Double Standards

Once again, despite almost two months of national coverage Wisconsin's collective bargaining law and the protests and bad behavior which have accompanied it, the Associated Press is deciding that the nation's news consumers outside of the Badger State don't need to read, hear, or see news relating to unions and leftists acting illegally. In a post on Saturday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I…

Are you old enough to remember the polio-era line: "funny as an iron lung"?  After all, what kind of person would find funny the notion of someone fighting to breathe? Answer: Mika Brzezinski. Today's Morning Joe played a Letterman clip of a faux-promo for an imaginary TV show called "The Dick Cheney Story."  As the title song from the Mary Tyler Moore Show plays merrily in the background…

Even though the goings-on in Wisconsin this year connected with collective-bargaining rights legislation have been front-page news nationwide for well over a month, the Associated Press has apparently concluded that folks outside the Badger State couldn't possibly be interested in real threats of serious violence issued against Republican legislators who voted for it -- and their families.…

The media are hard at work spinning today's jobs report for maximum political advantage for the White House. Witness Los Angeles Times reporter James Oliphant, who has filed an article for publication in tomorrow's paper entitled, "Drop in unemployment doesn't mesh with Republicans' script." Here's how Oliphant opened his April 2 story:

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, in a column appearing at Business Insider, says that we're heading in the direction of a "double-dip" -- and though he doesn't follow it with the word "recession," it's obvious he's not talking about an ice-cream cone. It's also obvious that he's less than pleased with the media spin that things are really okay. Along the way, Reich had to go back…

Thursday’s front-page story by New York Times investigative reporter Mike McIntire, “Odd Alliance: Business Lobby And Tea Party.” accused a Tea Party group, the Institute for Liberty, of pushing the agenda of Asia Pulp & Paper, an Indonesian corporation fighting U.S. tariffs. Whatever the merits of this particular complaint, this sort of prominently placed, hostile investigation of a…

Kicking off the March 30 edition of "Last Word," MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell unleashed a torrent of insults aimed at Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.). "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is the most stunningly ignorant member in the history of the Congress," bellowed O'Donnell. "That's right. Eric Cantor revealed today in a press conference that he does not know how a bill becomes a law. Seriously…

It was good economic news on CNN's Newsroom this morning. After a brief mention of radiation in Japan, anchor Carol Costello reported: Brand new numbers out of the Labor Department this morning. It turns out jobless claims plummeted last week. Down 6,000 to 388,000. I'm not certain what dictionary CNN news readers use, but "plummet" wouldn't seem to be the right verb.  Merriam-Webster's…

UPDATE, April 1: Joshua Shapiro, who is "quoted" in the AP article covered in this post, has emailed me and informed me of the following --  Christopher Rugaber did not speak with him, but instead used text from "a written note that I (Shapiro) produced after the jobless claims report was released." Shapiro is unhappy at my making it appear that he is fooled by establishment press…

CNN's Soledad O'Brien's Sunday documentary about the controversial mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee predictably leaned towards the local Muslims who want it built. O'Brien brushed aside an opponent's concerns over Sharia law in the U.S.: "In New York City, we have a big Muslim community. There is no Sharia law [there]." She also omitted how a featured Muslim woman is related to one of the…

On Friday, Steven Ertelt at Life News, with video backup provided by prolife protesters who were on hand, relayed something New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg said at a pro-Planned Parenthood rally in Englewood, New Jersey in response to the protesters: They want other people not to be able to have their own opinions. These people (referring to the pro-life advocates) don’t deserve the…

 Sunday’s New York Times's National section led off with Kirk Johnson's “Inundated With News, Many Find It Difficult To Keep Up on Libya,” which dug up some novel excuses for the public’s resistance to Obama’s war in Libya (a Gallup poll shows only 47% approve of the bombing strikes): Information “overload,” “compassion fatigue,” and the NCAA basketball tournament. Denver Bureau Chief…

President Obama arrived home to the White House on Wednesday from his five-day trip to Latin America and found himself locked out of the French doors to the Oval Office, as captured by several news organizations. My Media Research Center colleague Tim Graham reminded me that back on Nov. 21, 2005, the New York Times published on its front page a photo of President George W. Bush making a…

Unlike President Bush in both Afghanistan and Libya, President Obama chose not to seek congressional approval for the mainly-U.S. bombing campaign against Libya's Moammar Qaddafi, but the big broadcast networks are barely noticing. On Friday's Fox & Friends, Media Research Center President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell offered the evidence of the media's glaring double standard…