By Matt Philbin | May 24, 2013 | 10:30 AM EDT

So the Boy Scouts of America have caved, voting on May 23 to allow openly gay Scouts. It was probably inevitable – just as the organization will inevitably be forced to drop its ban on openly gay adult Scout leaders. Cue the sound of popping champagne corks in newsrooms and TV studios up and down the coasts.

When news first broke back in February that the Boy Scouts of America might allow local charters to decide their own policies on including gays as Scouts and leaders, the broadcast networks were exultant. Well they should be, because they and the rest of the media have waged a long campaign against the Scouts on behalf of the gay lobby. 

By Mike Bates | May 6, 2013 | 11:28 PM EDT

Mainstream media’s limited reporting on the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been obvious.  You might think that CNN, the self-styled “Most Trusted Name in News," would pay more attention to a case involving over 250 criminal counts, including ones for first-degree murder. 

You’d be wrong.  Today, CNN’s Newsroom occupied six hours of air time.  The Gosnell trial was mentioned only twice.  Anchor Wolf Blitzer reported:

In Philadelphia, the 72-year-old abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell is awaiting his fate. He's accused of first degree murder for allegedly killing babies born alive during late term abortions. Jurors are now in their fifth day of deliberating after not reaching a verdict Friday. 

By Randy Hall | April 29, 2013 | 5:12 PM EDT

As part of the Fox News Channel's coverage of the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas on Thursday, Dana Perino, co-host of the channel's “The Five” weekday program and a White House press secretary for the 43rd president, interviewed her former boss “not to break any news here” but for viewers to meet and get to know him “as I do.”

That seven-minute discussion immediately drew fire from Howard Kurtz of CNN and the liberal Daily Beast website. He asked on the Tweeter social site whether the softball interview might have made a “mockery” of Fox's coverage of the event.

By Randy Hall | April 17, 2013 | 11:57 AM EDT

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh used his Tuesday radio program to criticize members of the mainstream media and others on the political left for diverting any potential blame from Muslims as the possible terrorists behind Monday's Boston bombings while suggesting that “right-wing” groups were possibly involved in the attack on the marathon.


“If you are a Muslim, and it turns out that a Muslim did bomb the Boston Marathon,” Limbaugh said, “how do you feel? I daresay that if you are a Muslim, you can be pretty certain … that everybody in the media will circle the wagons and say: ‘This is not because of Islam.’”

By Matt Hadro | March 19, 2013 | 4:05 PM EDT

Monday night's CBS Evening News followed CNN and ABC to the ugly decades-old accusations against Pope Francis from his time in Argentina. CBS featured the same critic of Pope Francis that ABC did on Sunday. CNN, meanwhile, was the only one of the three networks to seriously question the accusations.

"There are still questions, though, about the Pope's relationship with Argentina's former government, a military dictatorship that kidnapped and killed thousands in the '70s and '80s," reported fill-in anchor Bob Schieffer. CBS centered the story around Francis' accuser, with only one quote in his defense.

By Matt Hadro | March 7, 2013 | 11:47 AM EST

CNN gave over eight times more coverage to Beyonce lip synching the national anthem than it did to President Obama's falsehood on the sequester last Friday.

After the President claimed in last Friday's presser that Capitol Hill janitors and police would receive a pay cut because of the sequester, CNN correspondent Dana Bash fact-checked it and found it not to be the case. Her report aired twice that day and two more times over last weekend. She covered the matter for 45 seconds in each report, so CNN's coverage totaled three minutes.

By Mike Bates | February 23, 2013 | 5:07 PM EST

While some in the mainstream media harp on the purportedly horrendous effects of possible across-the-board spending cuts on March 1, there is also an effort to distance President Barack Obama from responsibility.  An example of this is on CNN, which has shown more than once today a report on the sequester by chief business correspondent Ali Velshi.  An excerpt:

VELSHI: The forced budget cuts were created during the 2011 debt ceiling debacle. They were passed by Congress and signed by the White House.

So “the White House” signs bills into law?  That’s funny.   On August 2, 2011, the day the Budget Control Act became law, Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer told his audience:

Happening now, President Obama signs a bill to raise the debt limit, avoiding an economic debt crisis for now.

By Mike Bates | February 22, 2013 | 7:12 PM EST

Chicago hasn’t had a Republican mayor in over 80 years.  Democrats have controlled the Illinois governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature for more than a decade, with Democrats ruling the Illinois House for 28 of the last 30 years.  No matter, Chicago violence is the fault of Republicans.  We learned that this morning on CNN Newsroom when anchor Carol Costello asked her “Talk Back” guests about Retired Lt. General Russel Honore’s suggestion to use National Guard troops to curb murders in Chicago.  Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman astutely pinpointed the reason for Chicago’s carnage:

And let's be very clear about what's happening in Washington today and why it's undermining the city of Chicago, because there's a mindset now in our government, in Washington, from the Republican members of Congress, that sequestration is an acceptable way of doing business, that we can in fact engage in these massive irresponsible cuts that no one thinks is a logical approach to budgeting. 

By Randy Hall | February 15, 2013 | 3:49 PM EST

The liberal hosts on MSNBC  just couldn't get enough of watching U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio reach for a glass of water and take a sip during his rebuttal of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, airing the snippet a staggering 155 times during the Wednesday broadcast schedule, according to a tally by the Daily Caller.

Other cable news networks showed the footage far less often. CNN aired it 34 times, and Fox News Channel played it just 12 times -- all of which took place on “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity” while the hosts discussed the media's obsession with the Florida Republican's “watergate” incident.

By Matt Hadro | January 18, 2013 | 6:21 PM EST

It turns out that the Romney campaign was right to claim that Fiat, who owns Chrysler, would be making Jeeps in China instead of America, even though the media disparaged that case at the time with PolitiFact going so far as to declare the ad "Lie of the Year." According to PolitiFact, the campaign falsely implied the jobs would be outsourced, among other claims.

As Reuters reported yesterday, "Fiat (FIA.MI) and its U.S. unit Chrysler expect to roll out at least 100,000 Jeeps in China when production starts in 2014 as they seek to catch up with rivals in the world's biggest car market."

By Matt Hadro | December 20, 2012 | 5:38 PM EST

The day after a gun control advocate told CNN that America's gun problem includes handgun shootings, Starting Point anchor Soledad O'Brien began asking Democratic politicians if they would consider legislating handguns.

"Well, is going to the assault weapons far enough?" O'Brien asked Democratic Rep. Ron Barber (Ariz.) on Tuesday. "I think it's 80 percent is handguns involved in gun violence. Does this, do you think open up a conversation toward limiting handguns?" she questioned Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) the same day.

By Matt Hadro | December 13, 2012 | 12:45 PM EST

Teamsters Union president James Hoffa warned on CNN Tuesday that there would be "civil war" in Michigan over thepassage of right-to-work legislation, but after anchor Brooke Baldwin made two brief mentions of it the CNN blackout began. In contrast, on the next day Fox News hammered the "civil war" threat as an example of radical rhetoric.

How bad was CNN's blind spot to the controversy? After Hoffa warned of "civil war," Baldwin simply repeated his words back to him. "[I]n the meantime, as you wage this civil war, what does this mean for unionized workers moving forward in Michigan?" she asked, without demanding how violent the union pushback would be.