Former NYT Editorialist Cohen Insists First Amendment Free Speech Pr
In his June 9 "case study" feature for Time.com, Adam Cohen, formerly of the New York Times editorial board and Time magazine, tackled the question "Are Liberal Judges Really 'Judicial Activists'?" Cohen's short answer: yes, but so are conservative judges, and it's the conservatives on the Supreme Court that have been on an activist kick lately. To bolster his argument, Cohen complained that…
HuffPo Columnist Can't Recall Any Vitriol From the Left
An emerging defense of Helen Thomas's "Jews go home" comment is that either what she said really was not that bad, or that others occasionally say worse things without the same level of reproach.Richard Greener, writing at the Huffington Post on Monday, was so close to making a good point. He noted that a number of other public figures have said things that could reasonably be interpreted as more…
HuffPo's Stein: 'Anti-War Voices Fret' Loss of Helen Thomas in Briefin
Well that didn't take long. The folks at the left-wing MoveOn.org are practically in mourning over Helen Thomas's "retirement."Just a few hours after news broke that Hearst columnist Helen Thomas is calling it quits after a viral video of her anti-Semitic comments led to widespead condemnation of the White House press corps dean.Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has the story:The abrupt retirement…
After Ignoring Left's Attacks on Conservative Women, Newsweek Gets Ups
Sexism is a selective phenomenon for much of the media. It seems even satirical or light-hearted content, when produced by conservatives, has the amazing ability to acquire the label while even the most vitriolic and derogatory liberal writings can avoid it.RightWingNews, the popular conservative blog, surely knew it would garner some disdain from the left in publishing its 2010 edition of the "…
Media Find Recruiting Pool in Liberal Blogosphere
The amateur liberal blogosphere is dead, according to a prominent lefty blogger. Chris Bowers made his proclamation Thursday, on the heels of the New York Times's acquisition of FiveThirtyEight, a prominent liberal polling site run by Nate Silver.Silver, pictured right, was the latest in a string of moves from the liberal blogosphere to traditional media outlets. The Washington Post has, with…
PBS's Bonnie Erbe Rehashes Crazy Conspiracy Theory About Churches
Nearly two months ago, atheist feminist and PBS "To the Contrary" host Bonnie Erbe insisted that the pro-life movement is essentially a church pew-packing conspiracy:What is the religious right doing by campaigning against abortion? First and foremost, its efforts seem aimed at trying to keep church pews filled by bringing more and more poor people into the world.She's still at it. In her…
Anonymous News Anchor Blasts Network's 'Grotesquely Distorted and Bias
Writing anonymously at the Daily Caller, an anchor for a prominent TV news channel called that channel's coverage of the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla "an abomination" and "grotesquely distorted and biased.""I’m embarrassed by our coverage," the Anchorman concluded in an unsent email to his boss. "I take this job and my reputation seriously. But that’s nearly impossible with coverage like this." He…
Mediaite: 'Does The BP Oil Spill Mark The Death Of The Tea Party Movem
The senior editor of the liberal online publication Mediaite asked an astonishingly absurd question in a headline Tuesday: "Does The BP Oil Spill Mark The Death Of The Tea Party Movement?"Glynnis MacNicol's premise in her piece by that name: "The call for less government intervention into the lives of ‘regular' citizens that was so prevalent throughout last summer, and fall, and winter has gone…
Electric Love: Media Has Continually Promoted 'Any Day Now' Electric C
Yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute's Enterprise Blog, Steven Hayward had a great post about the history of electric cars, and the press's unrequited love affair with electric vehicles (picture at right is of the $108,000 2010 Zedomax). Yum. But first I'll start with a bit of my own research. On May 7, 1994, Paul Feldman at the Los Angeles Times led with the following two paragraphs…
Historically Unaccountable Old Media Complains of Unaccountable New Me
It seems that the vast majority of journalists who bemoan unaccountable, unabashedly opinionated digital reporting are the same ones who have, without challenge, pushed a liberal perspective through their own reporting.The latest such journalist, Newsweek's Howard Fineman, is concerned that "nobody is cross-examining" the "position papers" that supposedly comprise a critical mass of new media…
Six Months Late to a Game That's Long Been Over: NYT, Newsweek Acknowl
Parts of the U.S. establishment press have acknowledged "climate science" reality, six months late. The fallout from ClimateGate (link is to the NewsBusters tag), the name eventually given to the scandal resulting from the unauthorized posting of over 1,000 emails and dozens of documents obtained from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, goes back a full six months…
Lisa Miller: Catholic Church's 'Authoritarian Meddling' Against Dissid
Newsweek's Lisa Miller again lashed out against the Catholic Church in her column on Thursday, defending an excommunicated Catholic nun in Arizona for her "compassionate and impossible decision" in supporting a hospital patient's abortion. Miller also condemned a Vatican cardinal's investigation into American nuns as a whole as "authoritarian meddling."The religion editor for the dwindling…
Time's Grunwald on Sestak Job Offer: 'Criminally Stupid, Not Criminal
Imagine if, in 2004, Karl Rove had offered then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) a cushy administration post if only he dropped his primary challenge of then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, whom the Bush White House was backing for reelection. Surely the media would merely smell "stupid politics" rather then the stench of corruption and complain that Democrats making hay of the matter were cynically making…
Slate's Shafer Praises McGinniss's 'Stalking' of Sarah Palin
"It's called legwork, it's called immersion journalism, and it doesn't look pretty. But it should come as a surprise to only naive newspaper readers that every day journalists treat the subjects of investigations the way [Joe] McGinniss is treating Palin," Slate's Jack Shafer argued in a May 26 post subheadlined, "In defense of a journalist's stalking of a politician." Shafer wrote his post…
