Knight Column: New Study Exposes Anti-gun Bias in Media
August 29th, 2007 4:36 PM
On Tuesday, Jesse Jackson, the Brady bunch -- not the TV folk but the anti-gun lobby -- and other liberal activists rallied against “the national scourge of illegal guns” in cities around the nation. The networks ignored the event, probably because turnout was so embarrassingly low. The Chicago Tribune reported that “about 200” piled out of three buses in Lake Barrington, Illinois, the Chicago-…
Bozell Column: Democrats Win Morning Show Primary
August 29th, 2007 2:23 PM
Watching network morning show anchors interview the Democratic presidential candidates often makes you wonder if you’ve seen tougher interviews on overnight acne-care infomercials. Their questions are often so simple and promotional that you wish they’d just go ahead and wear their "Hillary!" or "Obama ‘08" buttons on the set. There is no pretense of political balance. They are actively rooting…
Gravitas, Anyone? Yahoo Puts Couric Trip to Iraq, Syria Under 'Enterta
August 29th, 2007 1:21 PM
"Seriously?!" That's what I thought when I received an e-mail from NewsBusters reader Lori Puente informing me that Yahoo News is listing an article about Katie Couric's upcoming trip to report from Iraq and Syria in the "entertainment news" section. Sure enough, I took a look at Yahoo News and there the headline was: "Katie Couric to report from Iraq, Syria."Given the nature of news on the Web,…
WashPost Book Reviewer Decried How Author 'Publicly Caned' Katie Couri
August 28th, 2007 6:00 PM
The Washington Post on Tuesday published a book review of Ed Klein’s critical Katie Couric biography by reviewer Louis Bayard, who found the entire exercise of writing a Katie book distasteful, unnecessary, and sexist: “You may also wonder if the same book would have been written about a male broadcaster,” Bayard argued early on. He suggested Klein was a female-bashing brute:
NBC’s Matt Lauer: Good Thing 'Piñata' Alberto Gonzales Forced Out
August 28th, 2007 1:11 PM
In a post-Don Imus world, one would think journalists would be on their guard to not say or write anything that could be in any way perceived as racist. Yet, just days after CBS's Andy Rooney made a racial slur concerning Hispanic baseball players, NBC's Matt Lauer actually called outgoing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a "piñata." Certainly, given Gonzales's ethnic background, and the…
Did Feminist Katie Couric Exploit Men to Climb the Ladder to Fame and
August 27th, 2007 3:38 PM
On Friday, National Review writer Myrna Blyth unwrapped some of the nuggets in the forthcoming Ed Klein biography of Katie Couric, the one the Katie camp is trying to squash, in very Hillaryesque fashion, as "old news." [Klein appeared Monday night on FNC's Hannity & Colmes.] Before she kindly noted that the MRC has piles and piles of examples of Katie's liberal bias, Blyth dished Klein's…
Andy Rooney Gets Pass for Racial Slur About Hispanic Baseball Players
August 27th, 2007 1:30 PM
So, did you hear that Andy Rooney made a racial slur last week about baseball players all being named "Rodriguez?" You didn't? Well, how could you, for it appears that virtually nobody reported it. To bring you up to speed, the CBS "60 Minutes" commentator wrote a column about America's national pastime last Thursday, and stated the following (emphasis added):
Modern Day ‘Saving Private Ryan’ in Iraq
August 26th, 2007 12:02 PM
A family in Clovis, California, which is near Fresno, has sadly become the modern day version of the Ryans, real-life brothers depicted in Steven Spielberg's acclaimed film "Saving Private Ryan" wherein all but one died serving his country in World War II. For the Hubbards, Nathan, the second of three brothers serving in Iraq, died Wednesday in a helicopter accident in the northern part of that…
Flashback: 'The Unnewsworthy Holocaust: TV News and Terror in Cambodia
August 23rd, 2007 5:38 AM
In the wake of President George W. Bush's reminder Wednesday about how the “killing fields” of Cambodia followed the 1975 U.S. pullout from Vietnam and the region, a look back at a study, by William C. Adams and Michael Joblove, which documented how from 1975 to 1978 the three broadcast network evening newscasts, as well as the New York Times and Washington Post, virtually ignored the ongoing…
Nets Ignore Lowest Congressional Approval Rating in 33 Years
August 22nd, 2007 5:41 PM
If George W. Bush's approval rating hit a low point for any president in 33 years, do you think the network evening news programs would have reported it? Maybe as the lead story, right? Well, a new Gallup poll was released on Tuesday stating that the approval rating for Congress tied the lowest point since Gallup began tracking such a thing, and none of the broadcasts networks thought it was…
Will Nets Notice? After Iraq Visit, Previously Anti-war Dem Opposes Q
August 17th, 2007 4:52 PM
On November 17, 2005, Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), who had previously supported the Iraq war, announced his call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The story led all three broadcast network evening news reports.A mirror-image shift of position was reported today: a previously anti-war Dem has announced, after a visit to Iraq, that he now opposes withdrawal at this time. Will the MSM give anything…
CBS's Plante Defends 'Smart-assed' Rove Question
August 16th, 2007 3:21 PM
Admitting it was "smart-assed," CBS White House correspondent nonetheless defended his now-infamous "If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?" quip from Monday's White House South Lawn farewell for Rove. Interviewed by CBSNews.com blogger Matthew Felling, Plante did concede that he welcomes scrutiny of how the press functions, especially in live press conference settings. Said Plante at the…