NYT Recites Litany of Excuses in Report on Mbeki and Mugabe
Robert Mugabe continues to take Zimbabwe into utter ruin. A former breadbasket when it was colonial Rhodesia, it is now a starving, rotting basket case. The latest development in the ongoing nightmare: A sham "runoff" election where Mugabe is the only candidate, thanks to "violence against .... opposition members," whose candidate dropped out of the race less than a week ago. For nearly a decade…
WaPo: Scalia Says 'Hear, Hear' to Machine Guns in D.C
It didn't take long for the Washington Post to weigh in on the wrong side of the Second Amendment issue, did it? The Post's Colbert I. King could not contain the disgust he feels for at least one part of the Constitution more in his response to the Supreme Court's Second Amendment ruling today. He flipped his top and went so far off the deep end that he seemed to imagine that Justice Scalia just…
CNN: Supreme Court ‘Kills’ DC Handgun Ban, Slants Toward Gun Victi
In anticipation of the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of DC handgun ban on Thursday, CNN’s "Newsroom" program ran a report on both the sides of the gun case, in which the pro-gun control advocate was given twice the amount of air time as the gun rights advocate. The report, by CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena, ran twice within 20 minutes; first, at the top of the 10 am…
MRC's Bozell On Media Ignoring Good News in Iraq
MRC President Brent Bozell appeared on the June 24 "Hannity & Colmes" to comment on a trend in Iraq reporting that conservatives have known for a while and the New York Times is only now catching on to: the media love to report negative developments from Iraq, while downplaying or ignoring positive developments such as the succeess of the surge or the exonerations of the Haditha "massacre"…
Farnsworth of CBS News Needs American History Lesson
Remember when the 49ers gold rush happened in Maine? How about when Dan'l Boone explored California? Do you remember when Lee surrendered his Confederate army in Fargo, North Dakota? Well, to those famous places with famous incidents we can add that great Revolutionary War battle of Lexington and Concord... Virginia. At least we can do so in the reckoning of one Jamie Fansworth of the CBS News…
Cartoonist Rall Sees 'Bad Times' for Country as 'Great Times' for Him
Riddle me this: when is a cartoonist as shallow and one dimensional as his own creations? When his name is Ted Rall. The San Antonio Express-News ran a short story covering a convention being held in Texas that is serving as a gathering place for some of the nation's increasingly fewer political cartoonists. Rall has been chosen as the president of this seemingly ever more irrelevant organization…
Obama Leaves Rolling Stone at a Loss for Words
Maybe the mainstream media are growing tired of hackneyed images of Barack Obama appearing in Christ-like poses, because now the Obama-friendly scribes at Rolling Stone have crafted an even more preposterous way of peddling the junior senator from Illinois: his image on a magazine cover devoid of any headline. Yes, the cover of the most recent edition of Rolling Stone features a giant picture of…
Baltimore Sun Admits Baltimore Mayor a Democrat
Yesterday I noted how the Baltimore Sun failed to note the party affiliation of Democratic Mayor Sheila Dixon, who is under investigation for corruption. To be fair to the Sun, I thought I'd note that Dixon's party allegiance is referenced in a June 25 story in the second paragraph:Companies linked to a developer questioned in the state investigation of Mayor Sheila Dixon have made nearly $500,…
Baltimore Sun's Missing (D) in Mayoral Corruption Story
Five days ago I noted how the Associated Press ignored Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's Democratic affiliation in a story on a police raid of her private residence. Dixon is under investigation for corruption allegedly going back to her last public portfolio: Baltimore City Council President.Well today the reliably liberal Democrat-boosting Baltimore Sun also provided a measure of cover for Dixon…
Bonnie Erbe Bashes Barack, and CNN's Attempt at Flip-Flop Equivalence
PBS's Bonnie Erbe hosts that network's weekly news analysis program, "To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe," is a weekly columnist for Scripps Howard Newspapers, and blogs at USNews.com. Erbe called for the impeachment of George Bush in February 2006. Anyone looking through her Scripps Howard archive will conclude that she can't possibly be labeled a conservative ideologue -- which is why her take on…
Media Fooled: 'Lost Tribe' Not so Lost as Previously Reported
Remember last month when the "amazing" photos of the "lost Indian tribe" in the Brazilian jungle were making the rounds? Remember how every single news agency in the world jumped on this "astounding" report? They were a "lost tribe," they were an "uncontacted" people, they were shooting arrows at the "big bird" and dressed in war paint. All manner of claims were made about these people, but many…
Newspaper Ad Revenues Dive; No Media Self-Examination Evident
In any other industry, when revenues fall steeply, those in charge take at least a casual look at the quality of their product, and try to get a grip on whether it's meeting consumers' needs and expectations. But that never seems to happen in the news business. True to form, the New York Times's Richard Perez-Pena devoted over 850 words to the latest developments, and had nothing to say about…
BMI’s Menefee: Countrywide Story ‘Has Everything,’ but Networks
The network news outlets - ABC, CBS and NBC - have missed a great opportunity to cover actual political news in the last week by failing to report on the loan scandal surrounding two Democratic senators, Business & Media Institute Managing Editor Amy Menefee told "Fox & Friends Weekend" June 21."This story has everything," Menefee said. "It has a former presidential candidate, Chris Dodd…