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Media Bias Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 23, 2016 71 Comments
If you've been paying attention, you already know the media coverage of Trump is a daily drum beat of negativity and undue scrutiny unlike anything we've ever seen. The media may not be crazy about Hillary Clinton, but they're on a special mission to make sure Donald Trump never sees the inside of the Oval Office. The New York Post's Michael Goodwin made this the subject of his most recent column:
American journalism is collapsing before our eyes Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 23, 2016 13 Comments
In recent days, Donald Trump has made a concerted effort to moderate the tone, and some would say the substance, of his campaign. So how does a notable member of the MSM reward him? By analogizing him in explicit terms to a Nazi. On Monday evening's Hardball, Matthews asked if Trump is "in the bunker?" Making the Nazi analogy clear, Matthews said that "somebody compared him to Downfall, the movie about the end of the Third Reich." Matthews admitted: "it's never fair to do that," but that of course didn't stop him, as he suggested that "he's in the bunker but doesn't know what's going on outside. "

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 22, 2016 47 Comments
The MSM can't stop talking about Donald Trump having brought onto his campaign the Chairman of Breitbart News. But Hillary's closest aide being for 12 years an editor of an Islamist magazine that among other things blamed the US for 9/11? Meh! On today's With All Due Respect, guest co-host Alex Wagner seconded the excuse that the Clinton campaign is shopping. Said Wagner: "as you and I have both worked on magazines, we know that there are a lot of editors who do absolutely nothing but are listed on mastheads anyway." John Heilemann similarly argued that while his title at Bloomberg Politics is Managing Editor, he doesn't do any managing or editing. He went on to assert that not many voters care about Huma Abedin "one way or the other." Added Heilemann: "I know people on the right will hate me for saying that."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 20, 2016 40 Comments
A few weeks ago, my colleague Mary reported that an Australian artist removed his mural of Hillary Clinton after a local council vote. His first rendition put her in a very revealing swimsuit; the second featured a burqa after the council first told him to paint over it. In the US, an "anonymous art collective" has focused its questionable creative efforts on Donald Trump.
It's Donald Trump like he's never been seen before. Life-size naked statues of the Republican presidential nominee greeted passers-by in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Cleveland on Thursday. They are the brainchild of an activist collective called INDECLINE, which has spoken out against Trump before. In a statement, the collective said the hope is that Trump "is never installed in the most powerful political and military position in the world."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 19, 2016 6 Comments
On a certain level, it was refreshing to see an MSM member admit how he sees his role: as that of a "defense attorney" for Barack Obama. On another level, it was disgusting . . . On today's Morning Joe, during a discussion of the Iran ransom deal in which even State Department spokesman John Kirby effectively conceded that the deal was a "quid pro quo," the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson said "I feel like I need to ask the sort of question a defense attorney would ask at this point." Robinson's point was that some had criticized the Obama admin for not obtaining the release of the hostages as part of the Iran nuclear deal. But no one ever suggested that the US pay ransom for the hostages, as President Obama untruthfully denied doing. The notion was that the US should not agree to the deal unless the hostages were released. But that didn't stop Robinson from going all Perry Mason on behalf of the president.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 18, 2016 15 Comments
Tell us, Carol: the leaders of which Black Lives Matter chant would you suggest Donald Trump "reach out" to: "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon," or "what do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!" On her CNN show this morning, Carol Costello suggested to Trump supporter Scottie Nell Hughes that Trump should be "reaching out" to Black Lives Matter. When Hughes replied that the Trump campaign has reached out to the black community, Costello interrupted incredulously "to Black Lives Matter?" Perhaps someone can do the research and find the last time Costello suggested to a Hillary supporter that Clinton should be "reaching out" to the KKK or Stormfront.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 17, 2016 7 Comments
Imagine that a Republican state attorney general had been forced to resign after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Now imagine how the story would have been played on MSNBC. Fair to assume that the word "Republican" would have featured in the story's first sentence? But in a stand-alone segment on today's Hardball on the forced resignation of Kathleen Kane, the Pennsylvania AG who was convicted on nine charges, host Chris Matthews failed to ever mention, and the screen graphics never revealed, that Kane is a Democrat. Kane had illegally leaked secret grand jury documents to harm a rival prosecutor, then lied about it under oath.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 16, 2016 9 Comments
As a casual observer of German and European media, regular display of anti-Israel bias doesn’t surprise me anymore. But the report aired Sunday by Germany’s state-run broadcaster Tagesschau (ARD) during prime time was disturbingly biased -- even by usual European standards. A video report titled “Dry Faucets in West Bank” was broadcasted on Germany’s most watched news show. The video clip accused Israel of ‘rationing the water supply’ of the Palestinian and diverting water resources to the neighbouring ‘Israeli settlements’. The report narrated by ARD’s Israel correspondent Markus Rosch talks to a resident of a small Arab town of Salfit, who says, “We need water to live. Now there isn’t any. How can this go on like this?” The camera then switches to his little daughter who says she can’t go the holiday camps anymore due to water scarcity.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 06, 2016 21 Comments
Hillary Clinton gave her first press conference since December of 2015 on Friday which was open only to journalists of color. While she did get at least one question about her ongoing email troubles, the event devolved unsurprisingly into a campaign rally. NewsBusters reported:
Reporters Raucously Applaud Hillary, Softball Questions to Her at Their Own Conference Showing how much the liberal media is in the tank for Hillary Clinton in this election, reporters at the joint conference of National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists on Friday afternoon wildly applauded Clinton’s far-left answers to a slew of softball questions about immigration, the electorate, and even whether she has any black friends.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 04, 2016 23 Comments
In addition to ignoring as many of Hillary's negatives as possible, another form of media bias is happening in this election cycle. The media is rehabilitating Bill and Hillary's marriage. It's easier to see the Clintons back in the White House if they're perceived as a happy and normal couple, not the scandal plagued, loveless pair who stayed together for purely political purposes. To aid in their image makeover, we're seeing pieces like this one from CNN:
The surprising secret to Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage Tuesday night, Bill Clinton took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to make the case for another Clinton: the former U.S. Secretary of State-- and his former First Lady -- Hillary Clinton, as the next President of the United States.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 22, 2016 74 Comments
Donald Trump's acceptance speech last night was a hit with viewers, as Yahoo News reported:
The majority of viewers who watched Donald Trump's speech to the Republican National Convention on Thursday night said it made them more likely to vote for him in November, according to a CNN/ORC instant poll. The poll found that 56% of speech viewers were more likely to vote for the New York businessman after seeing him formally accept the Republican nomination. 32% of viewers said his speech had little effect on them, and 10% said it made them less likely to cast their vote for Trump in November. Overall, 57% of viewers said they had a "very positive" reaction to Trump's speech. Meanwhile, 18% said they were "somewhat positive" and 24% said it had a "negative effect."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 19, 2016 8 Comments
This could go down as the most egregious example of an MSM "anchor" groveling at the feet of a liberal activist . . . During MSNBC's coverage of the opening night of the Republican convention, Tavis Smiley complained that, unlike cop killers, "killer cops" are not called "vicious and despicable and cowardly and reprehensible." Brian Williams immediately piped up: "Tavis, if I appointed you president and you still refused to run we would have to appoint you." I'm guessing Williams meant to say "if I nominated you for president you and you refused to run we would have to appoint you." But in his obsequious excitement, poor Brian stumbled on his words. But we get it, Williams: there's nobody you'd rather see as president, even if it means overturning democracy and appointing him, than someone willing to call cops "vicious, despicable, cowardly and reprehensible."

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 16, 2016 42 Comments
It took less than 24 hours for liberals in media to begin attacking Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Just days ago, many of these folks never would have bothered writing anything about Pence but now that he's on the ticket with Trump, they're in a rush to define him. Here are some choice examples. Think Progress invented a new term for the Governor:
Mike Pence, Cigarette Truther Over his political career Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) has consistently carried the tobacco industry’s water, denying the dangers of cigarettes, opposing government regulation, and slashing smoking cessation efforts. In return, they rewarded him with more than $100,000 in campaign donations.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 30, 2016 23 Comments
Wow! Mika Brzezinski absolutely ripped into Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch today for holding a private meeting earlier this week. More importantly, the Morning Joe host clearly seemed to swipe at the rest of the media and punditry class for refusing to focus on the outrage. When Mark Halperin said "I bet you they didn't talk about" the FBI investigation of Hillary, Brzezinski literally laughed in his face. "Come on, stop! Everybody stop! Okay, well this is why this is never going to be a problem for Hillary Clinton. People are too afraid to talk about the truth." In a parting shot, Mika said "we'll just move on, just like everyone else does. Even though it's a complete sham."

Posted by Mirabelle Ward on June 25, 2016 2 Comments
The victim-blaming narrative that says that Israel’s so-called “occupation” of the West Bank is responsible for Palestinian violence has been getting a lot of air time since the murder of four by a terrorist in Tel Aviv earlier this month. It has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Politico, and has even been parroted by the mayor of Tel Aviv himself. This narrative ignores decades of history, and has no more truth to it than the vile claim that LGBT people deserved the Orlando attack. Israel’s military presence in the disputed territories of the West Bank is the result of Arab violence against Israel, and not the cause of it.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 18, 2016 23 Comments
The reader may remember NY Daily News reporter, Gersh Kuntzman, and his harrowing tale of the AR-15 that bruised his shoulder and gave him PTSD. After his article was published, the gun shop that accommodated his request was, "disgusted" and has mounted an effort to have Kuntzman's article taken down. "We acknowledged his offer so that we could prove that an AR-15 is indeed a great and safe weapon as stated in the video," Frank's Gun Shop Double Tap Shooting Range posted to their Facebook page, "To our knowledge we did not know that Mr. Kuntzman would completely turn things around and make our establishment look like one of anti-gun advocates."

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 17, 2016 14 Comments
Several media watch dog groups (see here and here) have blasted reports published in The Independent, International Business Times, Times of London, and other news outlets for falsely accusing Israel of cutting off drinking water to Palestinians in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Each of these news outlets picked up a blatantly incorrect Al Jazeera report that initially included no response from Israel. They ran their own stories with it, accompanied by headlines denunciating Israel for maliciously working to deprive Palestinians of water. https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/742968004686778368

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 08, 2016 19 Comments
As I noted in my post on the AP announcing that Hillary Clinton has clinched the nomination ahead of the California election, the November 2016 battle is ultimately between the elite media and average Americans. As predicted by many, the American press has started pressuring Bernie Sanders to stop his campaign entirely. This gem from the San Diego Union Tribune is just one example of many attempts to cajole Sanders voters into supporting Clinton.
This is why we urge Bernie Sanders to drop his now-futile challenge to Clinton for the Democratic nomination after the final primary next Tuesday in Washington D.C. At this stage, after a historic speech as a major party’s first presumptive female presidential nominee, Clinton shouldn’t have to spend her time and resources defending herself from Sanders and his allies.
But the California media has not mentioned that Clinton has not experienced smooth sailing they portray in their coverage.
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