Media Bias Debate

"President Obama used conservative arguments against judicial activism to urge justices to uphold the law," a teaser headline on the bottom of today's Washington Post front page notes, directing readers to page A4 for the story by staffer David Nakamura. Nakamura dutifully opened his story noting that Obama said in a Rose Garden press conference yesterday that if the Court overturns ObamaCare…

On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer pressed Sarah Palin on whether the Republican nominee should pick a vice presidential running mate with more experience than she had in 2008. Palin hit back: "I would say it doesn't matter if that person has national level experience or not, they're going to get clobbered by the lamestream media, who does not like the conservative message." [Listen to…

An Associated Press report a week ago by Pallovi Gogoi on how economists would like to see taxes increased to close the government's annual budget deficit (I guess because tax increases have done so well at closing deficits before - /sarc) has a truly curious sentence about the Keystone Pipeline: "The project drew opposition from environmentalists, while supporters say it will create over 1,000…

On Tuesday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted how the Associated Press's headlined assessments at Anne D'Innocenzio's reports throughout the day on the Conference Board's monthly consumer confidence survey went from "falls" to "dips slightly" to "roughly flat" before ending up at "rosy" -- an evaluation the AP reporter also included in the verbiage of her final dispatch. For the record,…

From what I can tell, no one in the establishment press yesterday attempted to quantify the total employment impact of yesterday's announcement by Best Buy that it will reduce its headquarters headcount by 400 and close 50 stores. One thing is certain: It's not just 400, as the headlines and verbiage in certain media reports might lead readers to believe -- and it's not excusable to say that…

Reacting angrily to selective editing by NBC that suggested racial animus by George Zimmerman, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained to Fox News's Sean Hannity last night that NBC News was engaged in an "all-out falsehood." The story in question was a March 27 Ron Allen report on NBC's 'Today' in which 911 audio was edited to make it sound like George Zimmerman said "he looks black"…

Get that totally unnecessary chyron out of there, ABC News! Why is your "ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE" chyron covering up the back of George Zimmerman's head in the police surveillance video of him arriving at the police station soon after Trayvon Martin was killed in Sanford, Florida? There is a big controversy out there as to whether Zimmerman actually did suffer certain injuries including a bruise…

Earlier this year, a reporter informed me of what is apparently a common belief in the business press, namely that "the Labor Department considers the (seasonally adjusted, or SA) numbers to be much more reflective of what’s actually going on in the economy" than the raw (i.e., not seasonally adjusted, or NSA) economic data. That's interesting, given that you can't even do seasonal adjustments…

In the aftermath of the Gabby Giffords shooting, the liberal media were quick to harangue conservative Republicans for a campaign website that had depicted tiny images of crosshairs on different points of the continental U.S.. They represented targeted districts in the 2010 midterm race, including Rep. Giffords' seat. But now in light of the ongoing coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting,…

With the two-year anniversary of the law's signing and this week's marathon set of hearings before the Supreme Court about ObamaCare, it's a good time to examine just another area where the media have failed to report on a little-reported liberty-infringing aspect of the health care overhaul. No, I'm not talking about not the individual mandate. I'm talking about a provision that forbids the…

Every Congressman who voted on President Obama's budget on Wednesday voted against it -- every Democrat and every Republican. The headline writer for Andrew Taylor's related story at the Associated Press nonetheless felt it necessary to remind readers that Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives, and only told readers that Dear Leader's budget was "easily" rejected. The…

Did CNN's Jeffrey Toobin just hint at his liberal bias? Toobin told Politico "I'm not exactly famous for my hatred of the Obama administration," and added that "If you're [sic] read my books, you know – I don't have a primetime spot on Fox News." CNN's senior legal analyst had made headlines for his dire analysis of ObamaCare's chances in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. He was explaining to…

I had to make sure that the Conference Board, which issues one of the most closely watched consumer confidence reports each month, didn't issue some kind of update during the day after telling us in the morning that its reading for March came in at 70.2, down from 71.6 in February. Nothing changed. But oh how the Associated Press's headlines about the Board's reported results changed in…