Bias by Omission

Is the Republican party a political organization or “a terrarium of retrograde fauna”? Both, suggests Esquire’s Pierce, and if too few of the American people understand that, it’s in large part a result of, in his words, “the worst episode of journalistic malpractice that I can recall.” What set Pierce off was a remark from a former Democratic congressional staffer, quoted in the newspaper The…

On Tuesday night, ABC and CBS declined to cover the latest in the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal as the House Select Committee on Benghazi requested a private meeting with the former Secretary of State while a separate deadline concerning her e-mail server approaches. Days after the committee requested Clinton turn her private e-mail server over to an independent party for review, the panel…

The press won't roast New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for this, but it should — at a very high temperature. Today, Mr. Self-Righteous, who in the past has suggested that anyone who is pro-life, against same-sex marriage, or for the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment as written and adjudicated should leave his state, banned all "non-essential" state travel to Indiana, home of a recently enacted…

Reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis penned a hypocritical tribute to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts in Tuesday's New York Times: "Praising a Senate Mentor, and the Example He Set." Davis was marking President Obama' speech in Boston at the opening of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, previously hailed in theTimes. Not even one "liberal" label managed to squeak in to Davis's tribute to (…

On Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, Dana Bash, while interviewing Texas Senator and GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, attempted to compare his alleged lack of experience to that of Barack Obama when he declared his candidacy in 2007. It did not go well for her. It's a mystery why Bash might have thought that Cruz wouldn't have an answer for her faux concerns, but he did, and he hit her…

UPDATE, March 31: This morning in an email, the AP's Lederman pointed me to a Saturday afternoon "Big Story" item time-stamped the day before the report to which this blog post below links. For whatever reason, that earlier "Big Story" item has more detail than what appears, despite the Sunday time stamp, to be Lederman's original report posted at the AP's national site. In that "Big Story" item…

At the Washington Post on March 18, fact-checker Glenn Kessler gave Secretary of State John Kerry "four Pinocchios" for his resume-puffing "whopper" that he helped organize "the first hearings in the Senate" on global warming in 1988. In the process, Kessler inadvertently perpetuated a related myth and got called out for it. He admirably corrected himself this morning. Additionally, while…

On Monday's New Day on CNN, Daily Beast's John Avlon likened Indiana Governor Mike Pence's defense of his state's new religious freedom law to George Wallace's fight for racial segregation. Avlon asserted that Republican politicians "don't want to say they're in favor of bigotry. So what you get is that incredibly awkward stonewalling by Mike Pence." He added that "this puts him in the same…

The latest wet kiss from the business press thrown the Obama administration's way came from Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, late this afternoon. Crutsinger, continuing to richly earn the "Worst Economics Writer" tag he received from National Review's Kevin Williamson two years ago, absurdly characterized the mediocre, pathetic economic peformance of the…

Kelly O'Donnell touted Harry Reid's "reputation for mastering the tactical side of politics" on Friday's NBC Nightly News, after the Nevada Democrat announced that he is not running for a sixth term. O'Donnell quickly added that "that skill includes quickly endorsing a successor." However, the correspondent failed to mention that the politician had a significant role in exacerbating the partisan…

After not covering on Thursday night a report that detailed how Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents attended sex parties paid for by Colombian drug cartels, NBC continued to show no interest in the multi-year scandal by making no mention of it during Friday’s edition of Today. While ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir also failed to cover this story on Thursday, ABC’s Good Morning…

After the network morning and evening newscasts ignored a Reuters poll showing tumbling support for Hillary Clinton last week, the CBS Evening News bucked the trend and covered the results of its own poll that also found dwindling support for Clinton in light of recent scandals. While the program spent only 32 seconds on the results of the poll, anchor Scott Pelley was still able to highlight…

ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News ignored on Thursday night a scathing report that revealed how agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attended so-called “sex parties” over a multi-year period while working in Colombia that were paid for by the very drug cartels that they were working to combat. Authored by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General (IG), the…