Media Bias Debate

The national media have certainly NOT been giving Barack Obama a rougher ride than the GOP candidates, but a new study by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism is fueling the myth that, as Politico’s Keach Hagey put it this morning, “Obama has received the most unremittingly negative press of any of the presidential candidates.” To be sure, Hagey is repeating exactly what Pew is…

UPDATE, 4 p.m.: NB gets results? The Lowe's story is currently #10 on the AP's Business home page (saved here). It's a good thing I heard this on the radio at about 11:00 a.m., because I might otherwise have missed it. With yours truly's opinion along for the ride, I'll let readers judge whether the news of the Lowe's home improvement chain announcing that it will close 20 stores and cut its…

The Associated Press's seeming effort to go after every candidate except the guy who used to be governor of Massachusetts -- and imposed CO2 emission caps when he was -- went a different route tonight with a report by the wire service's Ryan J. Foley that Herman Cain, a believer in liberty and free-market capitalism, "has close ties" with the Koch brothers, who believe in liberty and free-…

On October 9, an unbylined Associated Press story reported that Congressmen Darrell Issa "could send subpoenas to the Obama administration as soon as this week over weapons lost amid the Mexican drug war." On Wednesday, October 12, Issa did just that. Mike Vanderboegh's Sipsey Street Irregulars blog has a succinct summary (HT Ed Driscoll) of the establishment press's coverage of Issa's…

Sometimes it's really hard to understand why certain events get heavy national press coverage while others which are arguably at least as significant and serious get little if any notice. This is one of them. Scott Walker, who solved a $3 billion projected deficit in Wisconsin, is a media and leftist (but I repeat myself) arch-villain because much of the balancing was done by adjusting public-…

Yesterday, Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider reacted to the mixed economic news of the day by observing: "Lots of folks are scratching their head about today's dismal UMich/Reuters consumer sentiment number coming in so ugly, just as retail sales for September came in so strong." It seems that the folks at the Associated Press were not among the head-scratchers. From all appearances, the…

Earlier today, Matthew Balan at NewsBusters noted how the "Big Three Nets Trumpet Wall Street Protesters 'Proclaiming Victory.'" HIs report concentrated on the morning shows, but a Media Research Center Reality Check showed the that the fawning has also been present in evening news coverage. Evening show network executives, however, may be less than thrilled about the "Occupy Wall Street"…

Time magazine’s Ishaan Tharoor and Nate Rawlings romanticized the Occupy Wall Street crowd in an October 14 news story wrought with melodrama about the left-wing crowd’s tensions with New York City police. Tharoor and Rawlings opened their article by painting the OWS folks as anxious and the NYPD as practically itching for a confrontation. The trespassing squatters in the privately-owned park…

The New York Times today has a piece entitled: Auto Bailout Done, Obama Looks for Payback  Two problems - with just the headline.  Which the Times either ignorantly doesn’t know - or knows and willfully ignores. The auto bailout isn’t “done.”  

Early this morning, I noted how two AP writers seemed to be hoping that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will be the Republican Party's presidential nominee, in the process ignoring inconvenient facts like his failure to get over 25% in any poll covered at Real Clear Politics since mid-July while failing to even mention Herman Cain's name until the report's eleventh paragraph (a…

Based on a report filed earlier today and time-stamped 8:16 p.m. as of when this post was prepared, it would appear that the last thing Associated Press writers Charles Babington and Kasie Hunt want is a competitive Republican primary season, and that they'll twist reality and the numbers to fit their meme. Oh, and in case you haven't gotten the establishment press memo, Rick Perry is still…

Shorter Bill Keller: The New York Times is a liberal paper because we’re all cool tolerant educated urbanites here in Manhattan. At an event at the LBJ presidential library in Austin, Texas on October 6 (hosted by the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization that provides content for the Times), Keller confessed the Times had a “socially liberal” lean, if by “socially liberal” you mean…

Somebody needed to give Calvin Woodward and Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press Five-Hour Energy drinks or some other boost before Tuesday night's GOP debate. Their brains must have totally turned off late in the  afternoon without re-engaging before they filed their late-evening post-debate report. Behold how the AP pair "proved" that excessive government regulation doesn't kill jobs…

As a service to the 10 people who will somehow manage to find the Bloomberg Television channel on their cable box tonight in order to watch the network's GOP presidential debate, Bloomberg News today published and the Washington Post syndicated a "Viewers' Guide to Economic Jargon." While most of the article is helpful and unbiased, Bloomberg News seriously downplayed the scandalous nature of…