Bias by Omission

Former President Bill Clinton was in Chicago yesterday, speaking at a fundraiser on the subject of the current health insurance overhaul.Somehow, some way, Clinton wound up talking about ethnic diversity, the Fort Hood murders, and – most bizarrely – the AMC network’s “Mad Men.”Clinton began his descent with the following, quoted from Lynn Sweet’s Chicago Sun-Times blog:

As noted earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yesterday's resignation from CNN by Lou Dobbs was his second during a storied career there. The first was at least partially driven by clear tensions between Dobbs and CNN head Rick Kaplan, a longtime friend of former president Bill Clinton who arrived at the network in 1997. That Kaplan was driven to protect Clinton, and to risk…

(The following is satire -- I hope) Forget Ford Hood and investigating the so-called "terror" connections of Nidal Hasan. Yours truly has come across something the current crowd running our government might see as even more sinister. The Obama administration, the FBI, the Justice Department, and, most importantly, the White House's speech police simply have to get on this right away. You see,…

It's time once again for our favorite media parlor game, "Name That Party!"The theft trial of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (D) began yesterday, but in covering the story, the Baltimore Sun failed to note Dixon's Democratic party affiliation. The Washington Post, syndicating the story, also failed to note Dixon's affiliation in their caption to an Associated Press photo of the mayor which reads, "…

CNN’s Candy Crowley neglected to include sound bites from conservatives during a report about Sarah Palin on Tuesday’s American Morning, other than from the former Alaska governor herself. While Crowley did acknowledge the widespread support that Palin has among conservative Republicans, she only used clips from moderate commentator David Frum, Democrat Bill Owens, and colleague Wolf Blitzer.The…

The Washington Post apparently has a soft spot for serial killers.John Allen Muhammad, the infamous Beltway Sniper, is set to die by lethal injection tonight.  After being found guilty of capital murder by a jury of his peers, Muhammad was sentenced to death.  The Washington Post, however, sees the “humanity in [the] D.C. sniper.”The Post quotes defense attorney Jon Sheldon as saying:

It's a development that I wouldn't wish on anybody, but one that the City of New London, Connecticut largely brought upon itself by pursuing and winning the Kelo v. New London case at the Supreme Court in June 2005. Some "win." In what Ed Morrissey at Hot Air calls "a fitting coda to a chapter of governmental abuse," pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer is leaving the global research and…

As is seemingly tradition, the media is once again playing that classic game known as ‘How Can We Blame Bush?'  It's the party favorite where liberals take the biggest headline of the day, and immediately link Bush to the cause in one fell swoop, eliminating all facets of rationale.  Now, syndicated columnist Gwynne Dyer has introduced his own version, something that is only surprising in the…

Andrea Elliott’s front page article in the November 9 New York Times played up the thousands of Muslims in the U.S. military and how their “service...is more necessary and more complicated than ever before,” but gave the false impression that a Medal of Honor recipient named near the end of her piece was a Muslim himself, when he was actually Catholic. Elliott spent much of her article, “…

On Monday’s American Morning, CNN’s Carol Costello highlighted a column on the “right-wing” Pajamas Media website during a report on a possible backlash against Muslim soldiers, but omitted how the author of the column is a noted feminist, and that her only “right-wing” credential is her focus on Islamic misogyny.Anchor John Roberts introduced Costello’s report, noting that  apparently “many…

Did you know that activist filmmaker James O'Keefe and partner Hannah Giles made only one undercover video showing ACORN employees willing to assist them in illegal and human rights-violating activities? Absent prior knowledge, that's the impression you would have upon reading the Associated Press's coverage of the latest development in the ACORN saga, namely the raid on the organization's New…

As reports of the Fort Hood shooting began to pour in yesterday, numerous news outlets neglected to mention that the shooter is a Muslim. Either the potential import of this fact was completely lost on these journalists, or they omitted the shooter's Muslim affiliations out of a concern for political correctness.CBS and NBC both omitted the shooter's faith in their East Coast feeds last night, as…

Remember the case of the Census worker who was found hanging from a tree with the word ‘fed' scrawled across his chest?  You remember - he died at the hands of right-wing commentators and anti-government tea partiers.  He was killed because of an overwhelming case of right-wing paranoia.  He was murdered by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News. Keep this quiet though...…

The Washington Post this afternoon reported "President Obama delivers remarks on Ft. Hood shooting at end of tribal leaders conference." The transcript begins:SPEAKER: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA[*] OBAMA: Please, everybody, have a seat. Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference.I want to thank my Cabinet members…