Bias by Omission

The Seattle Times compiles what it calls "The Favor Factory," which it calls "A database of lawmakers, earmarks, and campaign giving." One noteworthy congressman in the Favor Factory is Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA; picture at right is currently at his home page). Moran's Favors Factory page for 2008 lists 29 earmarks totaling $40.6 million, and over $890,000 in capaign contributions from earmark…

There seems to be a wall of silence surrounding the sudden withdrawal of H. Rodgin Cohen (pictured at right) from consideration for the Number 2 job at the Treasury Department. The party line, according to ABC's This Week host and former Clinton administration adviser George Stephanopoulos, is that "an issue arose in the final stages of the vetting process." David Cho at the Washington Post…

On March 9, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on one of Barack Obama's latest nominees. This time it was to assess the suitability of Tony West, Obama's nominee for the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Division. Things went "smoothly" according to the San Jose Mercury News, also publishing a nice bio of West. The Washington Post merely…

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta filled in as host on Larry King Live on Wednesday, six days after ending his bid to be Obama's surgeon general. Despite his medical training, he did not see fit to correct former President Bill Clinton after he repeatedly referred to human embryos as not being fertilized.During his initial question, Gupta referred to Clinton as “someone who studied this,” but after he made his…

It seems that so-called stimulus package funding is being spread around so widely that some of its beneficiaries can't figure out how to spend it as intended. When it became clear to a few small cities in California's Los Angeles County that they didn't have appropriate transportation projects for their promised stimulus funding, they decided to sell the rights to that funding to other nearby…

The above headline isn't even the half of it. After the attacks were known to all, James Carville told assembled Washington reporters at a hotel conference room breakfast where he and Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg spoke (photo is from the May 20, 2004 Christian Science Monitor) to "Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!" The assembled press apparently understood that…

"Good Morning America" news anchor Chris Cuomo gave an interview to the TV Newser podcast "Morning Media Menu" on Wednesday in which he touted the seriousness of the ABC program and later vaguely broached the subject of the issues journalists leave out of stories. But first, he bragged, "I think a fair criticism of 'Good Morning America' would be that we're not a great entertainment show. You…

Los Angeles's NBC television affiliate must not have gotten the memo telling them that they should not utter the name of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), lest anyone reach the "wrong" conclusions. NBC Los Angeles is the only media outlet I have found thus far to identify ACORN's presence in a story about a "disruptive display of disobedience" by members the United…

You come to NewsBusters for the reporting the American Media just won't do, to hold truth to power, and to point out when they look the other way as their ideological leader does things like give an easy button to Russia, or claims that cars were invented by Americans, while getting economic advice from someone who can't actually make money.  And in hindsight, I almost have to admire Bill Clinton…

***TWO UPDATES, including the response from AP's Ron Fournier, at the end of this post.***Friday evening the Associated Press (AP) issued an un-bylined story which was nothing more than a stenographic reprint of the latest dishonest Democratic attack on talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.  The Friday story apparently reflected zero research into the charge levied by Brian Wolff, executive…

Coverage of "tea party" protests in various cities around the country (this March 4 Pajamas Media press release, HT to FreeRepublic, cited 22 locations on February 27 and seven this weekend) has been sparse to non-existent, especially at major establishment media outlets. Most notably, based on a seach on "tea party" (not in quotes) at its ap.org home page at about 10:00 a.m., there has been no…

You would think that a proposal for the government to radically extend its involvement in health care would motivate reporters to investigate how it's working out in other countries. You would be wrong. Mark Levin bought this matter up on his show Thursday. His web site's home page (near the bottom left) points to a post at Liberty-Page.com, where there are compilations of dozens of articles on…

On Tuesday's CNN Newsroom, anchor Rick Sanchez, who's increasingly mimicking MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's off-the-chart liberalism, took a swipe at several Republican governors:First, let me try and set this up. You have heard the conversation on this newscast and on many other newscasts just a couple of weeks ago. There were many red state Southern governors who were on the record saying we're so…