Media Scandals

The National Public Radio (NPR) executive who fired Juan Williams is behind an effort lobbying for a new tax to be levied on private media outlets in order to finance a BBC-style state media, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center Brent Bozell told viewers of Fox Business Network's "Varney & Company" at 10:45 a.m. today. NPR president Vivian Schiller is "part of a group which…

Last night Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly aired an ambush interview that "O'Reilly Factor" producer Jesse Watters sprung on Vivian Schiller, National Public Radio's president. Last week, Schiller fired Williams over the phone in reaction to a comment the Fox News contributor made on the October 18 edition of O'Reilly's eponymous program. Schiller, no stranger to cable news -- she used…

Juan Williams's firing from National Public Radio (NPR) earlier this week was not only animated in part by the liberal George Soros-backed radio network's disdain of Fox News, it also reeks of a double standard, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told viewers of Friday's "Fox & Friends" program. "If [Juan Williams] had said those words on the Charlie Rose show, it would have been seen as…

In the wake of commentator Juan Williams' feckless firing by National Public Radio, supporters on the Internet sounded a cheeky rallying cry: "Free Juan!" But Williams has now been liberated from the government-funded media's politically correct shackles. It's taxpayers who need to be untethered from NPR and other state-sponsored public broadcasting. Public radio and public television are…

Managing Editor's note: National Public Radio (NPR) has fired longtime analyst Juan Williams for admitting he gets nervous on a plane when he sees a person dressed in Muslim garb. What follows is a statement from NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell. Juan Williams has done nothing wrong. What he said echoes what the vast majority of Americans believe. It’s…

Although experts from plenty of liberal-leaning news agencies agree that the Obama administration's complaint about the Chamber of Commerce allegedly spending foreign money on campaign issue ads is overblown, Time's Joe Klein is dead set on griping about the non-scandal. From his Swampland blog post yesterday: Karl Rove is a great American patriot, a genius, a statesman, even. And now he…

Lee Abrams, the eccentric chief innovation officer for Tribune newspapers -- and no stranger to NewsBusters criticism  -- has reportedly been suspended for sending co-workers a not-safe-for-work (NSFW) e-mail. Phil Rosenthal and Michael Oneal of the Chicago Tribune reported the story this afternoon (story accessed here via the Los Angeles Times):

Edward R. Murrow Award-winning radio journalist Howard Arenstein was arrested Friday by the Metropolitan Police Department for growing marijuana plants in his Georgetown backyard. Arenstein is the manager for the Washington, D.C. bureau of CBS Radio. CBS network officials have declined to comment, but feel free to leave yours below.

At Media Bistro on Friday, Gail Shister transcribed Jonathan Klein's post-mortem spin on why he was let go from CNN/US. You see, Klein's problem was that he "was unable to stop the prime-time bleeding with non-partisan programming." In case any readers here might be tempted to take Klein's contention or Shister's transcription seriously, here are NewsBusters links to posts about Rick Sanchez,…

News consumers of America owe a debt of gratitude to Jonathan Klein. Really. Yesterday, NB's Noel Sheppard noted the ignominious end of Klein's nearly six-year term as head of CNN/US. If there is an example of anyone who has overseen a bigger audience decline and loss of competitive position and survived so long, I don't know who he or she is. Fox News, which first passed CNN in total viewers…

In a September 15 post-primary item at the Atlantic ("An Epic End to the Primaries: What It Means"), politics editor Marc Ambinder presented seven "different ways to look at the primaries of September 14, 2010." His final item reads as follows (bold is mine): 7. The media is going to help the Democratic Party's national messaging, which is that the GOP is a party full of Christine O'Donnells, a…

The Washington Post has repeatedly featured a full-page ad in recent days for a Get Motivated! Business Seminar in Washington in October. One of the big names at the event (alongside Colin Powell, Steve Forbes, and Rudy Giuliani) is disgraced former CBS anchor Dan Rather, teaching "How to Communicate Effectively." Then the ad copy gets ridiculous: Dan Rather, Legendary News Anchor and Journalist…

What follows indicates that at least one limit has been found to the establishment press's willingness to serve as this government's official apologists. Not surprisingly, it relates to Iraq. The press obviously and bitterly opposed the war from the start, to the point of doctoring photographs, making stuff up, pretending that its sources knew what they were talking about when they didn't, and…

The Poynter Institute welcomed disgraced former CBS anchor Dan Rather to share his thoughts on his long career and on the media in general this week. In an interview with Poynter's Mallary Tenore, he complained "So often, particularly covering politics, enterprises that describe themselves as journalistic enterprises, and journalists who describe themselves as journalists, in fact just become…