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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

NBC: Metzenbaum a 'Populist,' But Jesse Helms an 'Ultra-Rightist

Brent Baker
July 5th, 2008 6:13 AM

You Read It Here First: FNC Picks Up Spiking of Good News on Iraq

Brent Baker
July 3rd, 2008 2:33 AM

As Predicted, Only FNC Reports Progress in Iraq

Brent Baker
July 2nd, 2008 1:33 AM

Stephanopoulos Forwards Anti-McCain Tax Cut Analysis from Left

Brent Baker
June 30th, 2008 9:35 AM

Neuharth: Raise Income Tax So Iraq War Hawks Will Become Doves

Brent Baker
June 30th, 2008 12:52 AM

NBC's Today Touts 'Barack Star: Obama on Cover of Rolling Stone

Brent Baker
June 26th, 2008 2:17 AM

Bad Economy Kills Pet Dogs, Cats, Pigs, Goats...and People Too

Brent Baker
June 25th, 2008 9:37 PM

NBC News President Capus: Olbermann 'Speaks Truth to Power

Brent Baker
June 25th, 2008 9:41 AM

Only ABC Airs Full Story on Good Iraq News, NBC Can't Resist Caveat

Brent Baker
June 23rd, 2008 9:12 PM

Ex-Wash Post Reporter 'Nervous' What McCain Means to SCOTUS

Brent Baker
June 22nd, 2008 3:30 PM

Carlson Pitches Gore for VP: 'Brains, Good Judgment and Experience

Brent Baker
June 21st, 2008 11:17 PM

Blitzer Hypes: Obama Warns GOP 'to Play the Race Card Against Him

Brent Baker
June 20th, 2008 10:18 PM

Gibson Frets Over Obama's Money Advantage: 'Is It Basically Fair

Brent Baker
June 20th, 2008 8:55 PM

CBS Resurrects Swift Boat Ad 'Smear' in Defense of Obama's Flip-Flop

Brent Baker
June 19th, 2008 10:16 PM

CBS Evening News Airs Brief Against Offshore Drilling

Brent Baker
June 18th, 2008 10:05 PM

Goldberg: Russert Recognized Liberal Media Bias; Russert Interview

Brent Baker
June 18th, 2008 5:30 PM

Takes Bombing for Williams to Note 'Letup in Violence of Late in Iraq

Brent Baker
June 17th, 2008 9:58 PM

CNN's Campbell Brown Giddy Over Al Gore, Pushes Him for VP

Brent Baker
June 17th, 2008 10:13 AM

Williams: Afghanistan Deadlier Than Iraq, As If Iraq Not Improving

Brent Baker
June 16th, 2008 11:00 PM

NBC Trumpets Gore's 'Return to Electoral Politics' to Endorse Obama

Brent Baker
June 16th, 2008 8:44 PM