NETS CONDEMN MCCAIN CALLING OBAMA 'THAT ONE'

Matching the Obama campaign spin, the network reporters and analysts were upset by John McCain, at one moment in the second presidential debate on Tuesday night, referring to Barack Obama as "that one." CBS's Jeff Greenfield asserted "there is going to be clearly a major headline soundbite" and insisted "those two words are going to be what the water cooler conversation is tomorrow. Was it demeaning? Was it an insult?"

TALK RADIO S-O-S

Who Will Own America's Most Successful Talk Stations?

POLLS RADICALLY CHANGE TO FABRICATE AN OBAMA TREND

The more recent poll shows Obama with a 7-point lead among likely voters, both with and without leaners; the earlier poll showed McCain with a 5-point lead with leaners, and 4 points without.

Almost all of this 12-point swing (11 points with leaners) is more than likely almost completely due to major differences between the two polls' samples:

NY PAPER: KILLING OF LIBERALS IS LIMBAUGH'S FAULT

Rush Limbaugh killed some church goers in Tennessee last July. That is the message from a Newsday.com columnist for a local New York newspaper chain.

CNN: EDWARDS 'ALL ABOUT INTEGRITY & HONESTY'

Just hours after ABC's Nightline broadcast an interview in which former North Carolina Senator John Edwards confessed an extramarital affair, CNN Saturday Morning co-anchor Melissa Long spoke of the ex-Democratic candidate in glowing terms, calling Edwards someone who was "much loved, worked for the poor, a man who was self-made, and all about integrity and honesty." After elevating Edwards to such heights, she asked CNN deputy political editor Paul Steinhauser to consider "all of that and this stunning admission" and speculate as to "what type of political career could this man have going forward." Steinhauser: "I think short term, not so much...."

LIBERALS REGISTER FELONS FOR OBAMA, CAN'T LOCATE CRITICS

On the front page of Monday’s Washington Post, reporter Krissah Williams Thompson chronicled liberal efforts to register felons to vote for Barack Obama. The story was stuffed with liberal activists, but nowhere in Thompson’s story was a single source who was critical of restoring voting rights to felons.

HELEN THOMAS ON MEDIA BIAS? HEAVEN FORBID!!

At a screening of a forthcoming HBO documentary honoring liberal journalist Helen Thomas in Washington, she was asked whether most White House reporters are liberal. "Hell, no!" she thundered. I'm dying to find another liberal to open their mouths. Where are they?"

CBS SCOLDS MCCAIN, EMPATHIZES WITH OBAMA

ABC, CBS and NBC all aired stories Thursday night about McCain's Britney Spears/Paris Hilton anti-Obama TV ad as well as John McCain's charge that Barack Obama is playing the race card, but only Katie Couric characterized the McCain spot as "infamous" before Dean Reynolds empathized with Obama by citing his "exasperation" with McCain's ad, based on headlines over liberal newspaper editorials asserted that McCain's "sharper edge" has been "criticized by several newspapers," declared "a voter in Racine called" McCain on his lack of civility, and ended with how, to address McCain's unfair attacks, the Obama campaign created a Web site called the "Low Road Express" -- a page which highlights one of the very New York Times editorials the CBS story displayed.

CBS TURNS DOUBLED GDP INTO 'DISAPPOINTING' NEWS

ABC & NBC SILENT: Second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled to 1.9 percent, up from 0.9 percent in the first quarter, the Commerce Department announced Thursday morning. Yet the CBS Evening News centered a story around "disappointing" news about the supposedly "struggling economy" (with that on screen) -- while ABC and NBC, which on April 30 led with full stories on the news of a 0.6 percent (since revised to 0.9) first quarter GDP, didn't utter a syllable Thursday night about the big GDP jump.

ABC ADMITS OBAMA DRIVING ACTHE CAMPAIGN 'NARRATIVE'

"You've been touring here in the states, had the domestic stage all to yourself. And yet, we're talking an awful lot about foreign policy. It seems like the narrative of this campaign is being driven by whatever Senator Obama does and that you're left to kind of react to that."

LESS ACCESSIBLE OBAMA

One obvious sign the media have been too dazzled is by their utter lack of concern about Obama’s accessibility to journalists. Obama may be the least accessible primary winner in decades, but this press avoidance has in no way damaged his standing with reporters, who instead of growing frustrated with said lack of access, hounded Hillary Clinton to step aside and let the general election campaign begin.

NBC: METZENBAUM A 'POPULIST,' BUT JESSE HELMS AN 'ULTRA-RIGHTIST'

When far-left former Democratic Senator Howard Metzenbaum passed away in March, the NBC Nightly News didn't identify his party or apply any ideological label as fill-in anchor Ann Curry hailed his life as "the classic American success story" of a man who "always fought for the little guy, taking on the oil and insurance industries" while he "stuck to his populist principles."

ROBIN ROBERTS HAILS PRIEST, SKIPS AMERICA-RAPES SERMON

Roberts also tried to build sympathy by urging Pfleger to confirm death threats against him. But she skipped the inflammatory priest’s own death threats: last year, he told a crowd about a Chicago gun-store owner: "John Riggio. R-i-g-g-i-o. We're going to find you and snuff you out."

TIME'S JOE KLEIN WANTS TO 'KILL YOUR AIR CONDITIONER'

The column's subhead in the magazine was "Solving the energy crisis requires sacrifice. For the good of the country, we should be sweating." (In the cheeky photo-illustration, Klein is waving a fan decorated like the American flag.) But didn't Klein write that it wasn't enough of a crisis? It's here where you ponder about how media crisis-hype has a political end -- to induce the voter to accept greater government mandates.

EDITOR FOR NYT ADMITS MORE LIBERALS IN NEWSROOMS

Taking questions from readers online last week, New York Times political editor Richard Stevenson responded to queries about favoritism in the Times' political coverage during the Democratic primary. Stevenson did admit in a general sense that there are more liberals than conservatives in the media, but of course denied that any such slant applied to the Times' political staff: "While I would not dispute the longstanding assertions that there are more political liberals in newsrooms than conservatives, our political staff, as best I can tell, represents all kinds of backgrounds and beliefs, and because we all work so closely and in such a fishbowl, we all tend to keep one another on the straight and narrow."

THE WAR INSIDE NBC

NBC was once the proud home of real journalists. People such as Chet Huntley and David Brinkley brought its standards to -- and above -- the level prevalent in most news organizations. But now, it’s an asylum for people such as Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.

LIBERAL GROUP TARGETS TIM RUSSERT

The liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America has gone on the attack against longtime “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, saying he has “regularly smeared” Democrats on a variety of issues.

SAWYER FRETS: PRESS USING 'BOXING GLOVES' ON HILLARY

ABC discovered media bias Thursday morning as Good Morning America took up not liberal bias against conservatives but Hillary Clinton's complaint that the media are too tough on her and too soft on Barack Obama. Diane Sawyer fretted: "Have all of us in the media used boxing gloves on Clinton and kid gloves on Obama? Have we been unfair?"

FEWER U.S. DEAD = LESS TV COVERAGE OF IRAQ

One year ago, liberal journalists depicted the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq as a certain failure. “A lot of people are going to go to bed tonight terrified,” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews opined just minutes after President Bush announced the policy on January 10, 2007. Other journalists were only slightly more subtle. “Many experts warn, it’s too little, too late,” NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski argued on the January 8, 2007 Nightly News. The next morning on NBC’s Today, the network’s graphic describing Iraq was “Lost Cause?”

PBS, THE COMMUNIST FOLK SINGER TRIBUTE CHANNEL?

To those who make public fools of themselves saying that one-sided left-wing programming on PBS is an illusion, we suggest they open the Sunday Washington Post to the TV Week magazine.