Free Republic

Washingtonians opened their top newspaper on Sunday, Jan. 19 to see what could have been predicted down to the letter. "Thousands Oppose a Rush to War," the headline announced, resting under a large color picture of a sea of protesters. Not one, not two, but three articles on the front page cast doubt on the Bush preparations for war on Iraq. Inside, the anti-Bush rally was awarded two entire pages of articles and pictures, and then, as if that weren't enough, the Post tacked on another half a page for the protests in San Francisco. "Chill Doesn't Cool Fury...

The metaphor "the War on Christmas" can be mocked -- as if Santa and his reindeer are dodging anti-aircraft fire. But many of our public schools have church-and-state sensitivity police with an alarming degree of Santaphobia. Anyone who's attended a school's "winter concert" in December with no traditional Christmas music -- not even "Frosty the Snowman" -- knows the drill. The vast Christian majority (that funds the public schools) is told that school is no place to celebrate one's religion, even in its most watered-down and secularized forms. There are real-life stories of Scrooge-like school administrators, like the one at...

On Thursday, the left wing group Media Matters attacked MRC President Brent Bozell claiming Bozell wants to "...choke off public funding for the arts." In a post titled Brent Bozell's real agenda: crippling the Smithsonian, Todd Gregory makes the claim that Bozell wants to "incite anti-gay sentiment" by using what he called "contentious descriptions" of a Smithsonian display called "Hide/Seek". There's only one problem with Gregory's analysis. Bozell's description of the display is accurate, but to Gregory, an accurate depiction of a display is somehow "gay-baiting". In a CNN debate with Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik, Bozell said: Look,...

NPR’s decision to fire Juan Williams over comments he made about Muslims on Fox News has prompted calls on the right for Congress to remove its funding and concern on the left that NPR may have just handed its critics a powerful weapon for painting the broadcaster as liberal. The biggest names in conservative politics — including Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, both paid Fox News contributors like Williams — rushed to his defense after he said he gets “nervous” when he sees people in Muslim dress boarding an airplane.

The Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog organization led by Brent Bozell, has launched a petition drive demanding mainstream media outlets tell the truth and "rededicate themselves to unbiased reporting".

On this weekend's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim Pinkerton proposed a simple way to clear up much of the murk surrounding JournoList. Let the Washington Post respond to the 20 questions about the matter that MRC head Brent Bozell has posed to the Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, in an open letter. JournoList was created by lefty blogger Ezra Klein in 2007, who continued to run it after becoming a Post staffer in 2009. Responding to Pinkerton's proposal, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican, a liberal member of the News Watch panel, swung and missed at Bozell . . . View video...

In 1992, the feminists in the media rejoiced at what they called “The Year of the Woman,” when ten Democratic women (and one Republican) were running for the Senate in the aftermath of Anita Hill’s unproven sexual-harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. Just two years before, seven Republican women (and two Democrats) ran. But the media yawned. In 1992, the evening newscasts aired 29 stories exclusively devoted to women Senate candidates. In 1990, there was one...on election night. In 1992, the morning shows interviewed women Senate candidates on 26 occasions. In 1990, there were zero interviews. This was all about the...

From a glitzy new office in downtown Washington, the ideological war over the media is fully engaged. Six years after its founding to counter what it said was “conservative misinformation,” Media Matters for America employs a staff of 70 that spends 19 hours a day monitoring newspapers, magazines, broadcast and cable television, talk radio, and the Internet to counter reporting or commentary it deems to be inaccurate or biased. Lou Dobbs recently described the group as part of “the vast left wing conspiracy,” an ironic twist on Hillary Clinton’s famous description of the conservative infrastructure arrayed against her husband when...

When MSNBC gave Ed Schultz a nightly segment entitled "Psycho Talk," it was apparently in obedience to the truth in advertising laws. On Thursday night, the low-rated host of "The Ed Show" used that segment -- which is supposed to highlight over-the-top rhetoric from conservatives -- to call Rush Limbaugh "a racist, pill-poppin' radio guy." Schultz was outraged that Rep. Steve King, R-IA, had asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to apologize to Rush Limbaugh for denying Rush partial ownership of the St. Louis Rams while allowing Jennifer Lopez and Fergie to become co-owners of the Miami Dolphins after worse...

Radical-left protesters outside the G-20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh last week underlined once again that our friends in the news media see no real enemy or extremist to their left. But conservative protests against Team Obama are an ugly sign of incivility, and according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, even impending violence. HBO talk show host Bill Maher exemplified the liberal-media attitude on his Twitter page on Sept. 24: "Even with a face full of tear gas, these G-20 protesters (are) better looking than the teabaggers." But there's a big difference between the sea of tens of thousands of conservative...

Friday, August 28 Dorinda Bordlee, executive director of the Bioethics Defense Fund on the finer points of the Health Care Reform Bill being debated in Congress. Fr. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute, on the ethical concerns of the health care debate and the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy. Brent Bozell, founder & president of the Media Research Center, on media bias and the often toxic media culture.

It's a consistent line from the left: Conservative talk radio is a cauldron of hate. In the Clinton years, a CBS News promo set out to warn the public about the dangers of Gordon Liddy: "The words are shocking ... What he says may not be illegal, but is it dangerous? Has free speech gone too far? Hate radio under fire, and firing back." It is an unmistakable, unquestionable, resoundingly unequivocal exercise in liberal hypocrisy. The airwaves are now filled with the meanest, most insulting, most dishonest ad hominems in history. They are coming from left-wing talk show hosts. And...

Mr. Bozell also discusses the MRC's Four Day Call-A-Thon to the offices of Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid - which is taking place right now and runs through close of business Thursday - where MRC Action Team members, many, MANY members of the FSA and a whole host of individual radio stations and hosts are having their grassroots/members/listeners place calls to their offices demanding a full, fair stand-alone vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act (BFA), which would prohibit the FCC from reimposing the Censorship Doctrine, also mis-known as the "Fairness" Doctrine. And we are asking you to join in the...

Media watchdog Brent Bozell tells Newsmax that the national media are so slanted to the left that they have been "pamphleteers for the Obama administration." Bozell, founder and president of The Media Research Center — which tracks liberal bias in the media — also said that the major TV networks have refused to call Obama a socialist or even a liberal even though he is "the most radical left-wing president in the history of the United States." See Video: Brent Bozell explains how the mainstream media supports Obama’s socialist agenda - Click Here Now|

As the Democrat-dominated House and Senate thoughtfully passed judgment on a 1,100-page "stimulus" bill that Sen. Frank Lautenberg admitted no one would read before the vote, the media elite were positively giddy. On the "NewsHour" on PBS, liberal analyst Mark Shields proclaimed, "I think it's a monstrous success" for President Obama. That's correct, with an emphasis on "monstrous." Our news media have insisted on playing the White House soundtrack on this battle, to wit: The "stimulus" is vitally necessary, and by opposing it, Republicans are risking being flattened by the Great Obama Steamroller. A partisan victory is OK, but they'd...

Cast Two Giant Shadows Heather Latham, February 18, 2009 “Define or be defined; he who wins that debate wins the argument,” said L. Brent Bozell III, founder and president of Media Research Center and nephew of William F. Buckley, Jr., at a Heritage Foundation event. He holds that Ronald Reagan understood this, and nobody could touch him because of it. Nicknames like “the Teflon president” were given to him because no bad press would stick to him. He says, “He understood that there is perception and there is reality, and the perception of reality is all that matters, not the...

Some of President Obama's policies are not faring well in public opinion, but will anyone be told? On Feb. 2, a Gallup poll found that Obama's executive order "allowing U.S. funding for overseas family planning organizations that provide abortion" was decidedly unpopular: Only 35 percent approved, while 58 percent disapproved. You didn't know this? You're not alone: A Nexis survey finds none of the television networks, cable or broadcast, noticed these results, either. The Gallup survey found overwhelming approval for other Obama policies -- on higher fuel efficiency standards, on restricting lobbyists from joining his administration, on interrogating suspects according...

Even in economically troubled times, Christmas is still a prime opportunity for children to be showered with the latest in electronic gadgetry, from iPods to laptops. For decades, parents have worried about children wandering into the scariest corners of television. But with new technologies come a lot of new and even scarier trails to follow. Imagine a young teen with a new laptop, and add YouTube, now owned by Google, which performs 63 percent of the world's Internet searches. It's not a farfetched thought: Nearly half of boys and a third of girls ages 13-17 name YouTube as one of...

Hollywood can still mount a soapbox and recall the dark days when people lost their jobs in show business for daring to take an unpopular political position that was outside the mainstream. Whenever they're criticized, they proclaim, "McCarthyism," accuse their critics of "blacklisting," and condemn the deplorable "intolerance." Hollywood has yet to accept, perhaps even to understand, that it is the entertainment industry that excels at this slanderous behavior. After California voters narrowly approved Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, it was revealed that Scott Eckern, the artistic director...

"She is dynamite,” said Morton C. Blackwell, who was President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the conservative movement. Mr. Blackwell described vying to get close to Ms. Palin at a fund-raiser in Virginia, lamenting that he could get only within four feet. “I made a major effort to position myself at this reception,” he said, adding that he is eager to sit down with her after the election to discuss the future. Asked if the weeks of interviews had tarnished her among conservatives, he replied, “Not a bit.” Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative group, called it...