Headline Bias in Burmese Relief Story
May 12th, 2008 12:13 PM
Poor teaser headline selection by MSNBC.com? I report, you decide.At right is a screencap of a teaser headline from the Web site about U.S. humanitarian aid reaching Myanmar Burma. As the AP story linked makes clear, the fault for the delay in the aid's arrival is that of the military dictatorship, not any incompetence or lack of concern by Washington. Yet the teaser headline reads: "First U.S.…
Profanity in the Liberal Blogosphere: Urinating on Presidents
May 10th, 2008 2:00 PM
For years, NewsBusters has reported the unfortunate incidence of vulgarity and virulence in the liberal blogosphere, as well as how some prominent politicians and left-leaning media members have expressed concern regarding how such behavior negatively reflects on the Democrat Party.On Friday, this invective hit a new low at Daily Kos when a piece that was quickly promoted to the highly-coveted "…
Apple Is Rotten at Being Green; Where's Director Gore, or the Media
May 10th, 2008 9:04 AM
It must be nice to be on Old Media's "free pass" list.
For years, Apple Computer has been on that list (disclosure: yours truly is a 23-year Mac user). Apple has been the cool, innovative tech darling, the noble foil of big, bad monopolist Microsoft.
Another free-pass beneficiary is Al Gore, who sits on Apple's Board of Directors.
Wait until you see what ClimateCounts.org thinks of Apple's…
Fox News Producer Canned for Cheering on McCain
May 9th, 2008 12:45 PM
TVNewser is reporting this morning that a Fox News production assistant was fired for cheering on John McCain when she got close enough to the Arizona senator during the Time 100 Gala.:Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, "I voted for…
ChiTrib Notes How Anti-Wal-Mart Hysteria Hurting Windy City
May 8th, 2008 1:43 PM
Wal-Mart is right up there with "Big Oil" as a left-wing bogeyman, and the mainstream media are often on the side of liberal activists screaming "Boo!" as our friends at the Business & Media Institute can attest. But today's Chicago Tribune laid out how "[b]ig city politics trumps low prices" with a labor union victory over Wal-Mart's plans to erect a store within city limits.The paper's Web…
CNN.com Needs to Brush Up on Its Military Hardware
May 8th, 2008 12:46 PM
CNN has an article posted this AM about the on-going misery in Myanmar resulting from the recent cyclone that devastated the Irrawaddy delta and has left as many as 100,000 dead. The country's paranoid military dictatorship is hampering aid efforts, and as a result, is no doubt adding to the number of dead and injured. In writing about the U.S. forces in the area poised to help if the…
Time's Tumulty Parrots Nun-sense On Indy Voter ID Law
May 8th, 2008 11:23 AM
The Catholic-majority Supreme Court has no respect for nuns. That's the new media meme about a recent Supreme Court ruling upholding an Indiana voter ID law. That very same law, the media would have us believe, "barred" or "turned away" from voting 12 nuns in South Bend on the Hoosier State's May 6 primary. Of course as a simple read of the Indiana Secretary of State's Web site shows, that's…
Limbaugh Derangement Syndrome at HuffPo: Radio Host Genocidal to Dems
May 7th, 2008 1:54 PM
I'm no medical doctor or psychiatrist, but I believe there's a disturbing condition sweeping the left-wing blogosphere, closely related to the well-documented malady of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Call it Limbaugh Derangement Syndrome if you will, and I will.What else do you call it when a lib blogger compares the radio talk show host to agitators of Rwandan genocide? From Jeffrey Feldman's May 7…
Media Misreport Nun Voter ID Story
May 6th, 2008 10:16 PM
If you have been watching the primary election coverage tonight you've probably seen at least one story about elderly nuns from South Bend, Indiana, who were "denied the right to vote" for lack of a photo ID.It's a shame when the mainstream media, bear false witness. Even more so when they exploit the nun angle to carry water for left-wing groups that opposed the law all the way up to the U.S.…
AP Finally Mentions Kwame Kilpatrick's Democratic Affiliation
May 6th, 2008 1:22 PM
As readers of NewsBusters are no doubt aware, we've tracked how the media have regularly refused to acknowledge the political party affiliation of indicted Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D).Well, today, Associated Press reporter Julie Carr Smyth did acknowledge Kilpatrick is a Democrat, albeit in a roundabout sort of way in an article about Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann being the latest in a…
Hillary Tells People: Whip Inflation With Women's Magazine Tips
May 6th, 2008 12:24 PM
Jody L. Wilcox at The Contemporary Conservative blog mocks People magazine for a "really lame" puffball interview with Hillary Clinton in their 100 Most Beautiful People edition (Hillary was not on that list). There were the usual annoying pop-culture questions: "American Idol or Dancing With the Stars"? (Both.) "Tina Fey or Amy Poehler?" (Both.) Most Clinton critics would hone in on the usual…
Another Day, Another Snapshot of Media Pumping Out Gas Price Hype
May 6th, 2008 11:06 AM
Three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and media hype about gasoline prices. On television that third item often takes place not just in your usual standup at a gas station interviewing outraged motorists. In Web-based media, however, the still shot is worth 1,000 barrels.We've noted how CNN.com has done it. Today, it's ABCNews.com with its front-page teaser headline "Oil: Another Day,…
ChiTrib's James: Whites Think Obama Unpatriotic Due to Race
May 5th, 2008 5:56 PM
Another journalist has gone on-the-record equating conservative concerns about the liberal Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) with racism. In a May 5 blog post on the Chicago Tribune’s “The Swamp” blog, writer Frank James expressed his concern about racist white people. James wondered, “How much of Sen. Barack Obama's supposed patriotism deficit among voters has to do with his being African-American…
Christianity Today: ABC Spells Sloppy Reporting on Wheaton College
May 5th, 2008 3:45 PM
This is a much more serious sin than the folly I noted earlier today from ABCNews.com coverage of a Bill Clinton visit to a "Pentacostal" church.On May 1, Christianity Today's Sarah Pulliam took to her magazine's Liveblog to address ABCNews.com's numerous errors in reporting on a faculty matter at evangelical Wheaton College: ABC's report of Wheaton College professor Kent Gramm's resignation…