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This is the seventh year I have looked into how the media treats two Christmas-related topics: The use of “Christmas shopping season” vs. “holiday shopping season” and the relative frequency of "Christmas" and "holiday" layoff references. Unfortunately, the hints of improvement late last year, when 20% of stories in the late December pre-Christmas search referenced the "Christmas shopping…

Appearing as a guest on Monday's Today show on NBC, the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman - also of MSNBC and formerly of Newsweek - hyperbolically referred to "megalomania" in GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in response to Gingrich's over the top comparison of Virginia's restrictive ballot access laws being like a Pearl Harbor attack on his campaign. The show did not delve into…

It’s the Christmas season, and ABCnews.com is celebrating Christ’s birth in the way that media types know best: promoting homosexuality and bashing traditional Christians for their unwavering stance on homosexuality. A Dec 23 piece (in the “Health” Section) by reporter Susan Donaldson James, titled “Holiday Homophobia: Is It Christian to Reject Gay Partners?”, prominently features two…

The Huffington Post is so energetically "progressive" that it can even ask "Can robots be homewreckers?" Over at CNSNews.com, Paul Wilson of the Culture and Media Insititute investigated the science-fiction details.   "A December 20 piece in the Huffington Post, titled 'Can Loving a Robot Lead to Divorce?' raised the possibility of marriage with robots, and examined the potential effects of…

On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff asked liberal political analyst Mark Shields and his pseudo-conservative counterpart David Brooks if they had a "holiday wish" for someone in politics, and Shields, in almost weekly delight for how much Brooks agrees with him, said "My wish is that everybody, whoever he or she is, has a colleague as civil and decent and honorable as David Brooks…

In light of the development this weekend that Mitt Romney and Ron Paul were the only two presidential candidates who had enough valid signatures to appear on the Virginia Republican primary ballot on March 6,  the American Spectator's John Fund appeared on Sunday's Fox and Friends on FNC and suggested that Newt Gingrich may yet find a way to secure a spot on the Virginia ballot. (Video below)

During a roundtable discussion on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, after asserting that in past years divided government had "produced some really remarkable pieces of legislation," correspondent Nancy Cordes blamed the presence of Tea Party Republicans for less congressional success in enacting legislation this year. (Video below) Anchor Bob Schieffer raised the difficulty Congress has had…

It's become a NewsBusters tradition to have the Peanuts character Linus explain the true meaning of Christmas. Without further ado (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Saturday's NBC Nightly News, during a report recounting the gathering of Christian pilgrims in Bethlehem for Christmas celebrations, correspondent Martin Fletcher relayed Palestinian complaints about Israel, and gave attention to the display of an anti-Israel publicity stunt set to coincide with the occasion taking advantage of a Christmas tree theme. (Video below)  

Adam Nicolson couldn't resist inserting a blast at traditional sexual ethics into an article about the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible in the December 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. Nicolson labeled the Book of Leviticus's condemnation of homosexual acts a "troubling part of the King James inheritance: a ferocious and singular moral vision that has become unacceptable in…

During her interview with President and Mrs. Obama which aired on Friday's 20/20, ABC's Barbara Walters made a point of contrasting GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's history of marital problems with the successful marriage of the First Family.  (Video below) Walters introduced the topic as she observed:

Laura Ingraham comes closest to nailing Ed Schultz's persona -- Ingraham sees him as the hothead "Heat Miser" of the mid-'70s animated Christmas special, "The Year Without a Santa Claus." But Schultz isn't miserly when it comes to what he considers hate speech. Just about any criticism of President Obama qualifies. (audio clips after page break)

As NBC co-anchor Amy Robach teased Saturday's Today show, she described the Republican House's passage of the Senate version of a temporary payroll tax cut extension as President Obama scoring "a win for some 160 million workers." (Video below)

National Public Radio was replaying "holiday favorites" on Friday's Morning Edition -- to be specific, allowing humorist David Sedaris offer a very nasty take on Christmas as he played "Crumpet the Elf" at Macy's. In a seven-minute reading from his "Santaland Diaries," there's some rather shocking attempts at humor that aren't exactly warm and fuzzy. Sedaris's elf shouted at a woman for…