Race Issues

Just as they did in the morning, on Friday night the broadcast network stories on Glenn Beck's “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, DC were pegged to left-wing complaints his event is scheduled for the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech, except the reporters refused to identify the ideology of Beck's critics while showing no such reluctance to tag him and/or his…

Just like NBC and ABC this morning, CBS’s The Early Show had a hostile take on Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally scheduled for Saturday on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Correspondent Whit Johnson labeled Beck a “controversial conservative,” event speaker Alveda King (a niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.) a “longtime advocate for conservative causes,” and suggested that the fact that some…

When Joe Scarborough wondered out loud "how many times can you set your hair on fire?" before viewers stop being shocked, you might have thought he was talking about Keith Olbermann, the man whose scenery-chewing soliloquies inspired an instant-classic Saturday Night Live skit.But no, Joe was speaking of Glenn Beck.  Perhaps the shot Scarborough took at Ed Schultz a couple weeks ago exhausted…

I was going to say the left has now officially hit rock bottom.  But it's still a long way to Election Day for the desperate Dems . . . On this evening's Ed Show, trial-lawyer guest Mike Papantonio accused Glenn Beck and the Koch brothers of consciously plotting, via Beck's DC rally, to provoke race riots.In Papantonio's fevered imagination, the Beck-Koch axis is attempting to recreate the…

Dylan Ratigan's "Daily Rant" segment was a treasure trove of controversial statements today.  You be the judge of which statement rates higher on the controversy-meter:Ratigan's claim that the "default position" in the USA is to incarcerate black men rather than educate them; orBlogger Keli Goff's suggestion that to end the cycle of poverty among African-Americans, and to avoid burdening…

Keith Olbermann on Friday evening once again stuck his foot in his mouth on national television when he bashed Ted Nugent for appearing at Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally next Saturday.Problem is Nugent is booked at the Boise Knitting Factory Concert House that night, and won't be attending the Beck event.But this actually wasn't the only fact Olbermann got wrong on MSNBC's "Countdown," for…

The co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Joe Scarborough, strongly believes certain networks would play the race card big time against southern Republican Haley Barbour, if he runs for President in 2012.[see related post with video here]Scarborough predicted on Thursday that if the Mississippi governor is the Republican Presidential nominee in 2012, the media would smear him as a racist white man…

Gee, I wonder which network Joe had in mind . . . Joe Scarborough likes Haley Barbour.  But he doesn't like the "optics" of the southern governor running for president against Barack Obama.  Scarborough's worried that "certain networks" would "maul" the man Scarborough referred to as "Boss Hogg." [H/t reader Ray R.]Interestingly, both the Politico's Jim VandeHei and Tina Brown of the Daily…

The transformation of Reverend Al Sharpton from street provocateur to civil rights eminence ranks as one of the more remarkable image makeovers in American public life. And mainstream journalism has played a central role. Anyone doubting as much should read the recent (August 2) cover story of Newsweek magazine, "The Reinvention of the Reverend." Written by Allison Samuels and Jerry Adler, the…

Juan Williams on Saturday said when it comes to news stories about race, America's media always make black people the victims and white people the perpetrators. As the discussion on "Fox News Watch" turned to last week's murders at a Hartford, Connecticut, beer distributor, host Jon Scott read clippings from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press all claiming the killer…

Discussing Harry Reid's racially-charged comment about Hispanic Republicans, Rick Sanchez miraculously managed to turn the embattled senator's gaffe into an example of his opponent Sharron Angle's incompetence. On the prime time "Rick's List" yesterday, the CNN host actually gave serious consideration to the Nevada Democrat's claim while exploring the extent to which the Angle campaign is "…

New Black Panther Party leader Samir Shabazz on Monday made an anti-Semitic remark while blaming the Fox News Channel for fanning the fires of discontent over his involvement in voter intimidation back in November 2008.As NewsBusters reported on Election Day that year, two Black Panthers were situated outside a polling station in Philadelphia (video right).This eventually led to complaints by the…

Variety Magazine TV critic Brian Lowry - formerly a reporter for NPR and the Los Angeles Times - surely was not a member of JournoList. But he sure writes like he was. Lowry took a page directly out of the Spencer Ackerman Guide to Dubious Racism Accusations in his most recent column, claiming the Fox News Channel caters to racial fear and resentment to sell its brand.Lowry provided no examples…

In a report on Arizona's immigration law for CBS's Sunday Morning, correspondent John Blackstone declared: "In the heat of the Arizona summer, America's long-simmering immigration debate is boiling over." He portrayed it as the latest wave of anti-immigrant sentiment: "The often-angry debate....whether yet another influx of outsiders can be accepted into a nation of immigrants."  At the top of…