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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

Enthralled White House Press Corps Pose Sycophantic ‘Questions’ to

Brent Baker
December 22nd, 2010 8:38 PM

Nina Totenberg: ‘I Was At – Forgive the Expression – a Christmas

Brent Baker
December 20th, 2010 7:36 AM

Network Reporters and Sunday Hosts Rue Increased Deficit from Tax Comp

Brent Baker
December 19th, 2010 7:03 PM

FNC’s Fox Newswatch Highlights Winner in MRC’s Online Voting for W

Brent Baker
December 18th, 2010 8:48 PM

Maddow More Rational Than Letterman Who Argues WikiLeaks Could Have Sa

Brent Baker
December 16th, 2010 1:17 AM

Only NBC Notes Unveiling of New Reagan Postage Stamp

Brent Baker
December 14th, 2010 1:00 PM

Rates Unchanged, Yet CBS Insists ‘Battle Over Tax Cuts’ Means ‘C

Brent Baker
December 8th, 2010 8:56 AM

‘Lost Revenue’ for Government in Tax Rate Deal Distresses NBC's Wi

Brent Baker
December 7th, 2010 12:24 AM

Kyl Repeatedly Corrects Schieffer: No Tax ‘Cuts’ for Rich, Just Ex

Brent Baker
December 5th, 2010 10:30 PM

Washington Post Op-Ed Urges Presidential Runs by Rachel Maddow or Bill

Brent Baker
December 5th, 2010 11:17 AM

Nets Expound on ‘Cost’ of Maintaining Tax Rates, Stress How ‘Tax

Brent Baker
December 3rd, 2010 7:49 AM

NBC’s Williams Hits Bowles and Simpson from the Left, Deficit Cuttin

Brent Baker
December 2nd, 2010 7:26 AM

Nets Paint GOP as Obstinate, Highlight Failure to Offer ‘Mea Culpa

Brent Baker
November 30th, 2010 10:01 PM

Krauthammer Urges Prosecution of WikiLeaks’ Journalistic Collaborato

Brent Baker
November 29th, 2010 7:58 PM

To Letterman's Annoyance, His Mom Won’t Blame Global Warming for War

Brent Baker
November 29th, 2010 7:59 AM

ABC’s Amanpour Trumpets ‘Tax Us More’ Liberal Democratic Quartet

Brent Baker
November 28th, 2010 3:02 PM

Thanksgiving Afternoon and Overnight: FNC Re-Running ‘The Rise, Fall

Brent Baker
November 25th, 2010 2:34 PM

Amanpour Panelist Regrets ‘Abysmal’ White House PR Means Lack of A

Brent Baker
November 21st, 2010 3:21 PM

In Same Newscast, Katie Couric Decries Big Government Debt and Frets O

Brent Baker
November 19th, 2010 10:29 AM

On Letterman, Rapper 'Jay-Z' Blames 'Reaganomics' and 'Iran-Contra' fo

Brent Baker
November 17th, 2010 12:19 PM