Drenched in contempt, Fox News contributor Sandy Rios appeared on Rupert Murdoch's cable channel last Friday to address the controversy surrounding the Susan G. Komen foundation's decision to cut longstanding ties with Planned Parenthood. In the process, Rios perfectly captured two of the conservative media's least redeeming, yet...

Talk about throwing good money after bad.

Last week, cantankerous media watchdog Brent Bozell announced that his group, Media Research Center, was launching the largest initiative in its 25 year history: a $5 million marketing campaign urging the "liberal media" to "tell the truth!" Bozell urged...

Wannabe kingmaker Roger Ailes is facing an open revolt.

More and more despondent conservatives are expressing alarm over the unfolding Republican primary season and what they see as the party's dwindling chances of defeating President Obama in November. Spooked at the general elections prospects facing frontrunners...

The dawning of an election year is certain to bring more attacks on Michelle Obama from the far-right press, which for years has unleashed an unprecedented barrage of name-calling assaults on the First Lady; assaults that in the past would have been deemed unthinkable by even partisan opponents who routinely...

Even for media observers who do Rupert Murdoch a favor by asking the press baron to clear an impossibly low bar of corporate behavior, recent revelations must have some wondering if there are any lows Murdoch and his lieutenants haven't yet stooped to.

During campaign seasons members of the partisan opinion press can provide invaluable services to their side by debunking stories with original reporting, supplying unique analysis, and offering up substantive media critiques in hopes of changing the trajectory of big stories.

But over the last ten days as the Herman Cain...

The announcement yesterday that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will not run for president represents the latest Fox News failure in its attempt to put its stamp on the Republican primary season. Having turned itself into a purely political operation, and one that unapologetically works towards a partisan...

The last-minute Senate deal announced last night to avoid a government shutdown, and to keep FEMA fully funded, ends -- for now -- the latest Congressional stalemate. The usually commonplace practive of providing FEMA with billions of additional funding in the face of epic natural disasters had flared into a...

Does Rupert Murdoch now know the panic Richard Nixon must have felt when the Washington Post broke the story in 1972 that a $25,000 cashier's check earmarked for the Nixon campaign wound up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar. Or when it was revealed that Nixon's Oval Office...

As we proceed deeper into the Obama presidency, we're getting a clearer picture of just how radical some of the president's far-right adversaries are. We're starting to understand the depths to which the partisan extremists in the media will stoop, to the point where many this week seemed incapable of...

The news flashes came just five hours apart last Wednesday, April 6. Both bulletins brought bad news for Fox News stars, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. And both headlines marked the end of a right-wing era of sorts in American media. Indeed, the simultaneous rise and fall of Beck and...

Bill O'Reilly nailed it a few weeks ago.

Ranting about a new teen drama on MTV, O'Reilly pronounced the show to be doomed. How'd he know? Simple, it had no sponsors. Explaining TV Economics 101, O'Reilly noted a television show "won't stay on the air if nobody would sponsor...

Or put another way, is there any limit to how small or poorly attended a Tea Party rally can be before the press finally stops showering the right-wing movement with coverage? Based on the avalanche of reporting that yesterday's minuscule Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., generated, the answer appears...

In the wake of James O'Keefe's orchestrated gotcha on National Public Radio, Republicans in the House passed a bill to permanently strip public radio of its federal funding support. The bill appears to have little chance of passing in the Senate, but it's clear the Republican Party and the conservative...

In the wake of the James O'Keefe smear campaign against NPR, which arrived in the form of dishonestly edited undercover tapes (does O'Keefe know any other form?), public radio host Ira Glass expressed dismay that nobody was "fighting back" against the right-wing attacks. "I find it completely annoying,...

And the search goes on.

Ever since last week and the release of the undercover video that captured a NPR fundraiser making some disparaging comments about the Tea Party movement, I've been waiting to see or hear a coherent critique of the public radio broadcasting network...

First, let's stipulate that the New York Times scoop last week about Fox News chairman Roger Ailes allegedly urging an employee to lie to federal prosecutors is a real jaw-dropper. The report, based on uncovered legal filings, not only has the media world stunned but it has loyalists...

Fox News contributor Sarah Palin hasn't shied away from attacking First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative, designed to fight obesity by urging Americans to become more active and to eat healthier. Palin, adopting a drastically different tone than when she served as Alaska's governor, has ridiculed Obama's common sense...

With news that Glenn Beck finally donated money to Wilmington, Ohio, charities after staging in-person appeals on the town's behalf back in December, and with the news that most of the money raised from Beck's ticket sales did not go to Wilmington charities, it's time to ask this...

Oh sure, staffers and hosts working for Rupert Murdoch are doing their best to convey a sense of grave importance when discussing the historic turmoil playing out in Cairo and throughout Egypt. But you only have to watch Fox News for five or ten minutes to see their hearts just...