BiasAlerts

CBS's Bill Plante on Friday downplayed graphic photos of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posing with severed body parts of suicide bombers as a GOP "distraction," insisting that Republicans were "somehow" trying to portray this (and other issues) as a failure of leadership. None of the networks wondered if this reflected poorly on Barack Obama. Since the Los Angeles Times first reported the 2010 pictures on Wednesday, ABC has only offered one report, airing on World News . CBS allowed a lone segment on the April 18 Evening News and a brief mention by Plante on Friday's This Morning . He... continue reading

The big three networks have, thus far, shown little interest in investigating the nearly one million dollars in commuting costs spent by Barack Obama's Defense Secretary. According to the Washington Times , Leon Panetta's weekend flights home cost $32,000 and have totaled $860,000 as of early April. Yet, ABC, NBC and CBS have skipped this subject, even as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was pressed on it, Wednesday. Yet, on January 29, 2012, 60 Minutes profiled Panetta about his California farm. Journalist Scott Pelley puffed, "He and his brother planted these walnut trees sixty-five years ago with their father...Did... continue reading

Apparently Hardball anchor Chris Matthews doesn't watch his own network. On Wednesday, the liberal cable host piously proclaimed that liberals would never compare a conservative to a dictator such as Joseph Stalin : "...People don't do that," he sputtered. However, on February 14, 2012 , MSNBC host Martin Bashir outrageously linked Rick Santorum to genocidal murderer Joseph Stalin. [See MP3 audio here .] After highlighting a critic who insisted the Republican was straight out of the 13th century, Bashir smeared, "If you listen carefully to Rick Santorum, he sounds more like Stalin than Pope Innocent III." Yet, according to Matthews... continue reading

Uniquely among the broadcast network evening newscasts, Wednesday's NBC Nightly News highlighted controversial comments about President Obama recently made by conservative rocker Ted Nugent, even bringing up another controversial clip from 2007. But correspondent Andrea Mitchell failed to mention that Obama has his own history of using violent metaphors, as, during the 2008 campaign, then-Senator Obama gave a speech in which he spoke of bringing a gun to a knife fight. Obama, at a speech in Philadelphia in June 2008: If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Anchor Brian Williams introduced Mitchell's report: Federal investigators... continue reading

Charlie Rose did his best to forward liberals' talking points about Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, during an interview of House Speaker John Boehner. Rose played up Mitt Romney's endorsement of the Ryan plan and how the former governor " talked about, perhaps, abolishing H.E.W. [sic]- I mean, HUD, as well as Department of Education ." The anchor even went so far to tout how " Catholic bishops today said that the Ryan budget fails to meet moral criteria and disproportionately cuts programs that serve the poor and the vulnerable, which sounds like the President... continue reading

Everyone on NBC's Today show payroll ignored foul-mouthed comedian Bill Maher's $1 million donation to an Obama super PAC -- but NBC's Andrea Mitchell went to extravagant lengths on Wednesday to tie Mitt Romney as closely as possible to supporter Ted Nugent, after Nugent made headlines for controversial comments about President Obama. The lone mention of Bill Maher on the Today show in 2012 was from guest host Sarah Palin on April 3. This manifests a complete partisan double-standard on the part of NBC as they scrutinized the ties between a Republican and his supporter but left it to a... continue reading

CNN host Fareed Zakaria, who admitted last year that he held off-the-record conversations with President Obama even though he was covering the President's foreign policy, has now expressed , in a CNN blog post, his support for the Buffett Rule – legislation that Obama has pushed for in recent weeks. Zakaria is reportedly on the short list of considerations for Obama's next Secretary of State if the President is re-elected, and has had to answer for his conversations with Obama and any possible conflict they might have had with his reporting on foreign affairs. Now he is supporting legislation that... continue reading

MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who previously compared Rick Santorum to genocidal murderer Joseph Stalin , on Wednesday mocked the concept that MSNBC could be biased against Republicans. A network graphic dismissed, "Paranoia? Romney: More Media Should Be as 'Fair' as Fox News." After playing clips of Mitt Romney decrying liberal media bias, Bashir huffed, "This is pretty rich from a man who hasn't appeared on Meet the Press , whose spokesman won't even accept an invitation to appear on this broadcast ." Why would Republicans come on Bashir's show? In addition to comparing Santorum to a dictatorial mass killer, this same... continue reading

Of the three major networks, only ABC's Good Morning America on Wednesday covered the "dog wars" counterattack by Mitt Romney's operatives. Co-anchor George Stephanopoulos highlighted that the campaign is " tweeting around a picture of the President and trying to focus on a revelation he made in his memoir, that he actually tried dog when he was a young boy in Indonesia ." CBS This Morning and NBC's Today both skipped the story. The Romney team used the dog-eating revelation from Obama's book to hit back on Democratic complaints that the Republican once put his dog on the car roof... continue reading

MSNBC analyst David Goodfriend appeared on Tuesday's Dylan Ratigan Show to slime the National Rifle Association as having "blood on its hands." Goodfriend, who was only identified as a Democratic strategist in an onscreen graphic, accused the pro-Second Amendment group of killing people via legislation: " Americans are dead because of what the NRA has done ." Goodfriend's diatribe was labeled an editorial "rant" by MSNBC, but typical of the network's hateful tone . Goodfriend's proof? He cited the anti-gun, liberal Brady Center and shilled for donations: "Folks, please go to www.BradyCenter.org . You'll see a picture of George Zimmerman... continue reading