Iowa '08 Flashback: Media Begins Flirtation with Obama, But Still Hail
January 3rd, 2012 4:54 PM
At this time four years ago the liberal media was just starting its flirtation with Barack Obama in Iowa, while others still carried the torch for Hillary Clinton. On the eve before the Iowa caucus Chris Matthews, on Hardball, hoped that an Obama win in Iowa would send the message to the world that a "despised" America was truly ready to "change." For her part, then Today co-host Meredith…
NYT's Parker Celebrates 'Obama's Eloquent and Inspiring Rhetoric...Soa
January 3rd, 2012 4:44 PM
New York Times campaign reporter Ashley Parker, following GOP candidate Mitt Romney around Iowa, nonetheless managed to celebrate Barack Obama’s "eloquent and inspiring rhetoric in the state four years ago" in Sunday’s “Romney Quotes His Favorite Patriotic Songs and Offers Voters an Interpretation.”
New Times Watch Quotes of Note: 2011 Worst Quotes of the Year
December 31st, 2011 8:55 AM
Times Watch’s end-of-year awards issue celebrates the best of the worst quotes that appeared in the paper or were uttered by Times reporters and columnists during 2011.
The New York Times spent much of the year in pro-Obama defense mode, excoriating the Tea Party and conservative opposition to Obama's agenda. Yet the paper found one movement it could embrace wholeheartedly – the leftist…
NYT Correspondent Knocks Bachmann as 'A Little Bit Combustible and Vol
December 30th, 2011 11:45 AM
Reporting on the campaigns in Iowa on Friday's Early Show, Times political correspondent Jeff Zeleny belittled candidate Michele Bachmann as "a little bit combustible and volatile."
Zeleny added that "Anyone knows what she could do," in response to CBS anchor Jeff Glor's question about the potential for a candidate to do something before the Iowa Caucus to change the GOP race. [Video below…
Worst Quotes of 2011: Yesterday’s Media ‘Thrills’ Replaced by Bi
December 30th, 2011 9:32 AM
Back in 2008 and 2009, the Media Research Center’s year-end awards for the Best Notable Quotables were dominated by journalists fawning over the greatness of Barack Obama. In 2008, our winner for “Quote of the Year” was Chris Matthews for his on-air exclamation that upon hearing Obama give a speech, “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.”
NYT's Anti-Concealed Carry Report Actually Proves That No. Carolina an
December 28th, 2011 10:59 PM
It seems that if you're a New York Times reporter on a mission to prove something you think must be obvious and your research leads to the exact opposite result from what you smugly expected, you forge ahead and try to pretend that you proved your point anyway.
At least that how it seems to have worked out for Times reporter Michael Luo in a report appearing in Tuesday's print edition which…
NYTimes Reporter Parker Dwells on Robotic Romney's 'Peculiar Habit,' S
December 28th, 2011 7:33 PM
New York Times political reporter Ashley Parker made Wednesday’s front page with yet another “Isn’t Romney stiff?”-themed story, “The Retooled, Loose Romney, Guessing Voters’ Age and Ethnicity,” cowritten with Michael Barbaro.
The Times has put Romney's mannerisms under the microscope on several occasions. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic candidate in 2004, was another rich Northern…
NYT's Peters on the 'Dog-Whistle Politics,' Subliminal Crosses of the
December 28th, 2011 4:36 PM
New York Times media reporter Jeremy Peters was seeing things in Wednesday’s story on secret, “dog-whistle” religious appeals by GOP candidates past and present: “Appealing to Evangelicals, Hopefuls Pack Religion Into Ads.”
“Dog-whistle politics” is a derogatory term, often employed to describe what liberals consider to be coded, subliminal racist messages “pitched” too high for the general…
'Worst Piece' of NYTimes Climate Reporting Ever? Justin Gillis's Chris
December 28th, 2011 10:29 AM
New York Times environmental reporter Justin Gillis took the left-wing idea of extreme weather equaling harmful global warming to heart in his front-page Christmas Day “news analysis” lamenting the Republican block of measures that would document “climate change” more closely, in “Harsh Political Reality Slows Climate Studies Despite Extreme Year.” But an environmental scientist eviscerated…
NYT Outshines AP's Awful Coverage of 'Mourners' at Kim Jong Il's Funer
December 28th, 2011 10:08 AM
At the New York Times Thursday morning, reporter Choe Sang-Hun's covering the funeral for late North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il made it clear to readers that it "The funeral, and the mourning, appeared to have been meticulously choreographed by the government." Meanwhile, over at the Associated Press (saved here at host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes), a story involving…
NY Times Buried David Barstow's Reluctant Pentagon Vindication on Chri
December 27th, 2011 4:02 PM
An April 20, 2008 New York Times story by David Barstow, “MESSAGE MACHINE: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” won a Pulitzer Prize for the explosive claim that the Pentagon had cultivated “military analysts” in a “trojan horse” campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay.
On December 1 of this year, the…
What Time of Year Is It? In the Press, 'Holiday Shopping Season' Still
December 26th, 2011 12:08 PM
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…
America the Generous? Not According to the Media
December 21st, 2011 1:17 PM
The media and liberals tend to portray Americans as selfish Scrooges, only interested in their own gain - why else would taxes be unpopular? But America has shown its generosity time and again, and this Christmas season, new proof of it has emerged. A report from the Charities Aid Foundation America, the World Giving Index 2011, finds that the United States is the most generous country in the…
Open Thread: Labor Unrest at the New York Times
December 21st, 2011 10:32 AM
In what could become a major battle between several newspaper unions and the New York Times, according to the New York Post, the Communications Workers of America has already earmarked $350,000 to put towards the conflict that could arise.
The Newspaper Guild and the Mailers Union Local 6 have both been without contracts since March 31. Both of these unions sent letters in October to Arthur…