Michael Shear

New York Times campaign reporter Michael Shear's "Political Memo" on Friday, "The 2012 Cycle: Attack, Feign Outrage, Repeat," was pitched as an even-handed, "pox on both your houses" article on how both political campaigns use phony outrage as a political tool. But Shear launched a dubious defense of Obama's notorious "You didn't build that" gaffe, and understated the offensiveness of a false…

CNN's media critic Howard Kurtz made the ludicrous assertion that reporters shouting loaded questions outside of a sacred site in Poland were still a "model of decorum" compared to Mitt Romney aide who cursed at them to "show some respect" for the place. "So, the press doesn't look so great there in Poland, but the reporters were a model of decorum compared to Rick Gorka, the Romney…

Radio and Current TV host Bill Press got thoroughly exposed on CNN Sunday as a shill for President Obama. After Press shamelessly uttered the typical liberal line regarding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) unsubstantiated claims about Mitt Romney not paying taxes, Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz smartly interrupted saying, "That's a Democratic talking point. That's a Democratic…

Michael Shear, the New York Times's "Caucus" reporter, previewed in Monday's paper the expected political reaction to several big Supreme Court's decisions coming down the pike this week, including the biggest of all, Obama-Care, expected Thursday morning. One reaction that was all too predictable: Labeling disparity and a focus on "angry" conservatives (there were no references to liberals…

Given two chances, New York Times reporters Jonathan Weisman and Michael Shear couldn't identify the universal-health-care backers Families USA as liberal in their Friday piece on what happens after the Supreme Court's imminent ruling on the constitutionality of Obama-care: "Parties Plan Next Move Once Supreme Court Rules on Health Care." Yet they had no problem spotting conservatives on the…

New York Times reporter Michael Shear filed a "Political Memo" Thursday on the return of former Virginia Sen. George Allen, who lost in 2006 after the media and the Washington Post in particular harped on a daily basis after Allen referred to opponent's opposition research person as "macaca." Shear felt the need to kneecap Allen out of the starting gate by injecting all the old controversies…

While confessing Democrats and unions were dealt a "painful blow" Tuesday night as Republican Gov. Scott Walker handily beat Democratic challenger Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin recall election, Wednesday's lead story by Monica Davey and Jeff Zeleny opened with the liberal argument that Walker was to blame for undermining the "civility" of the state's progressive politics by engaging in his…

Political reporter Michael Shear uses a half-baked Times "expose" to accuse the GOP of using racial attacks by bringing up the legitimate issue of the anti-white, anti-American, paranoid ravings of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for decades in Chicago, in Saturday's "Race and Religion Rear Their Heads." Perhaps the uglier side of politics is always close to the surface. President…

Friday's New York Times portrayed Obama supporter Hilary Rosen's gaffe on CNN Wednesday night, when she accused Mitt Romney's wife Ann of having "never worked a day in her life," as less of a Democratic fumble and more of a pox-on-both-their-houses moment for both presidential campaigns. The story came at an awkward moment for the paper, which prominently played up Mitt Romney's alleged woes…

Sunday’s New York Times front page brought a rare focus on a trend favorable to the GOP, high gasoline prices under the Obama administration (and in the lead slot no less): Michael Shear’s “High Gas Prices Give GOP Issue To Attack Obama – New Peril To Recovery – Candidates and Boehner Plan to Capitalize on Anger at Pump.” The Times tends to soft-pedal such dangers during Democratic…

New York Times reporters Michael Shear (pictured) and Erik Eckholm filed an 1,189-word dispatch Friday from the Conservative Political Action Conference, the conservapalooza held annually in Washington, D.C. Perhaps caught up in the excitement, the reporters committed some amusing label overload: “Romney Takes Conservative Leaders’ Questions in Bid to ‘Reconnect’” contains 22 examples of the…

Who cares what an unelected dictator thinks about the U.S. presidential campaign? Well, New York Times reporters do. Michael Shear and Trip Gabriel were in Miami following the campaign in the runup to next Tuesday’s Florida primary and quoted Fidel Castro in Thursday’s “Candidates Scramble to Win Hispanic Voters in Florida.” They even suggested the dictator (who they merely called “the…

A day after Times Watch noted that the New York Times virtually ignored Obama’s supposedly “famous”  “57 states” gaffe during the 2008 campaign, reporter Michael Shear rectified that omission, albeit in a story on gaffe-prone GOP candidates, "Flubs Rubbing Some Republicans the Wrong Way," in Wednesday's paper.

The latest New York Times weekly “Caucus” podcast, hosted by reporters Sam Roberts and Michael Shear, opened with Gov. Rick Perry’s blank-out over the third federal agency he would shut down at last week’s Republican presidential debate, an event the Times and other media outlets rewarded with blanket coverage. Shear compared Perry’s flub to a supposedly “famous” one by candidate Barack Obama…