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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 the Archive: George Washington Fought Revolutionary War ‘For Pr

Brent Baker
September 6th, 2010 2:44 PM

Washington Post/MSNBC’s Robinson Plagiarizes Peter Jennings on Elect

Brent Baker
September 6th, 2010 12:11 AM

CBS’s Harry Smith on Face the Nation: No Time to ‘Continue Cutting

Brent Baker
September 5th, 2010 2:43 PM

Washington Post Asserts French ‘Disturbed’ by Crackdown on Unruly

Brent Baker
September 4th, 2010 11:09 PM

Nets See 'Mixed Picture,' 'Mixed Bag' and 'Silver Lining' in Rising Un

Brent Baker
September 3rd, 2010 8:49 PM

Newsweek Insults Barack Obama As an ‘Anchor Baby

Brent Baker
September 3rd, 2010 1:41 AM

To Letterman's Irritation, Trump Denounces Ground Zero Mosque as 'Inse

Brent Baker
September 2nd, 2010 3:50 PM

Miracle on West 57th: CBS Ties Lee to Gore and Quotes Assessment of Bu

Brent Baker
September 2nd, 2010 9:26 AM

On MSNBC, an Incensed Maddow Howls Over Obama's Kind Words for George

Brent Baker
August 31st, 2010 9:38 PM

NBC Re-Runs Obama's Retort on Religion and Citizenship, Williams Touts

Brent Baker
August 30th, 2010 8:46 PM

Brian Williams Treats Obama as Oracle of Wisdom, Wonders: ‘How Are Y

Brent Baker
August 29th, 2010 9:27 PM

CBS’s Schieffer Hits Miller for ‘Extreme Positions,’ Ridicules G

Brent Baker
August 29th, 2010 1:56 PM

CBS to Black Beck Rally Attendees: ‘I'm Noticing that There Aren't a

Brent Baker
August 28th, 2010 8:54 PM

Columnist Mark Shields Despairs George W. Bush Too Honorable to Use as

Brent Baker
August 28th, 2010 3:02 PM

On ABC and CBS, 'Conservative' Beck and Allies Countered by 'Civil Rig

Brent Baker
August 27th, 2010 8:21 PM

ABC Confounded Stabber Not Right-Winger, Still Exploits 'Knife Attack

Brent Baker
August 26th, 2010 9:01 PM

CBS Uses Opposition to Ground Zero Mosque to Lecture About ‘America

Brent Baker
August 26th, 2010 8:57 AM

NBC's Todd: Liberal Victory Means 'Hope' But Conservative Wins Will De

Brent Baker
August 24th, 2010 8:43 PM

On Letterman, Brian Williams Cheers ‘Fruits’ of ‘Clinton Economy

Brent Baker
August 24th, 2010 3:10 AM

Blast from Past: Dick Cavett 'Genuinely Ashamed' of Americans for Oppo

Brent Baker
August 24th, 2010 12:23 AM