media bias

When seeking to demonstrate the degree to which the "objective" news media act like Democratic partisans, the best place to start is scandals, as in "Have you heard all about the latest Republican scandal?" versus "What Democrat scandal?" Think of this, and then feel free to laugh at NBC's Chuck Todd, who proclaimed on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that charges of a liberal bias in the media are an old Roger Ailes tactic "not based in much fact."

It’s one thing to deny the embedded bias of political media—the left-ideological framing, skewed focus, and prejudiced coverage that’s forced conservatives to consume news through a filter for decades—and it’s another to ignore a bias that’s transforming into unethical advocacy. Suspicion of the media was restive among conservatives long before Trump and Fox News exploited it. There will always be those who distrust any news that fails to confirm their worldview. But Trump’s “fake news” hyperbole has currency with many Americans because the political media too often lives up to their worst expectations.

All is apparently right with the world when the networks work overtime to confirm the "effortless" coolness of Democratic leaders. But Republicans can never be normalized or humanized by late-night hosts. When Johnny Carson mocked President Ronald Reagan, it was gentle and had a "just kidding" vibe. All these years later, the left expects late-night comedians to lead a vicious campaign of character assassination to ruin Trump, which is why Fallon's hair mussing gets metaphorically reimagined as treason.

When CNN's Van Jones asked how Seth Meyers can still "find the funny," Meyers was more honest about his personal Resistance: "if you can point out how insane it all is, I think that helps keep you sane and keeps bringing you back. ... If you take a few days off criticizing what the president does, I feel like maybe that means he wins, and I don't want somebody to be so abnormal and have them win by us ignoring it." Trump. Must. Lose. That is the late-night "comedy" rule. That's the only consistency.

Media fury at one Donald Trump is sowing worrisome consequences for the future. The lying so-and-so, as most of the media view him, is going to be gone one day: possibly with the media’s invaluable assistance. And will there linger, save in progressive circles, any public inclination to believe, or even listen to, a word the anti-Trump press says about anything? Including the weather?

Journalists often talk about President Trump's "war on the media" and can't possibly discuss the media's war on President Trump. When the president attacks the media, that's an attack on democracy. When the media undermine the president, that's the full flowering of democracy. Removing the statements made by Trump and other politicians, 90 percent of evening-news Trump evaluations were negative, and only 10 percent were positive.

Liberals at the Washington Post didn't seem to have a merry Christmas this year. They were seriously unhappy about the fact that anyone would utter the "lie" about President Trump making it safe to say "merry Christmas" after eight years of the Obamas sending out White House cards wishing "happy holidays."

Seven months after throwing Carter Page as fuel on the collusion fire lit by then-FBI director James Comey’s stunning public disclosure that the Bureau was investigating possible Trump campaign “coordination” in Russia’s election meddling, the Gray Lady now says: Never mind. We’re onto Collusion 2.0, in which it is George Papadopoulos — then a 28-year-old whose idea of résumé enhancement was to feign participation in the Model U.N. — who triggered the FBI’s massive probe by . . . wait for it . . . a night of boozy blather in London.

The corrections, reflections, and over-the-top hand-wringing are set out now in everyone’s eye, thanks to a media dishing it out to everyone with a smartphone or a laptop. It’s often not very pretty. The hand-wringers in the newsrooms, complaining that nobody loves them anymore, should worry less about what their critics say about them and spend more time learning their craft. An editor steeped in the art of head-pounding would have told them that.

It’s not clear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., can round up the needed 50 Senate votes and, if he does, whether a conference committee will hammer out a version that can pass both houses. In any case, the Republican tax bills are something more serious and responsible than “hurtling” missiles “tilting” the tax code toward the “wealthy.”

In the angst-ridden aftermath of Donald Trump's election, the media found vindication by reporting all kinds of "hate crime" incidents, lurching so eagerly that they fell for a few that turned out to be hoaxes. Any media outlet that leaps on a small incident of vandalism as a grand statement on Where America Stands ought to have the courage to make a public acknowledgment when the story is fraudulent. To do otherwise is to stoke racial fires with dishonesty.

Corruption, in the eyes of our partisan media, is solely a Trump problem, just like colluding with Russia to manipulate the election, or hating facts you find inconvenient. When Republicans agreeably proclaim that only Trump is ruining Washington on all of these things, they are trapped in the liberal-media mind meld.

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has released a follow-up to its exposé of bias at the New York Times earlier this week. This time, the target is YouTube, the ubiquitous video-sharing platform owned by technology giant Google.

Nothing pleases journalists more than when Republicans do their propagandistic work for them. They like the construction, “some critics say,” but they like the phrase “some Republicans say” even more when they need to smear a reviled target. With Trump, the sticks grow ever more thin, but the media can always count on me-too Republicans and conservatives to sharpen what little remains of them.

CNN host Brian Stelter said, "President Trump’s actions and inactions in the wake of Charlottesville are provoking some uncomfortable conversations, mostly off the air if we’re being honest." There is certainly a question of just how uncomfortable CNN has been about raising issues related to President Trump’s health and character. “My impression is that since President Trump’s inauguration, there’s been a lot of tiptoeing going on,” added Brian Stelter.

Trump’s Phoenix speech was good mostly because Trump showed he could still be Trump, and that he wasn’t going to be cowed into abandoning his base – and because along the way he delivered an epic put down to the national media’s Charlottesville narrative.

When (Trump aide Stephen) Miller was done, (CNN reporter Jim) Acosta complained, "You called me ignorant on national television." The Washington Post "fact-checker" squad must have agonized as it underlined Acosta as the ignorant half of this exchange. If it did, kudos to the Washington Post for breaking the mold.

The MSM are — channeling a phrase from the Vietnam Era — a "pitiful, helpless giant."  The work begun in 2004 when many of us spoke out against Dan Rather's deceitful promulgation of the forged Bush National Guard papers on "Sixty Minutes" has, thanks to O'Keefe and others, not to mention the irrationality of the MSM itself, finally reached a critical mass. If only Andrew Breitbart were here to see it.

The Harvard scholars analyzed the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the main newscasts (not talk shows) of CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC during Trump's initial time in office. They found, to no one's surprise, that Trump absolutely dominated news coverage in the first 100 days. And then they found that news coverage was solidly negative — 80 percent negative among those outlets studied, versus 20 percent positive.

Women deserve a workplace where men don't harass them for sex. But that's what these sanctimonious liberal journalists care about. It just doesn't matter how brutal the alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick was. What matters is that Bill O'Reilly had to go. Bill Clinton is laughing.