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Lee Cowan’s “infectious” feelings and Chris Matthews’ “thrill” helped NBC lead the way in positive coverage for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. But the other two major networks weren’t far behind in a study of 1,365 network news stories going back to May 17, 2000, the date of Obama’s first appearance on CBS Evening News, through early June 2008, when the Illinois senator secured the Democratic nomination. The study was released Wednesday by the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog and the parent organization of CNSNews.com. The study is titled, “Obama’s Margin of Victory: The Media,” pointing out that...

The “Red Army” poem goes beyond hoping for the communists to beat the Nazis in World War II and hails the Soviet revolution. It says:“Show the marveling multitudesAmericans, British, all your allied brothersHow strong you areHow great you areHow your young tree of new unityPlanted twenty-five years ago Bears today the golden fruit of victory!”

When our culture merchants calculate how to exploit societal attitudes toward the homosexual lifestyle, one factor doesn't enter into the equation. Frankly, they don't give a d--- about people who believe it's a sin against God. Those religious people with their religious hang-ups aren't likely to watch MTV, so why bother with their silly complaints? Religious concerns safely tossed aside, producers are free to explore how best to profit from pushing envelopes. They know that (most) men don't enjoy watching gay men, but enough do like to watch women flirt with lesbianism to make it a commercially viable enterprise. Enter...

The Issue:MOnce again, liberal leaders are pushing the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” to silence conservative leaders like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin. Their goal is clear -- silence conservative speech over the radio airwaves. Read MRC’s Special Report: Unmasking The Fairness Doctrine (.pdf)Help Declare Radio Independence Day!The Media Research Center is leading the effort to expose and defeat these efforts. The Broadcaster Freedom Act (H.R. 2905) -- a bill in Congress that would ban permanently the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.” -- is stalled in Congress. We want to rally 100,000 signers by July 4th so we can press every member...

For conservatives who would like to think the whole government should be handed over to the liberals for a few years until the Reagan wing of the Republican Party can get its act together, a quick look at a monstrosity under consideration by Congress is in order. Liberal Democrats and "green" Republicans are proposing a massive reorganization of the American economy to fight so-called global warming. Worse yet, proponents of this bill are attempting to sell this eco-socialism as a "market-based" policy, and their allies in the national media are going along with the charade.

The following is from an MRC press release calling out the liberal mainstream media for covering up House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) recent remarks chalking up the success of the U.S. military in Iraq to the "goodwill of the Iranians." [audio of Pelosi's remarks available here] Alexandria, VA-- Last Thursday, a collection of reporters and members of the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle sat down for a nearly 80-minute interview with Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. At the 62-minute mark, Pelosi slandered and demeaned the hard-won successes of our armed forces in...

An early review is in for HBO's upcoming movie, Recount, about the Bush-Gore battle in Florida after 2000 election. Gillian Flynn in Entertainment Weekly, which like HBO is part of the Time-Warner family, has described the film, to premiere next Sunday night, as tilted against the Republican characters. In her review in the May 23 edition of the magazine, Flynn asserted: “Recount may not be downright blue, but it's not as purply as it wants to appear.” Saying “Recount is an underdog story, and thus a Democrat story,” Flynn reported that the “Republican players here are coolly calculating -- Tom...

Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," the effort to urge conservatives and Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in order to prolong the Democratic nomination battle, certainly annoys MSNBC's Chris Matthews who, during primary coverage Tuesday night, denounced the "mischief-making" by "a talk jock." In the 11:30 PM EDT half hour, Matthews offered a "Keith [Olbermann]-style special comment" about how "anyone who voted to screw up the political system of this country with the purpose of mischief should carry that with them the rest their lives." He called it "a ridiculous way to use the vote for which people fought and died,"...

Outrage comes easy at the sight of 15-year-old Disney Channel billion-dollar phenomenon Miley Cyrus -- known to screaming 8-year-old girls as Hannah Montana -- appearing barebacked with a come-hither smile in a photo shoot for Vanity Fair. Did no one understand how the slinky satin-sheet photo would be greeted by the eyes of teenage boys -- or men twice her age? Parents are covering the eyes of their Disney-drenched little girls while their role model has a train wreck. Do we need another Britney Spears Show? But teenage boys are going wilder this week over a more dangerous cultural low:...

Pope Benedict XVI is in America and, like his predecessor, is about to be treated to curiously bipolar coverage at the hands of the American press. While in-country, John Paul the Great received almost universally positive treatment. But up to the point the papal wheels touched down, the media reports were consistently critical – some verging on the savage – and when it was wheels-up, the press immediately returned to their old ways. The tone this time around will not be so much “news” as the recycled template that our journalistic elite imposes on every papal visit to America in...

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Just as occurred Monday night, viewers of Tuesday's ABC and NBC evening newscasts never heard the word "Democrat" applied to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, nor did they even put a "(D)" on screen by his name as ABC did briefly Monday. CBS didn't announce his party either on Tuesday night, but Katie Couric had done so Monday night. The ABC and NBC newscasts, however, did put "(R)" on screen over soundbites from Republicans and NBC's Mike Taibbi twice referred to the reaction from "Republican" politicians. Fill-in ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas avoided any party tag: "New York's Governor, Eliot Spitzer,...

It’s ok for “transsexual” men to use the ladies’ room? A mother should accept her daughter making a living by running porn sites? America should embrace same-sex “marriage?” Dear Abby, what have you come to? For more than 50 years, Dear Abby has been counseling people on how to live their lives. People usually associate Abby with common sense, but in reality she’s an unsung warrior in the sexual revolution—firmly on the side of Playboy, NARAL, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Dear Abby consistently steers people into the arms of Planned Parenthood, homosexual activist groups, and the...

The winning quotes in the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2007: The Twentieth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting." As noted in previous CyberAlerts, the awards issue was posted, with videos, on Monday, December 17, but following tradition, today, Friday and Monday -- the last weekdays of the year -- CyberAlert will run the winning quotes followed on succeeding days by the runners-up. The Media Research Center's annual awards issue provides a compilation of the most outrageous and/or humorous news media quotes from 2007 (December 2006 through November 2007). To determine this year's winners, a panel of 53 radio...

A recent study, "Good News = Less News on Iraq War," by Media Research Center, NB's parent organization, revealed that coverage of Iraq by the big three evening newscasts has declined as the news from Iraq has improved. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace highlighted the MRC study during his interview of General David Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force - Iraq . CHRIS WALLACE: It seemed to us that you hadn't been in the news much recently, which probably is a good thing from your point of view, since you came back from Washington in September. But we decided to...

Howie made his grand return to radio on Nov. 18. In this weekly thread we follow his show plus I'll post interesting columns by him, etc. There are usually daily pings Mon.-Fri. and Sun with his column.

Appearing on the September 13 edition of "Fox News Live," MRC president and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell questioned the deep 60 percent discount that liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org received for its infamous "Betray Us" ad attacking the honor of Gen. David Petraeus. Bozell noted that "unless the New York Times can explain itself away and show how this was some incredible coincidence" that the paper is in effect "a co-sponsor of that despicable ad." Video (2:10): Real and Windows, plus MP3 audio. Below is a transcript of the interview: BRENT BOZELL, President of the Media Research Center: Well, let's start...

A media watchdog organization says after a year in the anchor chair at CBS, Katie Couric's liberal approach has perpetuated the network's bias problem. The Media Research Center (MRC) says for 15 years, Couric put her liberal fingerprints all over the Today Show. And after one year on the job at CBS, MRC spokesman Tim Graham says Couric has carried on the liberal tradition of Dan Rather. "Katie Couric has been at it for a year at CBS. She's still a ratings disaster, and she's still channeling all the liberal bias, all the puff jobs for Hillary Clinton and Michael...

C-SPAN2 Today Will Air the MRC's 20th Anniversary Gala with 'DisHonors' and Limbaugh Posted by NB Staff on July 4, 2007 - 02:36. Today, Wednesday, July 4 at 3:21pm EDT (2:21pm CDT, 1:21pm MDT, 12:21pm PDT), C-SPAN2 is scheduled to carry the MRC's March 29 "2007 DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2006" -- the showcase of the MRC's 20th Anniversary Gala -- which was followed by Rush Limbaugh accepting the MRC's first annual "William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence." A rundown of the evening's events and winners, with a lot of pictures, as well...

Most Americans think culture is becoming more immoral, and they view the media -- both entertainment and news -- as prime culprits, according to a new survey.     If the media continue to "singularly promote" secular values while undermining orthodox faith and values, it will be very difficult to reverse America's moral decline, said the National Cultural Values Survey, released yesterday by the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) of the Media Research Center.     "Americans who care about the nation's moral condition should insist that the media strive to more fairly represent all views, including those of the orthodox," the report stated....

Six silent television screens are tuned to six different channels on the third-floor offices of the Media Research Center in Alexandria, producing a discordant TV tableau. On a recent afternoon, one screen shows a woman crying on the "Dr. Phil" show, while on another screen, director James Cameron is promoting a documentary that purports to show the tomb of Jesus.     It's all in a day's work for the center, whose red-bearded founder, L. Brent Bozell III, chuckles cheerfully as he guides a visitor on a tour.     In a nearby room, he points to row upon row of archived video recordings...

The hubbub raised over six Islamic imams being removed from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis for suspicious behavior is the latest in a string of incidents underlining one consistent thread in the war on terror: Muslim terrorists have never given up on the tried and true idea of hijacking airplanes and blowing them up to kill and demoralize the infidels. Police and witness reports suggest a list of suspicious activities and remarks. Some of the imams were discussing in Arabic about “bin Laden” and condemning America for “killing Saddam.” Imams asked for seat belt extenders for the extremely obese,...

Looking for a "passionate, compassionate, great, great" man? Well, according to CNN midday anchor Kyra Phillips, they do indeed exist. During CNN's live coverage of President Bush's remarks from New Orleans, Phillips was unaware that her microphone was on and picked up portions of an apparent restroom conversation she was having with another woman. At 12:49pm EDT, those listening carefully could hear Phillips praise her husband: "Yeah, I'm very lucky in that regard with my husband. My husband is handsome and he is genuinely a loving, you know, no ego -- you know what I'm saying. Just a really passionate,...

While ostensibly trying to praise elite U.S. soldiers, seamen and civilian first responders, on Thursday's Hardball on MSNBC, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams seemed to equate them with terrorist suicide bombers: "The willingness to take one's own life -- I always tell people, you know, there are guys on our team like that, too." Referring to those caught in the new plot to bring down airliners leaving Britain, Chris Matthews noted how they lived for years amongst Westerners and yet "having gotten to know us, they want to kill themselves to hurt us. Isn't that an even deeper conundrum...

If Mary Mapes is looking for a way to fill her days, HDNet's upcoming "Dan Rather Reports" seems to have plenty of job openings left to fill. According to Dan Rather's new employer, the debut of "Dan Rather Reports" is scheduled for just two months from now, in October. Yet according to HDNet's Web site, the program is currently (as of August 3) seeking multiple producers, associate producers and editors -- basically, all of the off-camera reporters and production staffers who make a big TV news show work. For the job listings page: www.hd.net. [This item by Rich Noyes was...

Olbermann Denies Liberal Bias, Insists in Politics He's 'Neutral' During an appearance on Friday's Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann acknowledged accusations of liberal bias, but denied they were true, preferring to describe himself politically as "correct" and "neutral," without a "rooting interest" in who wins elections. Ignoring criticism from the MRC that, among other instances of bias during the 1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal, he once compared former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to Nazi war criminal Heinrich Himmler, Olbermann claimed that he was never accused of liberal bias while covering the scandal. Olbermann: "I've been...

by Mark Finkelstein July 26, 2006 - 14:00 All those millions the taxpayers have lavished on the Public Broadcasting System over the years haven't been for naught. They've achieved at least one significant thing: given Bill Moyers a base from which to launch a presidential campaign. At least in the mind of Molly Ivins. The headline of her latest column says it all: Run Bill Moyers For President, Seriously While Molly doesn't expect Moyers to win the election or even the nomination, she believes his candidacy would have a salubrious effect on other Democratic contenders. Here's the essence of her...

by Mark Finkelstein July 20, 2006 - 10:26 Guess we folks at NewsBusters and at our parent organization, Media Research Center, can go home. Our work is done. Not only is the media not controlled by liberals, it's actually . . . dominated by the right wing. For that matter, it has been for decades! If only we had known, we could have saved ourselves all this trouble. How did I learn this? From Arshad Hasan, of Democracy for America, the group Howard Dean founded at the end of his candidacy, and that has as its stated goal "to rebuild...

3rd Place Cable Host Uses “Worst in the World!” Segment to Savage Conservatives & His Competitors Believe it or not, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann says he’s not biased. In March he told C-SPAN his philosophy was to "go after power. You don't go after a Republican or a Democrat." Last June he told the Houston Chronicle that while his world view included elements from the "liberal play book," his on-air approach is strictly even-handed. "My point of view is about delivering information and context," Olbermann claimed. "It has nothing to do with a political point of view." But those who...

Da Vinci Code actor: Bible as much "fiction" as the movie. In a Wednesday Today session in Cannes, France with actors and producers of the Da Vinci Code movie, Matt Lauer asked about how, given how many want the movie to be clearly labeled "fiction," they would have "felt if there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie? Would it have been okay with you?" Actor Ian McKellen replied: "Well I've often thought that the, the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying, this is fiction. I mean walking on water? I mean it takes...

Nets Again Champion Cause of Marches on Behalf of Illegals      All three broadcast network evening newscasts led Monday night with multiple favorable stories about the day of protests to promote the cause of illegal aliens. Bob Schieffer opened the CBS Evening News by trumpeting: "From coast to coast, from north to south, they wanted us to know what America would be like without them and so millions of immigrants missed work, skipped school and marched in the streets. They want America to find a place for those who came here illegally and it's too soon to know if they...

While the media in communist China censored the protestor who interrupted the White House-welcoming of China’s President, CBS and ABC prattled on about how a U.S. official’s misnaming of China was a huge embarrassment for President Bush and also re-spun China’s propaganda about Taiwan. MSNBC’s liberal Keith Olbermann, who regularly slams Fox News Channel as unreliable, miraculously found the network highly reliable when it reported President Bush’s approval rating at 33 percent. Today’s Katie Couric endorsed Senator Kennedy’s neo-socialist national health care plan as “noble.” Hardball’s Chris Matthews, apparently short on material, discussed Rolling Stone’s issue about Bush being the...

Though in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars -- the only way to measure prices over time -- a price of a barrel of oil will have to exceed $87 to reach a record high, the broadcast networks have been falsely trumpeting nominal oil prices as a "record high." On Wednesday night, for instance, CBS Evening News anchor Russ Mitchell inaccurately asserted that "oil prices hit another record high today, closing above 72 bucks a barrel." NBC's Brian Williams wrongly claimed that oil prices were "surging to yet another record high close. The gain on the day 82 cents per barrel. Closing price...

     NBC anchor Brian Williams gives extra weight to news items especially, it seems, if they appear to undermine religious faith. Before the last ad break on Friday's NBC Nightly News, Williams plugged an end of newscast commentary: "When we come back after a break, some thoughts on a week that has upended some things we sure thought we knew for sure." Williams began his remarks: "By one way of looking at this past week, would anyone blame you if your faith in some long held beliefs is tonight permanently shaken?" Williams then summarized three news stories which would...

April 1, 2006 Notable Quotables from the Media Research Center(Vol. Nineteen; No. 7)   Ready for America's Surrender"Good evening, I'm Bob Schieffer. Activist Cindy Sheehan and a group of about 20 protesters gathered at the White House today to demand U.S. troops leave Iraq. Is this finally the tipping point that forces President Bush to admit we've lost the war? Tonight, my exclusive interview with that inspirational ex-Marine, Congressman John Murtha." — Schieffer beginning the April 1 CBS Evening News.   Zing! Score One for Saddam"Richard, the pajama-clad Saddam Hussein showed up at his trial this morning and announced George...

NBC Showcases Anti-War West Virginian Over One Critical of Media At a forum with President George W. Bush Wednesday at the Capitol Music Hall in Wheeling, West Virginia, Gayle Taylor, the wife of a member of the military recently returned from Iraq, was drowned out by a standing ovation when she told Bush: "It seems that our major media networks don't want to portray the good. They just want to focus-" Neither the CBS Evening News or NBC Nightly News found the criticism of the news media to be newsworthy. NBC's David Gregory instead decided to assert that "in a...

My colleague, Amy Menefee, just posted an excellent review of media coverage of the Dubai Ports World controversy. [begin excerpt] Now that the Dubai ports deal has been sidelined, some in the media are beginning to wake up and smell the protectionism. “The Bush administration is making another argument that a lot of economists are also echoing,” ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas said on the March 10 “World News Tonight.” “The U.S. is hurting itself economically by scuttling this deal.” But just a day earlier, the domestic political nuances and the president’s image were of more interest to “World News Tonight.” Vargas...

Will former White House reporter Helen Thomas ever go away? She’s now written up a jeremiad perpetuating the myth that our media are mere whimpering lapdogs of Bush, tinny arfs all around. She hones in on that old, diseased chestnut that the liberal media went all soft in the “rush to war” in Iraq. Helen’s harangue appeared in the appropriate platform: The Nation magazine, which advertises on its website the slogan, “If you think it’s time to impeach Bush, then it’s time for you to subscribe to The Nation.” In a preview of her forthcoming book on the “waning Washington...

"Don’t Believe the Liberal Media" Dog Tags created for troops on the front lines so far: 24,550 Goal: 150,000 Dear(MRC)CyberAlert reader, Please read this important message from our new project, FightMediaBias.org. Your action right now will be of great comfort to our soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you believe the mainstream liberal media’s reporting on the American military effort in Iraq, you’re almost forced to be ashamed of our troops! The liberal media want you to believe that U.S. troops in Iraq are guilty of widespread torture … oppressing civilians … murdering U.S. journalists … opposing the war...

.....Media Research Center.....list of "notable quotables"....from prominent members of the mainstream news media...... (full set....at the center's Web site, mrc.org.) Happy New Year! Captain Dan the Forgery Man Award "My principal problem was that I stuck by the [Memogate] story, I stuck by our people too long. I'm guilty of that. I believed in the story, and the facts of the story were correct. One supporting pillar of the story, albeit an important one, one supporting pillar was called into question. To this day, no one has proven whether it was purported to be or not. You know, I didn't...

It's time for the 18th annual Media Research Center's awards for the most biased, manipulative or downright goofy quotes from liberals in the "mainstream" media. I'm honored to serve, once again, on MRC's distinguished panel of conservatively biased judges. Here are some of the highlights from among the winners and runners-up of Best Notable Quotables of 2005:

"Introduction Welcome to the Media Research Center’s annual awards issue, a compilation of the most outrageous and/or humorous news media quotes from 2005 (December 2004 through November 2005)..."

Andrea Mitchell: "It is an iconic picture: American hostages, hands bound and blindfolded, being paraded outside the U.S. embassy in Tehran by their captors. But has one of those student radicals now become Iran’s newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?...Tonight, U.S. intelligence officials say that they will continue to study this, but may never have definitive proof of what the role was of Iran’s new president, Brian."Brian Williams: "Andrea, what would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today the first several U.S. Presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called terrorists at the time by the British...

The year 2005 is ending as it began, with another successful election in Iraq and a liberal media still flapping around trying to find other controversies to submerge it. It does not matter to them that a Gallup poll found that 74 percent of Americans express confidence in their military, but only 28 percent express confidence in their newspapers or TV news outlets. The "mainstream" media excels in excoriating the performance of nearly everyone else, but acts as if nothing they do should be held up as ineffective, inaccurate or just plain absurd. That's why the Media Research Center and...

  Newsweek's Bush-in-the-Bubble cover By Brent BozellDec 14, 2005 They call the magazine "Newsweek," but in today's 24-hour news cycle, a weekly magazine that is seen as a recycler of old news is courting a death wish. To avoid this, Newsweek gives us haughty pieces of attitude, not only in the cover stories, but on the cover itself. Remember the cover on Iraq with the words "Bush's $87 Million Mess"?   This week's edition is the latest in a series of let-'er-rip Bush-bashing covers. It pictures President Bush floating encapsulated in a bubble with the headline "Bush's World. The Isolated...

Brian Williams has wrapped up his first year anchoring the “NBC Nightly News,” and he is presenting himself as this year’s new face of the TV news kingdom. He’s a knight on a white horse raging against poverty and indifference, especially in the poorer sections of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. He believes the issues of race, class, oil, war, and the environment make Katrina the “monumental story of modern times.” The NBC anchor shared his thoughts with Howard Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Kurtz asked the obvious question: Has Williams become a crusader? “I don’t think so,” said Williams....

As reported by the Media Research Center’s Brent Baker, the network evening news broadcasts tonight all lead with Congressman John Murtha’s (D-Penn.) call for the removal of American troops from Iraq. Yet, they seemed disinterested in focusing much attention on Rep. Murtha's “denouncement” of the Iraq war more than a year ago. (Please see a May 10, 2004 CNN story stating, “Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, in a news conference with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said the problems in Iraq are due to a ‘lack of planning’ by Pentagon chiefs and ‘the direction has got be changed or it is...

“Sam Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court has pushed the media’s anti-Catholic button, and yet as the record of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Catholic, shows, such anti-religious labeling is unnecessary,” said Media Research Center President Brent Bozell in a statement released today. “For instance, the Associated Press’s headline over reporter Rachel Zoll’s story reads: ‘Alito Would Tip Court To Catholics.’ Substitute the word ‘Jews’ or ‘Blacks’ for ‘Catholics’ and it would spark cries of outrage. “Likewise, a report by National Public Radio’s Dahlia Lithwick is just as insidious,” said Bozell. “She reported that ‘people are very, very much talking about...

Dear Freeper, I just signed a petition to Demand the Media "Tell the Truth!" from the liberal media and I'm asking you to join me in signing it. Click here: http://www.mrcaction.org/500/petition.asp?PID=9916930&NID=1 Already, the media's bias is distorting the reporting on The President's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts. They are doing everything in their power to mischaracterize Judge Roberts. We must take a stand. Thanks for joining with me. Coffee260, P.S. After adding your name to this important petition, please alert your friends and family and urge them to take action with you! + + Sign The Media Research Center's Demand...

On Saturday, millions of Iraqis walked with determination to the polls to vote for a new constitution. The turnout was high. The violence was down dramatically from the triumphant elections of January. But the network found all this boring. On the night before the historic vote, ABC led with bird-flu panic. CBS imagined Karl Rove in a prison jumpsuit. NBC hyped inflation. They say that news is a man-bites-dog story. In the Middle East, how common is a constitutional referendum? Have they had one in Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Jordan? Until the last few years, the phrase "Arab constitutional democracy"...