Civil Libertarian Nat Hentoff 'Scared' Of Obama Admin; Formerly Admiri
August 24th, 2009 1:35 AM
A well-known newspaper had this to say about writer Nat Hentoff upon his departure from the Villiage Voice at the end of 2008 after a 50-year run:Across his 83 years, his three dozen books and his countless newspaper columns and magazine articles, Mr. Hentoff has championed free speech and opposed censorship of any kind, whether by liberals or conservatives. Few have more assiduously and…
Follow-Up: Virtually No U.S. Media Interest In 'Imploding' Canadian Pr
August 21st, 2009 12:45 AM
On Sunday evening, NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard highlighted a health care-related story from the Canadian Press (CP), which is that country's rough equivalent to the USA's Associated Press.It appears that the CP is more open to reporting inconvenient news than is "our" AP, judging from a report earlier that day by the CP's Jennifer Graham. In an interview with Graham, the incoming…
NYT's Goodnough Fails to See Cynical Motive in Kennedy Senate Request
August 20th, 2009 5:27 PM
Five years after he successfully lobbied state legislators to change his state's law governing the filling of Senate vacancies, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) now wants the law changed again. Kennedy successfully encouraged Democratic state legislators in 2004 to push through a change in the law in order to thwart the possibility of then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) appointing a Republican…
N.Y. Times Remembers the 'Kinder, Gentler, More Conservative Take' of
August 20th, 2009 4:58 PM
In a Thursday New York Times appreciation of CBS producer Don Hewitt, television writer Mike Hale avoided the whole concept of liberal bias in the work of Hewitt or his creation, 60 Minutes. Instead, Hale suggested that in threading the needle between an "increasingly radicalized" audience and stuffy advertisers, CBS and Hewitt created a "kinder, gentler, more conservative take" for 60 Minutes…
A 'Sweeping Anti-Abortion Law' That Doesn't Ban Abortions
August 20th, 2009 3:04 PM
On Tuesday, an Oklahoma state judge struck down "one of the most sweeping anti-abortion laws in the country" and in response yesterday, Republican state legislators vowed to "pass the law again in a different form," New York Times reporter James C. McKinley Jr. noted in the August 20 paper. "It almost reaches the stage of seeming cruel to me," McKinley quoted Planned Parenthood official Anita…
Karl Marx Is 'Back in Vogue,' NYT Book Reviewer Enthuses
August 19th, 2009 5:35 PM
New York Times book critic Dwight Garner on Wednesday enthused over a new biography of Friedrich Engels, cooing that Marxism is "back in vogue" and adding that the founding communist comes across as a "jovial man of outsize appetites" in Tristram Hunt’s new biography "Marx’s General." Garner opened the review by insisting that decrying capitalism is now hip again: "Thanks to globalism’s…
'Churlish,' 'Pugnacious' Novak Couldn't Always Document Scoops, NYT Ch
August 19th, 2009 4:23 PM
According to the New York Times’ Douglas Martin and Jacques Steinberg, the "often churlish," "pugnacious" Robert Novak "could not always document" his scoops. Littered in the August 19 obituary of the conservative journalist are other snide remarks and asides. Discussing the political column that Novak co-wrote for 30 years with Rowland Evans, the reporters worried, "For all its influence, though…
Shhh! Gallup Reports That Conservatives Outnumber Libs in All 50 State
August 17th, 2009 11:25 PM
You know this is important polling news, because the establishment media is pretending it doesn't exist. You can't find a relevant reference to it in searches on "Gallup" at the New York Times, AP.org, the Washington Post, or the LA Times. A Google News search on "Gallup conservatives outnumber liberals" (not in quotes) comes up with all of eight results. The news isn't just that self-…
Media Obits Whitewash Eunice Kennedy Shriver's Uncompromising Pro-Life
August 17th, 2009 5:10 PM
If you only read the Associated Press, New York Times, and Washington Post obituaries of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died last Tuesday at age 88, you would have no idea that she was one of the last of the old Guard, pro-life Democrats who went down fighting in 1992. That was when the party's presidential nomination of Bill Clinton moved the party firmly into the pro-abort camp, a position from…
NYT Shocker: 'Health Debate Fails to Ignite Obama’s Grass Roots
August 16th, 2009 11:55 AM
Here's a headline I bet you never expected to see at the New York Times: "Health Debate Fails to Ignite Obama’s Grass Roots."Go inside the piece published Saturday, and you'll find even more surprises (h/t James Pinkerton): Mr. Obama engendered such passion last year that his allies believed they were on the verge of creating a movement that could be mobilized again. But if a week’s worth of…
Dowd: Palin Sees Obama As 'Human Prey' She Seeks To Shoot
August 16th, 2009 7:48 AM
Nothing like a presidential assassination metaphor to spice up an otherwise insipid Sunday column . . . Churning out yet another anti-Sarah screed, Dowd descended to this today [emphasis added]: "At the moment, what she wants to do is tap into her visceral talent for aerial-shooting her favorite human prey: cerebral Ivy League Democrats.Just as she was able to stir up the mob against Barack Obama…
Mea Culpa: NY Times Corrects the Record for Calling Washington Times
August 15th, 2009 10:58 PM
If you haven't noticed, a lot of media outlets have gotten worked up into a tizzy over the mere mention of death panels. The New York Times got so worked up, it went after a few conservatives outlets by name in its Aug. 13 issue. "But the rumor [that Obama's health care proposal would create death panels] - which has come up at Congressional town-hall-style meetings this week in spite of an…