Media Bias Debate

The San Francisco Chronicle decided to pat Californians on the back last week for how much "better informed" Golden Staters are on the supposed dire threat of global warming. With their headline joyously proclaiming, "Californians better informed on global warming threat, poll finds," the SF Chron handed out the party hats, blew their celebratory horns and lined up little Al Gore statuettes to…

A red meat speech to Gwinnett County, Georgia, Democrats was cause for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Rhonda Cook to whip up a 15-paragraph Max Cleland press release just in time for Veteran's Day. Not once were any Georgia Republicans quoted for balance in Cook's November 11 story, as the former senator and Vietnam veteran thundered about impending doom for Republicans both nationwide an in…

If a person of Hispanic origin rapes a woman and, in an attempt to catch this violent criminal, police publish a description identifying the suspect's general racial makeup, is that a "racist" thing to do? Apparently the folks at KMYL (1190 AM) in the metro Phoenix, Arizona area think it is. It appears that we cannot even discuss the basic appearance of a wanted criminal now without being "racist…

Major Garrett of Fox News broke a story on the 9th that revealed that the Hillary Clinton campaign had admitted to planting questions at a Newton, Iowa town hall meeting. Garrett reported that the Clinton campaign promised that planted questions would not happen again, but this isn't something new for the Clinton campaign. Hillary has controlled the media with an iron fist yet few from the media…

I can't believe we all missed this one from November 6th, but The New York Times read the cable TV ratings tea leaves and decided that the left is "riding a ratings wave" to dominate the medium. Using the supposed "ratings wave" that the NYTimes imagines has propelled Keith Olbermann to some sort of success story, they have decided that it's all good on cable for the left. Yet, any look at the…

On Thursday, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet picked up on a story related by the Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder that claims that a few months ago the Barack Obama campaign sought to place the Norman Hsu scandal in the press in an effort to create anti-Hillary buzz in the MSM. Such a political "dirty trick" would seem to be a juice story for members of the MSM, wouldn't it? So, why is…

It is understandable, but not forgivable, that business reporters at Old Media newspapers might think that the economy is in bad shape. They first have to get past how poorly most of their employers are doing. The industry as a whole has not been doing well, and it's been that way for quite some time. This table illustrates that point (September 30, 2007 figures are at this post, which originally…

It seems that no bad Hillary Clinton deed goes unresponded to. As we are in the midst of a presidential campaign, this by itself is not an issue. That it is the national media that is leading this charge is. One need focus on but the latest corners of the Clinton pantheon to come to light to see the full court press the press puts on when their girl needs them.In an October 10 Boston Globe…

Fox TV's The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet ran a segment this morning that promoted the Rutgers University Sex, ETC. site for teens. Unfortunately I was not able to watch the program so I can not comment on the specifics of the segment but I can provide some background on the site that should have every parent concerned about the effort to circumvent parental involvement in teaching their…

With news of a possible Rosie O’Donnell show on MSNBC, Bill O’Reilly, a frequent critic of both, predictably led the November 6 "O’Reilly Factor" with his take.O’Reilly rehashed Rosie O’Donnell’s most inflammatory comments. Among them were her famous "fire can’t melt steel" September 11 conspiracy theory, calling terrorists "mothers and fathers," implying the British-Iranian hostage crisis was a…

The Independent Television Service was established by Congress in 1988 with legislation directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to establish ITVS with "a national coalition of independent producer groups." Currently, CPB awards $15 million a year to ITVS, a one-sided, left-wing "independent" filmmakers’ organizing center. ITVS saw its purpose to be "a catalyst for change, a way…

In an interview in Elle magazine, actress Keira Knightley ("Pirates of the Caribbean", "Atonement"), lets loose on her frustrations with biased media. (h/t Matthew Felling) While I'm not sure how her politics skews -- she may be a leftie who thinks the media are too conservatively biased -- the British actress is spot on about the problem of subjective reporting: