Bias by Omission

New York Times metro-beat reporter Fernanda Santos seems to truly believe that the left-wing housing activist group ACORN is some bottom-up citizens organization conducting a new civil rights "resistance movement" against unfair foreclosures. That's judging by her credulous story, "A Bid to Link Arms Against Eviction -- Grass-Roots Effort Takes Shape To Support Families Facing Foreclosure." There…

Former Chicago Democratic Alderman Arenda Troutman was sentenced today to four years in prison for mail and tax fraud. In covering her sentencing, both the Chicago Sun-Times article (picture at right is cropped from that article) and Jeff Coen's Breaking News piece at the Chicago Tribune failed to mention that Troutman is a Democrat. Now it would be easy to say, "But of course she's a Democrat;…

On Tuesday’s American Morning, anchor Kiran Chertry and correspondent Jason Carroll failed to mention the left-wing politics of filmmaker Michael Moore during a report about his latest project, which targets the financial industry, and included a sound bite from People Magazine’s Leah Rozen, who expressed a desire to “see Michael Moore spank Wall Street.” Carroll emphasized Moore’s credentials,…

The Wall Street Journal's editorialists noted something last week ("Obama's Press List"; HT to Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters) about the extemporaneous speech-impaired President Obama's February press briefing: About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House…

So much for any pretense of balance. Looks like David Shuster has taken a page from Keith Olbermann's playbook: play exclusively to your crowd; exclude any alternative voices.Announcing this evening a new regular feature focusing on the blogosphere on his 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue show, Shuster made it clear that conservatives need not apply.DAVID SHUSTER: Every day at this time, we're going to…

The owner of a cable TV network created to promote better understanding of Muslims in America was arrested in Orchard Park, New York, Thursday for beheading his wife.If you hadn't heard about this that wouldn't be a surprise for the story has been almost completely boycotted here in the states.As WIVB-TV reported Friday (video embedded below the fold, h/t Marc Sheppard, photo courtesy WIVB):

A 1993 Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum made points (HT to Jay Ott at Maggie Thurber's blog) that have seldom been made in media discussions, like this really weak front-page article a week ago at the Toledo Blade, about reinstating the so-called Fairness Doctrine. The Blade's Kirk Baird and Rod Lockwood seem to act as if radio is the only communications medium in existence. Heritage's…

The battle between New London, Connecticut and the residents of its Fort Trumbull neighborhood began in 1998 when the City decided that it would redevelop the area for ultimate ownership by others and, if necessary, take the residents' properties for that "public purpose" -- not for "public use" (i.e., roads, bridges, schools, etc.), as the Fifth Amendment clearly intended. Susette Kelo and other…

CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez may want to give stand-up comedy a try if his career in journalism falters.  On Friday's program, Sanchez said - with a straight face:To be clear, we don't fit into any template here, Democratic or Republican or otherwise. I play it down the middle.Anyone who's seen Sanchez at work knows how funny that is.  Throughout his program posts from the microblogging…

This "Name That Party" situation has many of the usual elements. There are several stories about two Democratic judges involved in criminal behavior in Pennsylvania, and, with one exception, they "somehow" don't get around to identifying their party. But this saga is different for two reasons: The crimes to which the judges have pleaded guilty involve "thousands" of juveniles. In one lonely…

On NewsBusters we have for a few years now been chronicling the constant failure of the media to label a criminal or troubled politician with his party affiliation when that politician is a Democrat, we all know. Every couple of days we detail a new "name that party" story where an Old Media outlet reports on a Democrat politician arrested, convicted, or accused of a crime though he seems never…

The Obama administration’s decision to have the White House supervise the 2010 Census -- a response to left-wing complaints that the Census was too important to leave under the authority of Republican Judd Gregg, the nominee for Commerce Secretary -- has thus far (as of Tuesday morning) drawn absolutely no attention from the three broadcast networks, with not a single mention on the ABC, CBS or…

A week ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that government bailout recipients General Motors and Chrysler had horrible sales in January, and that their declines are accelerating. GM was down 49% year over year in January, compared to -32% in December; Chrysler was down 55% in January, compared to -53% in December. Meanwhile, the companies' main foreign competitors turned in January sales…