FNC's Baier Mentions NB Item on MSNBC's Brewer Hoping Times Square Bom

NewsBusters contributor Scott Whitlock's May 4 item, "MSNBC's Contessa Brewer 'Frustrated' That Times Square Bomber Is a Muslim" was noticed by Fox News Channel "Special Report" anchor Bret Baier, who included a reference to the story and the underlying controversy in his May 5 "Grapevine" segment. [MP3 audio available here; click play on embed at right to watch video] Brewer, a daytime live news…
NB Staff

Olbermann Channels Obsession to Discover BP Spill Culprit: It's 'Chene

Usually, the crazy rantings of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann can be dismissed as the norm and easily ignored. But on May 5, Olbermann gave a glimpse of an obsession with former Vice President Dick Cheney - a man that has been out of office for 471 days - that was just too bizarre to let go.  Although Olbermann didn't outright absolve the Obama administration for not responding quick enough to the…
Jeff Poor

Olbermann Finds BP Spill Culprit: It's 'Cheney's Katrina

'Countdown' host uses a series of loose associations to declare former vice president is really to blame for Gulf tragedy.
Jeff Poor

Networks Fail to Expose GM's Misleading Commercial

Have you seen the new General Motors commercial? In it, CEO Ed Whitacre highlights the taxpayer-funded bailout GM received and then brags: "We have repaid our government loan, in full with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule." That advertisement (Watch it here) gives the impression that A) GM is financially stable and able to repay its debts B) the government bailout was…
Julia A. Seymour

Open Thread

NB Staff

Daily Kos: 'All Religions Pale In Comparison' to Environmentalism

Daily Kos may be an almost official stop of the Democratic Party -- today's top ad demands you help the Arizona Democrats fight the new immigration law -- but it's certainly not a religious website. In fact, last Friday, the blogger "HumeSkeptic" declared that all religions pale in comparison to earth worship:  In so far as all morality is fundamentally based on preservation, betterment and…
Tim Graham

Olbermann's Absurd Defense Of Banning Dissenting Voices From Show

Looks like thin-skinned Keith Olbermann is getting defensive about his policy of banning show guests who disagree with him.  An MSNBC Countdown promo features Olbermann advancing an absurd non sequitur to justify his echo-chamber approach.Claiming to be "misunderstood" over his guest policy, Olbermann says he asks questions "to find out if I'm wildly incorrect" about something.  Olbermann thereby…
Mark Finkelstein

NPR Touts 'Reverse Neighborhood Watches' That Alert Illegals That the

NPR's All Things Considered devoted an entire one-sided story Tuesday night to the apparently heart-breaking news that illegal aliens are considering moving out of Arizona to more illegal-friendly states.Reporter Ted Robbins spent his whole story talking to illegal aliens and their defenders about how they're misunderstood, and even touted how community organizers are "flexing their political…
Tim Graham

Unmarried Births at All-Time High

Pew Research Center cites softened American disapproval as reason for increased out-of-wedlock births.
Colleen Raezler

Nashville Flood 2010: The Disaster You May Not Have Heard About

A great American city is currently buried under a sea of water, but you may not know much about it given all the attention media have given to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the failed car bomb attempt in New York's Times Square.The rain totals are almost unimaginable as is the flooding.Damage estimates at this point have already surpassed a billion dollars, and are likely to go higher.…
Noel Sheppard

Newsweek Hysterically Accuses Media of Helping Tea Party in Indiana

On Wednesday, Newsweek's Andrew Romano celebrated news out of Indiana that "establishment" Republican Dan Coats fended off two conservative opponents in the Senate primary. Romano's obvious delight came through loud and clear starting with the headline, "The Tea Party is Now Irrelevant in Indiana." You see, one loss in a Senate primary was enough to declare the movement DOA - and Romano was…
Candance Moore

Shahzad's Motive 'Unclear' to CBS, Cites Money Pressure Since He 'Hasn

Botched bomber Faisal Shahzad's failure to achieve the “American dream” may have been an important motive for his terrorist act, CBS's Bob Orr contended Wednesday night in a story in which he declared: “Shahzad's motive also remains unclear.” After noting how Shahzad “told interrogators he's upset with U.S. policies which he feels unfairly target Muslims and he's angry over Predator strikes that…
Brent Baker

AP Downplays Large GOP Turnout Advantage in Early Primaries

The Associated Press managed to report on yesterday's primaries in North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio while muddling the incontrovertibly disastrous results for Democrats in those states. Even while touting the races as harbingers for November, the AP failed to extrapolate the trends right before their eyes.In short, turnout for Republican primaries in all three states was up almost across the…
Lachlan Markay

CNN's Sanchez on Tuesday's Primaries: 'Turnout Was Way, Way Underwhelm

On today's Rick's List, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez brandished those reportorial skills for which he's so famous.  He and national political correspondent Jessica Yellin discussed Tuesday's primaries and the "Sarah Palin and the Tea Party influences."  Not surprisingly, they agreed they had little impact:JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yesterday's elections showed that there was…
Mike Bates