The network morning shows on Monday hyped Hillary Clinton’s dismissal of Donald Trump’s attacks, instead promoting the “popular” Bill Clinton. On Good Morning America, Cecilia Vega enthused, “Bill Clinton has enormously high popularity numbers. But even with all of these attacks coming from Trump, her campaign and Hillary Clinton herself calls him their secret weapon.”
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By Scott Whitlock | January 4, 2016 | 12:24 PM EST
By Brad Wilmouth | January 4, 2016 | 11:35 AM EST
On Monday's New Day, CNN political commentator Errol Louis brought up "this Bill Cosby thing that's kind of hanging out there" as he suggested that the A-list comedian's growing legal problems over his sexual assault history could be a harbinger of the problems the Hillary Clinton campaign could have if Donald Trump provides a "very large megaphone" for women who have accused Bill Clinton of "lurid" behavior and "sexual assault."
By Clay Waters | January 4, 2016 | 11:16 AM EST
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson purchased the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper last month, and the New York Times is obsessed. The paper put a conspiratorial Sunday front-page spotlight on Adelson (who is, not coincidentally, a major Republican donor) and his legal clashes with a Nevada judge: “Mogul’s Purchase of Las Vegas Newspaper Is Seen as Power Play." Also suspect: A free paper Adelson distributes in Israel “has been accused of supporting the conservative positions of Benjamin Netanyahu.” Of course, the Times never worries about being accused of supporting the liberal positions of Barack Obama.
By Kyle Drennen | January 4, 2016 | 11:09 AM EST
On Monday, all three network morning shows touted Barack Obama planning to take unilateral executive action to restrict gun rights and worried that Republicans were already strong critics of the presidential power grab.
By Tom Blumer | January 4, 2016 | 10:40 AM EST
Since last night, Matt Drudge has teased his link to CNN's coverage of Hillary Clinton "heckler" Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien with the following headline: "Clinton heckled in NH by rape survivor."
The headline at CNN's story by Dan Merica is quite different: "NH GOP lawmaker heckles Hillary Clinton over Bill Clinton's sex scandals." The headline difference is not unusual. What is unusual is that Merica's article as currently posted never refers to O'Brien as a "rape survivor" (which, by the way, she has said since at least 2000). Since Drudge usually refers in some way to a story's content when he writes his headlines, this opens up the possibility that earlier versions of Merica's story did mention O'Brien's rape survivor status, and that CNN censored it. What we do know is that CNN and Merica made sure that readers of their story wouldn't know that Juanita Broaddrick credibly accused Bill Clinton of raping her, and that they treated Clinton's one-man war on women sexual history as entirely "alleged" (bolds are mine):
By Seton Motley | January 4, 2016 | 10:32 AM EST
Media bias is hydra-headed in its perniciousness. It operates on many levels - in many ways. One of its practitioners’ favorite moves is the terrible headline. In which they knowingly - or unknowingly - tip their hand on the story at hand. These heinous headlines can effectively work to sway casual, drive-by media consumers - who don’t go deep into multiple articles to get a more fully-formed idea.
Mega-website Facebook is currently on the wrong side of this media treatment. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is trying - via his Free Basics program - to connect to the Internet prospectively billions of very poor people throughout the world. For free. How awful of him.
By Mark Finkelstein | January 4, 2016 | 8:30 AM EST
Mika Brzezinski has let the cat out of the MSM bag. On today's Morning Joe, Mika admitted that the press corps covering Donald Trump can't be objective about him: "it's like their skin is crawling."
Brzezinski said reporters "ooze with a lack of objectivity" when covering Trump, adding "you can sort of see it in their kind of like smiling, sort of slyly and uncomfortably and almost snarkily while they're reporting on his rallies." Of course, what is true about MSM coverage of Trump has been true of the way the liberal media covered many Republicans. Does anyone think, for instance, that the MSM gave a fair shake to Mitt Romney or George W. Bush?
By Tim Graham | January 4, 2016 | 7:22 AM EST
CNN announced Sunday it’s granting President Obama an hour of air time on Thursday to have a town hall on his gun-control agenda with Anderson Cooper. The 8 pm special is simply titled Guns in America.
The makeup of the questioners will determine just how much of a favor CNN is granting the president, but the usual pattern – to judge from say, Christiane Amanpour’s town hall with Hillary Clinton – is to stack it with friendly liberals. CNN’s own article on this gift makes it clear they’re helping him mount a “final pitch” on the issue:
By Erik Soderstrom | January 4, 2016 | 1:47 AM EST
FOX’s new animated comedy from executive producer Seth MacFarlane, Bordertown, spared no individual, group, or social cause in its debut episode last night, "The Engagement." The show, set on the US/Mexico border in the fictional town of Mexifornia, hops neatly from one stereotype to the next, apparently out to offend every conceivable person.
By Karen Townsend | January 4, 2016 | 1:18 AM EST
In the latest episode of the CBS reality show Undercover Boss, “Shoppers World,” we meet Sam Dushey, President and CEO of Shoppers World, described as “one of the nation’s fastest growing retailers of discount apparel and merchandise.” A family-owned and operated discount retailer, Sam is the last family member in the business.
By Karen Townsend | January 3, 2016 | 11:29 PM EST
Viewers were met with an ugly sight in the opening scene of the latest episode of The Simpson's, "The Girl Code." Marge makes a surprise visit to the plant to deliver Homer’s lunch. In an attempt to make his office “a little more Marge-friendly,” Homer jumps up to hide a poster of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), putting it away with a kiss and saying, “See you soon, Liz-Liz.” BLEH!
By Tim Graham | January 3, 2016 | 11:13 PM EST
At the end of his Rand Paul interview on Sunday, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked a bit of a softball. Was Paul frustrated with the media’s obsession with Trump? No kidding, Chuck. Sen. Paul said “I do have a frustration....that we’re being led by the nose and the news media is led by the nose to think that somehow Trump is going to win this because of these polls.”
By Tim Graham | January 3, 2016 | 2:14 PM EST
The Drudge Report notes the front page of Sunday’s Los Angeles Times carries panic that all 20 best-acting Oscar nominees are going to be insufferably white again.
Glenn Whipp began: “As Motion Picture Academy members cast their ballots for Oscar nominations this week, the biggest issue for many voters isn't about who might be nominated but about the diversity of this year's acting class. Their fear: The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite will be trending on social media again.”
By Tom Blumer | January 3, 2016 | 12:46 PM EST
In his most recent Washington Post column, Fareed Zakaria, who also works at CNN, told readers that "working-class whites" can no longer handle the fact that they're not an "elite group" any more, and that this loss of status explains an alarming increase in suicide in their ranks. Supposedly, these people support Donald Trump because his "Making America Great Again" is about putting them back on top again.
Assuming that Zakaria actually wrote what appeared in the Post — he was suspended for a single instance of plagiarism in 2012 and has been credibly accused of doing so dozens of other times — his awkward opening paragraph seems to say that Trump's main supporters are people who are tragically no longer with us:
By Tom Johnson | January 3, 2016 | 12:23 PM EST
Ben Carson seems to be joining the likes of Michele Bachmann and Howard Dean on the list of presidential candidates who generated a lot of early buzz but became distant also-rans well before a nominee was chosen. According to Washington Monthly blogger David Atkins, Carson’s campaign also offers yet more proof that conservatives tend to be easy marks for scammers.
“The libertarian-conservative ethic of ‘get rich any way you can’ combined with a stubborn dismissal of objective fact makes political conservatism especially ripe for con artistry,” argued Atkins in a Saturday post. “It’s no accident that the tea party has been home to one grifter after another making a quick buck…Fox News itself is a long con perpetrated on fearful, older white Americans with the goal of making Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes rich while keeping Republican politicians in power.”
