Major Newspapers

This category contains postings about the largest newspapers in America. For other papers, look under "Regional News" for each state.

WSJ and WashPost's Marcus Agree: Bill Clinton's Sexual History 'Is Fair Game'
By Tom Blumer | December 29, 2015 | 11:46 PM EST

Just one week after CNN's Don Lemon shut down a guest who dared to raise the issue, there is now an agreement across the ideological spectrum that if Hillary Clinton is going to use her husband Bill as a campaign surrogate and go after her opponents' real or imagined sexism, then, as the headline at liberal Ruth Marcus's Monday evening Washington Post column says, "Bill Clinton's sordid sexual history is fair game."

Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal editorial, while citing Marcus's column, agrees: "if Mrs. Clinton wants everyone to forget about Bill’s harassment of women, she ought to stop playing the sexism card, or drop Bill as surrogate, or both."

New York Times Perpetuates the Social Security 'Trust Fund' Myth
By Tom Blumer | December 28, 2015 | 11:52 PM EST

After serving as the virtual mouthpiece for the "there is no crisis!" crowd for at least a decade since George W. Bush's attempt to partially privatize Social Security in 2005, someone at the New York Times has finally recognized that there is one — but still won't level with readers about the system's true condition.

Eduardo Porter "writes the Economic Scene column" for the Times. Before that, "he was a member of the Times editorial board, where he wrote about business, economics, and a mix of other matters." As such, he may well have been the author of some of the Old Gray Lady's opinion pieces opposing any kind of meaningful reform of out-of-control entitlement programs while its reporters gave favorable treatment to demagogues like Harry Reid.

Hillary Gaffe (Unreported or Excused): Close Any School Not 'Doing a Better Than Average Job'
By Tom Blumer | December 28, 2015 | 8:08 PM EST

According to NewsBusters' own Blonde Gator, Hillary Clinton has, in the 8-1/2 months since she declared her candidacy, committed 51 gaffes and goofs. That's an average rate of six per month. Imagine how many there would be if Mrs. Clinton genuinely campaigned among the people instead of among preselected groupies.

One of her latest gaffes, which occurred last week at an elementary school in Iowa, was a humdinger. Predictably, the establishment press almost completely ignored it, while a couple of journalists who noticed the center-right's reaction tried and failed to excuse it.

Another Gaffe Ignored: Sanders Doesn't Understand Why Mortgage Interest Rates Are Lower Than Student Loan Rates
By Tom Blumer | December 28, 2015 | 2:06 PM EST

While the establishment press lies in wait for Republican and conservative candidates to make some kind of off-color or foolish statement — or one that can be twisted to become one, even if it originally wasn't — it consistently ignores howlers made by leftists and liberals. The list of President Barack Obama's gaffes alone, all totally or almost completely ignored by the press when they were made, is quite long.

The most telling gaffe is the kind made in all seriousness by its deliverer which betrays a level of cluelessness not thought humanly possible from a supposedly educated and informed adult. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders committed one such gaffe in a Saturday morning tweet.

Investor's Business Daily: Media Blackout of FitzGibbon Sex Harassment Scandal Shows Double Standard
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.

Before It Was Pulled, Politico Falsely Portrayed Cruz As 'Lashing Out' At Cartoon Showing His Daughters As Monkeys
By Tom Blumer | December 22, 2015 | 11:31 PM EST

As Curtis Houck at NewsBusters reported this evening, the Washington Post published "a disgusting GIF early Tuesday evening depicting (Ted) Cruz’s young daughters as toy monkeys being played with" accompanied by a pathetic two-paragraph justification by cartoonist Ann Telnaes as to why Cruz's daughters "were fair game."

The Post withdrew the cartoon and the justification within a few hours, but not before the leftists at the Politico played their mean-spirited, agenda-driven hand, going into predictable passive-aggressive "Republicans/conservatives attack" mode while making it appear as if Cruz was making much ado about nothing:

Leading Far-Left PR Firm Closes Over Sex Harassment and Assault Allegations; Press Coverage Is Minimal
By Tom Blumer | December 21, 2015 | 12:52 AM EST

A leftist flack who has been waging his own personal war on women for at least a decade has been exposed. As a result, his far-left public relations firm, a leader in the field, has closed.

FitzGibbon Media shut down on Thursday. That's because Trevor FitzGibbon, the firm's founder and owner, who also was "a communications director for (now-President Barack) Obama’s 2008 campaign," has been accused by several now-former employees of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Though the defunct firm's client list reads like a Who's Who of "progressive" and radical causes, and despite how sensational charges such as these are usually considered ready-made clickbait in the press, the FitzGibbon shutdown has received minimal press exposure. The obvious comparative point, raised at TruthRevolt on Friday: "Just imagine if this were a GOP PR firm."

Networks Censor ABC Poll Finding 53 Percent Oppose Assault Weapons Ban
By Matthew Balan | December 16, 2015 | 6:00 PM EST

ABC's morning and evening newscasts, along with those of competitors CBS and NBC, have yet to cover on the latest Washington Post/ABC poll finding that 53 percent of Americans oppose a new assault weapons ban. This is the "first time in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, with the public expressing vast doubt that the authorities can prevent 'lone wolf' terrorist attacks and a substantial sense that armed citizens can help."

Chicago Teachers Authorize Another Strike; Press Mostly Fails to Report Current Pay or Union's Demands
By Tom Blumer | December 15, 2015 | 10:44 PM EST

The Chicago Public Schools system, from which came Arne Duncan, perhaps the nation's most execrable Education Secretary, is in serious financial trouble. So is the State of Illinois. Having already borrowed against next year's property tax collections, CPS somehow expects the state to bail out its underfunded pensions to the tune of $500 million. Though it has subsequently been narrowed, MRC-TV, in covering the district CEO's resignation over a federal no-bid contract investigation, reported in June that the district was facing "a $1 billion budget deficit" for fiscal 2016.

In the midst of all of this, the district's teachers union has overwhelmingly authorized a strike. In searching several current articles on the topic, the hardest things to find were answers to two questions any reasonable person would ask: 1) How much do teachers currently make? and 2) What are their contract demands?

Jerry Brown's Admiration For 'Coercive Power of Government' Gets Little National Media Attention
By Tom Blumer | December 14, 2015 | 2:42 PM EST

Imagine a Republican or conservative governor boasting of his or her use of "the coercive power of government" to accomplish center-right policy goals. The political and media backlash would be furious — and justified.

Such statist rhetoric is becoming ever more commonplace on the left, and is rising to ever higher political levels. The establishment press is mostly ignoring this development, and usually omits related inflammatory assertions from its coverage. Statements relating to "climate change" have especially been reinforcing David Horowitz's old adage that "Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out" for several months. Last week in Paris, California Governor Jerry Brown let his inner totalitarian out several times. A video of one such example follows the jump.

Ferguson Media Darling Joshua Williams Sentenced to 8 Years For Arson
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.

NY Times Covers, TV Scarce: Rubio’s ‘Quiet Legislative Sabotage’ of Obamacare
By Michael McKinney | December 10, 2015 | 2:54 PM EST

On Wednesday, The New York Times posted an article by reporter Robert Pear calling out Marco Rubio for taking the pen to Obamacare in the budget legislation from last year. On Thursday, it appeared on the front page with the headline “Rubio Measure Delivered a Blow to Healthy Law.”