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I was also leery of journalists and TV personalities like Al Sharpton and his MSNBC colleagues setting up as prosecutor, judge and jury. Even if you didn't know about Sharpton's previous misadventures — he became famous due to his outrageous conduct during the 1987 Tawana Brawley rape hoax — the network's permitting him to report about a public event in which he'd enrolled as an active participant violated every known rule of journalistic ethics. -snip- A festival of bad reporting, speculation and mind-reading from the outset, the Zimmerman-Martin affair has turned into a classic example of what University of Virginia...

The South Jersey Democrat leader George Norcross and a group of businessman announced today they will buy Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers, The Inquirer and the Daily News, and the website philly.com for $55 million. The purchase of Philadelphia Media Network Inc. from a group of hedge funds underscored the growing influence of Norcross, 56, a wealthy insurance executive and arguably the most powerful Democrat in New Jersey. (snip) "I don't think George is buying this paper because he's a big believer in the first amdendment or because he wants to hold the powerful accountable," Paul Davies, a former deputy...

TORONTO – Some media ethics experts are now questioning scrubbing the story about President Obama’s eldest daughter, Malia Obama, vacationing in Mexico. The White House’s Kristina Schake, Communications Director to the First Lady, admitted to asking media not to report on the vacation. The request prompted some websites (including the Huffington Post) on Tuesday to remove reports about the trip, according to American reports. “From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest....

Republicans warn that if President Barack Obama wins a second term, he will push forward with an expansive domestic liberal agenda that makes his existing record look like child's play. During the victory speech that followed the Michigan primary, Mitt Romney warned that "a second term Obama would be unrestrained by the demands of re-election." If you didn't like health care and financial regulation, the Republicans are saying, then you really won't like what happens when things turn leftward after 2012. No longer forced to think about independent voters and suburban moderates, Obama will allow his true liberal values to...

Today, the editorial board of the Washington Post took a stand against Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, claiming that the GOP must distance itself from the popular radio talker. IN A DEMOCRACY, standards of civil discourse are as important as they are indefinable. Yet wherever one draws the line, Rush Limbaugh’s vile rants against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke crossed it. His way of showing this anger was to smear Ms. Fluke, who approached Congress to support the plan, as a “slut” seeking a government subsidy for her promiscuity...[Snip] What we are saying is that Mr. Limbaugh has abused...

The U.S. economy produced another solid month of job gains in January, offering a hopeful sign for hiring in the year ahead. Employers added a net 243,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday. That’s higher than December, when employers added a net 200,000 jobs, and it marked the seventh straight month in which at least 100,000 jobs were created. That hasn't happened since 2005. The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January from 8.5 percent in the prior month. The unemployment rate has fallen for the past five months and is now at its lowest level...

Politico's Jonathan Martin provides expert analysis of the Florida primary for MSNBC this morning and hurls an offensive epithet to describe counties in the panhandle of the state.

<p>When CNN convenes its GOP debate tonight, the moderators should tell the audience to shut up.</p> <p>Newt Gingrich said Tuesday that he wouldn’t “allow” moderators to ask live audiences to remain silent during debates. He won the South Carolina primary on his appeal to two insufferably partisan debate audiences last week, but he stumbled this week in a debate before a silent crowd.</p>

Newt Gingrich insists his fans will not be silenced. Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, on Tuesday morning threatened not participate in any future debates with audiences that have been instructed to be silent. That was the case on Monday, when Brian Williams of NBC News asked the audience of about 500 people who assembled for a debate in Tampa to hold their applause until the commercial breaks. In an interview with the morning show “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Gingrich said NBC’s rules amounted to stifling free speech. In what has become a standard line of attack for his anti-establishment...

Newt Gingrich instantly brought the crowd to its feet last night at the last debate before Saturday's all important primary in South Carolina. What was the multitude cheering? Not his stance on tax policy, or on abortion, but rather his acid assault on the “elite media.” Gingrich expressed outrage that moderator John King of CNN would lead off the evening by asking about potentially damaging charges made by the Speaker’s second wife in an interview with ABC News's "Nightline." The audience howled its approval as Gingrich tore into the “destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media…” As...

The first question at Thursday night's debate in South Carolina went to Newt Gingrich, giving him an opportunity to denounce a "vicious" news media that is "protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans."

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I don't know that you've seen any of this in the Drive-By Media. I don't know on television if you've seen it. Have you seen it, Snerdley? Have you seen any reports on the unemployment news? Well, it's amazing here. "The number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits rose last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, reversing a recent decline and suggesting the labor market remained brittle. ... Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose to 399,000 in the first week of 2012, the highest in six weeks, from an upwardly revised 375,000 a week earlier....

NBC's Andrea Mitchell on New Year's Day made it clear to Nightly News viewers that her Obama-loving network will continue using the race card to assist the current White House resident's reelection. In a brief segment about the upcoming Iowa caucuses, Mitchell said "the rap" on the Hawkeye state is that "it doesn't represent the rest of the country - too white, too evangelical, too rural" Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/01/02/andrea-mitchell-iowa-too-white-too-evangelical-too-rural#ixzz1iMDxZzyc

NBC-owned television stations in cities across the nation just teamed up with a nonprofit “journalism” group funded by a billionaire husband and wife team who not only spent millions campaigning for President Obama but also topped donor lists to groups like ACORN and MoveOn.org. The nonprofit, ProPublica, will contribute to the news operations of all NBC owned-and-operated stations, including those in such cities as Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, the network announced Monday. The NBC affiliates will get early access to investigative reports from ProPublica, which describes itself as an “independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public...

However wrong the rankings might be, I have to admit Time’s �Best of Everything� lists are pretty fun to browse. In fact, if I made a list of reasons to check Time.com, the magazine’s immortal lists would be the first and last item on it.But, really? The journalists at Time think �Occupy Wall Street� is the No. 1 U.S. news story of the year — ahead of the GOP primaries, the economy, the Gabby Giffords shooting and the debt ceiling crisis? What, oh what, was the rationale? I know you’re dying to read this: To some, Occupy Wall Street is...

Mr. Cain raised more than $5 million through September. Information on the financial activity since that time won’t be disclosed until January, but the campaign said it raised $9 million over a few weeks alone. The funds allowed Mr. Cain and associates to dine and travel in style, using $350,000 on private chartered air in a few weeks, spending thousands at hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons, and eating largely steak dinners, records show. One of the campaign’s top recipients was T.H.E New Voice, a company set up to sell Mr. Cain’s books and motivational talks, which...

How much do the gang at MSNBC's Morning Joe despise Newt Gingrich and want to derail his run for president? Near the end of a Monday segment in which she read - with a smile on her face, mind you - numerous columns quite hostile to the former Speaker of the House, co-host Mika Brzezinski asked, "How do we stop talking about Newt Gingrich?" (video follows with transcript and Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/12/05/mika-brzezinski-how-do-we-stop-talking-about-newt-gingrich#ixzz1ffuIgxE6

Last week, I discussed how Occupy protesters are being directly aided by the mainstream media and indirectly aided by White House stimulus money, as well as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's and even Vice President Joe Biden's households. I also detailed how the mainstream media are accelerating their progressive blitz not only to hasten the second coming, or election, of President Barack Obama but also to help him and other progressives in reaching their final goal of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America." I believe the MSM are also bent to coronate a particular GOP candidate whom they feel...

<p>"I understand there are places like MSNBC that are essentially the Obama re-election team. But, you know, that's fine. This is a free society.</p>

Chris gets angry that someone "interrupts him and doesn't let him speak." (after dodging direct questions). This is a classic.

"The Republicans have a problem," says MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "They are consumed by hate, so consumed they can't think positively of whom they may want to lead them."

Surrrrprise surrrprise surrrprise (anyone old enough to remember Gomer Pyle here?) Exactly as has been pointed out to pollsters for almost 3 years now: IF minorities were holding Obama accountable and NOT voting skin color, Obama would be at a 35% approval instead of hovering around 40 to 42%.

"Last night at the Republican debate, some of the hopefuls, they hope to get your job, they defended the practice of waterboarding which is a practice you banned in 2009. Herman Cain said, quote, 'I don't see that as torture.' Michele Bachmann said that it's, quote, 'very effective.' So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?" CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian asked President Obama in Hawaii.

Washington (CNN) – A new national survey of Republicans indicates that it's basically all tied up between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, with Gingrich on the rise and businessman Herman Cain falling due to the sexual harassment allegations he's been facing the past two weeks. According to a CNN/ORC International Poll released Monday, 24% of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say Romney is their most likely choice for their party's presidential nominee with Gingrich at 22%. Romney's two-point advantage is well within the survey's sampling error. While the level...

Four out of ten Republicans believe Mitt Romney would be the most likely candidate to beat President Obama in the general election, according to a new CBS News poll. Cain trailed in the category with just 20 percent... Electability, however, was not most Republicans' top priority when selecting a candidate: 58 percent said they believe it's more important to have a nominee who agrees with them on the issues than one who can beat Mr. Obama next year. Thirty-nine percent said the opposite. But the race could still change; seven in 10 Republican primary voters say it is still too...

The Society of Professional Journalism’s code of ethics is apparently unknown to, and easily dismissed by, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. On “Andrea Mitchell Reports” Monday, the anchor introduced Politico’s Jonathan Martin after playing a clip of former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain suggesting some reporters at an event in Texas check the Society of Professional Journalism’s “code of ethics.” “Jonathan Martin is the senior reporter for Politico and broke the original story,” she said. “I assume you read the journalistic code of ethics, whatever that is.” Martin replied by saying he had his copy “well-thumbed.”

What is the deal with MSNBC folks being anti-Second Amendment lately? Last week it was fill in host Craig Melvin and this week it's analyst and Huffington Post writer Alex Wagner. Wagner was on Real Time With Bill Maher and when asked about what should be changed in the Constitution, Wagner said we should get rid of the Second Amendment. Bill Maher, HBO: "Let's ask Alex. What would you change in the Constitution?" Alex Wagner, Huffington Post: "Well, I'm going to be pilloried for this. I think get rid of the second Amendment, the right to bear arms. I just...

Karen Finney is not just any Democrat; she was the spokeswoman for the Democrat National Committee, served in the Clinton White House, was the press secretary for Hillary Clinton's New York Senate race, and is a veteran of four Presidential Campaigns. Tasked with analyzing Herman Cain's surge in the GOP's Presidential campaign for MSNBC last week, Finney offered up the most outrageous, insulting, demeaning single sentence we have ever heard – particularly by someone who supposedly speaks for an entire national political party. "I think he makes that white Republican base of the party feel okay, feel that they're not...

The author who calls himself simply Toure -- a regular guest on MSNBC, and before that on CNN -- is throwing rhetorical bricks at Herman Cain for Time magazine. His article is headlined "Is Herman Cain the Most Unctuous Black Man Alive? Why the Hermanator experience is making me sick." Toure compared Cain to a circus clown, called him a "buffoon," compared him to "rancid, spoiled, stinky, curdled milk" and dissed him (in the liberal mind) by calling him "the Black Sarah Palin." In the midst of that, he somehow scolds Cain for "sinking to teenage-level disses." He began: This...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Someday, cultural historians will look back on the early 21st century and speculate about what killed the credibility of America’s so-called liberal-media elite. They will ask, Were the wounds self-inflicted or the product of a methodical plot? Make no mistake about it. We did this to ourselves. As a card-carrying member of the leftist media near-elite — alas, I’m not nearly rich or famous enough to be regarded as a 100% elitist — it pains me to see my brethren sinking like the sun in the west. But we have nobody to blame but ourselves. We’ve...

The days of unbiased reporting are well behind us. What we have now are news agencies who are bent on furthering a political agenda. Proof positive comes in the form of a Reuters story with a somewhat confusing title: “Alabama immigration law decried, applauded as some flee state.” (Click here for original story) The title is somewhat ambiguous as to who is “decrying” and who is “applauding” but the article leaves little doubt as to the ideological leanings of the author(s): (Reuters) – A climate of fear and panic has taken hold in Alabama’s immigrant community since a federal judge...

If you have a family of four with an income of just under $50,000, they could end up paying more under the Cain plan. Currently, they are taxed around $3,850 in income tax. Under Cain’s plan, they would be taxed at 9 percent or pay $4,500. That’s $650 more. Although the family would save almost $4,000 in Social Security taxes, it would have to give up the child tax credit worth the same amount. Furthermore, it would pay an additional national sales tax of 9 percent on everything purchased, including groceries and clothes, which totals about $2,000. That means under...

Driving The News: Fox Covering ‘Fast & Furious’ 10 Times More Than MSNBC And CNNby Colby Hall | 11:27 am, October 11th, 2011 The ‘Fast and Furious‘ story appears to be turning a major corner with the news that Congressional investigators, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, are sending a new subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder over the DOJ’s failed gun running operation. The subpoenaing of the head of the Department of Justice is big news, but it seems that only viewers of Fox News channel are hearing much about it – and boy are they ever: a simple search...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I think these people at AP are in business to make me look like Nostradamus. "Senate Republicans have voted to kill the $447 billion White House jobs bill despite weeks of campaign-style barnstorming by President Barack Obama across the country." What a headline. Just as we predicted. It didn't take a Nostradamus to see it coming. This headline is the whole purpose of Obama's jobs bill. It was never intended to pass. This was the objective. Now, they didn't get this headline everywhere. They didn't get this headline at the New York Times. The New York Times...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: From the Associated Press: "President Barack Obama’s jobs bill, facing a critical test in the Senate, appears likely to die at the hands of Republicans." It was never meant to live, you people at the AP. But, see, this is exactly -- I hate being right sometimes -- this is exactly what I told you the purpose of that whole jobs bill was. It is the Democrats who can't pass this bill. It's the Democrats who don't have the votes. It was Mitch McConnell's idea to push for a quick vote on this. He wanted to illustrate...

The "Occupy Wall Street" protest that has been going on for nearly a month and is spreading to several cities across the United States has drawn comparisons to the Tea Party. Well, the Tea Party has one emphatic word for that: "Stop!" According to a report in the New York Daily News, the Tea Party Patriots, the largest group in the movement, is not happy with the comparisons

It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote — 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republicans, according to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice. As a result, more than five million eligible voters will have a harder time participating in the 2012 election. Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic, particularly the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities. They insist...

Yesterday, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told radio show host Laura Ingraham that the White House yelled and swore at her over her reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal tied to the deaths of two U.S. law enforcement agents. Attkisson also revealed that she'd also been yelled at by the Justice Department. Today, I called CBS News in an attempt to interview Attkisson. I was told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say....

EXCERPT When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents in still other cases may have allowed guns to "walk" rather than seizing them. Federal law enforcement officials familiar with the matter say Operation Wide Receiver began in 2006 after the agency received information about a suspicious purchase of firearms. The investigation concluded in 2007 without any charges being filed....

"Th newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward". -- Finley Peter Dunne (1867 — 1936), Chicago journalist, writing as "Mr. Martin J. Dooley," Writing in the golden age of "muckraking journalism," Finley Peter Dunne was acutely aware of the power of institutions and their susceptibility to corruption at the expense of justice and truth. The passage above was, and remains, a caution about his own institution -- journalism --...

A CNN/ORC poll released today shows the approval rating for the tea party movement at its lowest point since polling began in 2010. The conservative/libertarian movement is viewed favorably by just 28 percent of Americans — down from its all time high of 38 percent last November — while 53 percent have a negative opinion of it, also a record. Conversely, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's approval rating is at an all-time high — even better than when she was the nation's First Lady — with 69 percent of Americans holding a favorable view of her, compared to 26 percent...

“Gun scandal skipping the big fish,” The Arizona Republic headline declares. “Evidence Suggests Cover-Up in ATF Scandal, as More Guns Appear at Crime Scenes,” Fox News reveals. “Gunwalker scandal: ATF director out of top job,” CBS News reports. “Gun scandal skipping the big fish,” The Arizona Republic headline declares. “Evidence Suggests Cover-Up in ATF Scandal, as More Guns Appear at Crime Scenes,” Fox News reveals. “Gunwalker scandal: ATF director out of top job,” CBS News reports. Advertisement “Obama Is 20 Days Away from Beating Bush's Scandal-Free Record,” The Atlantic Wire contradicts, albeit admitting “the ATF blunder” was “a close call,”...

While co-host Ann Curry on Tuesday's NBC "Today" wondered if Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men" was "fact or fiction," on August 5, 2008, then-co-host Meredith Vieira touted Suskind's claim in "Way of the World" that the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war was "worse than Watergate." Speaking of Suskind's latest work on Tuesday, Curry described how Obama administration "top officials are lining up to say they were either misquoted or taken out of context by the author." She then wondered: "Did he get the story right?" In contrast, while Vieira noted the Bush White House labeling Suskind's book at that...

The NBC and ABC morning shows on Friday indicated a growing impatience with not knowing Sarah Palin's presidential plans. NBC's Chuck Todd declared of the Labor Day holiday, "I think one thing about Sarah Palin is that this is her last weekend to cry wolf, essentially." Over on Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos talked to reporter John Berman and insisted, "But, as you point out, the longer she stays out [of the 2012 race], actually, the less relevant she becomes." The ex-Alaska governor will be visiting New Hampshire and Iowa over the long weekend. Berman expressed bewilderment about Palin's intentions,...

MSNBC's Richard Wolffe went there. The political analyst for the Lean Forward network actually played the race card in his analysis of why the Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner did not accept Barack Obama's big foot move to deliver a speech to Congress on the same night as a GOP presidential debate, as he pondered: "it could be, let's face it, the color of his skin."

As a rule, the press is the scourge of presidents. They’re expected to endure unending scrutiny, mistrust, and badgering—plus hostility if they’re Republicans—by a hectoring herd of reporters and commentators in the mainstream media. But there’s an exception to the rule: President Obama. It’s counterintuitive, but Obama has been hurt by the media’s leniency. Both his presidency and reelection prospects have suffered. He’s grown lazy and complacent. The media have encouraged him to believe his speeches are irresistible political catnip, though they aren’t. His overreliance on words hasn’t helped. The kind of media pressure that can cause a president to...

There‘s some curious merchandise for sale in CBS News’ online store.* Alongside a travel mug, tote bag and T-shirt that all bear the CBS News logo, the store also includes the following: “Dreams From My Father,” by Barack Obama “Dreams From My Father,” by Barack Obama (hardcover) “Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama‘s Plan to Renew America’s Promise” “The American Journey of Barack Obama,” by Life Magazine “Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs” “The Official Inauguration Celebration DVD” In fact, out of the 13 items for sale, seven are Obama-related, in addition to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s memoir,...

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

Ed Schultz used a deceptive edit to misinform his audience about the content of Gov. Rick Perry's speech in Iowa yesterday. Schultz claimed that Gov. Perry was calling President Obama a "black cloud hanging over America" when in fact, the governor was talking about the national debt.

Liberal bias is rampant among the media, but there is no more tangible example of it than in how the media treat Conservative women. The most recent cover of Newsweek features a very wide-eyed Michele Bachmann, looking surprised and unattractive. Perhaps more disturbing is the caption Newsweek placed below the presidential candidate's photo: "Queen of Rage." Bachmann, an attractive 55 year-old mother of five, is a three term member of the House of Representatives, constitutional conservative and prominent voice of the Tea Party movement. But if you get your information from liberals or the mainstream media, you might know her...