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Brent Baker

Editor At Large
@ BrentHBaker

Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center (MRC), the publisher of NewsBusters. He’s been the central figure in the MRC’s News Analysis Division since the MRC’s 1987 founding and in 2005 spearheaded the launch of NewsBusters.

Baker oversaw the selection of the award nominees and “winners” for the MRC’s “DisHonors Awards” (highlight video clips on NewsBusters), presented at an annual gala, and each week he helps the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard select a “Liberal Media Scream.” Those picks are added, on a one week delay, to NewsBusters.

In 2001, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes dubbed Baker “the scourge of liberal bias.”

For 13 years, 1996 through 2009, he compiled and edited the daily CyberAlert e-mail and online report. In late May of 2009 the CyberAlert became an e-mail-only product based on BiasAlert postings on the MRC's Web site until it was discontinued in 2015. 

From 1988 through 2015 he served as Editor of Notable Quotables (archive), a two-page newsletter which delivered a bi-weekly compilation of quotes from the liberal media which reflected biased reporting. At each year-end, an annual “awards for the year’s worst reporting” were selected by a panel of judges. (NQ collections on NewsBusters since 2016). From 1988 to 1999 he also oversaw MediaWatch, a monthly and later bi-weekly newsletter which the MRC discontinued in order to concentrate efforts on more timely analysis via the Internet.

Baker is the author of How to Identify, Expose & Correct Liberal Media Bias, a 1994 book which offers detailed explanations and suggestions for what the average citizen can do about media bias. Baker was co-editor of And That’s the Way It Isn’t: A Reference Guide to Media Bias, a 1990 book containing excerpts, reprints and summaries of 45 studies documenting the media's liberal bias during the 1980s.

Baker lived in Massachusetts through high school, whereupon he fled the liberal commonwealth for George Washington University in DC and, since graduation, a life in Northern Virginia. He edited the conservative college student newspaper The Sequent and graduated from GWU with special honors in political science in 1985.

After a stint at Conservative Digest magazine, Baker joined Brent Bozell at the National Conservative Foundation (as editor of the newsletter Newswatch) before helping to create the MRC in 1987.

An avid fan of the Washington Capitals NHL hockey team, in January of 2009 the Washington Post's "DC Sports Bog" took note of Baker's attendance at a Caps game with John Kerry: "The Caps, John Kerry and a Scourge."

Bio on MRC.org.


Latest Blogs

TV Journalists Enchanted by Obamas: 'America's Unofficial Royalty

Brent Baker
April 2nd, 2009 8:06 AM

ABC and CBS Remind Viewers Obama More Popular than Bush

Brent Baker
March 31st, 2009 8:37 PM

ABC Trumpets How Japanese Use Obama to Learn English

Brent Baker
March 30th, 2009 8:51 PM

ABC Jumps to Publicize Spanish Judge's Quest to Charge Bush Officials

Brent Baker
March 29th, 2009 11:57 PM

Schieffer Commiserates with Obama: 'Have You Lost Any Friends Yet

Brent Baker
March 29th, 2009 2:34 PM

Obama's 'Virtual Town Hall' White House 'First' Enthralls ABC

Brent Baker
March 26th, 2009 8:40 PM

Limbaugh's Ratings Surge Coincides with White House Attacks

Brent Baker
March 26th, 2009 5:14 PM

Not Even NBC Buys, or Can Fit, 'Overseas Contingency Operation

Brent Baker
March 26th, 2009 11:43 AM

NBC Highlights Downbeat 'State of Black America' Report

Brent Baker
March 26th, 2009 2:04 AM

Stephanopoulos: Obama and Press Corps 'Hit Their Marks Tonight

Brent Baker
March 25th, 2009 1:50 AM

Admire Obama's 'Like to Know What I'm Talking About Before I Speak

Brent Baker
March 24th, 2009 10:45 PM

ABC Certifies Obama's Claim His Policies Inducing Economic Progress

Brent Baker
March 24th, 2009 7:59 PM

Local DC Fox Reporter Jumps to Terry McAuliffe's Campaign

Brent Baker
March 24th, 2009 1:12 AM

Stocks Soar and Plunge, But Couric Always Upbeat About Obama's Efforts

Brent Baker
March 23rd, 2009 10:16 PM

'Masterful' Obama Performance with Leno 'Calmed Down' Totenberg

Brent Baker
March 23rd, 2009 9:28 AM

C-SPAN Showing MRC's 'DisHonors Awards' Tonight

Brent Baker
March 21st, 2009 10:13 PM

Hypocritical Olbermann Maligns Hume for Using 'Lunatic-Fringe' MRC

Brent Baker
March 21st, 2009 9:10 AM

CBS News Poll: Limbaugh Has Higher Approval than Pelosi

Brent Baker
March 17th, 2009 9:26 PM

No Party ID for Murtha, But CBS Tags Critic Flake as '(R

Brent Baker
March 17th, 2009 8:27 PM

Stephanopoulos Empathizes with Obama's 'Tough Dilemma

Brent Baker
March 16th, 2009 9:57 PM