Campaigns & Elections

The more details emerge about the liberal media listserv JournoList, the more it resembles the cabal of leftist message-coordination many conservatives feared. Though perhaps not the "vast left-wing media conspiracy" Fred Barnes proclaims, evidence points to concerted efforts to coordinate talking points, and now, to direct links between the Obama White House and JournoList members.Ironically,…

Appearing on the Fox News Channel "Hannity" program last night, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell tackled the media's bewilderment that Obama's legislative successes aren't translating into healthy job approval numbers ahead of the upcoming November midterm congressional election. "Yes, [President Obama is] getting his legislative agenda accomplished, the problem is, this is a socialist…

Senators Wanted: Non-believers in big government need not apply.That would apparently be the classified ad Mark Whitaker would run.  Criticizing Sharron Angle this morning, MSNBC's DC bureau chief sniffed that people like her "are running to be part of a government they don't believe in."Whitaker made his remark in the course of commenting on a Politico story about Angle walking away from an…

The ongoing controversy surrounding the actions of two members of the New Black Panther Party at a Philadelphia polling place during the last presidential election has become increasingly less about facts and more about opinions. The mainstream media ignored the story for so long, basically giving Fox News exclusive rights to deliver the story to a mass audience and now they’re incensed over…

As it continues its exponential expansion to cellphones, mobile advertising, television sets and book publishing internet giant Google has been simultaneously expanding its presence in the U.S. political scene, adding lobbyists, DC-based employees, and ramping up its campaign donations. Writing for Politico on Friday, Kim Hart provides some details on how the company is becoming much more…

Managing Editor's Note:  NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell today reprimanded members of the press in light of the recently exposed e-mails from the now-defunct JournoList that show a blatant, deliberate campaign to smear conservatives. That statement is published below. Click here for more background on JournoList. The revelation of these e-mails simply proves that we have been right all along…

Here's a slimy journalistic tactic with which most conservatives are all too familiar: note that two people or groups agree on one point, and then suggest that consequently they must agree on all other points. Chris Matthews (among many others) used this tactic to smear Tea Parties as tantamount to militia groups - both share a distaste for big government, therefore they must agree on all other…

In the "secret" underworld of Republican fundraising, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie use "cloaked" donor lists to "dig up dirt" on Democrats and funnel campaign contributions to Republican candidates. At least that's the impression left by Politico's Jim VandeHei.On the July 21 "Morning Joe," Time magazine's Mark Halperin challenged VandeHei's characterization of American Crossroads GPS, a Republican…

UPDATE, 11:30 P.M.: Gallup has changed the language describing the July 12-18 poll and says it really sampled "registered voters" instead of "adults," and has included an Editor's note saying that the original description of having used "adults" was wrong.(Original Post) There are lots of "creative" ways to generate an artificial sense of momentum for a foundering political party. Based on…

One day after suggesting that terrorist attacks during Barack Obama's watch be "set aside," Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos grilled Michelle Bachmann, forcing her to respond for every supposed crime of the Tea Party movement. The former Democratic operative wondered if being "more formally aligned with the Tea Party" movement could "undermine Republicans chances of taking the House…

The Daily Caller has another scoop on the leftist JournoList e-mails today, recalling when liberal scribes all wanted the Jeremiah Wright story to be dead and buried in the spring of 2008. Jonathan Strong explained "Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over…

Rick Sanchez stumbled again on-air on his CNN program on Monday, getting the year of the famous Kennedy-Nixon television debate wrong by a margin of two years. Sanchez, who was trying to describe South Carolina Democratic senatorial candidate Alvin Greene's first public speech as the "converse" of the debate, initially guessed 1962 as the year of the debate, but then broadened his answer to "…

In his Monday Media Notes column today, Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz lays out the latest liberal complaint against Tea party candidates, that they don't submit to more drubbing like Rachel Maddow gave Rand Paul, and somehow they have no respect for journalism: Some of the most conservative and combative Republicans running for Congress are convinced that the media have it in for them.But…

It was only a matter of time before CNN's Jack Cafferty returned to bashing Sarah Palin, and he did just that on Friday's Situation Room. Cafferty hypothesized that the Republican's popularity was a good omen for the Democratic Party: "If anything could overcome the increasingly sour view of the Obama presidency, it might be this. Why, the Democrats should be positively euphoric."The commentator…