"Rush the Racist?" is the headline over a commentary written by retired NFL receiver Keenan McCardell on the Washington Post's sports blog, the League--and the question many football fans might ask upon hearing the news that Rush Limbaugh is bidding to become the owner of the St. Louis Rams.

That's because Limbaugh has a long record of making racist remarks. In a Los Angeles Times op-ed written by FAIR founder Jeff Cohen and myself, we documented many instances of Limbaugh's racism, including his admission that he once told a black caller to "take that bone out of your nose," his assertion that "all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson," and his advice to a group with a 90-year commitment to nonviolence: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

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If you want a lesson in how right-wing pressure on corporate media works, look no further than the ACORN story. Right-wing talkshow hosts have targeted the community organizing group for years, primarily on charges of vote fraud. Then two conservative activists produced some embarrassing videos of ACORN workers at some local offices giving tax advice advice to a couple passing themselves off as a pimp and a prostitute. From there, the story turned to right-wing gloating?and complaints about the media being too slow (and of course too liberal) to pick up on the right's anti-ACORN crusade.

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In most policy debates, the media preference is for a solution in the "center," whatever they define that to be.  A Los Angeles Times headline today on the Beltway debate on Afghanistan reads: "Obama mulls middle ground in Afghanistan war strategy." Like the healthcare debate, the media's version of "the middle" usually means something well [...] Read more»

The New York Times reported (10/6/09)  that the Federal Trade Commission was planning to establish new rules for bloggers: The FTC said that beginning on December 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way [...] Read more»

Rupert Murdoch's latest hire John Stossel, speaking at a Michigan college: I quit ABC a couple weeks ago partly because they didn't like what I was doing. They viewed it as too biased. Yes, ABC promoted Stossel to 20/20 anchor, gave him regular "Give Me a Break" commentary segments and one-hour, factually challenged primetime specials...all because they [...] Read more»

Michael Moore says he won't appear on Glenn Beck's or Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show to promote his new film Capitalism: A Love Story because there's too much hate speech on those shows. Last night, O'Reilly strengthened Moore's argument in a segment in which he discussed Michael Moore's body language with regular guest Tonya Reimer:

O'REILLY: Right. Would it be wrong if I slapped him?
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