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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

From GQ: Obama Respects David Brooks, Stephanopoulos Advised Gibbs

Brent Baker
November 16th, 2010 2:56 AM

It’s ‘Deranged’ to Not Raise Taxes, Washington Post’s Marcus D

Brent Baker
November 14th, 2010 2:12 PM

Liz Trotta: Obama ‘Encourages’ Foreign Media’s ‘Animosity’ T

Brent Baker
November 13th, 2010 9:30 PM

USA Today Reporter Outs Himself As...a Democrat

Brent Baker
November 11th, 2010 9:08 AM

Amanpour Presses Paul and Pence to Agree Taxes Must Be Raised, Trumpet

Brent Baker
November 7th, 2010 3:44 PM

Cantor's Promise to Hold Oversight Hearings Prompts CBS to Regurgitate

Brent Baker
November 4th, 2010 8:45 PM

NBC's Gregory Blames Angle's Loss on...Dissing the News Media; Whitake

Brent Baker
November 3rd, 2010 2:59 AM

60 Minutes Promotes Washington’s 1098 Income Tax Initiative, Stahl H

Brent Baker
November 1st, 2010 12:14 AM

Amanpour Advances Democratic Agenda on Misinformed Voters and ‘Racis

Brent Baker
October 31st, 2010 4:29 PM

Worried Whitman Might Win, Colorado’s Bennet ‘Deserves To,’ Chaf

Brent Baker
October 30th, 2010 10:25 AM

Election Predictions from Bloomberg's 'Political Capital' Prognosticat

Brent Baker
October 29th, 2010 8:26 PM

Mitchell Tags Toomey as 'Conservative' Four Times in 50 Seconds, Leave

Brent Baker
October 28th, 2010 8:14 PM

Newsweek’s Alter Tries to Prod Independents, Pleading: ‘The GOP

Brent Baker
October 27th, 2010 9:53 AM

Ex NBC Reporter Valeriani Bounds on Stage to Rail Against 'Obstruction

Brent Baker
October 26th, 2010 7:03 PM

Hume Excoriates NPR’s ‘Howling Double Standard’ and Intolerance

Brent Baker
October 24th, 2010 4:51 PM

Krauthammer Directly Challenges Totenberg on NPR’s ‘Hypocrisy’ i

Brent Baker
October 23rd, 2010 2:51 PM

On Maher, Rob Reiner Equates Tea Party to Hitler: ‘All They're Selli

Brent Baker
October 23rd, 2010 8:06 AM

Williams Harangues Christie from the Krugman Left, Pleads for More Spe

Brent Baker
October 22nd, 2010 10:36 AM

NBC Advances Democratic Agenda on 'Secret Money' from Rove's 'Network

Brent Baker
October 21st, 2010 9:39 PM

Nets Use Ginni Thomas' Apology Request to Scold Her Conservative Polit

Brent Baker
October 20th, 2010 9:13 PM