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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

Stand-Up Comedy from George W. Bush

Brent Baker
May 3rd, 2009 12:31 AM

Flashback: In Backhanded Bias, Kemp Choice Spurred Talk of 'Haters

Brent Baker
May 2nd, 2009 11:40 PM

Gingrich: 'Press Corps Has Taken Such a Pathetic Dive' with Obama

Brent Baker
May 2nd, 2009 11:01 AM

Thomas: GOP 'Letting Their Extremists Take Them Straight Down

Brent Baker
May 1st, 2009 9:53 PM

CNN's Sanchez: If McCain Won, SCOTUS 'Would Be Changing in Extreme Way

Brent Baker
May 1st, 2009 8:26 PM

Cover for Biden’s Swine Flu Gaffe: 'Not Terrible Advice,' Reaction

Brent Baker
April 30th, 2009 9:36 PM

A-Minus for Obama from CNN: 'Nuanced... Mastery... Articulate... Capab

Brent Baker
April 30th, 2009 3:17 AM

ABC Paints Obama as Victim, Stephanopoulos Echoes Emanuel on Greatest

Brent Baker
April 29th, 2009 8:37 PM

Nets: Specter 'Driven Out' of GOP by 'Right Wing' and 'Fringe of Party

Brent Baker
April 29th, 2009 12:55 AM

Flashback: When Jeffords Switched, Media: GOP Too Conservative

Brent Baker
April 28th, 2009 1:18 PM

Baier Highlights: Coverage More Positive for Obama than for Bush or Cl

Brent Baker
April 28th, 2009 2:08 AM

Kudos: NBC Notes Prof's Turn Down, Over Obama, of Notre Dame Award

Brent Baker
April 27th, 2009 9:01 PM

Sanger on ABC: Obama 'More Moderate than Expected'; Brown on CBS: 'Spr

Brent Baker
April 26th, 2009 12:54 PM

Liberal Media Bias Mocked in Online Comic Strip

Brent Baker
April 25th, 2009 11:58 PM

Gumbel on Gang Violence: 'Why's Nobody Talking Gun Control

Brent Baker
April 25th, 2009 7:57 PM

'Ethicist' for NY Times: 'Great to Have President Who's Competent and

Brent Baker
April 25th, 2009 3:11 AM

Biden's Approval Lower than Cheney's in 2001, Obama Below Reagan

Brent Baker
April 24th, 2009 1:20 AM

Nets Trumpet Obama's Efforts to 'Protect Consumers' from Credit Card C

Brent Baker
April 23rd, 2009 9:24 PM

Mitchell Cites Blair on Value of 'Harsh' Interrogations, But Calls Vie

Brent Baker
April 23rd, 2009 3:46 AM

ABC Defends Obama's 'New World View,' Touts Supposed Successes

Brent Baker
April 20th, 2009 9:04 PM