It’s an old New York Times labeling trick: Find the bad guys, and stamp the “conservative” label on them -- even if they are Soviet Communists -- the enemy of U.S. conservatives during the Cold War. The Times insists on describing Muslim migrants, in the news for sex attacks in Germany, as hailing from “conservative” societies (then turning around and accusing Western conservatives of “Islamophobia”). Reporter Melissa Eddy wrote three articles from Germany, two on the sexual assaults by Muslim refugees in Cologne and other cities, one on the republication of Mein Kampf. In all three stories, Eddy strangely managed to put the bad actors on the “conservative” or “far right” side of the political spectrum.
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By Clay Waters | January 10, 2016 | 8:33 AM EST
By Mark Finkelstein | January 10, 2016 | 8:13 AM EST
As Rush Limbaugh would say, they're not refugees or illegal immigrants: they're undocumented Democrats . . . On this morning's New Day, CNN political analyst Josh Rogin [formerly of the Daily Beast], repeatedly claimed that President Obama's push to admit refugees from Syria and elsewhere is a "principled" position, not a "political" one.
Does Rogin or anyone else seriously believe that the admission of refugees is not of a piece with the opening of our borders to immigrants, illegal and otherwise, in an effort to flood the electoral rolls with Democrats-to-be? Does anyone imagine Obama and his fellow Dems would be pushing hard for the admission of millions of new immigrants if they knew, for example, that 70% of them would be voting Republican? Playa please.
By Brent Baker | January 10, 2016 | 12:38 AM EST
Americans “will offer congratulations for just about anything,” Jimmy Kimmel observed in setting up a clip from his Wednesday night ABC show in which people on the street outside his Los Angeles studio treated North Korea’s supposed successful test of a hydrogen bomb as an achievement worth congratulating.
By Brent Baker | January 9, 2016 | 8:52 PM EST
Ooops. CNN’s Anderson Cooper seemingly let slip on Thursday night what anyone who has a watched a presidential press conference already knows, but journalists are usually loath to admit: The White House press corps favor President Obama’s policies and so don’t challenge him on them. Following CNN’s “town hall” on guns with Obama, Cooper explained his approach: “I wanted him to actually address people who disagree with him, not just people who agree with him that so often happens at, you know, a presidential news conference.”
By Bryan Ballas | January 9, 2016 | 7:35 PM EST
For years Northern Ireland has been a safe space for the unborn. With tight regulations on abortion in place, Irish children enjoyed protection that unborn Americans could only dream about. Naturally, writer Carmen Fishwick of the Guardian seized the opportunity to exploit women to propagate abortion in the Emerald Isle. The paper's headline? "Illegal pills and trauma: how Northern Ireland's abortion ban affects women."
Fishwick lamented that Northern Ireland has a much lower unborn body count than its neighbors. “Just 23 legal NHS abortions took place in Northern Ireland last year, compared with more than 200,000 in the rest of the UK.”
By Tim Graham | January 9, 2016 | 6:06 PM EST
On Friday, New York Times entertainment reporters Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes lamented “the dreaded Oscar-season truth squad. Once again, confrontations between an expanding field of reality-based movies and a growing pack of watchdogs, mostly of the armchair variety, have been turning the annual awards ritual into a brutal game of ‘gotcha.’”
By Brad Wilmouth | January 9, 2016 | 4:13 PM EST
On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN correspondent Drew Griffin filed a report painting conservative opponents of President Barack Obama's gun control initiatives as conspiracy theorists, following up on the previous report finding that a number of gun owners in Florida are suspicious that Obama wants to go further with gun control that he is letting on.
By Kyle Drennen | January 9, 2016 | 12:07 PM EST
The latest gushing edition of Politico Magazine released on Wednesday entitled “The Obama Issue: A Special Report on a Historic Presidency,” was loaded with one article after another largely celebrating the impact of President Obama’s waning administration.
By Tom Blumer | January 9, 2016 | 11:27 AM EST
At the Associated Press, as seen at its "Top Business News" page Friday afternoon, Christopher Rugaber opened his song of praise for yesterday's jobs report ("US EMPLOYERS HIRE AT ROBUST PACE, DEFYING GLOBAL TRENDS") as follows: "American employers added a robust 292,000 jobs in December, suggesting that the U.S. economy is so far defying global weakness and growing solidly. ..."
Rugaber's opening sentence has since been revised, but the damage was done — or, being cynical, the mission was accomplished. Thanks to Rugaber's original opening sentence being used at AP-subscribing outlets nationwide, most news readers, listeners and viewers will believe that decent job growth has been translating into "solid" overall economic growth. Too bad that hasn't been the case — and there are reasons to believe that it will continue to not be the case.
By Matthew Balan | January 9, 2016 | 11:11 AM EST
Andrea Mitchell touted how "the [Bill] Clinton-[Tony] Blair relationship was, indeed, special" on Friday's NBC Nightly News, as she reported on the release of transcripts of conversations between the two former leaders during the former's presidency. Mitchell spotlighted how "Blair calls Clinton 'mate.' Clinton offers to babysit Blair's son. They chat about everything from Pink Panther movies to the tragedy of Princess Diana." She barely mentioned the Monica Lewinsky scandal during her report. The journalist also played up how Clinton's "legacy is relevant again, because [Hillary] is running for president."
By Mark Finkelstein | January 9, 2016 | 10:24 AM EST
Let's see: a guy in a Muslim tunic, who after being arrested tells police he has pledged allegiance to ISIS, and who has made trips to the Middle East, shoots 11 times at a Philly policeman, wounding him. What could be the shooter's motive? If you're Rachel Maddow, the answer is "murky" and "unclear." So said Maddow on her MSNBC show last night.
By Tom Blumer | January 9, 2016 | 8:47 AM EST
Yesterday at NewsBusters, Ken Shepherd noted how quickly and gleefully the New York Times jumped ("an impressive sprint capping off a year of solid job growth") on December's relatively strong jobs report.
The Associated Press joined the parade — "US EMPLOYERS HIRE AT BLISTERING PACE, DEFYING GLOBAL TRENDS" – and kept its story as its lead in its Business "Top Stories" until late afternoon. While that treatment was defensible, the absence of the wire service's terse coverage of the government's disturbing wholesale sales and inventories report from the "Top 10" roster wasn't. Clearly, the good news stays, while the bad news gets memory-holed at the Administration's Press.
By Brent Bozell and Tim Graham | January 9, 2016 | 8:00 AM EST
The indictment of Bill Cosby for sexual assault could play an important role in the 2016 campaign. On Comedy Central, leftist “fake news” anchor Larry Wilmore said even if Cosby isn’t convicted, a trial is a good thing. “For too long, the women who have accused him of this crime were not being listened to, because they were being silenced by a powerful man and a complicit culture. And, now, finally, regardless of what happens next, they're being heard.”
A powerful man, a complicit culture: sounds like Bill Clinton – except the real “news” media will never turn on him.
By Melissa Mullins | January 9, 2016 | 7:27 AM EST
The Los Angeles Times hired Dexter Thomas as a “contact reporter” to cover “black Twitter,” to write about black issues as they percolate through social media. But he ended 2015 by doling out advice to white people in an analysis headlined “In 2016, white people must take responsibility for Donald Trump.”
Or as Thomas put it, "White people, come get your boy."
By Matthew Balan | January 8, 2016 | 10:58 PM EST
Friday's NBC Nightly News failed to cover the arrests of two Iraqi refugees in Texas and California on terror charges. This omission came hours after the network's morning show, Today, led their broadcast with the story. The same evening, ABC and CBS's evening newscasts both covered the arrests of Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab and Omar Faraj Saeed al Hardan, who are accused of having connections to the radical Islamic group, ISIS.