IBD Notes Three Global Warming Stories The U.S. Press Has Ignored

Yesterday, I noted that Associated Press reporter Karl Ritter actually wrote, and AP actually published, a story about how complying with the Paris climate agreement would require greenhouse gas emissions "To Drop Below Zero." Perhaps Ritter, whose beat includes "cover(ing) climate change, from UN negotiations to Arctic melt," looked around and realized that if he didn't put out something…
Tom Blumer
December 27th, 2015 10:17 AM

Year-End Awards: The Hopeless Haters Award

Since last week, NewsBusters has been presenting each category from the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Hopeless Haters Award,” for the worst quotes denigrating the conservative GOP presidential candidates. Winning the top slot: MSNBC Morning Joe regular Donny Deutsch, who on March 23 slammed just-declared…
Rich Noyes
December 27th, 2015 9:47 AM

WashPost Laments Hawaii's 'Embarrassing' Failure to Honor Obama

This is what occurs in a slow-news environment at The Washington Post: they lament the lack of honors for Barack Obama. The front page of Saturday’s paper carried the headline “Hawaii wipes out in Obama honors.” Reporters Greg Jaffe and Juliet Eilperin spent 1,286 words unspooling  the “embarrassing record” of Hawaii’s failure to name more than a snowcone after the current president.
Tim Graham
December 27th, 2015 8:33 AM

Maddow Producer: GOP Nutty Even By Global Standards

President Obama considers the Republican party an international outlier, and so does MSNBC's Steve Benen. (That’s “outlier,” not “outlaw,” though, who knows, for them that may be a distinction without a difference.) After quoting Obama’s recent comment that the GOP is “the only major party that I can think of in the advanced world that effectively denies climate change,” Benen, who’s also the…
Tom Johnson
December 27th, 2015 1:32 AM

HuffPo: We Should Unplug Our Energy-Burning Christmas Decorations

In the annual competition between leftist media outlets for the screwiest (or most Scrooge-like) criticism of Christmas traditions, a Huffingon Post item published Thursday morning by Michael McLaughlin (HT Breitbart) was a formidable entry. After the HuffPo reporter's headline noted that "U.S. Christmas Lights Burn More Energy Than Some Nations In A Year," he suggested that "maybe we should…
Tom Blumer
December 26th, 2015 11:30 PM

Media Help Hillary Oddly Hype Slick Willie as a 'Secret Weapon'

One of the more tiresome cliches of political coverage is the “secret weapon.” Twenty years ago, Hillary Clinton was promoted as her husband’s “secret weapon.” Now it’s the reverse. Peter Nicholas of  The Wall Street Journal wrote a story aping the Clinton spin, headlined “Hillary Clinton’s ‘Secret Weapon’ Could Escalate Campaign Rhetoric.” Bill has been described by reporters as a secret weapon…
Tim Graham
December 26th, 2015 11:02 PM

NY Times Reporter Is Not Amused; Rolls Eyes at Jeb’s Dry Wit

In Saturday’s New York Times, reporter Matt Flegenheimer took a hostile tone in an ostensibly light-hearted story about Jeb Bush’s surprising reserves of humor in Saturday’s “Bush Camp Suggests (Very) Secret Weapon: Its Candidate Is Funny.” Turns out Jeb! has a decent line in dry wit, but the Times resolutely refused to be amused by the struggling Republican candidate: “Who says @JebBush doesn’t…
Clay Waters
December 26th, 2015 7:25 PM

Lump of Coal from Steve Hayes, Puts Media at Top of His ‘Naughty List’

“At the very top of my naughty list” for the year, the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes announced on the Christmas Day edition of FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier, are “the mainstream media.” Hayes cited how “the coverage of President Obama and Hillary Clinton in particular this past year has been abysmal,” pointing to the failure to correct Obama’s “unequivocally wrong” assertions about…
Brent Baker
December 26th, 2015 12:56 PM

Time's Joe Klein Awards Obama for 'Continued Moderation'

Time columnist Joe Klein conceives of himself as outside the “blinkered orthodoxy” of the political parties, but for many years he’s been a blinkered adorer of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, touting them both as centrists despite the governing realities. In handing out his “Teddy” (for Roosevelt) awards for "doers, diplomats, and leaders who ignored our worst instincts," the trend continued. He…
Tim Graham
December 26th, 2015 11:20 AM

Part of a Real AP Headline: 'Emissions Need To Drop Below Zero'

The detachment from reality of those who actually believe that the recent international climate agreement in Paris is anything but a dangerous and potentially expensive charade has become especially irritating. The goals identified in Paris are obviously unachievable, and have no direct tie-in to reducing "global warming." Convincing evidence of the link between carbon dioxide generation and…
Tom Blumer
December 26th, 2015 10:56 AM

Year End Awards: The Ruining the Revolution Award

Since Monday, NewsBusters has been presenting each category from the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Ruining the Revolution Award,” for journalists wailing about how awful it will be for communist Cuba to become more like the capitalist U.S. Winning this award, Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith who…
Rich Noyes
December 26th, 2015 9:59 AM

Bozell & Graham Column: Cultural Winners and Losers of 2015

ABC News devoted a fluffy two-hour special to the year in review, studying the news and pop culture. They had a “Dishonor Roll” segment where they mocked the adultery of Josh Duggar and the scandal of the adultery website Ashley Madison when its client list leaked. They scorned the dentist that shot “Cecil the Lion,” white activist Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black, Real Housewives of Beverly…
Brent Bozell and Tim Graham
December 26th, 2015 8:12 AM

Liberal Pundit: Scandal-Free Obama Has Avoided ‘Second-Term Curse’

Bill Scher runs a website called Liberal Oasis, which makes it unsurprising that his Monday RealClearPolitics column celebrated President Obama’s avoidance (so far) of the “second-term curse” that supposedly afflicted George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and some of their predecessors in the White House. Scher exults that Obama “has not been knocked off course by scandal” and lauds him for “master[…

Tom Johnson
December 26th, 2015 12:12 AM

AP Ignores Minn. Terror Suspect's Involvement With Airport De-Icing

In a year-end interview with National Public Radio, President Barack Obama largely blamed "a saturation of news" coming from a media which "is pursuing ratings" for growing concerns in America over the ability of ISIS and other terrorists to conduct attacks on U.S. soil, and indicated that "it's up to the media to make a determination about how they want to cover things." It's reasonable to…
Tom Blumer
December 25th, 2015 11:58 PM