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Media Bias Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 23, 2015 38 Comments
Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes drew a cartoon showing Ted Cruz's children as monkeys dancing to his tune. The pretext was that the children appeared in a campaign ad. As if this is the first time children have appeared in a political context. There was a firestorm of controversy, and the cartoon was pulled: I have mixed feelings about the controversy. On the one hand, I'm against the culture of outrage that pervades campuses and increasingly the media. But I also understand why lines need to be drawn for candidates, particularly as to minor children.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on December 22, 2015 10 Comments
The Boycott, Divest & Sanction ("BDS") movement and the broader campaign to delegitimize Israel has had a tough few weeks.  In academia and industry, the boycott campaign has been exposed as potentially discriminatory and unlawful, and yet another panel of experts has affirmed that Israel's use of force against Hamas is not only legitimate, but exemplary. Law Professors Eugene Kontorovich and Steven Davidoff Solomon of the Northwestern University and University of California - Berkeley, respectively, make the case that boycotts by academic associations are unlawful.  As one might expect, academic associations each have a stated purpose, typically to collect, share, expand and advance knowledge in the relevant field.  Profs. Kontorovich and Davidoff explain that such associations cannot legally do anything other than pursue those stated purposes, and:
Boycott resolutions that are beyond the powers of an organization are void, and individual members can sue to have a court declare them invalid. The individuals serving on the boards of these organizations may be liable for damages. Consider the American Historical Association. Its constitution—a corporate charter—states that its purpose “shall be the promotion of historical studies” and the “broadening of historical knowledge among the general public.” There’s nothing in this charter that would authorize a boycott. And an anti-Israel boycott will do nothing to promote “historical studies” or broaden “historical knowledge.” A boycott by definition restricts study and research: The explanatory material attached to the [American Anthropological Association ("AAA")] resolution, for example, says it would restrict the organization from sharing scholarly journals with Israeli universities.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 14, 2015 25 Comments
I noted the other night that Donald Trump may have opened the "Overton Window" for Ted Cruz, by making Cruz acceptable to both Republican establishment types and general election voters who otherwise would have considered him Cruz conservative. I noted the fear of a liberal who wrote:
Donald Trump looks like the warm-up act. Whoever follows him from the Republican party looks reasonable (and sane) by comparison.
How will the mainstream media react if Cruz's current poll surge holds and he looks like a viable challenger to Trump? We know the answer, because there's a history here, one I documented back in August 2013. And ironically, it's a theme Trump appears to be taking up in a recent attack on Cruz. I called it the crazying of Ted Cruz, focusing on a Daily Beast article trying to portray Cruz as "creepy":
A lifetime of achievement that would normally be heralded by liberals if achieved by a liberal Hispanic, devolves into creepiness on the slimmest of pretexts. This is all part of the crazying of Ted Cruz by liberal publications like the Daily Beast. It doesn’t matter what the substance is, they just want to associate the word “creepy” with Ted Cruz in the minds of the public, many of whom don’t read past the headline.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 14, 2015 23 Comments
Here's something you may have missed over the weekend. While most Americans are concerned about terrorism and the growth of ISIS, President Obama and other world leaders met in Paris to discuss climate change. When an agreement was reached, journalists reacted like excited teenage girls. T. Becket Adams of the Washington Examiner has the story:
Reporters shout, jump for joy after climate change agreement Journalists appeared to erupt in cheers Saturday afternoon after representatives from nearly 200 countries agreed to adopt the Paris Agreement, a major accord vowing to fight global warming.

Posted by David Gerstman on December 08, 2015 12 Comments
In the early days of blogging there was a blog called Oh, that liberal media, which regularly exposed instances of liberal media bias. In fact in the early days of blogging that was one of the top achievements of the blogosphere, to point out the easy political bias most supposedly objective news sources engaged in. I used to think that the blogosphere would serve as a necessary corrective to the media, but that hasn't happened. In recent years, I don't think that the criticism has had the same effect, even if in some ways the media cocoon has worsened. I think that conservative media critics have convinced all those who can be convinced of the bias and now either people accept the bias because they agree with it or look to alternative news sources because they don't trust the MSM. And the MSM started paying less attention to the criticism. Most of those who were persuadable have been persuaded. (As far as those who deny that such bias exist ... it's hard to deny when prominent journalists have boasted of the bias.) But I still believe that it's possible for the media to jump the shark. At some point the media will show that they are so hopelessly out of touch with most voters, that even non-ideological types would cease to believe them.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 02, 2015 22 Comments
You may have noticed that the narrative around violent crimes changes depending on who committed the act. When someone with a Muslim sounding name is the suspect, we're repeatedly told by the media and public officials not to rush to judgement. If however, there's even the slightest chance that the perpetrator is in any way conservative, people start talking about violent Republican rhetoric and everyone right of center is suddenly urged to reexamine their views. It's a scenario we've documented on this blog multiple times: Ted Cruz is sick of this narrative and talked about the issue with Hugh Hewitt.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 30, 2015 19 Comments
Monday, Robert Dear, the 57-year-old suspect in the Colorado Springs clinic shooting attended an advisement hearing alongside his public defender. Dear will be represented by the same public defender who defended the Aurora theater shooter some months back. The hearing contained no discussion of motives. Colorado local news reported:

Posted by David Gerstman on November 12, 2015 17 Comments
In a look at the history of the tensions between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The New York Times several days ago started with an interesting anecdote.
For President Obama, it was a day of celebration. He had just signed the most important domestic measure of his presidency, his health care program. So when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel arrived at the White House for a hastily arranged visit, it was likely not the main thing on his mind. To White House officials, it was a show of respect to make time for Mr. Netanyahu on that day back in March 2010. But Mr. Netanyahu did not see it that way. He felt squeezed in, not accorded the rituals of such a visit. No photographers were invited to record the moment. "That wasn't a good way to treat me," he complained to an American afterward. The tortured relationship between Barack and Bibi, as they call each other, has been a story of crossed signals, misunderstandings, slights perceived and real. Burdened by mistrust, divided by ideology, the leaders of the United States and Israel talked past each other for years until the rupture over Mr. Obama's push for a nuclear agreement with Iran led to the spectacle of Mr. Netanyahu denouncing the president's efforts before a joint meeting of Congress.
It's interesting because this is not at all how I remembered it. I remember that the lack of attention to the meeting was perceived as an intentional slight of Netanyahu. A quick check of the contemporaneous reporting confirmed this.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 11, 2015 38 Comments
Tuesday night, Fox Business and the Wall Street Journal hosted a Republican Presidential debate. Making a concerted effort to keep questions substantive and issue focused, moderator Neil Cavuto went so far as to say the debate was, "not about the moderators." Imagine that. A candidate debate in which candidates actually debate issues. What a novel idea! Fox Business nailed it. Questions were issue oriented and highlighted candidate policy differences. CNBC's handling of the last Republican presidential debate was so terrible, the debate highlight reel consisted of candidates channeling their inner Gingrich to swat back at absurd questions. The network's handling of the debate caused the Republican National Committee to suspend their relationship and any future debate arrangements. But because Tuesday's Fox Business debate ran as planned, political writers found the lack of entertaining, non-policy moments dull. Like Politico's Glenn Thrush:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 07, 2015 9 Comments
Back in October, the ladies of "The View" decided to take out their political frustrations on Carly Fiorina's...appearance. The height of discourse, this show is not. At any rate, their comments ignited a firestorm of intense politicking that culminated with a second appearance for Fiorina---and a panel in high dudgeon. Whoopi Goldberg kicked things off by bringing up View-gate, and Fiorina took the ball and ran with it. Via Fox News:
“You know what, look I’ve been called all kinds of things, Whoopi… I’ve been called a bimbo from the time I was a secretary to the time I was a CEO. I think we need to be able to have civil conversations in this country about our differences… so I'd just like to have a conversation about where we agree and where we disagree,” Fiorina said.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2015 53 Comments
I first heard about this story in the car listening to Rush Limbaugh. It sounded bad. Politico was reporting that a supposedly central part of Dr. Ben Carson's personal narrative was fabricated, EXCLUSIVE: Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point Scholarship [link to Wayback Machine preserved version since edits made by Politico later on]. The issue was whether Carson had lied about applying for and being granted admission to West Point on a scholarship (emphasis added):
Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
I don't know how central it was to his narrative - I had never heard about it, but then again, I don't follow Carson that closely. Here was the passage in question from Carson's autobiography:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 03, 2015 43 Comments
In this particular tale of media hit job turned embarrassment, we have what might be one of the best public displays of gun ignorance presented as fact I've ever seen. The only things missing are a barrel shroud and a couple rounds of rubber bullets. Gizmodo reporter Wes Siler thought he'd pegged Republican Presidential Candidate Senator Ted Cruz as a gun safety hypocrite. Last weekend, the Junior Senator from the Lone Star State went pheasant hunting. Note the unloaded, break-action shotgun resting on Cruz's shoulder.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 03, 2015 18 Comments
Back in October, I covered a Gallup poll that showed the majority of Americans don't support a handgun ban. At the time, only 27% of Americans said they would support such a ban. Two studies covered by Legal Insurrection later that month revealed that the Obama Administration's renewed push for stricter controls and limited carry actually runs contrary to the social science of controlling violence and keeping people safe. The thing is, you'd never know it with the way the mainstream media covers issues like gun control, urban violence, and the Second Amendment. The scope and tragedy of deaths due to gun violence aren't just fodder for "very special episodes" of shows like Dateline---they're chum in the water for an opportunistic media determined to forward the interests of anti-gun, pro-regulation activists. Case in point: in the wake of the Umpqua Community College shooting in Rosebud, Oregon, the New York Times unleashed an apparent expose on Sheriff John Hanlin, drawing out his past, pro-gun thought crimes and using them to turn the conversation away from mental illness and toward the Brady Campaign's push for Hanlin's firing---and a strict, anti-gun agenda. We saw it coming from a mile away, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. We as conservatives have learned not to trust the media when it comes to reporting on guns---which is what makes this next video so refreshing. Atlanta-area journalist Ben Swann has committed a cardinal sin: he looked directly into the camera and defended the Second Amendment. Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 03, 2015 12 Comments
The CNBC debate has sparked a number of conversations on the very real issue of liberal bias in the media. As Professor Jacobson pointed out last night, this is an opportunity for Republicans. When the issue is being discussed seriously on MSNBC, you know we've reached a turning point. Yesterday on Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough challenged his panelists to answer a simple question. Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters has the story:
Scarborough: No Republican Has Hosted Network Sunday Show or Newscast in 50 Years In the wake of the CNBC debate debacle, Joe Scarborough went on an epic rant on liberal media bias on today's Morning Joe. He summed things up this way, in challenging the panel: "you can't do it and nobody here can do it: name the single Republican that has hosted a Sunday show, that has been an anchor of a news network for the big three networks over the past 50 years: you can not do it."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 02, 2015 33 Comments
On Saturday night, I wrote that the GOP needs to make an example of NBC News after the CNBC moderating debacle. The point was not that NBC News is the worst offender, it's that it was the wrong place at the wrong time for NBC News, and the right place at the right time for the GOP to pick a fight with the media. The RNC decision to pull NBC News (and its affiliate, Telemundo) from the debate to be co-moderated with National Review was a first step. But it is not enough. The GOP needs to reset the narrative of the networks being in control. For too long GOP presidential candidates have been subjected to Democrat-agenda journalists during Republican primary debates. George Stephanopoulos' grilling of Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican debate was a classic of the genre:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 02, 2015 24 Comments
October's CNBC-hosted Republican debate threw into full relief the bias inherent in the mainstream media's handling of electoral politics. In the wake of the broadcast, both the MSM and RNC leadership fielded comments and accusations from candidates (and conservative bloggers...) rendered beyond frustrated at the CNBC moderators' questions, tone, and approach to a slate of candidates they treated like a lineup of hostile witnesses. Donald Trump has spent a great deal of time since that debate lashing out at the media over its treatment of conservatives, and his latest move is one that his supporters hope will set him further apart from the pack. Republican campaign reps gathered together this weekend in a meeting organized by GOP attorney Ben Ginsberg to craft a list of demands the entire slate of GOP candidates could present to network executives before the next debate. Representatives from Trump's campaign attended this meeting---then promptly announced their intention to independently negotiate with the networks apart from Ginsberg's efforts.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 31, 2015 73 Comments
The GOP has a long history of subjecting its candidates to abuse by debate moderators. From George Stephanopolous to Candy Crowley, debates are a time for network journalists to earn their battle badges by damaging Republicans. And the GOP just sucks it up and takes it. So why would the CNBC moderators have thought the most recent Republican Primary debate should be any different? CNBC did what it thought it was supposed to do -- mock and snicker at Republican candidates. Belittle them. Dismiss their intelligence and portray them as kooks.
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