Your Liberal Media
Eschaton — Not, you know, liberal.

Go Figure
Talking Points Memo — ... Unified Republican control of government required a disproportionate number of Republicans on cable TV; apparently unified Dem control requires mostly Republicans too. ...

Empirically Irrelevant GOP Lawmakers Get Twice the Media Coverage As Dem With All the Power
Open Left - Front Page — ... And yet, as Media Matters reports, cable news shows have given these same completely powerless and irrelevant Republican legislators twice as much media coverage about their views on the stimulus bill as they have given to Democratic legislators who have all the power to shape and pass the bill.   ...

Hullabaloo — MIA or AWOL? by digby I've mentioned several times over the past few days that the Democrats have no presence on the news networks defending the stimulus plan or their president. And since the Republicans are dominating the debate, their lies and misrepresentations are reverberating through the beltway echo chamber. Think Progress ran the numbers which show that I'm not hallucinating. This is ridiculous: On Sunday, conservatives began an all-out assault on President Obama’s economic recovery plan, with House Minority ...

Who Gets Televised
Matthew Yglesias — ... New report from the ThinkProgress team shows Republicans outnumbered Democrats 2-1 on television discussing the stimulus plan, even though the House GOP minority is essentially powerless and irrelevant: ...

No liberals on the teevee
Political Animal — ... the other day, "Can someone explain to me why I'm seeing Republican after Republican on television advising Americans on the right way to run the economy?" It was not an uncommon question. As it turns out, this was not just a figment of progressives' imagination. ThinkProgress researched the issue and found that "the five cable news networks -- CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC -- have hosted more Republican lawmakers to discuss the plan than Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio this week." From 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the "networks have hosted Republican ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — TIME FOR A FIRESIDE CHAT When I read this, from Think Progress, I start thinking that President Obama already has to play catch-up: ... ThinkProgress has found that the five cable news networks -- CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC -- have hosted more Republican lawmakers to discuss the plan than Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio this week.... In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 24 times.... That means that the overwhelming majority ...

Where Are They?
Shakesville — ... last night between Joan Walsh of Salon.com and Former Rep. Dick Armey got me to thinking about the number of Democrats who are showing up on TV to defend the president's stimulus bill... or the lack thereof. I'm not the only one who's wondering where they all are. ...

Stimulus Passage Unleashes Night of the Living Dead Republicans
Firedoglake — ... But everyone knew that was coming, and their votes weren't needed. It was more troubling that few Democrats stepped out to defend the bill. Think Progress says that Republicans outnumbered Democrats 2 to 1 on the cable news shows talking about the stimulus. ...

GOP dominates stimulus debate on cable
Michael Calderone's Blog — ThinkProgress has kept a running tab of Congressional leaders on the cable networks this week, and found that far more Republicans got to plead their case on air. Most interestingly, the CAP-run site -- a persistent critic of Fox News -- credits Murdoch's network as being the most balanced. In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 24 times. Surprisingly, Fox News came the closest to offering balance, hosting 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. CNN had only one ...

Shocker: Cable news stacks stimulus debate with GOPers
Crooks and Liars — In perhaps the most shocking news since the dawn of time, a new ThinkProgress report finds that when it comes to discussion of the Obama stimulus plan on cable news, FOX News has actually been the most "balanced", hosting only slightly more Republicans than Democrats. MSNBC and CNN, on the other hand, have given substantially more time to the GOP. ThinkProgress: In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 24 times. ...

Pravda and al Jazeera Would be Envious
WTF Is It Now?!? — Republican control of government required a majority of Rethuglicans on cable news; apparently Dem control of government requires mostly Rethuglicans too. ...

Networks abet continued GOP dominance of the airways
Daily Kos — ... Not just the Republicans, but the media enabling it. In fact, when Fox truly is the most "fair and balanced", you know things are out of whack. ...

1/30: The Battle Intensifies
Blogometer — ... Mitch McConnell into opposing the bill by bombarding his office with "golf balls, novelty items...or real items such as various 'dried scrotum' products found in grocery stores." Conservative bloggers are also buzzing about a new Rasmussen poll indicating that support for the stimulus bill is dropping. Righty bloggers view this poll as evidence that the GOP is winning the media war (incidentally, lefty bloggers also believe that GOP opponents of the bill are winning the media war ). Meanwhile, liberal bloggers continue to press the argument that ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — ... It's getting defined in the media as a bad bill, for the obvious reason that two thirds of the pols talking about it on cable news are Republicans. That doesn't mean the public is necessarily buying the GOP line. ...

Republican Lawmakers Still Dominate Cable News, Even in the Age of Obama, Democratic Majorities...
The BRAD BLOG — ... The previous media excuse, during the last administration, for so many more Rs than Ds on television news, was that Republicans were in power of both the White House and Congress. Of course, now that Democrats control both, well, as ThinkProgress detailed last week the more things change... ...

Prof. Frank takes colleagues to school
Political Animal — ... for "a whole other show." Frank drove the point home: "No, it's isn't. That's the problem. The problem is we look at spending and say don't spend on highways or health care. Let's builds weapons to defeat the Soviet Union when we don't need them. Let's have hundreds of billions of dollars going to the military without a check. Unless everything is on the table, then you are going to have a disproportionate hit in some places." It seems, as part of the coverage of the stimulus debate, far more Republicans are getting air time than Democrats. If the majority party were to ...

How will the media play the Senate debate on the stimulus plan?
Crooks and Liars — ... Last week we found out that Republicans dominated the cable news TV shows over Democrats by a 2-1 margin as the House debate raged on. So it wasn't surprising ...

Sunday Morning Comin’ Down
d r i f t g l a s s — ... who direct their hirelings to welcome the flakes and stooges and their catastrophically failed ideology back into the national spotlight? Week. After week. After week. What are the names and addresses of the people making those decisions? What are their motives? Who is getting rich? What is really being factored into and out of the decision matrices through which booking and hiring options are being filtered? Who -- by name -- is stacking the deck with these pinheads: In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on ...

Stimulus Spin War: Obama To Go On Media Offensive
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... Even so, Republican organization on the stimulus has been a sight to behold -- indeed, a common sight on cable news. While outside groups have begun running television and radio advertisements targeting vulnerable GOP Senators on the recovery package, they have not been supplemented on television and radio talk shows. As documented by the site Think Progress, Republican lawmakers appeared twice as many times as their Democratic colleagues on cable news during the stimulus debate. And this discrepancy has skewed the stimulus debate in critical ways, progressives say. ...

Stimulus Spin War: Obama To Go On Media Offensive
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... Even so, Republican organization on the stimulus has been a sight to behold -- indeed, a common sight on cable news. While outside groups have begun running television and radio advertisements targeting vulnerable GOP Senators on the recovery package, they have not been supplemented on television and radio talk shows. As documented by the site Think Progress, Republican lawmakers appeared twice as many times as their Democratic colleagues on cable news during the stimulus debate. And this discrepancy has skewed the stimulus debate in critical ways, progressives say. ...

The Stimulus: Still Popular After All These Weeks
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right — ... At the same time, with the Republican position having been in heavy rotation on the airwaves, it would not be surprising if the package is losing some support. However more liberal the country might or might not have become, a figure like $800 billion is never going to be an easy sell, and the sheer number of budget items included within the stimulus provides plenty of talking points for the opposition. As Scott Rasmussen ...

It's the Stupid, Stupid
Talking Points Memo — ... ThinkProgress has admirably demonstrated that the cable networks continue to tip the scales in favor of Republicans by booking like twice or even three times as many Republicans as Democrats to discuss the Stimulus Bill. But that only tells us what we already know, which is that the Washington press establishment is still wired for Republicans. But there is a Democratic president. And he does have the bully pulpit. And he needs to make this argument, which he's not. Absent that, we can't be surprised and the Democrats are not in much of a position to complain if the vacuum ...

Dept. of Forest, trees
Political Animal — ... "frustrated by the public perception that the recovery bill was becoming laden with partisan pet projects." It's easy to share in that frustration. Much of the media's coverage has not only been slanted , it's also been ...

Deep thought
Balloon Juice — The extreme pro-Obama media bias is disgusting.

For the defense
Political Animal — ... , the breakdown of Tom Daschle's HHS nomination, but rather, to mount a defense for the pending economic stimulus package. The timing was bad, but the goal was good -- much of the coverage of the debate has not only been slanted , it's also been ...

GOP's message war hits cable
Michael Calderone's Blog — ... In fact, more congressional Republicans than Democrats appeared on all of the major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC — during three days last week surrounding the House vote on the stimulus plan. That’s according to a report by Think Progress, a project of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, which added up congressional TV hits related to the stimulus bill. ...

Mike's Blog Roundup
Crooks and Liars — ... is brought to justice, go read The Co-President at Work. ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Media mull bipartisanship...NPR interviews on Stimulus: 6 Rethugs for every Dem...Morning Joe rewriting history...FOX uses tax delinquent Dick Morris to criticize Dashle...Four-letter word...Bill Bennett criticizes Rush Limbaugh!...How to Stop Hate Radio... 'Rube' Goldberg's new book...Tweety returns to form...Old habits die hard...Who's undercutting Obama?...Now they tell us...A Heartfelt ...

2/5: The Limits Of Bipartisanship
Blogometer — ... on cable news programs and are allowing conservatives to dominate the airwaves . Second, they believe that the media is doing a poor job of correcting ...

Newfound Buddies?
Shadow of the Hegemon — I said that the WH Press Corps were the "newfound buddies of the Republicans" in the last post. I may have been wrong: it's not THAT newfound. Here's ThinkProgress: ...

Report: GOP leads stimulus debate on cable
Michael Calderone's Blog — ... about the GOP push to get on the cable networks, and cited a ThinkProgress report showing that by a 2-1 margin, more Republican members of Congress were on the air during the stimulus debate in the House. ...

No liberals on the teevee, redux
Political Animal — NO LIBERALS ON THE TEEVEE, REDUX.... In late January, as the House debated the economic stimulus package, ThinkProgress did an analysis that found a clear imbalance: the major cable networks invited far more Republican lawmakers to talk about the legislation than Democratic lawmakers. Indeed, TP found a 2-to-1 margin in the GOP's favor. Now that the debate has shifted to the Senate, would the networks include more Democratic voices in the discussion? ...

Obama's Got A Good Rap But No Stomach For Battle; We Need Democrats With Both
DownWithTyranny! — ... was counting heads-- literally. They were counting talking heads... on TV. Who was speaking about the Stimulus Package and influencing the conventional wisdom? It should surprise no one to read that "Republican members of Congress outnumbered their Democratic counterparts by a ratio of 2 to 1. ...

Jane Hamsher: Obama Undermines Jobs Mandate For the Sake of Bipartisanship
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... When you factor in a 2:1 advantage for the Republicans in terms of TV face time, it's clear that they already have a leg up in controlling the terms of this debate.  The media is not pressing them about GOP governors unhappy about the aid to states that Susan Collins just hacked out of the bill, or pointing out that Senate Republicans who say this bill is "just too big" had no problem voting for George Bush's ...

Quick Prime Time Press Conference Reflection
Comments from Left Field — ... President Obama did a great job diffusing the onslaught of Republican revisionism in the past couple of weeks surrounding this impending stimulus package in the course of about two hours.  Even though the news media continue to glut themselves on low-cost Rethug Rum Punch, nothing demands more press time than the President taking time to address the public and his colleagues on a serious national matter.  So good job in engaging the press head-on and redirecting the narrative.   ...

Lindsey Graham threatens President Obama on upcoming economic problems like the Housing and Banking sectors
Crooks and Liars — ... showing that, in the debate over the House economic recovery bill on the five cable news networks, Republican members of Congress outnumbered their Democratic counterparts by a ratio of 2 to 1. The analysis tallied interview segments about the stimulus on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC during a three-day period, ...

Memo to the Villagers: People really do hate Republicans in Congress
Crooks and Liars — ... The Sunday Talk shows today will have an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on giving us the same tired arguments we've heard for a month now. It's not a stimulus bill, but a spending bill and it won't create jobs. Government never creates jobs. Blah, blah, blah. How about we just hear from the party that won in a landslide for a change? As Think Progress noted, Republicans have had a 2-1 ratio in air time to feed the nation lies and more lies and we understand the method to their madness. They want fighting and friction between the parties to make it ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — ... In what way is the GOP "lacking an obvious national leader"? Besides Limbaugh, what's wrong with Boehner or Cantor or Steele or Jindal or Sanford or either of the two people who were on the ticket last fall? The party has plenty of potential national leaders. GOP leaders and surrogates were all over cable news during the debate on the stimulus bill, far more than Democrats. Republicans just don't have "an obvious national leader" any non-Republican likes. ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — ... By contrast, while the press in recent years has essentially ignored Limbaugh, it has enthusiastically embraced mainstream Republicans who toe the Limbaugh line. Even as recently as last month, Republican politicians preaching what was essentially Limbaughism were practically the only people on TV discussing the stimulus bill. ...

The wrong complaint from the wrong guy
Political Animal — ... make. But just as importantly, it's more than a little ridiculous to hear Cantor complaining that news outlets blew off Republicans during the stimulus debate. It's hard to imagine even Cantor believes this. Indeed, there's some quantified data for Cantor to consider. In the days leading up to the House vote on the recovery package, the five major cable news networks -- CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC -- hosted more Republican lawmakers to discuss the plan than Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio . In the days leading up to the Senate vote, Republicans were favored by ...

Working The Refs: Will Bunch Explains Why 'Liberal' Media Bend Over Backwards for Conservatives
Crooks and Liars — ... Remember the debate on President Obama's stimulus package a few months back? Every time I flipped on cable TV, there was a 30-second factual (usually) description of the proposal, followed by five minutes of loud conservative criticism. That's how the "liberal media" shows that it's really fair and balanced. ...

To the media: It's President Gingrich
Crooks and Liars — ... We witnessed a complete bias towards the losing party in the last election by the media when studies showed that cable news was putting on more than two republicans for every democrat during the stimulus debate. ...

Oh, now there's a 'chorus'...
Political Animal — ... economic team for its handling of the financial crisis. He wrote that the stimulus program was too small to be effective -- a criticism that has since swelled into a chorus, though Obama says he's not adding more money. Oh, sure. Now the media has noticed there's a "chorus" that says the stimulus package wasn't big enough. There was a sizable group saying the same thing in January and February, but they ignored, especially by major news outlets, who turned instead to Republicans over and ...