Media Bias Debate

This could do down as one of the more glaring MSM double-standards in recent times . . . Harry Reid chose the day Sarah Palin was in town to stage a photo-op of himself going shooting. But GMA called Reid the man "in the crosshairs" and as "doing his best not to seem threatened."Imagine if the tables were turned and on a day Reid visited Wasilla, Palin had publicly chosen to go shooting.  Oh…

(March 27th, 10:06 a.m. -- Please see update at the end of the post.)What is the first step in the main stream media's handbook of liberal bias?  Why, alter the headline to fit your agenda, of course.To say that CNN was misleading in their headline about James O'Keefe is to be kind: Feds punish ACORN filmmaker?  Seems an odd choice of headline considering the article itself does not mention any…

In both its print and Web editions today, the Chicago Tribune headlines "Republicans walk the line over healthcare outrage."  It begins:In the days surrounding passage of healthcare overhaul legislation, Republican lawmakers have been left to strike a fine balance between harnessing voter outrage and fueling it.Examples of raw anger have piled up. A call to New York Democrat Louise M. Slaughter…

(March 26, 8:30 p.m. -- SEE THE UPDATE at the end of this post.)People in Cincinnati who follow politics reasonably closely will be scratching their heads wondering what's gotten into the people assembling news stories at the Seattle Times once they learn of what the Times reported in an item that originally went up Wednesday evening and was modified Thursday morning: A rock was thrown through…

Republicans are escalating political violence against Democrats by not shutting up with their insipid anti-ObamaCare talking points. That seems to be the argument of Time magazine writer Alex Altman, at least. Altman denounced what he held to be “The GOP Response to the Intimidation Campaign Against Democrat” in the magazine’s Swampland blog today. Of course, that headline presupposes that…

Words matter. They speak volumes about issues. So when individuals or groups try to change the words associated with a heated political issue, take note and take care. The folks at National Public Radio understand the power of words. Managing Editor David Sweeney announced yesterday that the station would no longer refer to people in the abortion debate as "pro-choice" and "pro-life."…

Newsweek's Liz White took to her magazine's The Gaggle blog today to decry how conservatives critical of the Democratic health care bill have slapped it with "the ominous-sounding term ‘Obamacare.'"You see, most mainstream media sources only use the term when quoting opponents of the bill or when "carefully placed in quotations or alongside an explanation that Obamacare is how opposition refers…

The New York Post reported on Thursday that CNN chief international correspondent and anchor Christiane Amanpour, who was recently hired by ABC, will apparently be receiving a $2 million a year salary for her upcoming gig on their This Week program, just as the network is laying off hundreds from its news arm.The unsigned item stated that the "hiring of Christiane Amanpour...couldn't have come at…

Not content with simply reporting on threats against lawmakers who voted for ObamaCare, the liberal media has taken it upon itself (with a bit of direction from the Democratic Party) to blame the Tea Party and the GOP. The coverage stands in stark contrast to the litany of similar instances involving conservatives and Republicans. They were treated as isolated incidents, if discussed at all.CNN's…

In the Thursday edition of their every other week “Common Ground” discussion for USA Today, Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel took up the liberal charge the Fox News Channel is out of bounds. Neither found any credence or efficacy in the efforts to discredit the channel. “The White House had been essentially stiff-arming Fox reporters in a very Nixonian way until someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue wised…

Conventional wisdom on the right and left has been that President Obama and the Democrats will pay a heavy price in the November mid-term elections for passing the deeply unpopular health care reform bill. But Fox Business Network's Charlie Gasparino isn't so sure.    Gasparino appeared on  the network's "Imus in the Morning" on March 25. "They can all get even in November then," Imus said of…

And you thought a couple of plucky young conservative activists with a camera brought down ACORN. Nope. It's the arch-conservative New York Times that did in the noble community organizing group, or so says The Huffington Post in "Why ACORN Fell: The Times, Lies, and Videotape." "Because of its pivotal role in bringing down ACORN," Peter Drier and John Atlas wrote in their March 24 editorial, "…

You really have to wonder what was running through Vice President Joe Biden's head when he leaned toward President Barack Obama and said "this is a big f**cking deal." Did Biden think that after nearly a year of campaigning for health care reform he was alerting Obama to something new? But Biden isn't the first vice president to allow an expletive slip in a public forum in this day and age of a…

For as much as we on the Right have lambasted the liberal media for religious metaphors when it comes to Barack Obama, you'd think they'd eventually learn their lesson. But apparently they just can't help themselves, particularly now that ObamaCare has passed and they see America entering into a progressive Promised Land.Here's Howard Fineman from a March 23 Newsweek Gaggle blog post published…