BiasAlerts

The absurd media double standard in labeling Republicans - even moderate Republicans - as conservative while omitting the liberal label for Democrats was on display again Wednesday as CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes filed a report for the CBS Evening News recounting the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's decision to cease funding for Planned Parenthood. Cordes blamed "social conservatives" in Congress who have battled Planned Parenthood, and included a soundbite of New Jersey Republican Congressman Chris Smith, who, according to the centrist publication National Journal , was only the 135th most conservative member of the House in 2010... continue reading

On their Wednesday morning shows, the Big Three networks continued their trend of all but ignoring the Obama administration trying to force religious institutions to include coverage of sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraceptives in their health care policies without a co-pay. The new mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services would force Catholic hospitals and schools to decide whether to submit to the new policy or follow the Church's teachings against birth control. Instead of covering this growing dispute between the Catholic hierarchy of the United States and the federal government, CBS This Morning brought on Rev. Edward... continue reading

Once again, CNN sympathized with an illegal immigrant supporting the largely Democratic-sponsored DREAM Act. On Tuesday, anchor Brooke Baldwin gave a soft interview to "typical college kid" Mayra Hidalgo who blistered Republicans for their rigidity on immigration. Baldwin let Hidalgo air this message to certain Republican candidates: "Do you even have a heart?" The immigrant directed her ire at Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney for saying an illegal immigrant would have to serve in the military to earn citizenship. "You're messing with people's lives," an emotional Hidalgo ranted. Two months earlier, CNN had helped politicize the " DREAM Act suicide... continue reading

All Three morning shows on Wednesday hyped the idea of a painful, wounding primary fight between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, pushing the concept of a "damaged" nominee. Today host Matt Lauer interviewed Romney and showcased a cartoon from the liberal New Yorker to make his point. As an image of the two Republicans playing football appeared on-screen, Lauer pushed, " But if this goes on much longer and Newt Gingrich has said he'll go 46 more states with this, how can it not damage you? " [MP3 audio here .] On ABC's Good Morning America , George Stephanopoulos lectured... continue reading

Discussing the recall of two Pfizer brands of birth control pills on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry pressed Dr. Keri Peterson on an "option" for women who "may be now vulnerable to being pregnant." Peterson offered this tip: "There are options....You're going to want to use condoms immediately...there are also over-the-counter termination kits available that you can take right away." [ Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump ] At the top of the broadcast, fellow co-host Matt Lauer warned about a "false sense of security" in the wake of the recall and promised viewers... continue reading

On Tuesday, for the second time in two weeks, CNN's Soledad O'Brien insisted that President Bush, not President Obama, is the "food stamp president" – even though data show her argument is ridiculous. On January 19, O'Brien had opened up that "it was George Bush who was the food stamp president." Then on Tuesday, she stated that Bush oversaw a greater percent increase of food stamp recipients than Obama has, and thus was more deserving of the title "food stamp president." However, the number of Americans on food stamps reached an all time high in September of 2011 – during... continue reading

The former Tip O'Neill staffer-turned-political analyst who'd never heard of congressional insider trading until President Obama mentioned it in last week's State of the Union, insists he is unaware of the Bush Derangement Syndrome of many on the Left during the former president's tenure in the Oval Office. What's more, that's not his bias talking, it's just objective reality. "There's a real level of national hatred of the president that I hadn't seen before. Certainly not under Clinton or under Dubya," MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews argued on WMAL radio's Morning Majority program this morning. "The hatred, the Hitler mustaches,... continue reading

While NBC correspondent Peter Alexander noted on Tuesday's Today how "Republicans are jumping on the president's choice of words" in telling a woman her husband's long-term unemployment was "interesting" to him, neither ABC's Good Morning America nor CBS's This Morning bothered to highlight Obama's aloof flub. The NBC report played the sound bite of the president's remark: "It is interesting to me – and I meant what I said, if you send me your husband's resume I'd be interested in finding out exactly what's happening right there – because the word we're getting is, is that somebody in that kind... continue reading

First it was New York Times reporters who were quoting unelected Cuban dictator Fidel Castro insulting the 'idiocy and ignorance' of the candidates for the GOP nomination, in a January 26 story. Now columnist Thomas Friedman gets in on the act, quoting Castro approvingly in Sunday's ' Made in the World .' The Associated Press reported last week that Fidel Castro, the former president of Cuba, wrote an opinion piece on a Cuban Web site, following a Republican Party presidential candidates' debate in Florida, in which he argued that the 'selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this... continue reading

At the top of his Tuesday report for NBC's Today, correspondent Peter Alexander warned viewers about the state of the Republican primary race in Florida: "This campaign has just gotten so nasty lately. By some accounts, more than 90% of the ads that have run in this state have been negative." Remarkably, later in the same segment, Alexander was happily promoting a nasty line of attack by the Obama campaign against Mitt Romney: "...the president's re-election team is now weighing in on the issue of how Romney treated his former pet....when he put the family dog, Seamus, on the roof... continue reading