By Jackie Seal | May 16, 2014 | 12:35 PM EDT

Two years ago, Katie Couric delivered the commencement address at her alma mater, the University of Virginia.  NewsBusters senior editor Rich Noyes noted at the time that Couric used the occasion to complain about her many critics from her five-year stint as the anchor for the CBS Evening News.

Last Saturday, Couric gave an encore performance of her airing of grievances at a commencement address at American University’s School of Communications. Couric recycled some of her favorite lines about her time at CBS informing students that “critics complained about my clothes, my hair, my make up, my delivery, even the way I held my hands on the anchor desk.”  She followed up with a lament of sexism in the broadcast news business. "Some claimed I lacked gravitas. I decided, that’s Latin for testicles," she quipped.

By Tom Blumer | April 28, 2014 | 11:51 PM EDT

The Associated Press's lengthy Monday evening treatment of Toyota's decision to move its U.S. headquarters and consolidate many of its North American operations in Metro Dallas is reasonably good in spots. But Gillian Flaccus and Michael R. Blood were unduly selective in reporting Torrance, California Mayor Frank Scotto's reaction to the news that his town would be losing several thousand jobs, and downplayed the relevance of clearly obvious factors influencing the move.

Let's see what Scotto, a Republican, told the Los Angeles Times, followed by the AP's reporting.

By Tom Blumer | June 30, 2013 | 2:54 PM EDT

As I noted on Friday, the final sentence in an AP report earlier that day (saved here at host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) on protests in Egypt read: "One banner depicted President Barack Obama and said, 'Obama supports terrorism.'"

I predicted with little risk of being wrong that the existence of this banner would not "survive future AP reports" -- and it hasn't, even though this and similar banners were still present in Tahrir Square on Saturday. A search at the AP's national site on "Obama supports terrorism" (not in quotes) returns nothing. Other establishment press coverage has also failed to reveal the continued presence of anti-American and anti-President Obama sentiments.

By Tom Blumer | May 21, 2013 | 10:08 AM EDT

In remarks which will more than likely be ignored by the establishment press, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in essence blamed yesterday's deadly tornado which struck Moore, Oklahoma on Republicans who have "run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings." Whitehouse was intensely upset because, in his view these red state ignoramuses who are allowing ever more intense, climate change-caused storms to occur because of their inaction expect the rest of the country to pay for disaster relief in their states as they deliberately inflict damage on blue states like his own and Oregon. As a free bonus, he threw in a detestable Cold War analogy.

The video of Whitehouse's speech as presented at the Senator's own YouTube channel and a transcript follow the jump. View the video; Whitehouse's condescending contempt for people who won't accept what history will likely record is one of the greatest attempted hoaxes ever perpetrated on mankind is a sight to behold (HT to FreeRepublic for transcript; some editing was necessary to match the actual speech; bolds are mine):

By Tom Blumer | May 12, 2013 | 12:03 PM EDT

Scott Pelley deserves grudging credit for recognizing something obvious at a Friday luncheon in New York. Readers tempted to go beyond that point would be advised to visit the archive of Pelley-related posts at NewsBusters on his brand of so-called journalism, a few of which will be identified later in this post.

At said luncheon, Pelley received the 20th annual Fred Friendly First Amendment Award from the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University. In his acceptance speech (full YouTube; excerpt here; HT Weekly Standard), Pelley spoke of journalistic failures during the past few months. He wants to believe that the past few months have been extraordinarily bad to a supposedly unprecedented extent.

By Tom Blumer | December 12, 2012 | 1:16 AM EST

Perhaps hoping that readers wouldn't scroll down to peruse what followed, a Tuesday evening Detroit Free Press report by David Jesse and Lori Higgins carried at USA Today featured a video taking up my entire computer screen which consisted entirely of union protesters chanting slogans for 49 seconds.

The pair's actual report carries a misleading headline ("Mich. governor signs anti-union bills after protests") directly contradicted in their dispatch's content ("The right-to-work legislation ... makes it illegal to require financial support of a labor union as a condition of employment"). But it's their description of Tuesday's incident involving Steven Crowder and Americans for Prosperity which is the report's biggest flaw (HT Instapundit):

By P.J. Gladnick | October 6, 2012 | 9:19 AM EDT

Actor and comedian Steve Martin is a wild and crazy guy so it is no surprise that he would make a bizarre political endorsement. In this case the endorsement was for Bob Kerrey who is running for the senate seat from Nebraska. However, Steve Martin does not once mention Bob Kerrey or anything political in the "endorsement." Instead, Martin in the guise of a home crafts expert shows us how to make a wad of paper.

Your humble correspondent found the advice on how to make a wad of paper quite useful. In fact, for years I have struggled to achieve this but always fell short of my goal. But now thanks to Steve Martin's very informative video (below the not-paper fold) I can now expertly make the wad of paper of my dreams. The only downside to the video is the hand holding signs of support for Bob Kerrey that kept blocking my view.

By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2012 | 10:06 AM EDT

Note:  This post has been revised to reflect the Times's 2012 coverage. The original version erroneously linked to a 2010 article. I sincerely regret the error.

The New York Times's coverage of year's annual Muslim Day parade in Manhattan appears to have consisted of a photo at This Week in Pictures and another at the City Room blog.

At the end of the parade, in news not relayed by the Times, at least one speaker called for suppression and criminalization of free speech and another seemed to revel in violence-based rhetoric. One can hardly argue that these presentations weren't related to the parade, since invited political dignitaries were on hand, including one gentleman, Democrat New York State Senator Tony Avello, who walked out after hearing calls for punishment speech seen to commit "blasphemy" against Muslim prophet Muhammed.

By Clay Waters | September 25, 2012 | 9:06 AM EDT

New York Times technology correspondent Somini Sengupta wrote a depressing article for the Sunday Review suggesting free speech could be limited by corporations (at the behest of government) in the interest of not offending the sensibilities of violent radical Muslims -- "Free Speech in the Age of YouTube."

Sengupta also seemed to sign on to the false notion that the anti-American violence in Egypt and Libya was tied to the shoddy old anti-Muhammad clip posted on YouTube, when in fact the violence on the anniversary of 9-11 had been long planned and the clip a pretext at best. (Meanwhile, Times editorial board member Lincoln Caplan was also disturbingly ambivalent on "absolutist" free speech on the domestic front.)

By Randy Hall | September 14, 2012 | 5:31 PM EDT

Acting on the premise that the trailer for the low-budget film "Innocence of Muslims" was one of the causes of rioting and anti-American protests across the Middle East this week, the Obama Administration has asked YouTube to "review" whether the two-minute preview "violates the Website's terms of service," a phrase that usually means the government wants the "offending" item deleted.

That move led the blogger at the conservative Ace of Spades Website to charge that the federal government is "now acting as the censorship arm of Islamists."

By Noel Sheppard | July 16, 2012 | 7:17 PM EDT

Matt Lewis over at the Daily Caller just reported that a Romney campaign ad featuring President Obama singing Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" has been pulled by YouTube for copyright reasons.

Oddly enough, videos like this one from the Associated Press of Obama singing the same song on January 20 are still available at YouTube:

By Matthew Sheffield | May 21, 2012 | 5:46 PM EDT

YouTube has reversed its decision to censor the views of a pro-traditional marriage organization after attention was drawn to its removal of a video last week produced by Christian preacher and hard rock drummer Bradlee Dean.

Last week, YouTube – owned by Google, whose corporate motto used to be “Don't Be Evil” -- removed the video, which spotlights how gay rights extremists are using laws in Canada to censor those who disagree with their perspective.