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No good deed goes unpunished. In her cynical front-page story Saturday, New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir wrote on what she called on her Twitter feed "race, class, and the hurricane," fishing for criticism of the wealthy whites who donated time and money and effort to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and providing some on her own. Yet it's the alleged victims of all that generosity…

Appearing on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman worked to downplay the terrorist attack in Libya: "There are diplomats that go to dangerous places, and sometimes...they get killed. It is a tragedy. To me, Libya is not a scandal, it's a tragedy." While the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was indeed a tragedy,…

According to the Atlantic Monthly and the receptive audience at MSNBC, the year's "brave" and "provocative" thinkers include Lena Dunham, who made an ad comparing voting to sex, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tried to ban large sodas. [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Jansing and Co. Guest anchor Richard Lui introduced Atlantic Monthly editor James Bennet by hyping, "The Atlantic…

Saturday's New York Times front page featured former Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner's take on the rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza: "Israel, Battlefield Altered, Takes a Tougher Approach." Bronner, whose coverage as bureau chief was not sympathetic toward Israel's side of the conflict, subtly suggested (via the trick of the phrase "many analysts and diplomats outside Israel")…

It's rare that we take on liberal newspaper columnists. They're entitled to their opinions and no one expects them to adhere to a standard of objectivity. But on those occasions when a columnist transgresses the bounds of decency, we have to take note. The Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts Jr. is one such opinion writer. In his November 17 column he argued some of the blame for a suicide in Key…

Last week it was Republican strategist Steve Schmidt blaming Mitt Romney's loss on conservative "loons and wackos," this week on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, fellow Republican strategist Mike Murphy joined the media chorus demanding the GOP move left: "...if we don't modernize conservatism, we can go extinct....we've got to get kind of a party view of America that's not right out of Rush…

On November 14, the Hill reported that "Senate Democrats, feeling confident from their net gain of two seats in last week’s election, say any deficit-reduction package negotiated in the coming weeks must include stimulus measures." Alexander Bolton's writeup quoted Senator Chuck Schumer publicly asserting that "We have to do something because the economy is not growing fast enough in the first…

Anderson Cooper had a bit of a scare Monday morning. Appearing on a CNN Newsroom broadcast from Gaza airing around 7PM eastern time Sunday, Cooper was rocked by a huge explosion behind him (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters' Tim Graham reported, CNN's Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist bragged that his is the only network "that hasn't picked sides in this election," and that viewers responded to CNN's credibility by making it the most-watched cable news channel on election night. Of course, this begs the question of why viewers haven't turned to CNN on most other nights but regardless, Feist's…

On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, as noted at HonestReporting.com, host Cooper devoted a one-minute segment to informing viewers that his show on Thursday had used footage of a Palestinian man in Gaza who was apparently faking injury for the benefit of cameras. Cooper began his retraction:

The media in Fargo, North Dakota were scandalized when a nearby Minnesota priest informed the parents of Lennon Cihak that he would not be confirmed in the local Catholic church after he posted a picture on Facebook supporting gay marriage (or a No vote on the traditional-marriage ballot initiative). Naturally, the liberal parents – who agree with their son – were shocked, shocked that the…

When Barack Obama was campaigning for president in 2008, he and his supporters in the media claimed his election would create a post-racial America. Far from accomplishing that, the United States appears more racially divided than it has in decades.

In a Friday report at the Associated Press on Friday with a celebratory headline ("2 YEARS AFTER IPO, GM IS PILING UP CASH"), Auto Writer Tom Krisher described bailed-out General Motors as "thriving," but didn't identify one of the important reasons for that characterization. In paragraphs about the company's profitability and cash stockpile, Krisher failed to note that the company still hasn…

A video at CNN with reporting by Sara Sidner from Gaza tells us "how a small child became a symbol of civilian casualties." Some of her narrative: "A scene no parent should ever have to endure"; "Four year-old Mahmoud Sadallah lies dead in the arms of a neighbor, a child of Gaza, another victim of an airstrike"; "we saw no evidence here of military activity." There's even a scene where Ms.…