“Media bias” on The Daily Caller

In an interview published Wednesday with the Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell, Rep. Joe Walsh, an Illinois Republican, accused the national media of protecting President Obama because he is African-American. (more)

I’ve long thought there was something amiss about how news outlets seem almost hyper-focused on reporting any potential conflicts of interest. Not that there’s anything wrong with identifying those conflicts, but I think their importance is often over-played to the detriment of getting to the crux of issues. (more)

According to Erik Wemple, The Washington Post’s new media writer, Sarah Palin is a hypocrite. The former Alaska governor supports abstinence education, yet according to tabloid reporter Joe McGinniss, in 1988 Palin had a one-night stand with a basketball player. Palin was not married at the time, although she was dating Todd Palin. Put all this together, writes Wemple, and Palin is “fair game.” His reasoning: “Hypocrisy is a quality that must be exposed in our political leaders: If Palin backs abstinence-only education and shuns talk of contraception and the like, then we are entitled to know whether her own lifestyle aligned with her rhetoric. And so we’re learning about Palin’s alleged Reagan-era sex life.” (more)

Here’s a dirty little secret about life for politicos in D.C.: We’re all friends here. Republicans, Democrats, Hill staffers, consultants, lobbyists, journalists — we all drink at the same bars, gossip about the same people, shop at the same grocery stores. Sure, at work we’re policy wonks and experts on talking points, but off the clock we unwind over the same drinks and drunkenly deal with life’s bigger issues like our fantasy football draft picks. We’re actual people who think for ourselves. (more)

The incestuous world of D.C./New York journalism is in shock. Slate, the redundant liberal website owned by The Washington Post, has laid off four writers. This comes after The Post announced another disastrous quarter, with a 13 percent loss in online revenues. (more)

A reporter’s job is to report the news. This includes determining what news is worth covering. But should reporters be the sole arbiters of what should be news? (more)

Were you ever blackballed for a job by the mainstream media? I want to hear from you. (more)

Conservatives are used to having the political playing field tilted against them. The (predominantly) liberal media and the iron triangle of congressional staff, government programs and professional left-wing interest groups pretty much ensures that our public discourse skewers left. But rarely have the terms of our debate been as upside down as they are now. (more)

On NPR’s The Takeaway this morning, host John Hockenberry claimed that although the Taliban doesn’t “love” America, the organization “has never been an enemy of the United States” because “they’re not sending planes over to New York or to the Pentagon.” (more)

The Huffington Post headline proclaimed triumphantly, “Jon Stewart LIVE on Fox News, Tells Host ‘You’re Insane.’” Well yes, Jon Stewart did indeed say that to Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace at one point during their riveting discussion yesterday of media bias. But that headline doesn’t come close to capturing how the interview actually went down, and more accurately captures HuffPo’s wishful thinking that their hero would march into the Faux News Evil Empire and kick some serious butt. HuffPo didn’t get its wish. The rest of us, however, were treated to an excellent discussion in which Stewart eventually admitted that many longstanding conservative complaints about the media are valid. (more)

ABC News and George Stephanopoulos have a credibility problem with conservatives and Middle America. And it seems to be getting worse. (more)

From a dirt poor farm in Mississippi to a Gold Coast Chicago penthouse, Oprah Winfrey worked hard, took risks and built a media empire. Her brand is instantly recognizable. She’s a businesswoman par excellence, and a generous philanthropist. (more)

Once upon a time, being a journalist was, first and foremost, about objective reporting. Those quaint days often appear to be behind us. However, even in these days of “narrowcasting” and targeting readers/viewers, news organizations most often make the effort at least to include in their coverage voices from both sides of the story. We see this all the time, whether among pundits on the talk shows or on the opinion pages of leading newspapers. (more)

Lee Casey and David Rivkin had a piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “Climate Change heads to the Supreme Court.” The subhead — “Green activists hope to force electric utilities and many others to pay ‘public nuisance’ claims for emitting carbon dioxide” — sets forth the basics of the case, which will be argued Tuesday to determine whether courts can assign individual liability for individual contributions to climate change (really), on the grounds of common law nuisance. (more)

Public broadcasting must be defunded, but not because of partisan bias. The recent Daily Caller video of NPR executives saying “appalling” things to undercover agents was yet another attempt to demonstrate NPR’s liberal bias. Trying to conclusively pin down the direction of NPR’s bias, however, misses the point. It is irrelevant which way public broadcasting “tilts.” What matters is that it tilts at all. (more)

Daniel Snyder, the despised owner of the Washington Redskins, has decided to take more control over the use of his team’s name. He recently told the Washington Post to stop using the team’s name in anything other than a fair-use way. That way, Snyder can create his own TV shows, magazines, and radio broadcasts using the Redskins’ name. So the Post now calls its “Redskins Insider” blog “Football Insider.” After all, the name “Redskins” attracts eyeballs, and why shouldn’t Snyder cash in? (more)

Harry Shearer, the actor, writer, musician, and most recently filmmaker who is best known for being the voice of characters on “The Simpsons,” had some harsh words for the news media during a visit to the D.C. journalists’ private club Monday, accusing the industry of being driven by group-think and unable to divert from the narrative it creates, even when new facts dispute it. (more)

It’s time for affirmative action at NPR. The beleaguered liberal organization, which is on the verge of losing its federal funding, can begin to get up off the canvas if it does one simple thing: hire a few conservatives. (more)

The media loves polls and considers their results to be sacred. If a poll shows that the people support a bill, that bill must be just and right. And, conversely, if it shows that the people oppose a bill, then, by definition, that bill must be bad and illegitimate. (more)

Faced with the threat of losing funding from the federal government, National Public Radio (NPR) CEO Vivian Schiller defended the news outlet’s use of taxpayer money in a speech Monday, and brushed off criticism of bias as “perception.” (more)