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Brent Baker

Editor At Large
@ BrentHBaker

Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center (MRC), the publisher of NewsBusters. He’s been the central figure in the MRC’s News Analysis Division since the MRC’s 1987 founding and in 2005 spearheaded the launch of NewsBusters.

Baker oversaw the selection of the award nominees and “winners” for the MRC’s “DisHonors Awards” (highlight video clips on NewsBusters), presented at an annual gala, and each week he helps the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard select a “Liberal Media Scream.” Those picks are added, on a one week delay, to NewsBusters.

In 2001, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes dubbed Baker “the scourge of liberal bias.”

For 13 years, 1996 through 2009, he compiled and edited the daily CyberAlert e-mail and online report. In late May of 2009 the CyberAlert became an e-mail-only product based on BiasAlert postings on the MRC's Web site until it was discontinued in 2015. 

From 1988 through 2015 he served as Editor of Notable Quotables (archive), a two-page newsletter which delivered a bi-weekly compilation of quotes from the liberal media which reflected biased reporting. At each year-end, an annual “awards for the year’s worst reporting” were selected by a panel of judges. (NQ collections on NewsBusters since 2016). From 1988 to 1999 he also oversaw MediaWatch, a monthly and later bi-weekly newsletter which the MRC discontinued in order to concentrate efforts on more timely analysis via the Internet.

Baker is the author of How to Identify, Expose & Correct Liberal Media Bias, a 1994 book which offers detailed explanations and suggestions for what the average citizen can do about media bias. Baker was co-editor of And That’s the Way It Isn’t: A Reference Guide to Media Bias, a 1990 book containing excerpts, reprints and summaries of 45 studies documenting the media's liberal bias during the 1980s.

Baker lived in Massachusetts through high school, whereupon he fled the liberal commonwealth for George Washington University in DC and, since graduation, a life in Northern Virginia. He edited the conservative college student newspaper The Sequent and graduated from GWU with special honors in political science in 1985.

After a stint at Conservative Digest magazine, Baker joined Brent Bozell at the National Conservative Foundation (as editor of the newsletter Newswatch) before helping to create the MRC in 1987.

An avid fan of the Washington Capitals NHL hockey team, in January of 2009 the Washington Post's "DC Sports Bog" took note of Baker's attendance at a Caps game with John Kerry: "The Caps, John Kerry and a Scourge."

Bio on MRC.org.


Latest Blogs

Olbermann Cues Up Franken's “Execution,” Plays Kick to Groin, Knoc

Brent Baker
October 25th, 2005 9:37 PM

Olbermann Equates Bush to Clinton With Clinton-Era “White House in C

Brent Baker
October 24th, 2005 9:55 PM

Schieffer Presumptuous or Stumbling in Declaring Indictments “Soon t

Brent Baker
October 24th, 2005 8:30 PM

Spike Lee: 'Not Far-fetched' to Say New Orleans Levees Deliberately De

Brent Baker
October 24th, 2005 4:40 AM

Totenberg Advises Democrats to Hit GOP on Tax Cuts for the Rich

Brent Baker
October 23rd, 2005 4:26 AM

On Letterman, Al Franken Jokes About Execution for Treason of Rove, Li

Brent Baker
October 22nd, 2005 2:44 AM

WashPost Juxtaposes Anti-Republican and Pro-Democratic Candidate Headl

Brent Baker
October 21st, 2005 6:04 PM

Olbermann Compares Bush White House to Clinton's “White House in Cri

Brent Baker
October 21st, 2005 12:14 AM

Matthews Raises Watergate Specter: "What Did the President Know and Wh

Brent Baker
October 19th, 2005 8:02 PM

Roseanne Barr: I'm Like Totally More Intelligent Than President Bush

Brent Baker
October 19th, 2005 3:59 PM

Lesley Stahl Predicts Plame Case “Could Possibly Take Off the Way Wa

Brent Baker
October 19th, 2005 2:36 AM

ABC Gives Saddam Hussein Balanced Coverage, Cite Worries He'll Not Get

Brent Baker
October 18th, 2005 8:31 PM

CNN's Cafferty Cracks About Rove's Size, Giddy Over Chance Rove Going

Brent Baker
October 17th, 2005 9:43 PM

Maher Wishes Bush Would Follow NBC's West Wing, Tell Christian Right t

Brent Baker
October 17th, 2005 3:46 PM

PBS Host Flustered that Miers’ Moderation, Consensus-Building Consid

Brent Baker
October 16th, 2005 3:48 AM

Part 2: Shocked, Just Shocked Net Reporters Hype “Staged” Bush Eve

Brent Baker
October 15th, 2005 1:01 PM

CNN's Situation Room Blog Update Showcases NewsBusters

Brent Baker
October 14th, 2005 5:49 PM

Shocked, Just Shocked Network Reporters Hype “Staged” Bush Event w

Brent Baker
October 13th, 2005 9:04 PM

Plot of Tonight's Law & Order Inspired by Schiavo Case

Brent Baker
October 12th, 2005 6:06 PM

Harrelson Denounces Bush's “Oil-Garchy,” Movie Character Paints An

Brent Baker
October 12th, 2005 8:10 AM