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Brent Baker

Editor At Large
@ BrentHBaker

Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center (MRC), the publisher of NewsBusters. He’s been the central figure in the MRC’s News Analysis Division since the MRC’s 1987 founding and in 2005 spearheaded the launch of NewsBusters.

Baker oversaw the selection of the award nominees and “winners” for the MRC’s “DisHonors Awards” (highlight video clips on NewsBusters), presented at an annual gala, and each week he helps the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard select a “Liberal Media Scream.” Those picks are added, on a one week delay, to NewsBusters.

In 2001, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes dubbed Baker “the scourge of liberal bias.”

For 13 years, 1996 through 2009, he compiled and edited the daily CyberAlert e-mail and online report. In late May of 2009 the CyberAlert became an e-mail-only product based on BiasAlert postings on the MRC's Web site until it was discontinued in 2015. 

From 1988 through 2015 he served as Editor of Notable Quotables (archive), a two-page newsletter which delivered a bi-weekly compilation of quotes from the liberal media which reflected biased reporting. At each year-end, an annual “awards for the year’s worst reporting” were selected by a panel of judges. (NQ collections on NewsBusters since 2016). From 1988 to 1999 he also oversaw MediaWatch, a monthly and later bi-weekly newsletter which the MRC discontinued in order to concentrate efforts on more timely analysis via the Internet.

Baker is the author of How to Identify, Expose & Correct Liberal Media Bias, a 1994 book which offers detailed explanations and suggestions for what the average citizen can do about media bias. Baker was co-editor of And That’s the Way It Isn’t: A Reference Guide to Media Bias, a 1990 book containing excerpts, reprints and summaries of 45 studies documenting the media's liberal bias during the 1980s.

Baker lived in Massachusetts through high school, whereupon he fled the liberal commonwealth for George Washington University in DC and, since graduation, a life in Northern Virginia. He edited the conservative college student newspaper The Sequent and graduated from GWU with special honors in political science in 1985.

After a stint at Conservative Digest magazine, Baker joined Brent Bozell at the National Conservative Foundation (as editor of the newsletter Newswatch) before helping to create the MRC in 1987.

An avid fan of the Washington Capitals NHL hockey team, in January of 2009 the Washington Post's "DC Sports Bog" took note of Baker's attendance at a Caps game with John Kerry: "The Caps, John Kerry and a Scourge."

Bio on MRC.org.


Latest Blogs

NBC’s Chuck Todd Sees Opening for a ‘Fire-Breather’ Republican P

Brent Baker
May 17th, 2011 1:30 AM

CNN Tries to Contain Damage from Spitzer Outing Zakaria’s Consultati

Brent Baker
May 16th, 2011 8:14 AM

FNC’s Fox News Watch Highlights Cal Thomas Earning MRC’s ‘Excell

Brent Baker
May 16th, 2011 1:01 AM

ABC Puts FOB/Ex-MSNBC Chief in Charge of Amanpour’s This Week and Al

Brent Baker
May 13th, 2011 9:17 AM

CBS Finds Sympathetic College Student to Use to Promote Obama’s Push

Brent Baker
May 11th, 2011 9:38 AM

Washington Times and Washington Examiner Highlight MRC's 'DisHonors Aw

Brent Baker
May 10th, 2011 1:17 PM

Incoming CBS Anchor Pelley Mimics MSNBC’s Pledge: ‘We’re Going t

Brent Baker
May 6th, 2011 2:16 AM

Amanpour Accuses Paul Ryan of ‘Reverse Robin Hoodism,’ Freeland Ur

Brent Baker
May 1st, 2011 4:13 PM

Brian Williams Wonders If Tornadoes Caused by ‘Something We Have Don

Brent Baker
April 29th, 2011 7:24 AM

CBS’s Cordes Charges Ryan’s Plan Undermined by ‘Big Tax Cut for

Brent Baker
April 27th, 2011 9:18 AM

On Letterman, Maher Charges Racist ‘Tea-Baggers’ Are ‘Corporate

Brent Baker
April 26th, 2011 2:50 AM

Video: Opening Segment from Hannity’s 'Behind the Bias: The History

Brent Baker
April 23rd, 2011 1:20 AM

Tonight on the Fox News Channel: 'Behind the Bias: The History of Libe

Brent Baker
April 22nd, 2011 6:28 PM

In Media Rarity, on Tax Day CBS Points Out Nearly Half Escape Paying A

Brent Baker
April 19th, 2011 8:54 AM

CBS Rues Unfairness of Rich Not Paying Enough Without Noting More Than

Brent Baker
April 18th, 2011 9:06 AM

Befuddled Bob Schieffer: ‘Why Do These Rich People Need Another Tax

Brent Baker
April 17th, 2011 4:45 PM

CBS Validates and Rationalizes Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ‘Controv

Brent Baker
April 13th, 2011 2:12 AM

Journalists Denounce Ryan for Not Raising Taxes: ‘Rich Get Off Like

Brent Baker
April 11th, 2011 9:15 AM

ABC’s Tapper Boasts of Giving Anti-Shutdown Talking Point to Preside

Brent Baker
April 8th, 2011 8:57 AM

Dire Consequences of Shutdown: ABC Invokes Washington Monument, Libert

Brent Baker
April 7th, 2011 8:52 AM