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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

CBS's Bob Orr Despairs Shahzad 'Lived a Spartan and Seemingly Lonely E

Brent Baker
May 6th, 2010 8:45 PM

Actress Scarlett Johansson Gushes She's Drunk the 'Kool-Aid' of 'Amazi

Brent Baker
May 6th, 2010 1:50 PM

Shahzad's Motive 'Unclear' to CBS, Cites Money Pressure Since He 'Hasn

Brent Baker
May 5th, 2010 9:53 PM

Flashback: Newsweek as Obamaweek; Might It Help Explain Their Downfall

Brent Baker
May 5th, 2010 1:34 PM

ABC Sees Optimistic Terrorist: Wife Enjoys American Sit-Coms While He

Brent Baker
May 4th, 2010 7:33 PM

CBS Frets Illegal Aliens 'No Longer Feel Welcome' – and the Problem

Brent Baker
May 3rd, 2010 11:58 PM

CBS Features NY Mayor Bloomberg Speculating Bomber Was Mad About Obama

Brent Baker
May 3rd, 2010 7:37 PM

Emerging Anti-Tea Party Line: Lack of Opposition to Arizona Proves Rac

Brent Baker
May 2nd, 2010 2:43 PM

Nets Celebrate May Day Pro-Illegal Immigrant Protests, Barely Mention

Brent Baker
May 1st, 2010 10:51 PM

NBC Promotes May Day Anti-Arizona Protests While CBS Finally Notices C

Brent Baker
May 1st, 2010 3:03 PM

CBS Trumpets Opposition to ‘Notorious’ Arizona Law from One Cop an

Brent Baker
April 29th, 2010 11:36 PM

Couric Touts San Francisco as Proof of ‘Backlash Against Arizona's N

Brent Baker
April 29th, 2010 9:27 AM

ABC and NBC Champion ‘Growing National Backlash’ Against ‘Laughi

Brent Baker
April 27th, 2010 11:06 PM

CBS Again Focuses on Victims in Arizona: ‘Many Feel the Sting of Rac

Brent Baker
April 26th, 2010 10:59 PM

Delay of Cap & Trade a ‘Disaster’ and ‘Travesty’ Friedman Desp

Brent Baker
April 25th, 2010 1:30 PM

Iceland’s Volcano Eruption: ‘Judgment for the Bad Things We Have D

Brent Baker
April 24th, 2010 11:19 PM

CBS Frames Arizona’s Anti-Illegal Alien Law Through Eyes of Opponent

Brent Baker
April 24th, 2010 2:58 PM

Biden and Bo with TV’s Endearing and Cuddly Moments at the Obama Whi

Brent Baker
April 23rd, 2010 9:21 AM

Conflicting Takes on What Goes on Under the Sea

Brent Baker
April 22nd, 2010 8:24 PM

ABC Self-Generates ‘Controversy’ Over Palin’s Innocuous ‘Chris

Brent Baker
April 21st, 2010 3:04 AM