Media Bias Debate

On October 3, American Horror Story: Cult took on fake news meant to instill fear. The episode "Holes" opened with reporter Beverly (Adina Porter) and her boss Bob (Dermot Mulroney) arguing over what stories to air. While Bob wants to report the news responsibly and factually, Beverly is more interested in sensationalism and stoking fear amongst the viewers to create chaos. Sound familiar?

Rush Limbaugh made a rare television appearance this past week, returning to Fox for a sit-down with Sean Hannity to kick-off the latter’s return to his starring 9pm hour. Rush did not disappoint. While he said all kinds of things that doubtless resonated with the Fox audience, in terms of the media, he zeroed in on exactly the complaint of so many.

During an interview with CBS This Morning co-host Norah O’Donnell at The Connecticut Forum Thursday night, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer warned against cameras being allowed in the courtroom, saying the media would take Justices and lawyers out of context if there was a video recording of oral arguments in the high court.

On Thursday's CNN Tonight, during a discussion of reports that Russia has tried to use social media to stoke up political divisions in the U.S. -- with host Don Lemon citing a poll to call out President Donald Trump for being "divisive" -- the CNN host went into a rant after right-leaning CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson accused Lemon of also being divisive by repeatedly "pounding"…

Legendary radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh recalled how he first heard of the Media Research Center when he saw Brent Bozell quoted in National Review. Limbaugh also explained his success in radio, noting how both he and Donald Trump built a “bond” with their audiences, before warning of the threat posed by leftists who want to silence conservatives. 

In view of the "tweetstorm" at ESPN over Jemele Hill's recent charge that President Trump and his supporters are white supremacists, Curt Schilling's appearance on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program tonight could not have been more timely. The former baseball all-star and ex-ESPN baseball analyst said he's not surprised at all that the sports network which fired him let Hill skate free after her…

As The Mindy Project moves into its final season on Hulu, it's still delivering the irreverent humor that has made it last six seasons. Since the beginning, that has included jabs at both sides of the political aisle and Tuesday's episode "A Romantic Decouplement" was no different. The only problem is that, while the show was right on ObamaCare, it was wrong on First Lady Melania Trump.

CNN’s “ridiculous figure,” Brian Stelter earned his moniker during Sunday’s Reliable Sources when he opened his show by completely dismissing the ESPN/Jemele Hill controversy as just an annoyance stirred up conservative media. “This controversy gave conservative media like rival Fox Sports -- ESPN’s wannabe rival Fox Sports -- the opportunity to cast ESPN as the liberal enemy,” Stelter proclaimed…

Last week, The Washington Post published a story profiling the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the head of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment Myron Ebell, and the Cooler Heads Coalition. Cooler Heads is an ad-hoc coalition chaired by Ebell that counters unscientific claims from global warming alarmists and energy-rationing schemes that imperil America’s affordable energy sources and…

The October 2017 issue of The Atlantic was devoted to “The Trump Presidency – A Damage Report,” part of which has already been covered at Newsbusters. Editor Jeffrey Goldberg introduced the issue’s theme in his opening Editor’s Note, “The Autocratic Element,” while one of his contributors also blamed the liberal press for (in Bob Woodward’s phrase) “binge-drinking the anti-Trump Kool-Aid.”

According to New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, the Democratic party is far saner than the Republican party. One reason for that, Chait suggested this past Sunday, is that Democrats benefit from powerful forces that help keep them rational -- forces that include CBS News and The Washington Post. “The fact is that the Democratic Party is fundamentally accountable to the mainstream news media. And…

Hillary Clinton has been making the rounds with the liberal media in recent days to promote her latest memoir, What Happened, in which she casts blame on nearly everything under the sun for her embarrassing defeat by Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Clinton appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 where she was treated to a softball interview with Cooper himself.

Promoting her new book about covering Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, on Tuesday’s NBC Today, correspondent Katy Tur told co-host Matt Lauer that the then-presidential candidate’s public criticism of her reporting was “jarring” and “scary.” Lauer shared her fear as he recalled the “intense feeling” he got at Trump rallies when the Republican nominee would attack the liberal media. 

On Sunday, CBS News ran two high-profile interviews with two very influential political movers and shakers, the Jane Pauley interview with Hillary Clinton during Sunday Morning and Charlie Rose’s interview with Steve Bannon on 60 Minutes. And the two interviews couldn’t be any more different. Pauley’s was mournful as she tried to connect with Clinton over her loss to Trump, while in the other,…