Latest Blogs

On Sunday, the season premiere of 60 Minutes will include an anticipated Scott Pelley report on the Ground Zero mosque. Will the story be pro-mosque, just like President Obama? The first clips displayed softballs of sympathy, that it should be seen as "a hub of culture, a hub of coexistence, a hub of bringing people together." To underline the overwhelming sympathetic tilt of this program in the…

A NewsBusters article about misstatements made by former President Bill Clinton on "Meet the Press" sparked a fact-checking examination by the St. Petersburg Times' PolitiFact.As reported Sunday, Clinton bragged to host David Gregory that his administration had "paid down the debt for four years, paid down $600 billion on the national debt."This of course was quite incorrect as the debt didn't…

ABC's John Berman on Wednesday sarcastically narrated a brief history of Tea Party movement. Interestingly, the Nightline reporter (see file photo at right) skipped the media's role in suggesting that the Tea Party movement is filled with racists. He only vaguely recounted, "Tea Party called fringe, called racist, called a fad." Hinting these protesters are extreme should be familiar to Berman.…

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough – who when a Republican congressman voted to impeach President Clinton – seems to believe that a former President should be able to legally  run for office again after taking "a term or two off." His comments followed a gushing slew of praise for former President Bill Clinton, and he noted that many viewers "are just sitting there thinking 'Why can't [Clinton] run for…

Just two days before Glenn Beck's August 28 "Restoring Honor" rally, the Washington Post published an article about how the rally would "be a measure of the tea party's strength.""When Fox News and talk radio host Glenn Beck comes to Washington this weekend to headline a rally intended to 'restore honor' to America, he will test the strength - and potentially expose the weaknesses - of a…

It appears that the Huffington Post isn’t just upsetting people for its often uncouth and liberal take on the day’s news. Now people are getting irritated with its willingness to reprint other outlet’s content while offering minimal credit. And so goes the view of former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie, Jr., author of “The Rules of the Game.” During his remarks at the James Cameron…

NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory spoke on Tuesday at the City Club in Seattle, Washington, and John Hamer of the Washington News Council reported on Gregory's remarks, which he found pretty bland. He found some spice in Gregory's answers to audience questions. On Jon Stewart's "sanity" rally on Halloween weekend: "He's a comedian, but he's also got a point of view. I think what they do is…

The first wave of Obama-care goes into effect today, and New York Times health-care reporter Kevin Sack celebrated with a series of propaganda-style articles for the front of the National section, topped by "For Many Families, Health Care Relief Begins Today." (As did higher costs and denied coverage, but the Times didn't get into that.) The Times's headline reads more like an Obama…

Once again, immigration-beat reporter Julia Preston finds "dozens of college students" protesting in South Beach worth a 1,200-word story: "Dozens of college students lay down on South Beach on Sunday afternoon, but not to sunbathe. Most were immigrants in this country illegally, and their bodies, fully clothed, formed giant letters that spelled out a message for Floridians and one of their…

So what's more important: The fact that independents are as "upset" as Republicans, or that Americans' disapproval of how President Obama is handling the economy is at an all-time high? Here's another priority-related question: Is it more important that "independents and Republicans were half as likely as Democrats to be inspired and less prone to be hopeful, excited and proud," or that…

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Thursday offered up Democratic talking points as he discussed a new set of Republican promises, should the GOP win Congress. The skeptical host interviewed Representative Paul Ryan and repeated, "You heard the President. He said this is the exact same agenda as Republicans had before he came to office. How is it different?" In a tease for the…

One of the most common threads in the media recently has been how bad the Tea Party movement has been for this United States. It has been derided for lacking racial diversity, promoting policies outside the so-called mainstream and blamed for creating a civil war within the Republican Party. The media often stress those “negatives” at the expense of the positive basic tenets of the Tea Party…

Newsweek's Ben Adler is decidedly cool to the newly-unveiled Republican "Pledge with America." No surprise there, coming from a liberal journalist. But among his criticisms, perhaps he's most off-base in his complaint about Republicans' promise to ensure that legislation must be constitutional before it is passed along to the president for his signature (emphasis mine):Not so harmless, however,…

UPDATE (9/30 - 1:13 pm): The Society of Professional Journalists emailed me requesting a correction. Clarification - though no correction - below the fold. When American religious leaders spoke out against the planned burning of Korans by a crazy Florida pastor, it was a hot news item. Likewise, when another group of clergy condemned the supposed "anti-Muslim frenzy" in the United States, the…