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Late Friday afternoon, roughly two hours ("shortly after noon" Pacific Time) after the press release announcing Oregon Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber's resignation effective next Wednesday, Philip Bump at the Washington Post's "The Fix" blog tried to explain away the national press's nearly complete failure to cover Kitzhaber's mounting ethical and now potentially criminal problems for nearly…

Friday's CBS Evening News and ABC's World News Tonight both devoted less than half a minute each of air time to the resignation of the Democratic governor of Oregon, John Kitzhaber. CBS's Scott Pelley failed to provide Kitzhaber's party ID during his 20-second news brief. By contrast, ABC's David Muir gave the outgoing politician's political affiliation during his 17-second brief.

Appearing as a guest speaker at the Reagan Library in 2008, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams was asked who his "wow interview" was with, or what person would fit the bill. Williams tweaked the question before responding in a way that prompted an approving murmur through the audience, which presumably was what he intended.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's name is not first on most people's list of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but maybe we should at least start paying attention to him. If one's political enemies are any indication of potential strength, Jindal of Louisiana may be a more formidable force than some people realize. During a visit to Washington Monday, Washington Post columnist…

NBC News took the step of acknowledging on Friday’s Today show that the man accused of killing three Muslims in North Carolina held atheist beliefs after having ignored that element of this tragic story in both their morning and evening newscasts since the first stories aired on Wednesday night. During the program’s 7:00 a.m. hour, newsreader Natalie Morales referred to Craig Stephens Hicks in a…

To Yesha Callahan of The Root, actor Vince Vaughn's critique of affirmative action -- which is rooted in his libertarian political leanings -- is not worth engaging on an intellectual level as a debatable philosophical proposition. It's just straight-up invalid because Vaughn is "tall," "rich" and "white."

Chris Matthews on Thursday snarled that the Republican Party has rejected Abraham Lincoln and become the home to racists. The Hardball anchor equated voter ID laws with bigotry, sneering that "you would think" that "no political party would want to be seen putting up obstacles to voting, that no party would want to be seen as the declared enemy of a large voting group." 

Frank Pallotta of CNN Money hyped in a Friday article that "in just one week, the media world has lost, in one way or another, four of its titans" – suspended NBC News anchor Brian Williams, liberal Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, CBS correspondent Bob Simon, and David Carr of the New York Times. Pallotta played up that "if the impact of losing Williams wasn't enough, in the same hour on Tuesday…

NPR’s All Things Considered was surprisingly honest on Wednesday night about Jon Stewart’s departure from The Daily Show. Stewart was credited for “influencing the way a generation of young people, especially liberals, view the news and politics.” Correspondent Don Gonyea admitted the president of the College Democrats “sees Jon Stewart as being on her side” and cited research that shows Stewart…

Time travel to ‘the grassy knoll’?

Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN spotlighted another set of questionable accounts by Brian Williams regarding a supposed relationship with Navy SEAL Team Six. Williams claimed that he traveled with the unit into Iraq just three days after the 2003 invasion; that SEAL "friends" of his sent him a piece of the wreckage from the helicopter that crashed on the 2011 raid that killed bin Laden; and…

Update, 3:50 p.m. Eastern: Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D) announced his resignation Friday afternoon and will be effective next Wednesday (February 18). ---------------------- With calls for Democratic Govenor John Kitzhaber to resign and Secretary of State referring to the Governor’s behavior Thursday as “strange” and “bizarre,” one would think that the media would devote time to a story…

Sonia Saraiya suggests that Stewart “is one of the most influential political figures of our era” and claims that “as difficult as it has been to advance a progressive agenda over the last 16 years, it would likely have been impossible without Stewart’s ability to connect to millions of viewers and remind them that they weren’t alone in hoping for something better.”

NBC and ABC on Friday gushed over a new video of the President taking selfies and making silly faces as he promotes ObamaCare. Only CBS This Morning wondered if the President was diminishing the office. Good Morning America's Amy Robach parroted the White House commercial as just another fun, viral video. The journalist enthused, "Trending this morning, the President is presiding on Facebook with…