Bias by Omission

In their coverage of desertion charges filed against U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the major broadcast networks on Wednesday night failed to mention that National Security Advisor Susan Rice had praised Bergdahl for serving “with honor and distinction.” Standing in sharp contrast to this glaring omission by the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC, the clip of Rice’s claim on the June 1, 2014…

The Census Burau's February Durable Goods report, released at 8:30 a.m. today, "unexpectedly" (Bloomberg did the U-word honors) came in with a seasonally adjusted 1.4 percent decline compared to the 0.2 increase analysts expected. Additionally, January's increase was revised down to 2.0 percent from 2.8 percent. Not adjusting for inflation, unadjusted (i.e., actual) February orders came in 2.3…

On Monday's The Kelly File, Fox News’ Trace Gallagher highlighted an analysis from the Media Research Center which examined the number of times the "big three" (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks promoted the "hands up, don't shoot" myth in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. 

CNN is reporting tonight that the White House considers the "Of course, death to America" comments made by Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as merely statements "intended for a domestic political audience." That clueless take would be headline news everywhere right now if this were a Republican or conservative administration. The National Journal's John Kraushaar's tweet reporting…

Meredith Shiner is currently a Yahoo News political reporter. Before spending three years at Roll Call, where she was considered "a leader in the newsroom," she toiled at the Politico for two years. Shiner is a graduate of Duke University, and "grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago." I have provided these resume-level details to emphasize how utterly incomprehensible it is, as well as…

Today the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Associated Press's Scott Bauer reported, "turned away a challenge to Wisconsin's voter identification law," meaning that "the state is free to impose the voter ID requirement in future elections." Bauer then focused on the impact of the state's off-year primary elections on April 7. Bauer's relatively tolerable (for him) report tagged the law as "a political…

From all appearances, only Fox News, CNS News, and a few Israel-based outlets and U.S.-based center-right blogs care about the fact, acknowledged by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, that Iran and Hezbollah, in the words of Fox's Greta Van Susteren, "are suddenly MIA from the U.S. terror threat list." DNI apparently has no plans to change its report, having told CNS News that…

The Associated Press's most recent story on the controversial Starbucks USA Today "Race Together" campaign came out Wednesday evening. In that story, AP Food Industry Writer Candice Choi quoted Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz at his company's annual shareholders' meeting predicting that "Some in the media will criticize Starbucks for having a political agenda," but that "Our intentions are pure."…

Friday's ABC World News Tonight touted how the FBI is opening an investigation into departing Congressman Aaron Schock. David Wright devoted a full one minute, 39-second report to Schock allegedly "padding the mileage on his personal car by some 90,000 miles," as well as "misusing campaign funds and...taking improper donations." By contrast, ABC set aside just 30 seconds of air time to a…

On Thursday's "O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, Dennis Miller put in an uproariously funny but also insightful appearance. On the more serious side, Miller and O'Reilly also discussed former Vice President Al Gore's expressed preference for punishing those who dare to question the conventional wisdom on "climate change." Someone needs to mention Gore's disturbing posture, as the Associated Press…

NPR's Scott Horsley carried water for the Obama administration on Thursday's All Things Considered as he covered the President's green energy executive order. All of Horsley's soundbites during the segment came from the Democratic chief executive and two boosters of his latest environmental policy. True to form, the slanted NPR correspondent failed to include any criticism of the order in his…

In all the hoopla over the Federal Reserve's Wednesday's signals over its intentions to raise interest rates, its significant downgrades to expected growth of the U.S. economy during the next several years have mostly been ignored. The Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, has played a part in that. Both of the wire service's reports following the Fed's actions and predictions on…

On Thursday night and Friday morning, the major broadcast networks neglected to cover a new poll from Reuters/Ipos showing support for likely Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton slipping among Democrats following the e-mail scandal as a majority of voters expressed support for an independent review of all her e-mails as well as the belief that she hasn’t entirely honest in her…

On Wednesday, the major broadcast networks failed to cover in their evening newscasts the admission from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that federal officials released roughly 30,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records in 2014 while announcing steps attempting to stop the issue.