Media Bias Debate

As we head into yet another year wondering whether Washington, meaning President Obama and both political parties, will finally betray the nation and pass some form of illegal-immigrant amnesty, "Machiavelli" at the Virtuous Republic blog reminds us that the argument is about more than depressed wages, "keeping families together," and (in the misguided minds of Catholic bishops) Christian…

Two possible presidential candidates.  Although there's no evidence of it on the record, some have accused the first of closing bridge-access lanes for political purposes.  The other failed to respond to pleas for help, four Americans died in Benghazi, and her response was a petulant "what difference does it make?" So where do those two candidates stand as we look to 2016?  In the case of…

George Will zinged the media’s duplicity in how they have approached the IRS scandal versus past major scandals when a Republican was President, a lack of interest President Obama recognizes and, “hence, his sense of weariness and boredom as he discussed this with Bill O’Reilly.”   Will, on Bret Baier’s FNC panel Monday night, recalled “three big” scandals “regarding the distortion and abuse…

After opening the day at about the same level as Friday's close, the three major U.S. stock indices fell by over 2 percent Monday (DJIA, -2.08%; S&P 500, -2.28%; NASDAQ, -2.61%). About half of the rout took place in the first 30 minutes after the 10:00 a.m. release of two reports, one on manufacturing activity and the other on construction spending. The former, from the Institute for…

Though there were some exceptions (e.g., this one caught by Geoffrey Dickens at NewsBusters a few days ago), most press reports as the beginning of the trial of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin tagged him as a Democrat. Apparently, there's a quota on "D" references at the Associated Press. A lengthy AP story by Kevin McGaill carried at Time.com and AP's national site has no reference to…

Over at the Associated Press's national site, there's a story about how "Some of the largest public labor unions in Illinois filed a long-awaited lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state's new pension reform law." Given that it involves hundreds of thousands of workers, it's probably fair to say that the news deserves national attention. But how about another story which involves over 800,000…

Longtime readers here may recall that yours truly and others have written about liberties New York Times reporter Kate Zernike has taken with the truth, especially in her reporting on the Tea Party movement. Her penchant for inventing baseless stories about alleged racism in the movement once caused the late Andrew Breitbart to label her "a despicable human being." Breitbart might well have…

On January 20, we are told by "goptvclips," Seattle TV Station King 5 aired a short segment on how children "are being denied specialty treatment by insurance providers on the Washington Health Benefits Network." To be clear, the video's conclusion indicates that "Children's went ahead and treated" some but apparently far from all of the affected children, but, obviously "they can't afford to…

I suspect that more than a few readers have noticed, with likely little surprise, that there hasn't been a lot of national establishment press attention paid to how Obamacare has been working out in the real world since it officially went into effect on January 1. Non-existent HealthCare.gov security? Who cares? Patients turned away from emergency rooms voluntarily (because they don't want to…

A reporter for The Daily Texan, the student newspaper for the University of Texas, got it right when calling abortion supporters what they are – “pro-abortion” – five times in an article about a counter-demonstration held during the annual pro-life Texas Rally for Life on January 24. The term even made the article’s headline. [see below page break for image]

In yet another negative milestone for the bailouts that supposedly saved the U.S. auto industry — already a hard-to-handle claim given that Chrysler, one of the two beneficiaries, is now 100% owned by an Italian company — Volkswagen has surpassed General Motors as the world's number two automaker behind Toyota. The reporting on this development has been quite sparse. It's not news at the…

The Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters all focused on the supposedly positive news of increased consumption reported in today's "Personal Income and Outlays" release from the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the process, two of the three ignored a particulary dreadful statistic about disposable income, while the third (Bloomberg) misinterpreted its meaning. The dire statistic…

Today, President Obama is going to ask a group of private-sector companies to help him try to solve a problem his administration's policies have seriously worsened, namely long-term unemployment. Of course, that's not how Josh Lederman at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, framed the situation. All he would concede is that "long-term joblessness in the U.S. remains a major…

On Thursday evening's news casts, both CBS and NBC announced the retirement of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) but only CBS labeled him a liberal. ABC ignored the news. "Democrat Henry Waxman in California, now in his 20th term, was elected with the post-Watergate class of 1974. He became one of the leading liberals in the House," reported CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley. In contrast, NBC…