Media Bias Debate

Howard Wolfson has become the latest prominent Democrat to join forces with Fox News Channel during the general election, hailing it for its "comprehensive and fair and evenhanded" coverage during the primaries.That's quite an endorsement coming from one of the Democratic party's biggest communications mavens, and not one known for being especially soft-gloved. It's the equivalent of MSNBC…

Over the Fourth of July weekend I took a trip to the media’s shrine to itself in downtown Washington D.C., known as the Newseum, and was troubled by the fact that the exhibit on journalistic ethics took up less space in the seven floor building than the gift shop. Given the $20 admission fee, one might expect a little more attention paid to journalistic principles than to souvenirs like Newseum…

Reuters has the story, as does the New York Times and the Associated Press (see below fold) but this is not exactly burning up the cable news networks today:BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government has removed 550 tonnes of natural uranium left over from Saddam Hussein's era and sold it to a Canadian company, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.The uranium, called yellowcake, had been stored in…

This post builds on Noel Sheppard's NewsBusters entry earlier this morning. Noel covered portions of Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha's Thursday interview with Pittsburgh TV Station KDKA used by CNN's "Situation Room" on Friday (transcript here [Murtha segment is about halfway through]; video here). CNN carried KDKA footage showing that Murtha has grudgingly acknowledged the obvious: That…

It appears that the New York Times would prefer that its readers know as little as possible about Barack Obama's abortion flip-flop, while still retaining the ability to claim, "yeah, we covered it." As a refresher, here is part of Thursday's Associated Press report on this particular item in the ongoing Obama Flip-Flop festival, first noted at NewsBusters by John Stephenson: Democratic…

Why would the New York Times divulge information that could prove harmful to the national security of the United States?  Because, so consumed is it by hatred of President Bush, that the paper actually wants America to lose.  Such is the considered opinion Jim Pinkerton expressed on yesterday's Fox News Watch.  The case in point was an article the Times published on June 30, 2008, Amid U.S.…

London-based broadsheet the Financial Times spilled vials of poisonous ink in a July 5 obituary marking the death of former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, going strong out the gate by charging that Helms was "little less than a monster" to "many around the world."Writer Jurek Martin boiled down the political career of Helms, "The reviled Republican courted by his adversaries," as nothing…

Add Monica Conyers's name to that list of Dems run afoul of the law whose party affiliation the MSM fails to mention.  Conyers, the Detroit City Council President Pro Tem, a Democrat and an Obama supporter, has made unwelcome headlines before, from getting into an argument with an eight-grader to allegedly threatening to shoot an aide to the Detroit mayor.  Now things have taken a turn for the…

Earlier this week, to avoid "undue" emphasis on how much the situation has been improving in Iraq, the press, in search of bad news, switched its focus to Afghanistan (examples here, here, and here). Kyle Drennen and Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters noted this on Tuesday. Similarly, Associated Press writer Ellen Simon, confronted with a key report showing economic improvement, decided that it…

As reported by CBS and the Associated Press moments ago:Jesse Helms, the five-term Republican Senator from North Carolina, has died, CBS News has confirmed. He was 86.Helms died at 1:15 this morning, according to the Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, North Carolina.Our prayers and thoughts go out to his family and loved-ones.Update 11:46 | Matthew Sheffield. Jesse Helms was a tireless advocate…

Yes, the "Name That Party" exercise is getting old.But somebody has to do it, or 10-20 years from now we'll have people searching the web and concluding that only Republicans had ethical problems during the 21st Century's first decade.The latest example of convenient party omission also involves a couple of other items that bear mentioning.The story concerns the now somewhat well-known Laura…

In the years since he began working at FNC as host of its "Fox News Sunday" program, Chris Wallace has come to realize he was wrong for earlier thinking that the elite media are politically neutral."When I was in the mainstream media, when I was working at NBC and ABC [...] I thought we were fair and balanced. But since coming to Fox four and a half years ago, I have come to see things a little…