Bias by Omission

After telling the world on Thursday that "Gone are the fears that the economy could fall into another recession," it seems that the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber needed some help explaining away Friday's weak jobs report from the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The AP had four reporters on Friday evening's coverage, all seemingly in search of a viable excuse for another "…

The Big Three networks' Friday morning newscasts all highlighted the "backlash" over President Obama's "best-looking attorney general in the country" compliment of California's Kamala Harris. But in addition to ignoring First Lady Michelle Obama's recent "single mother" gaffe, as of Saturday morning, ABC, CBS, and NBC have yet to report on the President's erroneous claim about the use of an…

Robin Kelly, the Democratic nominee in the special election to replace disgraced Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is a staunch anti-gun zealot, who apparently also doesn't keep up with the news.  In video obtained by our friends at Breitbart, Kelly described James Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooter, as a “gentleman,” and noted how the occupants inside the theater failed to draw their…

ABC, CBS, and NBC's Friday morning shows all devoted air time to President Obama labeling California Attorney General Kamala Harris "the best-looking attorney general in the country" at a fundraiser on Thursday. Unsurprisingly, a panel on NBC's Today tried to explain away the remark. Willie Geist asserted, "I think he [Obama] was making a joke." CBS This Morning's Norah O'Donnell was tougher on…

President Obama caused ruffles on a fundraising jaunt to San Francisco when he said in a speech at a fundraising house party that state Attorney General Kamala Harris (pictured) was "by far the best-looking attorney general in the country." The Washington Post made a full story out of it, using the throwaway line the same way the media has done so often against Republican politicians,…

Will New York Times environmental reporter Justin Gillis offer an addendum to his alarmist March 8 report, "Global Temperatures Highest in 4,000 Years," in the face of new information that discredits the underlying data? In that story Gillis summarized a report (whose lead author is Oregon State University earth scientist Shaun Marcott) to declare without hesitation:

Yesterday, Juliet Eilperin wrote for the Washington Post that “the public interest in climate change is waning.”  Posted to Chris Cillizza’s Fix blog, it’s odd that Eilperin didn’t use any hard numbers in this piece.  Citing Pew, she did say that support has dropped six points since last October, but what, pray tell, was the support at that time?  Ten percent? Twenty-five? Maybe she omitted…

In his 19-paragraph page A4 story headlined "NRA-backed study urges armed staff at schools," staff writer Peter Finn waited until the 12th paragraph to mention that a father of a slain student at Sandy Hook was at the NRA's April 2 news conference in which former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) unveiled a "National School Shield Program" that detailed how school districts might arm security guards…

Here's a case of "name one party and not the other." Though there is no question that arrests made this morning in connection with an alleged plot to rig the 2013 New York City mayor's include Republicans, and that they of course should be identified as such, there is also no question that the very first person named in the breaking Associated Press story which follows the jump is a Democrat…

The Big Three networks' morning and evening newscasts still haven't covered the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell as of Monday morning. ABC, CBS, and NBC have maintained their coverage blackout despite the graphic witness testimony and the in-your-face courtroom antics of Dr. Gosnell's defense attorney during the first two weeks of the proceedings. The Philadelphia physician is charged with…

At the Weekly Standard's blog today, Daniel Halper relayed a pool reporter's notes from the Easter service President Barack Obama and his family attended this morning. The highlights from the Rev. Dr. Luis Leon's sermon" included the following statement: "It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back ... for blacks to be back in the back of the bus ...…

This week marks 10 years of Times Watch, the Media Research Center's project monitoring the liberal bias of the New York Times, America's most influential newspaper. Over the course of roughly 3,500 posts since March 2003, we have followed the Times through events historic (wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), pathetic (Jayson Blair, Howell Raines) and dangerous (the paper scuttling two separate anti…

Two years ago today, I chronicled wire service reports which appeared shortly after John Hinckley's unsuccessful attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 reporting that schoolchildren in many parts of the country cheered when they heard that he had been shot. At the time, I suggested that school teachers and administrators who were appalled at the reactions might have…