Labeling

One of the more revealing side effects of the 2016 presidential campaign, and especially the November election, is how old-line liberal publications which once had at least a veneer of respectability have completely gone off the deep end. Readers have come to expect completely unhinged, error-ridden material to routinely appear at places like Salon.com. But at the Atlantic? Beyond occasional…

CNN's Wolf Blitzer thrice claimed on his early afternoon program on Thursday that diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico had entered a "crisis", due to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelling his upcoming meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. Blitzer trumpeted "the breaking news: a major diplomatic rift — a crisis, I dare say — between the United States and Mexico…

In a late Wednesday afternoon NewsBusters post, I commented on the extraordinary hostility reporters at the Associated Press exhibited towards Donald Trump and his administration during their first two full business days in power. In that post, I wondered if they might be carrying a childish grudge over not being able to ask the first question at Press Secretary Sean Spicer's briefings, as they…

Tuesday afternoon, the Washington Examiner broke the story of a Secret Service agent who, in October on Facebook, declared her unwillingness to put her life on the line for a potential President Donald Trump. At that point, Kelly O'Grady, the special agent in charge for the Denver district, decided to become a selective Service agent, writing, per the Examiner, that "she would endure jail time'…

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday a series of executive orders that will pave the way for the building of the US-Mexico border wall and the crackdown on sanctuary cities. The Democrats raged at the idea and the Big Three networks took exception to the orders, showing almost exclusively negative reactions. “Here in New York, a massive protest has erupted against his wall plans and policy…

Since last decade, it's been White House tradition that the press secretary typically calls on an Associated Press reporter to ask the first question at briefings. Trump administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer has not selected AP for the first question at either of his first two briefings, and numerous press outlets have noted that avoidance. It's more than fair to ask, given the tone of the…

New York Times reporter Nicholas Fandos fact-checked President Trump under the leading headline “The Truth Behind a Lie on Voting Fraud.” The paper is quite pleased with its new word, like a child who learns a bad one, and shouts it as often as it can. The online headline was even more blunt: “Trump Won’t Back Down From His Voting Fraud Lie. Here Are the Facts.”But is Trump stating a proven…

CNN's Van Jones revisited part of his infamous "white-lash" rant during an interview of coal miners in West Virginia on Tuesday's Anderson Cooper 360: "As a Christian couple, how can you support a Donald Trump when you know the fear he strikes into the hearts of American Muslim children; American Latino children? How do you round that circle?" During that Election Night rant, the former Obama…

President Donald Trump has made it known that he has some interest in moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the holy city of Jerusalem. The simple mention of the idea sent left into an uproar, as CBS Evening News on Tuesday demonstrated. “That would essentially be U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital,” fretted anchor Scott Pelley, “Palestinian leaders also claim the holy…

One of the most frightening unknowns for the liberal media is how President Donald Trump plans to rein in the rampaging Environmental Protection Agency. The Trump administration recently banned the agency from using its social media accounts until further notice. This apparently spooked CBS Tuesday, because on Evening News they glorified the efforts of environmentalists who are trying desperately…

In a Tuesday morning dispatch about President Donald Trump's federal hiring freeze, the Associated Press's Matthew Barakat presented a quote from Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer. He followed it with a statistic which he wants readers to believe refutes Spicer's claim. That statistic does no such thing, but I expect, even though it's remarkably lazy and misleading, that it will become a very…

On Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN's Van Jones offered his theory about the controversy over the size of the crowd that attended President Trump's inauguration: "Ordinary leaders rely on the Constitution as a source of their legitimacy. But you get these kind of leaders that have these more authoritarian overtones — it's not the power of our constitution; it's the size of their crowds. The…

Dan Rather, a man whose career at CBS was destroyed by a lie he couldn’t let go of, appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball where he was outraged at Kellyanne Conway’s coined term of “alternate facts.” “Well, to say it was unfortunate is, to put it mildly. This was a big mistake,” he declared as he started to tear into the president’s advisor, “None of us can go into this world alternative facts.” 

The New York Times reported Monday afternoon that NBC has suspended Saturday Night Live writer Katie Rich indefinitely for tweeting ... well, what? Reporter Dave Itzkoff failed to tell readers what Rich tweeted just minutes after Donald Trump was inaugurated as the nation's 45th President on Friday. Instead, he vaguely described it as "a widely criticized post she made Friday on her personal…