is not a racist movement, and that liberals have smeared it as such in a naked politicization of race relations? How about a lefty activist admitting just that.UPenn professor Mary Frances Berry, a leader of the "far-left black political scene," as NB Executive Editor Matt Sheffield wrote,  penned this astonishing email to Politico…

CNN's Joe Johns surprisingly highlighted Charles Sherrod's racially-charged comments about stopping "the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections" during a segment on Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360. Johns also reported on the questions being raised by conservatives about how his wife Shirley Sherrod received her former position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture [audio clip…

Chris Matthews and Howard Dean on Thursday got into a heated argument about what was included in the controversial video excerpts Andrew Breitbart published at his website last Monday involving former USDA official Shirley Sherrod.In the opening segment of the 5PM installment of MSNBC's "Hardball," Matthews was discussing with the former Vermont Governor as well as Salon Editor-in-Chief Joan…

On Thursday's Newsroom, CNN's Tony Harris played hardball with Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, the author of the SB1070 anti-illegal immigration law in the state, while not asking one tough question with his other guest, pro-illegal immigration activist Isabel Garcia. Surprisingly, Harris did finally explicitly identify the pro-open borders organization that Garcia leads [audio clips…

Roger Simon's Wednesday morning column ("Journolist veers out of bounds"), an item Rush brought up on his show this afternoon, may be one of the most delusional items ever written by a journalist attempting to defend his profession. Rich Noyes at NewsBusters covered one aspect of Simon's column on Wednesday, namely the deliciously hypocritical outrage of NBC/MSNBC reporter Chuck Todd over how…

On Thursday's Early Show, correspondent John Blackstone reported on a federal judge blocking several provisions in Arizona's new immigration law: "The judge's ruling seemed to answer the prayers of many in Arizona's immigrant communities." Footage of two women crying and praying at a protest against the law followed his declaration. Blackstone began his report by noting that protestors "are…

Appearing as a guest on Monday’s The Ed Show on MSNBC, former DNC chairman Howard Dean renewed his discredited claim that FNC had played clips of former USDA official Shirley Sherrod before her forced resignation, and suggested that Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace had deceived him in denying that there was FNC coverage before her firing. Dean: "I happen to like Chris Wallace, but he was…