Brent Baker

the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications

Brent H. Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center (MRC), has been a central figure at the MRC since its 1987 founding. In 2001, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes dubbed Baker “the scourge of liberal bias.” In 2005, Baker spearheaded the launch of the MRC’s NewsBusters blog (his blog postings).

Follow Baker via Twitter. (Full bio) Washington Examiner's weekly "Mainstream Media Scream," with Baker's scream rating, are on NewsBusters as of January 2015. Read them here. (On MRC.org: archive of 2014; archive of June-December 2013; archive of Jan. 2012 through June 2013).

Author Articles
Media Research Center

ABC Spikes ‘Dismal’ 1.5% 2nd Quarter GDP, Instead Touts ‘Giant Rally on Wall Street’

CBS and NBC on Friday night aired full stories on the very weak 1.5 percent second quarter GDP rate, down from an anemic two percent in the first quarter, yet – incredibly – ABC’s World News, ...
Media Research Center

CBS’s Pelley Upset House’s ObamaCare Repeal Votes Have ‘Cost Taxpayers’ $50 Million

Showing a renewed concern for the interests of taxpayers, CBS put “Cost to Taxpayers” on screen Wednesday night as CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley worried not about the cost of ObamaCare, but ...
Media Research Center

Bizarrely, CBS’s O’Donnell Cites ‘Cost to Taxpayers’ of Maintaining Current Income Tax Rates

$150 billion. That’s “the cost to taxpayers” for President Barack Obama’s proposal to not increase the income tax rate for those earning less than $250,000, White House correspondent Norah ...
Media Research Center

Stephanopoulos Celebrates ObamaCare Victory with Someone ‘Special,’ Kennedy’s Widow

How cozy. Former Democratic operative turned television news host George Stephanopoulos used his ABC News platform on Sunday to celebrate, with Vicki Reggie Kennedy, ObamaCare’s Supreme ...
Media Research Center

NBC’s Todd Avoids Obama’s ‘Incompetence,’ Falsely Touts Health Care as Obama’s ‘Strongest Positive’

Some creative spin in favor of President Barack Obama from Chuck Todd on Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News. Recounting the results of a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which puts Obama ahead of ...
Media Research Center

ABC Features Univision’s Ramos to Stigmatize Arizona Ruling: ‘Sad Day...Last Hope Is Gone...More Persecution’

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the law requiring Arizona law enforcement to check the immigration status of those they suspect are illegal is “very disappointing and very dangerous,” ...
Media Research Center

Washington Post’s Milbank Claims: ‘Media Would Love to Have an Obama Scandal to Cover’

Unintentionally defining irony, in the midst of trying to rationalize news media disinterest in the “Fast & Furious” scandal by maintaining “it’s not a political scandal” but “a scandal of ...
Media Research Center

Sorkin Sees Not Liberal Bias But ‘Bias Toward Fairness,’ His HBO Newsroom Will Chastise Tea Party

Writer/producer Aaron Sorkin, whose new drama, Newsroom, about a cable news anchor -- which debuts this Sunday night on HBO -- proved in a USA Today piece he lives in a fantasy world. First, he ...
Media Research Center

Television Critics Love Rachel Maddow, Cite Her ‘Outstanding Achievement in News and Information’

Last week, for the third year in a row, the Television Critics Association – which “represents more than 200 journalists writing about television for print and online outlets in the United ...
Media Research Center

Schieffer Calls His Anti-Reagan Book ‘Accurate,’ But Admits ‘It Is Not Entirely True’

Accurate, but not true. It took 23 years, but on Sunday morning’s Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer contended “everything” in his 1989 book, which provided a derogatory look from the left at the ...
Media Research Center

Very Annoyed Matthews Rips ‘Horse’s Ass Right-Wingers’ Who Cite ‘Thrill Up My Leg,’ Calls C-SPAN Host a ‘Jackass’

In February of 2008, NewsBusters first highlighted MSNBC’s Chris Matthews oozing “I felt this thrill going up my leg” while listening to a speech by Barack Obama. Conservatives reminding ...
Media Research Center

Brian Williams Asserts Romney ‘Called Out’ on ‘Unrealistic’ Pledge to Reduce Unemployment to 6%

NBC anchor Brian Williams on Wednesday night ridiculed Mitt Romney’s quest to reduce the unemployment rate to six percent by 2016, a level enjoyed fewer than four years ago. "Back when Newt ...
Media Research Center

CBS’s Schieffer Derides Boehner for Tying Debt Ceiling Hike to Spending Cuts: ‘Was He Kidding?’

The Sunday interview show hosts all reacted with disbelief toward House Speaker John Boehner’s pledge to demand spending cuts equal to the debt ceiling increase, with CBS’s Bob Schieffer ...
Media Research Center

Krauthammer Slams Media’s ‘Appalling Double Standard’ on Teenage Romney v Obama’s Wright

Reacting to Mitt Romney’s discomfort toward proposed independent expenditure ads reminding Americans of President Obama’s connections to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, on FNC Thursday night Charles ...
Media Research Center

Letterman: Bush-Cheney Didn’t Want to Get bin Laden Because They Didn’t Want to Upset ‘Their Saudi Arabian Royalty Buddies'

In a particularly sleazy allegation, David Letterman on Tuesday night alleged former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney “went soft” on finding Osama bin Laden ...
Media Research Center

On Jeopardy, Chris Matthews Ludicrously Claims He Finds Facts First, Then Forms Opinion

What is a ludicrous answer for $800? The response from Chris Matthews when a naive Alex Trebek asked him on Jeopardy!: “Do you approach it from the point of view of I have an opinion about the ...
Media Research Center

Time Mag’s Scherer Hails ‘Incredibly Eloquent’ Lugar Manifesto, Compares It to Eisenhower’s Warning

The Washington press corps always love it when establishment Republicans scold conservatives for trying to “purify” the party, and Time magazine’s Michael Scherer did not disappoint. “Indiana ...
Media Research Center

Schieffer Feigns Concern: Has Republican Party ‘Moved Too Far Right for Its Own Good?’

CBS’s Bob Schieffer, who in February asked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie whether the Republican presidential candidates “are pushing your party too far to the right to make the ...
Media Research Center

Gumbel: ‘Whipping Up a Frenzy’ Over Imagined Slights ‘Is a Play Straight Out of a Far Right Handbook’

Catching up with Bryant Gumbel from a couple of weeks ago, on the April edition of his Real Sports show on HBO, the NBC News and CBS News veteran came to the defense of Miami Marlins ...
Media Research Center

Correspondents’ Dinner Headliner Kimmel Insists: ‘It’s Hard to Make Fun’ of ‘Cool Character’ Obama

“It's hard to make fun of Obama in general because he’s a cool character,” ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, the “headliner” for this Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, told ...