All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Last Thursday night, Vaughn and I hit Washington DC's Grand Hyatt hotel for the Media Research Center "DisHonors Awards." The Media Research Center is a conservative media criticism outfit – it bills itself as "The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias" – and the Dishonors Awards is their annual gala, a roast of "the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2005."

We descended into the bowels of the hotel around 7 pm, just as the event was starting, and were soon directed to the press table, which was in the back corner of an enormous hall. The press table wasn't full, but I did make some friends there, among them Ian Schwartz, the 18-year-old conservative blogger behind such sites as firedavidgregory.com. Also at my table were David Lat, who co-edits Wonkette, Greg Pierce, who writes the Inside Politics column for the Washington Times, and Mary Katherine Ham, who blogs over at Hugh Hewitt's site. (Here's Ian's write-up of the festivities, and here's Mary Katherine's.) Other mediafolk in attendance were Jeff Gannon, aka James Guckert, the former Talon News White House reporter whose personal and professional life became a major media story last year, and National Review Online's Kathryn Jean Lopez, known to her fans as K-Lo, though both managed to secure better tables than I did. [NOTE: As it turns out, K-Lo did not attend. We were told by a media rep that she was there -- he even told us what table! -- but apparently she couldn't make it. My apologies.]

Read full post…

The Media Research Center released a report this week about how the mainstream media are "Covering Saddam’s Shenanigans, Not His Crimes." The MRC reviewed every mention of the Saddam trial on the network nightly newscasts between October 16 and March 15 and "found the networks spent nearly three times as much airtime on Saddam’s courtroom antics as on the serious testimony of his victims," according to Rich Noyes.

A few points about this. First, there doesn't seem to be much doubt about Saddam's guilt at this point. There have been many news reports about Saddam's time in power in Iraq, and it's pretty clear to almost all observers that he's responsible for some truly horrendous crimes. That's not to say Saddam does not deserve a trial. Even the worst criminals do. But from a news perspective, focusing on the evidence seems less important because many of his crimes have already been well documented.

At the same time, one could argue that what Saddam did – not his antics – are the real story here. There is something to that argument – I don't think anyone could claim that his crimes are less important or significant than his courtroom outbursts. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that his antics are what's getting most of the attention. Saddam is a compelling figure, one who has existed mostly at a distance for a long time, and the trial offers the best opportunity most Americans have ever had to see what he's really like.

Read full post…

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week we turned to Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center. From his conservative media watchdog perch, Graham (a frequent commenter on Public Eye) answers some of the questions he's often asked, and gives his take on the differences between right and left media critics. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Take it away, Tim:

If a conservative were to start a career in the field of politics with the goal of gaining maximum exposure in the "mainstream media," probably the last thing he or she would do is sign up with a conservative media watchdog group. Conservatives of a certain pre-Internet vintage knew it was hard enough getting your name in the paper without picking a fight with the media giants. But since Public Eye was kind enough to solicit this "outside voice," let’s explore a few questions we are often asked:

1. Are you anti-journalist? Left-wing media-watch groups like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting make a show of how they’re "pro-journalist," as if we at the MRC are not. Surely, Dan Rather is not on our Most Admired list. But we have a deep, geeky love of the news. Several of us can remember being grade-school age and watching Vietnam stories with ‘VIA SATELLITE’ graphics on screen, when the technology was new and exciting. At 17, I was a little late for my dishwashing job the night Walter Cronkite did his last newscast.

We know the value of reporting done right, but we also warn of the harm of reporting done wrong. We’re media critics in part because we’re angered by media unfairness, inaccuracy and even injustice in reporting on our ideas and our think tanks, on our political leaders and our historical heroes, on our religious faiths and our traditional family upbringings. But the great majority of what we watch and read is not noticeably unfair or inaccurate. If we were asked the recent CBS poll question, "How often do the news media tell the truth," we would answer "most of the time." So much of the news our patient analysts review every day is focused on subjects without earth-shaking political impact: who won at the Olympics, wildfires and church arsons, low-fat diets and teenage alcohol consumption, missing white girls and Britney Spears neglecting to belt up her baby. We don’t suspect the networks are twisting or omitting facts for a political agenda in these hours.

Read full post…

We didn’t think it possible, but the bias debate has actually, literally, reached a point of inertia. Media Matters for America and Media Research Center have pointed out where it is apparently possible, within a single news segment, for a network to express bias against both Democrats and Republicans.



Both organizations posted criticism on their Web sites about a report on the “Evening News” on Sept. 28 regarding Tom Delay’s recent indictment. You can watch it here:

Read full post…