Media Bias Debate

On April 13, at a dog-and-pony show with advertisers, CNN's Jim Walton told participants: "We are the only credible, non partisan voice left, and that matters." True comedy gold. An accurate offer by Walton to the attending advertisers, in a variation on an old Soviet joke about the wonders of their communist system ("We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us"), might have gone likes this…

That damned closed primary system and its penchant for drawing conservatives to the polls!Newsweek's Jonathan Alter fixed blame for John McCain's newfound conservative streak and abandonment of the "maverick" status that drove the media gaga back in 2000 -- when he was a challenger on George Bush's left on taxes and campaign finance reform -- on the strong Senate primary challenge the senator is…

Last night, "back by popular demand," Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity interviewed Brent Bozell in a segment focused on media bias entitled "Media Mash."Hannity led off with the April 15 video of TEA Partier Darryl Postell being interviewed by NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, who asked him if, as a black man, he felt uncomfortable at the rally. "No, no, these are my people, Americans," replied Postell."Let'…

Ed Whitacre, Chairman of Government/General Motors, took to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday to crow about repaying a loan (link may require subscription). Note the deceptive headline and its accompanying end-zone dance: The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full The investment of U.S. and Canadian tax dollars worked. Whitacre can try to make a case that the government's loans have been repaid, but…

On last night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart noted the blatant censorship his employer Comedy Central exercised against its popular show "South Park" by banning it from showing, and even uttering the word "Mohammed" in this week's episode after a threat came forward from an Islamic group."The censorship was a decision Comedy Central made I think as a way to protect their employees from what they…

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of…

In a sign of just how deep the MSM is in the global-warming tank, the White House Correspondents Association [WHCA] has announced that it is buying carbon credit offsets for travel connected with its big annual dinner [h/t Mike Allen's Politico Playbook].WHCA president Ed Chen of Bloomberg announced the move, along with the dinner menu that included at least one "organic" item, then boasted […

The elite gatekeepers of American pop culture huff and puff about freedom of speech. But when political correctness actually threatens that right, Hollywood's stalwart defenders of free expression are nowhere to be found.Last night, Comedy Central gave into threats of violence against the creators of the animated sitcom "South Park"  and not only censored the image of the Muslim prophet Muhammed…

GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media, working for its project partner the Associated Press, conducted a poll from March 3-8 about Americans' car preferences and perceptions. The poll's results were released earlier this week, and the wire service's Dan Sewell reported on the results yesterday. Why the 40-day delay? I'll suggest the possibility that the poll was timed in hopes that the detailed…

National Public Radio correspondent Nina Totenberg severely misquoted a conservative legal scholar to make it seems as if he considered Clarence Thomas a radical Supreme Court justice. An examination of his full statement clearly demonstrates that this was not what he actually said.In an April 16 NPR segment, Totenberg, picture right in a file photo, sought to paint radical Berkeley law professor…

So you do your part and pay your taxes to the federal government. However, you feel you pay too much and you don't like how that same government uses that money. Do you have the right to petition and protest that government? If it's on federal land that your tax dollars paid for, then your protest is hypocritical nonsense, according to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. To her, the tea partiers, who…

Joan Walsh was unable to name an extreme left-wing media figure yesterday while appearing on MSNBC and today she is digging in deeper on her blog. Now she says that she wasn’t just talking about media figures, of which Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz are just the most obvious examples, but that she was talking also about violent nut jobs who threaten politicians. The title of her post is “…

Fox News contributor Bernie Goldberg hit back at Jon Stewart today, saying the "Daily Show" host was "throwing spitballs at a battleship" by attacking the Fox News Channel.The back-and-forth between Stewart and Goldberg began when the former leveled accusations of hypocrisy, claiming Goldberg criticized others for generalizing while doing so himself. Stewart responded to Goldberg's retort with a…

Last month I noted Newsweek's Liz White's complaint about the term "ObamaCare" being used as shorthand for the Democratic health care legislation. White griped that the term was "ominous-sounding" and favored by the legislation's conservative opponents as reasons why mainstream media outlets should eschew the term.Now a full 27 days later, White is back at it with her complaint about the term "…