Media Bias Debate

Three years ago, Steve Skvara won the admiration of many in the mainstream media by basically calling for taxpayers to foot his wife’s health insurance. Now he's ba-a-ack!  No longer hailed by Chris Matthews or People's Weekly World, he still manages favorable, unquestioning coverage.  Today's nwi.com Web site, which bills itself as "the largest and most trusted media company in northern Indiana…

One thing you can say about the Apparatchik Press -- er, the Associated Press -- is that it's leaving no stone unturned in its attempt to prop up their guy Barack Obama. In the tenth paragraph of an AP report today by Ben Feller on President Obama's stack of priorities ("For Obama, big agenda and small window for results"), the wire service's Ben Feller bitterly clings to an AP-GfK Roper poll…

Do you believe that extending unemployment compensation benefits encourages some people to remain out of work longer than necessary? Don't let CNN anchor Ali Velshi find out.  He'll characterize you as unsavory.On a segment of CNN Newsroom today, Velshi spoke with an economics professor who's examined multiple studies reporting that many people find work shortly before their unemployment checks…

Howell Raines was executive editor of the New York Times for 21 turbulent months before being forced out in June 2003, felled by the journalistic malpractice committed by a young reporter he supported, Jayson Blair, and his personal callousness and autocratic management style, as well as launching a feminist crusade against the Augusta National Golf Club (home of the Masters golf tournament) that…

 How much of a pickle is Pelosi potentially in?  Enough that Dem loyalist Charles Blow had to resort to some truly twisted reasoning to explain away her delay in responding to allegations against Eric Massa.Of all things, the New York Times columnist tried to excuse Pelosi's failure to act by blaming . . . "our crazy misogynistic culture."  Huh?Blow offered his odd opinion on today's Morning Joe…

The Media Institute, a Washington-based non-profit, has called on Keith Olbermann to apologize for comparing one of its Jewish staff members to a Nazi collaborator.During a January 21 screed regarding the controversial Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission -- in which the Supreme Court granted all companies the same rights as MSNBC's parent company GE -- Olbermann…

The wife of Democratic Congressman John Conyers of Michigan was sentenced yesterday for bribery. Here is how the Associated Press presented its headline and first few paragraphs in the matter: The headline is pretty pathetic considering who the "councilperson" is related to, but at least the AP's Ed White got Conyers's party affiliation into his second paragraph. So, overall, you might be…

Buried in a recent New York Times profile of senior White House advisor David Axelrod was this nugget of information: he used to be a reporter with the Chicago Tribune.The fact is hardly a secret -- the White House notes Axelrod's brief stint at the Tribune on its website. But that bit of information was an interesting element of a predictably laudatory profile. One of President Obama's chief…

When conservatives take to the House floor to criticize the news media’s liberal distortions, that’s not newsworthy to NBC, but Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News made time to showcase an unhinged liberal Democrat, Representative Patrick Kennedy, screaming against the media during House floor remarks in favor of a Dennis Kucinich-backed resolution to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of…

Leading off his "Political Sideshow" segment halfway through the March 10 "Hardball," MSNBC's Chris Matthews mocked freshman Sen. Scott Brown (D-Mass.) for his reported book deal [audio available here]:We learned today that Massachusetts senator Scott Brown, who's been a senator for just 35 days, has a book deal! According to the Wall Street Journal, Brown's expected to write about his upbringing…

"You know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah, you know, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on it." – Sean Penn (when addressing his detractors) No, I’m not making it up, you can even view the video here. O’Reilly, feel free to examine his body language, though to be fair, there isn’t much of a body to work with. For those too lazy to watch the video, let me…

On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC News Live, host David Shuster tossed softballs to an 11-year-old supporter of Obamacare. However, back in 2009, reporter Norah O'Donnell grilled a conservative teen and fan of Sarah Palin. Shuster interviewed young Marcelas Owens, who lost his mother from pulmonary hypertension and is now lobbying for government-run health care. The anchor gently asked the child of…

The New York Times published a scathing editorial Sunday condemning Americans who have the audacity to request that attorneys who represented terrorists not set national legal policy. The Times smeared them and their elected representatives as McCarthyites, and criticized them for noting that colossal conflict of interest."It is not the first time that the right has tried to distract Americans…

Rush mentioned this on the air as his show opened. It comes from the Associated Press, in a later paragraph of an Obama cheerleading item ("Obama pitches health plan in spirited appearance"; AP picture at right is from that story) by Julie Pace and David Espo. The paragraph in question opens by giving readers the impression that either Pace, Espo, or another AP person has actually seen language…