On the front page of the New York Times sat "Religion Laws Quickly Fall Into Retreat," a label-heavy (14 "conservative" labels) 1,500-word story on Indiana's controversial religious freedom law. The Times' coverage has also been consistently slanted with both that labeling bias and scare quotes surrounding the term "religious freedom."
Indiana
NY Times Goes-Label Heavy on Indiana Law, Headlines Scare Quotes Around So-Called 'Religious Freedom'
By Clay Waters | April 4, 2015 | 8:19 AM EDT 
By Scott Whitlock | April 3, 2015 | 10:33 AM EDT
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has aggressively attacked those who support Indiana's religious freedom law and on Thursday night he brought on Charles Barkley to slime Christians as "religious nuts." The former NBA player, who is from Alabama originally, sneered, "All these rednecks hide behind the Bible. That's what they do. That's one of the reason the south is behind in everything. They always hide behind the Bible. It's strictly about discrimination."
By Tim Graham | April 3, 2015 | 10:26 AM EDT
The PBS NewsHour hosted a panel discussion on Thursday night on the controversy over religious freedom in Indiana. To their credit, PBS brought on a Baptist minister, Tim Overton, to speak for Christians who are upset at the current liberal trend. But National Journal correspondent Ron Brownstein pushed hard on the politics -- on how Republicans are going to suffer as “we expand the circle equality. That is the American story...there’s no reversing that.”
By Tom Blumer | April 2, 2015 | 10:41 PM EDT
Update, April 3: The Indiana man who claims to have been hacked now admits that he wasn't, but says he was "joking" about robbing Memories Pizza, and is threatening to sue those who exposed his (ahem) public comments.
Those of us following the Memories Pizza story won't have trouble remembering it as the years go by, thanks only partially to the Walkerton, Indiana store's fairly unusual name for a pizzeria.
What will also easy to recall are the "memories" of the unhinged and threatening leftist behavior that accompanied its owner's simple statement that, if the request ever arose, they would have to turn down catering a same-sex "marriage" because participating in or supporting such a ceremony violates their firm Christian religious beliefs — and the press's attempts to cover up what their journalistic malfeasance unleashed.
By Clay Waters | April 2, 2015 | 10:28 PM EDT
If it's Thursday, it must be...yet another front-page New York Times story on the issue that is going to tear the Republican Party apart and doom prospects in 2016 (the actual issue changes every week, of course).
On cue with the ginned-up controversy over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, came reporter Jennifer Steinhauer's story, under a liberally stacked deck of headlines: "Rights Measures Expose Divisions In G.O.P.'s Ranks – Debate Enters '16 Race – Laws Seen as Targeting Gays, and Posing a Peril to Business."
By Tom Blumer | April 2, 2015 | 6:49 PM EDT
A short unbylined Associated Press report at its national site on the situation at Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana this afternoon made sure to mention that the pizzeria "won't cater gay weddings" (in the headline).
It also misstated the owner's statement to a South Bend TV station, claiming, using its own words, that she "said the state's new religious objections law backs their right to deny catering to a same-sex wedding." (Sorry, the statement that they wouldn't cater a same wedding was independent of any legal opinion.)
By Bryan Ballas | April 2, 2015 | 9:50 AM EDT
Mika Brzezinski has never been one to shy away from smearing conservatives and Wednesday was no exception. Still furious over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), Brzezinski said of Governor Mike Pence "People are calling him a bigot because it sounds like one and looks like one. I'm sorry."
By Tom Blumer | April 1, 2015 | 11:43 PM EDT
Something hasn't seemed right about the Memories Pizza story from the get-go. Now I know why.
In a Tuesday report, TV Station ABC 57 cited the Walkerton, Indiana business's Crystal O'Connor as saying that, in the station's words, they "don't agree with gay marriages and wouldn't cater them if asked to." In other words, they've never been asked to. The non-story which ignited a national firestorm is the result of a dangerously irresponsible ambush. The reporter involved admitted as much in a tweet late this morning:
By Ken Shepherd | March 31, 2015 | 9:10 PM EDT
Leave it to Chris Matthews, during Holy Week no less, to slander Catholic nuns as anti-gay bigots.
The Hardball host made the charge today during the conclusion to a heated debate segment pitting Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy (D) against former RNC chairman Michael Steele on the issue of Indiana's brand-new Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
By Ken Shepherd | March 31, 2015 | 4:41 PM EDT
If Chris Matthews thought he could trip up and embarrass Russell Moore, the head of the South Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, he was most certainly disappointed.
By Bryan Ballas | March 31, 2015 | 11:11 AM EDT
Following the passage of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the Huffington Post began churning out anti-religious freedom screeds like an assembly line of hyperbole. The most outrageous of which came from the "Reverend" Susan Russell, who called the law a "perversion of religion into a weapon of mass destruction."
It’s remarkable how negatively this religious leader views religious history:
By Curtis Houck | March 30, 2015 | 10:35 PM EDT
On their Monday evening newscasts, the major broadcast networks kept up their attacks on the State of Indiana for having enacted a religious freedom law that aims to protect individuals from government infringement based on their religious beliefs. While ABC, CBS, and NBC mentioned that there are those supporting the law, their coverage continued to veer off in a slanted direction against the law by painting Republicans as being “in damage control mode” while the “avalanche of criticism” continues to grow.