Racism

CNN really showed its bias in reacting to two very different Supreme Court decisions this week. On Tuesday, the Court struck down a portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; in the hours that followed, CNN's coverage included four times as many critics of the decision as supporters (8 vs. 2). Then on Wednesday, the Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and permitted the nullification of…

It only took a few minutes for the Rev. Al Sharpton, host of MSNBC's weekday “PoliticsNation” program, to denounce the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to overturn Section IV of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires regions to submit new apportionment plans to the Justice Department before any changes can be made. “What they just [sic] done is really revoke a lot” of what Martin Luther…

Writing for the liberal Atlantic magazine today, CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen jumped off the proverbial deep end by comparing today's Supreme Court ruling invalidating section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 to two infamous Supreme Court decisions from the 19th century. "[T]he Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County is one of the worst in the history of the institution. As a…

CNN's Joe Johns pitted some "conservatives" against "civil rights advocates" on Tuesday in provocative fashion, after the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. "I think you can say this is a home run for conservatives who said this law shouldn't be in place and this is a big loss for those civil rights advocates who have been fighting to go sustain this law…

Andrea Mitchell often straddles line between being a straight journalist and engaging in activist journalism to push liberal causes on NBC and MSNBC. Following the Supreme Court’s invalidation of section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, Mitchell used her daily MSNBC show to push for Congress to pass new legislation in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.  In service of that objective, Mitchell…

When the subject of race comes up, MSNBC has an odd habit of bringing on highly controversial guests with a history of racially insensitive comments to discuss race in America. Take for example the recent controversy surrounding chef Paula Deen whose contract with the Food Network was not renewed following revelations during a legal deposition that she had used the N-word in private…

MSNBC’s penchant for stoking racial animosity in service to a liberal agenda reached a new low on June 25 following the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the Voting Rights Act. Following the decision that Section 4 of the Act was unconstitutional, MSNBC’s Chris Jansing claimed that the ruling was an outright “setback for civil rights.” That's doubtless a claim that many liberal advocates will…

As I mentioned last week, ABC’s "news" program “What Would You Do?” features scripted actors dramatizing so-called “real life” events, which call out for ordinary Americans to intervene.  The program's producers love to gin up scenarios, which apparently are designed to bring out bigotry and racism from fellow Americans who are supposed to identify with the actors portraying the absurd…

On the Friday, June 21, PoliticsNation on MSNBC, host Al Sharpton brought up former President Ronald Reagan giving a speech in 1980 near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights activists were famously murdered in 1963. Referring to then-candidate Reagan's first speech after the Republican convention which he delivered at the Neshoba County Fair a few miles from…

The June 14 episode of ABC’s What Would You Do again trolled for the archetypal intolerant conservative American that are supposedly around every bend in two outrageous segments concerning a gay Boy Scout and a racist deli shop customer.  The show, which uses actors to play out outrageous scenarios to see how unsuspecting passers-by react, hosted the gay Boy Scout scenario at a roadside…

How’s this for chutzpah: On the June 10 Today, did a segment on the difficult process of jury selection for the George Zimmerman trial, given the highly publicized racial issues surrounding the case. NBC’s Carl Quintanilla asked “Today” Legal Expert Lisa Bloom, “Has media coverage already influenced this jury?” Yes it has, and NBC has more to answer for than most. For a full week in March,…

To Slate’s Jeremy Stahl, the drunk-driving kid of a Democratic politician is far less scandalous than offensive tweets from the progeny of a conservative Republican. There really isn’t much point to Stahl's June 14 piece, "Hereditary Traits: Bigoted taunts by the children of GOP honchos have everything to do with politics." In fact, it’s abjectly stupid.  But Stahl runs completely off the…

On Saturday's Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC, substitute anchor Ari Melber hosted a panel of liberals fretting over Republican efforts to restrict abortion, with one guest even theorizing that Republicans are motivated by a racist desire to prevent white women from having abortions as a way of "reproducing whiteness, white supremacy, white privilege." Melber seemed quite accepting of…

Cole Sear from The Sixth Sense sees dead people, and Joe Scarborough, like pretty much everyone else at MSNBC, sees racism. That’s just the way it is. On Friday, the Morning Joe crew was chatting about a recent NRA attack ad against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) when Scarborough took issue with the image of President Obama shown briefly in the ad: "[P]eople called me up and said, what do you…