By Tom Blumer | December 23, 2015 | 8:59 PM EST

On Monday, I posted on the virtually complete lack of establishment press interest in the story of Trevor FitzGibbon, the former owner of far-left PR firm FitzGibbon Media. Fitzgibbon folded on Thursday after allegations of serial sexual harassment and sexual assault were reported in the Huffington Post. From there, the establishment press did virtually nothing with the story.

It will surprise no regular reader that non-coverage is still the norm. Searches this evening at the Associated Press's main national site and at the New York Times returned nothing and no recent stories, respectively. While I'm also sure deliberate refusal to cover an obviously relevant story doesn't surprise the editorial board at Investor's Business Daily, it has infuriated them enough to write a stinging editorial justifiably decrying the situation — especially the press's double standard.

By Tom Blumer | December 18, 2015 | 1:22 AM EST

The people who run Cosmopolitan Magazine's Twitter account really stepped in it today — and they're so utterly clueless that they doubled and tripled down on their ignorance.

Cosmo's tweeters have thrown themselves behind legislation drafted by Missouri State Representative Stacey Newman. Newman, a Democrat, actually believes that it is more difficult to get an abortion in the Show Me State than it is to buy a gun; her legislation would supposedly remedy this horrible situation. Cosmo is on board with horribly unhinged proposed legislation. The good folks at Twitchy pointed that out this afternoon, but that didn't stop Cosmo from doubling and tripling down on their ignorance (original tweets here, here and here) in the past 10 hours:

By Tom Blumer | December 15, 2015 | 3:00 PM EST

The year isn't even over, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Time's 2015 Person of the Year, has begun to act against the primary reason why the magazine chose her.

To refresh from a NewsBusters post last week, Time's Nancy Gibbs cited three reasons for the choice. The clearly most important one, from their perspective, was Merkel's virtually unilateral decision that Germany "would welcome refugees as casualties of radical Islamist savagery, not carriers of it" without apparent restriction. Now Merkel has, as described by a writer at Time Inc. sister publication Fortune, "backpedaled" from that stance.

By Tom Blumer | December 14, 2015 | 6:07 PM EST

One hesitates to give attention to Jesse A. Myerson. But it's probably worth it, if for no other reason to contend that many of his beliefs are likely shared by the mindless lemmings disguised as "journalists" who wildly cheered on Saturday when an obviously orchestrated "climate change" agreement designed ultimately to redistribute massive amounts of wealth from developed to underdeveloped countries — which would virtually guarantee that they will stay undeveloped — was announced in Paris.

Almost two years ago, Myerson, whose experience includes "the Media and Labor Outreach committees at Occupy Wall Street," identified of "Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For" in a Rolling Stone column. A week ago at The Nation, he vacuously attempted to elaborate on one of those five ideas, namely: "Let’s get rid of private housing."

By Tom Blumer | December 14, 2015 | 1:40 AM EST

Apparently a generation of "journalists" has been raised to believe that the matter of human-caused global warming is "settled science," and that anyone who doubts the agenda-driven, redistributionist "climate change" movement is an enemy of civilization. Additionally, these people clearly don't understand the orchestrated, false-drama nature of diplomatic gatherings such as the one in Paris which just concluded with yet another "breakthrough" but non-binding "agreement" to reduce carbon emissions.

Thus, it's disconcerting, but not at all hard to believe, that these ignorant, gullible children disguised as discerning adults wildly cheered the announcement of the aforementioned agreement as if an athlete on one of their favorite teams just delivered a last-second victory:

By Tom Blumer | December 13, 2015 | 11:24 PM EST

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday that Joshua Williams "was sentenced ... to eight years in prison for starting a fire at a QuikTrip in Berkeley (a St. Louis suburb) after an officer-involved shooting there." The Dispatch apparently didn't think it important to tell readers that the crime spree which occurred after that shooting took place despite the fact that the suspect had pulled a gun on that officer.

I noted in a NewsBusters post a year ago that Williams' arrest on charges of "1st degree arson, 2nd degree burglary and misdemeanor theft," and his confession "to setting fires at the store in a videotaped interview" constituted a major establishment press embarrassment. You see, until then, outfits like the New York Times, MSNBC and others had, in the words of Ryan Lovelace at National Review, "depicted him as a hero of the summer protests" in Ferguson, Missouri.

By Kristine Marsh | December 11, 2015 | 3:46 PM EST

As it turns out, Jenner isn’t all the left hoped for.

After months of celebrating Bruce Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn Jenner earlier this year, the liberal media are turning on their former “hero” for not being “transgender” enough. Apparently, Jenner doesn’t say all the “right things” that a true liberal icon should – and so now, the left is eating one of its own.

By Tom Blumer | December 9, 2015 | 11:58 AM EST

In an announcement which deservedly carries far less weight than it has in the past, Time Magazine (1997 circulation, 4.2 million; current circuation, 3.3 million) has named German chancellor Angela Merkel its 2015 Person of the Year.

The stated reason for her selection: "Not once or twice but three times this year there has been reason to wonder whether Europe could continue to exist, not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in ambitious statecraft." Time believes that Merkel saved the day each time. It seems highly unlikely that she would have risen to the top of the pack without the third item the magazine's Nancy Gibbs cited, namely Merkel's open-borders acceptance of migrants erroneously described as "refugees" dozens of times in its various supporting articles.

By Tom Blumer | December 6, 2015 | 1:06 AM EST

At the Washington Post's Wonkblog on Wednesday, Christopher Ingraham claimed that the San Bernardino massacre, which we now know was an act of Islamic terrorism, was the "355th" mass shooting "this year." A Google search on "355th mass shooting this year" (not in quotes) indicates that the stat has become a media meme, repeated at places like the Today Show, PBS, NPR, NBCnews.com, and too many others to mention.

In a New York Times op-ed on Thursday — one which predictably appears not to have made the paper's print edition — Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones, of all places, wrote that Ingraham and others in the media, including the Times itself are wrong — by a factor of 89. As consistently defined until very recently, there have been four mass shootings in the U.S. year, and 73 since 1982.

By Matthew Balan | December 5, 2015 | 12:35 AM EST

Friday's NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News both spotlighted the New York Daily News's latest anti-conservative front page, which denigrated Wayne LaPierre of the NRA as a "terrorist." CBS's Nancy Cordes touted how "the always-heated gun debate has gotten personal. The New York Daily News...called the head of the National Rifle Association a 'terrorist.'" NBC's Hallie Jackson played up the liberal newspaper's attack, as well as The New Yorker's "provocative" cover targeting gun owners.

By Tom Blumer | November 30, 2015 | 11:57 PM EST

If you think journalists' ignorance of American history and economic fundamentals is bad now, give it a few more years.

The University of North Carolina's School of Media and Journalism "has updated its curriculum requirements to give students more choice and flexibility in meeting the school’s graduation requirements. The change is in response to consistent feedback the school has received from students in its annual senior survey." You already know there's trouble if students who haven't been out in the real world yet are influencing the curriculum. Here's how much trouble:

By Tom Blumer | November 30, 2015 | 12:23 PM EST

In predictably disingenuous fashion, the Associated Press claimed in a November 18 story that "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has shined new light on the breakdown of a potentially history-altering round of 2008 peace talks." Abbas acknowledged that Israel offered Palestinians 93.5 percent of the West Bank and other significant concessions.

The "light" isn't "new" at all. The wire service had the news almost seven years ago, and, according to former AP reporters, refused to publish it. An AP reporter who "discovered the Israeli peace offer in early 2009, got it confirmed on the record and brought it" to the AP in Jerusalem has substantiated the assertion that it "suppressed a world-changing story for no acceptable reason." It is perhaps the most damming validation yet that prudent people should never trust establishment press reports out of the Middle East — particularly in regards to Israel — because of their "pattern ... of accepting the Palestinian narrative as truth and branding the Israelis as oppressors."