Margaret Sullivan

People on the Left rarely complain about news coverage by the New York Times, but it took only two words to generate a torrent of criticism -- which is usually reserved for conservative Republicans -- regarding an article that profiled Michael Brown, the young African-American man who was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson on August 9 in Ferguson, Missouri. In a front-page…

Within the space of a week, the Public Editor of The New York Times, Margaret Sullivan, and Sarah Durand, a senior editor of publisher Simon & Schuster subsidiary Atria Books, have vividly illustrated how the game of liberal media bias works. Let’s start with the Times.

The New York Times's public editor on Friday responded to criticism about the paper's coverage of the IRS scandal, admitting: "The Times was somewhat late in beginning to cover the latest development about the lost emails." An analysis by the Media Research Center's Jeffrey Meyer on Thursday found that "in the past 6 months (183 days), the New York Times has published only 13 news items on the…

On Saturday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted how the New York Times had made a critical change to a story about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's possible knowledge of lane closures in the area of the George Washington Bridge. The initial story was that a Port Authority official "has evidence" in the matter. A short time later, that claim was watered down to a far more speculative "…

Kudos to New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan for asking why the Times couldn’t provide much coverage of Wednesday’s March for Life. Hundreds, if not thousands of New Yorkers were there, so “Was this local participation, or the event itself, worthy of a news story in the paper of record? Apparently not.” “The Times, in print, published only a stand-alone photograph of the event on…

On Thursday, The New York Times clearly insisted on its own Person of the Year: it lauded "whistle-blower" Edward Snowden’s allegedly heroic mass-leaking against an allegedly criminal federal government, and demanded that Snowden not only receive clemency, but that “President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to end Mr. Snowden’s vilification and give him an incentive to return…

Catching up on a topic that eluded us over the weekend, it is worth noting that on Friday, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan decided to tackle the question of whether the newspaper is favoring the Obama Administration’s effort to build support for a war against Syria. After talking to several top Times editors who inevitably aver that they are  treating the anti-Syria PR effort…

NewsBusters readers certainly don't have to be told that the New York Times has a liberal bias, but when the paper's public editor admits it on national television, one has to take notice. With that in mind, grab some peanuts, popcorn, or Cracker Jacks and take a gander at Margaret Sullivan on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday marvelously telling us what we already know (video follows with…

Benghazi hearings open in the House on Wednesday, and the New York Times printed a preview on page 16 of Wednesday's edition that downplayed any possible revelations about the Obama administration's reaction to the terrorist attack, which killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. Testimony is expected by three State Department officials, led by U.S. diplomat Gregory Hicks, deputy…

Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times public editor, noted a shameful anniversary for the paper -- the 10th anniversary of the Jayson Blair scandal -- but not without calling her paper as "world-class" as the scandal itself. But to the paper's liberal readership, the more shameful mistake involved reporter Judy Miller's overly credulous reporting on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction during…

The New York Times's politically correct evolution on immigration issues continues apace. Public editor Margaret Sullivan blogged Tuesday afternoon on the paper reconsidering the use of term "illegal immigrant," in the wake of the Associated Press's announcement that it would cease using it. The Associated Press made a bold move on Tuesday in dropping the term “illegal immigrant” from its…

New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan has weighed in on the paper's latest attack on the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk tactics, under fire from liberal activists like Al Sharpton, in her March 29 blog post, "An Officer’s Secretly Recorded Words About ‘Stop and Frisk’ Cause a Firestorm," addressed a misleading and controversial (but typically slanted) March 22 story by…

New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan posted Monday on a report by two "centrists" ludicrously lambasting the media for letting Mitt Romney get away with lie after lie during the campaign: "Did the Mainstream Press Really Bungle the Campaign’s ‘Single Biggest Story’?" In one of the most fascinating media-related pieces I’ve read in a while, Dan Froomkin interviews Thomas Mann and…

Filling in for Alex Wagner on Monday afternoon, Ari Melber of the left-wing Nation magazine did some thing on MSNBC's Now that Wagner and many of their colleagues have been reluctant to do themselves -- expose the deception and dishonesty of Obama on the subject of drone attacks. While there was a brief mention or two in the weeks and months that preceded the election, the coverage was never…