Media Bias Debate

Wednesday's Colbert Report, in an apparent boost to Democrats before November's mid-term elections, mocked GOP congresswoman Renee Ellmers and hosted her Democratic opponent Clay Aiken for a friendly interview. Host Stephen Colbert made it clear who he supports for North Carolina's second congressional district. He mocked the "message of hope" Ellmers sent to furloughed federal workers after…

Last weekend in Indianapolis, a reported 80,000 people attended the 143rd NRA Annual Meeting. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's group Everytown For Gun Safety was also present — but barely. Media coverage of that group's activities largely tiptoed around the tiny number of people, some allegedly paid, the group was able to gather. Let's start with a Sunday morning report from NPR's…

CNN's Jake Tapper gave a full segment to Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an "Uncle Tom," but the broadcast networks completely ignored the controversy on Wednesday evening. The networks' blackout of a Democrat using a racial insult against a Justice shows a clear double standard after their deluge of coverage of Los Angeles Clippers owner…

When several members of Congress set out in the early 1990s to improve fiscal reporting and internal controls in the federal government, one thing they certainly had a right to expect is that the press would report on lapses as embarrassments, and that otherwise nonchalant or reluctant bureaucrats would figure out that it would be in their best interest to tighten their ships. It hasn't…

Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday April 30, Chuck Todd tried to spin the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows half of Americans disapprove of Obama as “Improvement” for the Democrat. Despite Todd’s desperate attempts to put a rosy picture on Obama’s flailing poll numbers, his analysis differs greatly from the pundits at The Wall Street Journal. James Freeman,…

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt has made nice with President Barack Obama on several occasions. Among other things, he chaired the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which met a grand total of four times in 2011 and 2012 before it was unceremoniously allowed to expire a year later. He fully expected that his company would benefit from its involvement in green energy and its…

NewsBusters commenter "bkeyser" at my Benghazi-related post last night pointed to a tweet from Politico Magazine Deputy Editor Blake Hounshell that is at the same time breathtakingly ignorant and astonishingly insolent. Reacting to the contents of Benghazi-related emails finally obtained and published by Judicial Watch, Hounshell asked, "Can you point me to a credible, authoritative story…

The latest NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll found that President Obama’s approval was up slightly from his all-time low of 41 percent in March and NBC did its best to spin the 44 percent approval as good news for President Obama. Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday, April 30, NBC’s Chuck Todd spun how “The poll numbers are better, they're still not good, okay? There is slight…

This afternoon (late morning Pacific Time), Roger Simon at PJ Media had several reactions to the latest developments in the Benghazi saga, as new evidence surfaced of a White House "effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans." Simon's press-related assertion: "We will now see if there is even a figment of honesty in our mainstream media ..." Though…

At the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Martin Crutsinger has pretty much proven that he's been on some kind of workout regimen. If he wasn't, he couldn't possibly have carried so much Obama administration water in his 1:45 p.m. report on the state of the economy (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) as he did. Crutsinger's message: Pay no…

The National Employment Law Project claims that it is dedicated to "working to restore the promise of economic opportunity in the 21st century economy." That sounds promising, but one look at NELP's directors and the supposed "solutions" the group and its friends advocate — e.g., higher minimum wage, "uphold the freedom to join a union." etc. It's clear that NELP is just another lefty advocacy…

The Associated Press's lengthy Monday evening treatment of Toyota's decision to move its U.S. headquarters and consolidate many of its North American operations in Metro Dallas is reasonably good in spots. But Gillian Flaccus and Michael R. Blood were unduly selective in reporting Torrance, California Mayor Frank Scotto's reaction to the news that his town would be losing several thousand jobs…

Both the ABC World News and the NBC Nightly News reported GOP Congressman Michael Grimm's federal charges of tax evasion on Monday evening, but when former Democrat congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. was hit with campaign finance charges back in 2013, ABC ignored the story that evening and NBC failed to label him a Democrat. On Monday's Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams reported "big trouble…

At the Associated Press today, economics writer Christopher Rugaber was a bit subdued, even when presented with nominally favorable news. He wrote that the March rise in the National Association of Realtors' pending home sales index of 3.4 percent, the first gain in nine months, was "a sign that the housing market might pick up after a sluggish start to the year." Rugaber's relative…