Latest Blogs

Dan Gainor | January 17, 2007

    The Depression was only “great” because of the great harm it caused to millions. While the Dust Bowl devastated farmland, the stock market crash wiped out companies and unemployment overwhelmed the nation’s workforce.

     Folk…

Ken Shepherd | January 17, 2007

     Gasoline and crude oil prices are both on a downward trend and some media outlets are even reporting the story. But USA Today’s Barbara Hagenbaugh presented a negative spin on the positive development and failed to disclose her source also…

BMI Staff | January 17, 2007
Media Myth: The Recession/Depression of 2006 Do you believe the U.S. economy is in or near a recession? Thats what network news suggested about once a week,…
Ken Shepherd | January 15, 2007

     His country is the fourth-largest exporter of oil to the United States, and he just announced an oil nationalization plan that would undercut private investment in his country, but dictator Hugo Chavez’s announcement earned no mention on…

Rachel Waters | January 15, 2007

     It might have been a holiday weekend for some, but “In the Money” viewers didn't get any time off from worrying. The January 13 CNN show insisted that energy costs were a concern, even in a time of falling gas prices.

    …

Ken Shepherd | January 12, 2007

    There she goes again. Two days after taking transportation policy expert Robert Poole out of context in a toll road story, CNN’s Lisa Sylvester cut around the substance of a USC economist’s arguments against a Medicare bill before Congress…

Ken Shepherd | January 12, 2007

     One man’s punitive damages could mean distress for an industry.

 

     But to one news anchor, it was a “victory” for the little guy.

 

    …

Ken Shepherd | January 11, 2007

     Most Americans don’t wait 10 years for their bosses, much less the government, to give their paychecks a boost. Data show that more than two-thirds have passed the minimum after a year at a particular job. But to ABC’s “World News” anchor…

Ken Shepherd | January 10, 2007

     In its rush to anger viewers about private company “ownership” of public roads, the January 9 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” presented only one proponent of privatized toll roads, and then misrepresented his position on the issue, cutting out his…

Dan Gainor | January 10, 2007

     “The weather outside is frightful.” That used to mean something ominous – like the dreaded four-letter word “snow.”

     Now “frightful” has come to describe a warm, spring-like day filled with golfers and Frisbee players. And the…

Ken Shepherd | January 9, 2007

     Forget that a veteran government meteorologist told the NBC “Nightly News” that global warming has nothing to do with the warm winter in the Northeast. According to that network’s chief science reporter Robert Bazell, he might as well have…

Rachel Waters | January 8, 2007

     Regular journalism is for sissies.

     “One of the cardinal rules of journalism is don't speculate, but we like to live dangerously around here ...” That’s how CNN’s “In the Money” panelist Jennifer Westhoven introduced the…

Ken Shepherd | January 8, 2007

     Chugging along to the show’s close, anchor Dan Harris ended the January 7 “World News Sunday” by introducing correspondent Bill Redeker’s wistful story of how first-class travel on the nation’s railways might “become a thing of the past,”…

Ken Shepherd | January 5, 2007

     With a mild winter in the Northeast and low energy prices, it’s hard for CBS to do the typical story of a freezing woman choosing between “heating or eating.” So the “Evening News” resorted to complaining about the “balmy” weather.

Ken Shepherd | January 5, 2007

     “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun,” King Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes. At the beginning of a new year, that timeless proverb is true when it comes to the…

Ken Shepherd | January 4, 2007

     He’s been the face of hurricane forecasting for decades to TV viewers at home and storm-obsessed broadcast journalists, so it’s not surprising that NBC and CNN honored NOAA’s Max Mayfield with positive stories on his retirement. Yet in…

John Berlau | January 3, 2007

     As Democrats take power in Congress, speculation has swirled around the question of why Republicans lost. But there is a factor – a costly factor affecting American businesses – that has gone largely unnoticed.      

     In the…

Julia A. Seymour | January 3, 2007

     As the new majority of Democrats takes over the House of Representatives January 4, they have big plans – plans the media have supported.

     Journalists have called arguments against a minimum wage hike “a lot of bull” and even…

BMI Staff | January 3, 2007
Journalists Agree Its Time for Democrats First 100 Hours In the early hours of their congressional majority, Democrats have pledged to raise minimum wage and fix the U.S.…
Ken Shepherd | January 3, 2007

     In about the time it might take a seasoned bartender to whip up a Manhattan, New York-based reporter Sharyn Alfonsi concocted an intoxicating mix of hype and government statistics. Yet the CBS reporter left out some sobering details from…