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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

ABC Finds Soldiers in Iraq Backing Candidates: Obama and Clinton

Brent Baker
April 7th, 2008 10:55 PM

Nets Remember Charlton Heston as 'Polarizing' and 'Controversial

Brent Baker
April 7th, 2008 9:16 AM

ABC Marks MLK Death By Featuring Jackson's Left-Wing Bombast

Brent Baker
April 4th, 2008 9:16 PM

You Read It Here First: FNC Picks Up Turner's 'Cannibal' Prediction

Brent Baker
April 4th, 2008 9:42 AM

NBC Uniquely Highlights Latest Medal of Honor Recipient

Brent Baker
April 4th, 2008 3:36 AM

NYT, CBS & The Independent All Mislead on Record Food Stamp Use

Brent Baker
April 2nd, 2008 10:12 PM

Turner: Global Warming Will Cause Mass Cannibalism, Insurgents Are Pat

Brent Baker
April 2nd, 2008 2:18 AM

CBS Follows NYT, Warns More Going on Food Stamps Than Since '60s

Brent Baker
March 31st, 2008 10:17 PM

CBS Faster to Identify Party of Republican Than of Democrats

Brent Baker
March 28th, 2008 8:27 PM

Smith & Gibson Fret to Obama Protracted Race Will Hurt in November

Brent Baker
March 27th, 2008 9:59 PM

ABC Conveys Worries Obama-Clinton Battle Will Hurt Party in Fall

Brent Baker
March 26th, 2008 9:49 PM

Flashback: Stephanopoulos Scolded Critic of Bonior and McDermott

Brent Baker
March 26th, 2008 6:50 PM

Russert Marvels at How Clinton Visits 'Godfather' of VRWC's Paper

Brent Baker
March 25th, 2008 8:40 PM

ABC, CBS and NBC All Fail to ID Indicted Mayor as Democrat

Brent Baker
March 24th, 2008 9:22 PM

Simon on CBS: 'Obama Won Over His Base...the American Media

Brent Baker
March 24th, 2008 8:56 AM

Here We Go Again: Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

Brent Baker
March 21st, 2008 8:27 PM

CBS Castigates McCain Staffer for Accurate Obama/Wright Video

Brent Baker
March 21st, 2008 2:56 AM

Moving on from Obama's Pastor, NBC Focuses on McCain 'Mistake

Brent Baker
March 20th, 2008 2:04 PM

Hume Recites 'Rave Reviews' for Obama 'In Much of National Media

Brent Baker
March 19th, 2008 10:09 PM

Four Times More Journalists Identify as Liberal Than Conservative

Brent Baker
March 19th, 2008 9:52 AM