Pentagon Rescinds Franklin Graham’s Invitation, Al Sharpton is Welco
April 23rd, 2010 10:21 AM
The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of…
Newsweek's Liz White Complains of 'ObamaCare' Label Use Again
April 21st, 2010 6:02 PM
Last month I noted Newsweek's Liz White's complaint about the term "ObamaCare" being used as shorthand for the Democratic health care legislation. White griped that the term was "ominous-sounding" and favored by the legislation's conservative opponents as reasons why mainstream media outlets should eschew the term.Now a full 27 days later, White is back at it with her complaint about the term "…
Politico Snarks: 'Most Transparent White House Ever' Prevents Reporter
April 20th, 2010 5:35 PM
While mainstream media reporters are generally pretty supportive of the Obama administration, they bristle, and rightly so, at incidents where the administration is less than transparent or actively seeks to impede journalists from working.Last week it was liberal Post columnist Dana Milbank snarking about how the nuclear summit was closed off to press scrutiny. Today it's Politico's Ben Smith,…
Big Three Nets' Evening News Ratings Crater to Summer 2009 Levels Two
April 20th, 2010 3:27 PM
Two weeks ago (noted at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the combined audience for the Big Three Networks' Evening News shows for the week of March 29 fell to just below 20 million. That audience was about 5% less than what Matt Drudge in the summer of 2006 headlined as "TV's Lowest Week." The Big Three's combined audience crawled back above 20 million during the week of April 5. But Chris Ariens of…
MSNBC's Deutsch Frets Over 'Anger in America,' Incorrectly Labels IRS
April 19th, 2010 5:42 PM
MSNBC's Donny Deutsch kicked off a week-long segment on Monday about "America the Angry" and hinted that the "rageaholics" in this country could create another Oklahoma City-style bombing. After one guest mentioned Joe Stack, the man who flew a plane into an IRS building in February, Deutsch wrongly derided, "I don't know whether he was Republican or Democrat. I'm assuming he was probably a…
Actress/TEA Partier Janine Turner Promotes Awareness of Nation's Found
April 19th, 2010 5:24 PM
The political inclinations of Hollywood actors, when they're publicly disclosed, are almost always reliably left-of-center. As such, it's quite refreshing to learn of another conservative or libertarian in Tinseltown, especially when the celebrity in question is actively working to advance an understanding of constitutional principles and opposing big government. Janine Turner ("Northern Exposure…
On Fox News, Jim Pinkerton, Judy Miller Cite MRC, Eyeblast
April 19th, 2010 11:57 AM
James Pinkerton of the New America Foundation and Fox News contributor Judy Miller both gave kudos to the Media Research Center and Eyeblast.tv on Saturday's Fox News Watch. Pinkerton applauded Eyeblast for hosting a clip of NBC's Kelly O'Donnell questioning of black tea partyer and his "best answer." (See the Friday NB post, “White NBC Reporter Confronts Black Man at Tea Party Rally: 'Have You…
Mark Levin Reads From MRC's 'TV's Tea Party Travesty' Study On Air
April 16th, 2010 3:23 PM
On Thursday evening our good friend Mark Levin cited and read from the latest Media Research Center special report, "TV's Tea Party Travesty: How ABC, CBS and NBC Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement."You can hear that segment by clicking here for the MP3 audio file (courtesy of Levin's producer Richard Semanta).Here's the transcript by MRC intern Alex Fitzsimmons: Where are all…
Breitbart Rips MSNBC's Brewer; Calls MSM 'Bulls**t Artists' for Covera
April 16th, 2010 8:58 AM
Are the mainstream media playing fast and loose with their coverage of the tea parties and what the tea party activists believe? Andrew Breitbart says they are, and points to accusations of racism. Breitbart spoke at one of the tea party events held near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. on April 15. He said his involvement in the movement began when he realized how the media would…
Media Confusion: Why the Tea Party Protest? Not High Taxes, but Govern
April 16th, 2010 12:58 AM
The media is still having trouble understanding the Tea Party movement and what it is protesting, even though its roots are clear. On Feb. 19, 2009 during CNBC's "Squawk Box," Rick Santelli made his famous rant heard around the world, calling for a so-called tea party-style revolt. And that helped fuel the growth of a Tea Party movement that has resulted in more than 600 protests this April 15…
Live Webcast: MRC's Rich Noyes on 'The B-Cast' at 5 p.m. EDT; Will Dis
April 15th, 2010 4:40 PM
Media Research Center Research Director Rich Noyes will appear on Breitbart.tv's "The B-Cast" Web-cast program at 5 p.m. Eastern time today. The NewsBusters senior editor will be discussing his latest report, "TV's Tea Party Travesty: How ABC, CBS and NBC Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement."You can watch the live Web cast by clicking here or by watching the embedded video below…
AP Item on Tea Party's 'Extremist' Concerns Recycles Racial Slurs Myth
April 15th, 2010 11:38 AM
Soooo predictable, Item 2 (Item 1 from earlier this morning at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog). Reporting from Jefferson City, Missouri, David Lieb of the Associated Press understated the number of people expected to attend rallies through the US ("thousands"), misrepresented a previous March 20 incident involving alleged racial slurs at the U.S. Capitol, and waited until his fourteenth paragraph to…
AP's Tea Party News Theme: 'Fringe Groups, Extremists, or Infiltrators
April 15th, 2010 11:03 AM
The tea-party headline at the bottom of the screen early this morning on the local D.C. CBS affiliate WUSA said this: "Tea Party Leaders Anxious About Extremists." The same headline graced an Associated Press story this morning. The theme of the day isn't the burdensome growth of government. It's media bias, piled upon media bias, as AP's David Lieb began: Organizers of tax-day tea parties are…
How AP Feels About Today's Tea Party Gatherings
April 15th, 2010 9:34 AM
This is sooooo predictable. An unbylined Associated Press item on today's Tea Party Express tour wrap-up in Washington uses a word that the wire service almost never (if not absolutely never) applies to truly violent leftist groups. The Google page carrying the AP report also has an interesting lead "Related article." Here's the brief AP item (produced in full for fair use and discussion…