BiasAlerts

Last week, on the Thursday, September 23, The Ed Show, MSNBC host Ed Schultz touted inflammatory Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson as an example that other Democrats should be following, and, apparently oblivious to the history of partisan polls being notoriously inaccurate, treated with credibility a poll conducted for Grayson's campaign which showed the Democratic incumbent 13 points ahead of his Republican challenger, Daniel Webster, as evidence that other Democrats should learn from the Florida Congressman. Notably, a Sunshine State/VSS poll released this week finds Grayson trailing Republican Webster by seven points, 43 to 36 percent. On his radio show Monday,... continue reading

"For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly," Gallup reported Wednesday in recounting the findings of its latest annual survey on views of the news media. Gallup's post, " Distrust in U.S. Media Edges Up to Record High: Perceptions of liberal bias still far outnumber perceptions of conservative bias ," noted "the 57 percent who now say this is a record high by one percentage point," while the 43 percent who "express a great deal or fair amount of trust... continue reading

Chris Matthews began Wednesday's Hardball in usual fashion attacking the Tea Party as the "Cro-Magnon political party," but he ended this evening's show in an unexpected way as the MSNBCer advised that the more Obama "sells" his ideas to "the political middle the better his chances" and added "Those who argue otherwise don't know this country, its history or its basically conservative gut." Matthews began his "Let Me Finish" segment by suggesting the reason former President Bill Clinton currently has a high approval rating was because he's "a reminder of a better economic time for an important other. But the... continue reading

In an interview with 'Obama's Wars' author Bob Woodward on Wednesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith sought to defend the President's uncertainty on Afghanistan: "...when he takes over they're already in this war for seven years and what he was not going to do...was give the military a blank check in an open-ended deal, say, 'go do your best.'" Moments before that comment, Smith spun severe division in the White House over the war this way: "...these folks are infused with ambition and intelligence and have lots of things at stake and there really is quite a lot of... continue reading

Both ABC and CBS on Wednesday played up Barack Obama's attempt to reignite his Democratic base and defeat surging Republicans. Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos labeled the President's trip to Madison, Wisconsin a " glory days tour. " On CBS's Early Show, Chip Reid used identical language, claiming the President was "recalling his glory days on the 2008 campaign trail." The two networks played up the Democratic comeback storyline with little focus on the Republicans. GMA and The Early Show also ignored what it meant for the President to be traveling to an extremely liberal city in order to... continue reading

NBC's Savannah Guthrie, on Wednesday's Today show, proclaimed: "The President proved last night, in Wisconsin, he can still pack tens of thousands of young people into an arena" but lost on Guthrie was the fact that if Barack Obama has to campaign in one of the most reliably liberal cities - in this case Madison, WI for incumbent Senator Russ Feingold - it's not a good sign for the Democratic Party. While Guthrie did question if Obama could get those young voters to the polls, she went on to leave the impression that Obama's "old campaign magic" may be closing... continue reading

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll didn't come up with numbers pleasing to the NBC News staff, though Brian Williams, on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, did his best to spin the findings as showing "there is really bad news if you're an incumbent officeholder of either party" and Chuck Todd insisted the public wants more from the elections than "just change [in] the color of the jerseys." Todd, however, couldn't avoid reporting that "the change that voters want" includes 54 percent who "hope that this Tea Party enthusiasm in the Republican Party makes them a fiscally conservative party" and... continue reading

A frustrated Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's Hardball, chided the left for being disappointed in Barack Obama as he essentially told them, he's the best they've got and are going to get. During a segment in which the Salon's Joan Walsh and Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall wondered why Obama and Joe Biden were admonishing their base to stop whining, Matthews took up for Team Obama as he tried to calm down the lefties: "This president has done what we were all taught in graduate school to do, what progressives have believed in from years and years, decades ago ...You compensate... continue reading

MSNBC reporter Luke Russert on Tuesday lauded Democratic Senator Russ Feingold as a "fiscal conservative." During the same segment, he knocked Republican Sharron Angle for making "outlandish, absurd comments." Russert asserted that Feingold is known for "independence during his Senate career, having a lot of moral victories" and for " being fiscally conservative. " [MP3 audio here .] The National Taxpayers Union disagrees, awarding the Wisconsin politician three Ds and two Fs over the last five years. The American Conservative Union gave Feingold a lifetime score of 12 . In contrast, the 25-year-old reporter casually dismissed Angle: "However Sharron Angle,... continue reading

MSNBC daytime anchor Contessa Brewer has recently drawn much attention for her shameless bias towards gay-rights activists, especially since she anchors an MSNBC news hour and not a talk show. But today, interviewing ultra-liberal Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), Brewer actually grilled him for his shamelessly-edited ad attacking his Republican opponent Daniel Webster. Grayson, a freshman Democrat, has made a name for himself in the past year for his outlandish soundbites and theatrics on Capitol Hill. His latest venture into psycho talk is an attack ad accusing Webster of degrading women, calling him the "Taliban." "So Congressman, your opponent is a... continue reading