Media Bias Debate

It was business as usual at CNN yesterday.  On The Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer reported:North Dakota's Democratic senator, Byron Dorgan, just announced he won't run for reelection to the U.S. Senate in November. The surprise announcement could give Republicans a chance to pick up a Senate seat in that red state. Dorgan was first elected to the Senate back in 1992 after serving a dozen…

In a Politico interview yesterday, CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien provided some insight into herself.  No, not in the part where she admits to cursing "all the time."  It was her response to another question:If you were the president of the United States for enough time to make only one executive decision, what would it be?Improve public schools.None of that preserving, protecting and defending the…

Despite six months of positive economic growth, Treasury collections are continuing what is now a serious two-year downward slide. In August, the Congressional Budget Office projected that collections during the fiscal year that will end on September 30, 2010 will be $2.264 trillion (PDF; page 2 at link). That's $159 billion, or about 7.5% higher, than fiscal 2009's final total of $2.105…

While it has every right to do so, and we at NewsBusters do not take issue with a newspaper's right to issue liberal pronouncements on clearly-marked editorial pages, it is worth noting from time to time the persistence with which liberal newspapers lead the charge for liberal agenda items, particularly when the issue at hand is tax increases. That brings us to the Washington Post -- no fan of…

In her Washington Post column today, Sally Quinn frets that White House security breaches divert attention from Barack Obama's accomplishments.  In "Time for accountability at the White House," she writes:Obama has had some real successes this fall. He did a masterful job of bringing together incredibly disparate positions to craft a strategy for Afghanistan. He put himself on the line and will…

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann picked up on an item posted by the far-left Media Matters for America, and slammed Media Research Center founder and President Brent Bozell as "Worst Person in the World" because the MRC founder recently criticized MSNBC host Ed Schultz for accusing Republicans of wanting people to die. Schultz, from the Ed Show last September: "The Republicans…

In a report time-stamped January 2, the Associated Press's Philip Elliott relayed what was supposedly important news: Obama cites apparent al-Qaida link in bomb plot An al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen apparently ordered the Christmas Day plot against a U.S. airliner, training and arming the 23-year-old Nigerian man accused in the failed bombing, President Barack Obama said Saturday. You don't say?…

The Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (known as "HAMP" to lenders and services, and MHA, or "Making Home Affordable" to the general public) is "failing." I only learned this because I looked at the Associated Press's feeds on Christmas evening and saw this headline -- "No consequences for lying borrowers." In an item time-stamped December 25, AP national business…

Deborah Howell, the Washington Post’s ombudsman from late 2005 through the end of 2008, “suffered fatal injuries when struck by a vehicle” while vacationing in New Zealand, an overnight post on WashingtonPost.com reported early Saturday morning. Howell, the top editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Washington bureau chief for the Newhouse newspaper chain before jumping to the Post, recognized…

On this afternoon's CNN Newsroom, anchor Rick Sanchez briefly updated his audience on Rush Limbaugh's medical condition.  He completed his comments with "We wish him well."  Sanchez's good wishes didn't square with the Twitter messages that crawled at the bottom of the screen for his entire program.Here is a sampling of the tweets he aired:rush is an excuse for people to be vicariously racist. I…

On this last day of 2009, a quick rundown of the Media Research Center's quote compilations and assessments, issued over the past couple of weeks, on the worst of the media during the year:♦ From the MRC's News Analysis Division: “Best Notable Quotables of 2009: The 22nd Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting” (thread on NB) as determined in 16 categories (with dozens of videos) by a…

Michael Calderone,Doing it Right UPDATE #2 - ALSO BELOW THE FOLD. UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD - THE ESTEEMED MR. CALDERONE RESPONDS. ------------- CORRECTION: I said the Washington Post was on the hook twice on Calderone's list.  H/t to NBer Dean who pointed out it's three - #s 2, 7 & 10.  A thousand apologies, and thanks to The Man from the People's Republic of…

UPDATE, Jan. 1, 2010: This post at BizzyBlog shows that the there was recognition of likely Al Qaeda involvement in two separate press reports based on sources in a position to know on Christmas evening. Thus, the administration's delay in acknowledging that reality was actually three full days.In their initial December 26 report ("Passengers’ Quick Action Halted Attack") on the attempted…

2009 began as a year of smiles at the Times, with rapture over the "historic" Obama administration. Reporters showered partisan praise on Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and first lady Michelle Obama. Meanwhile, the Times resolutely buried emerging left-wing scandals over ACORN and Obama adviser Van Jones. But the smile curdled into a defensive snarl during the long hot summer of "…