Media Bias Debate

Appearing at the end of MSNBC's The Daily Rundown on Tuesday, NBC News NASA correspondent Jay Barbree wished host Chuck Todd good luck in becoming moderator of Meet the Press, hailing the chief White House correspondent: "...when God was making Chuck Todd, he was disturbed for a moment, he got distracted, and he looked back and he'd made his heart twice his size." [Listen to the audio or watch…

Someone must have slipped the wrong data to the Associated Press's Josh Boak yesterday before he composed his dispatch on the Census Bureau's latest report on new home sales. Boak got the current month's news right, though likely by accident (like almost everyone else in the business press, he relies on seasonally adjusted figures, and rarely goes to the unadjusted data), telling readers that…

Tonight's CBS Evening News spent 63 seconds on the Burger King fast-food chain's plan to merge with Canadian donut chain Tim Hortons, a move which would also relocate the new company to Ontario, Canada,  for "substantial tax savings" where the corporate tax rate is much more favorable for business (15 percent) than the present federal corporate rate (35 percent).  But while business…

Now online: the August 25 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This week, journalists pronounce the blatantly partisan indictment of Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry a “blemish” that could “mar his legacy,” even as an MSNBC regular blasts it “the stupidest thing I’ve seen in my entire career.” Also: an MSNBC…

In a Friday op-ed which appeared in the paper's international print edition on Saturday and which can reasonably be seen as giving voice to an editorial board which wouldn't dare put their name to it, La Salle University Political Science Professor Michael Boyle strenuously objected to recent characterizations of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). We can't call ISIS "evil." We also…

The Associated Press's Top Business News page lists the headlines and opening passages of what the wire service believes are the ten most important business stories at the moment. Its 9:16 a.m. version had a story entitled "JACKSON HOLE DEMONSTRATORS RALLY AGAINST RATE HIKE" listed fifth. Earlier in the morning it was fourth. Surely, I thought to myself, this must be about a group of at least…

Don Lemon at CNN isn't interested in being told what an "automatic" rifle is. He's decided what it is, and the truth doesn't matter. Even after recognizing after the fact that the person correcting him was right, he has no remorse for his demonstrated ignorance. On Wednesday, as Charles C. W. Cooke noted at National Review's The Corner blog the next day, Lemon claimed that “most people can go…

In the center of CNN.com's front page right now is a headline demanding, "Where's Officer Wilson?" "As Ferguson calmed after nights of protests over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen, the question remains: Where's the police officer who pulled the trigger?" a caption below a file photo of Wilson added. Yes, now that things have calmed down and returned to normal, what's the harm in…

The press never let George W. Bush forget about that "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln after Saddam Hussein was overthrown and his government's military was routed in Iraq. They often pretend that Bush said it, or adopted it. He did no such thing, saying only that “Our mission continues.” So while the press has come close to making a claim Bush 43 never made an article…

Thomas Sowell has done it again. The economist and syndicated columnist regularly produces thought-provoking work, but his column today on the media's role in stoking a mob mentality in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Ferguson, Missouri, man Michael Brown is really worth reading.  "Race is the wild card in all this. The idea that you can tell who is innocent and who is guilty by…

You had to know this was coming. The only question was who was going to be the first to do it. On Tuesday, echoing the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil," wherein the devil slyly tells listeners that "it was you and me" who "killed the Kennedys" (making everyone responsible ensures that no one is truly responsible, allowing evil to advance), James Joiner, the Special Projects Editor at…

A Cincinnati-area abortion facility will finally stop doing surgical abortions on Friday. Many of us, including yours truly, thought this would happen back in January, but the operators of the Lebanon Road Surgery Center, aka Women's Med, persisted in frivolous appeals which only delayed the inevitable. Finally, they have decided to give up their challenge to the State of Ohio's refusal to…

The news that Al Gore is suing Al Jazeera America for millions of dollars owed him from the purchase of his Current TV network rocked the media world last week. After all, who knew Al Jazeera America still existed? But AJA is still there (probably), snug in the old Current TV channel slot on your cable guide. It’s just that you’re not watching. Neither is anyone else.

Just to be clear, the racial makeup of a news organization should be irrelevant to its ability to cover current events. The answers to who, what, where, when, why, and how are colorblind. The practice of assigning reporters to stories based on the ethnicities or races of stories' subjects is offensive, and should be seen as insulting. But the fact is that news organizations and so-called…