Were you still debating whether Chris Matthews is in the tank for Barack Obama? Then find a new hobby, jerk, because the writing's on the stall. But then Matthews went overboard this morning, on colleague Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe, and pretty much nominated himself the new president's press secretary.

"The worst thing you can do in journalism is try to figure out motive. There's no way to determine it," Matthews said. Not only is this statement patently false — figuring out motive is pretty important, like George Bush's motives for invading Iraq — but Matthews followed it up with this: "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work … this new presidency work." Yes, that is Matthews the journalist speaking.

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Always looking for the next big thing in television news media — Katie Couric, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Anderson Cooper, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Mike Huckabee have all received the treatment — it appears we're ready to move on to our next nominee: Campbell Brown. The NBC veteran who left the network just a couple months after losing the Today show vacancy Couric left to Meredith Vieira, Brown signed with CNN and became a respectable, albeit benign and forgettable, asset.

That was until she started practicing journalism and calling out lies for what they are: lies. And calling out non-answers for what they are: non-answers. And you know what that got her? Glowing treatment from the New York Times' Jacques Steinberg!

We've been here before, of course. Andrea Mitchell did this once. But now that Campbell Brown, host of CNN's Election Center, made John McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds look like a hapless fool and called out Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, we have a new national journalist hero!

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John McCain's supporters have gone through at least a half dozen rounds of calling competitor Barack Obama "uppity," in some quasi-racist talking point that's trying to paint the Democratic challenger as an "elitist" (also a favorite word choice) who's out of touch with mainstream America. On the other side of the scale, then, are Obama supporters who are trying to paint McCain as some old hack who's going to die and leave his zealot VP in charge of the country.

And those same Obama supporters? They're also trying to brand Obama as the "smart" choice for America. Keep in mind, then, that NBC is in the tank for Obama, which gets you this:

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The latest attempt to cash in on an arbitrary Web 2.0 widget has finally arrived, meaning everyone can stop freaking out about Scrabulous' departure from Facebook. Lest you considered Drudge Report or Media Matters objective journalism, SpinSpotter is a new toolbar application for Firefox that alerts users whenever they stumble upon an article containing bias. Watch out, Atlantic magazine!

It's awesome that there now exists a way to objectively define the criteria that makes up slanted journalism. Political coverage problem solved.

No:

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David Brock's Media Matters for America, the left-y media watchdog group, takes on bias whining candidate John McCain and his assertion that the media is bias toward Barack Obama (which it totally is) with this soundbite-stuffed ad showing who the media is actually getting moist about … and it's McCain! This is, of course, in response to McCain's own ads that insist the media loves Obama. Says MMA: "The ad follows on the heels of a new study from the conservative Center for Media and Public Affairs, which reportedly found that during the initial phase of the general election, network evening news coverage has been more favorable toward John McCain than Barack Obama. Though Obama has received a greater volume of coverage at times, the tone of his coverage has been more negative, according to CMPA."

That Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann continue playing both hard news anchor and opinionated talking heads is of no consequence to NBC News president Steve Capus. Responding to taunts from Fox News' Chris Wallace made earlier this week at the Television Critics Association annual event, Capus told MSNBC's audience he has no plans to change the formula, where his star power pundits anchor news coverage like elections while going on the air every night to deride the right wing. Says Olbermann: "We know there are different rules for us, and the viewers — I think based on how many of them have turned out — know there are different rules."

And Capus agrees: "The audience gets it, and that’s the single biggest factor that I see."

Hey, remember when a certain other left-leaning institution thought their audience would "get it"?

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When the New York Times refused John McCain's op-ed piece about Iraq this week, the Republican candidate's team did what any perturbed campaign would: They leaked the details to the Drudge Report, with a slant.

That slant?

That the Times would only run a McCain op-ed if it "mirrored" the one submitted by Barack Obama, titled "My Plan For Iraq," less than a week ago. This is, McCain's supporters will argue, evidence of the Times' obvious liberal bias. Which would be a worthwhile argument, were it not already accepted wisdom.

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"The people I work with–all my bosses–seem to be for Hillary. I just sense it. They don't actually say it, but there's no sense from the top I can tell you that it's pro-Obama.. by any means. That's not what I get. And it was basically pro-war during the war.. the bosses were. And I was up against that." [FBDC, earlier]

CNN's Jessica Yellin, who on Anderson Cooper's show last night revealed she had felt pressure from above to "patriotize" her news reports when covering the Bush White House and the Iraq war, has now clarified her remarks as promised. For one, she clears up that she was talking about ABC, where she used to work, but MSNBC, of all places, where she "worked as a segment producer, overnight anchor, field reporter, and briefly covered the White House, the Pentagon, and general Washington stories." And also: It wasn't like Jeff Immelt was ringing her extension to tell her to draw hearts around Bush's photos.

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"In fact, MSNBC's bias has actually hurt the Illinois senator. After all, it was the Obama cheerleading from MSNBC (among others) that helped lead to Clinton's New Hampshire comeback. And even if you think (as I do) that the Clintons have made too big of a deal out of the "sexist" and "unfair" portrayal their candidate has received in the press, if you watch enough MSNBC, you realize that their claim isn't without truth. How could you believe otherwise when Olbermann, with his trademark hauteur, told Hillary that "voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth [of the campaign]," or when Matthews took such self-evident glee in trouncing Clinton in between the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary? Similarly now, by mocking Clinton's decision to stay in the race, Olbermann has only bolstered her argument that "the boys" are trying to push her out. And finally, on a number of primary nights, but most notably in Pennsylvania and Ohio/Texas, MSNBC has become so excited by early exit polls that it has raised expectations that Obama ultimately could not live up to." [TNR]

Is "Media Credibility. Restored." an oxymoron, or a description of the impossible? One thing it is: the slogan for NewsCred, a new (currently invite-only) service that will tell you how credible a news source (even a blog!) is based on user reviews. [TC] As you might imagine, this type of come-on is rife with problems, such as: What makes a news source credible?; Does credibility refer to bias? inaccurate information? spelling errors?; etc. And also, who's kidding themselves that this won't just be an excuse for lefty liberals to bash Fox News and righty conservatives to bash the Times? [BM] Sounds like a worthwhile use of time, debate skills.

Based on the New York Times revelations that many military experts, stumping as television talking heads and newspaper guest op-ed columnists, are paid (with cash, trips, or access) agents of the Bush administration, producers and editors might begin taking a more cynical eye to booking these men in uniform. Because they were so apt to be neutral pundits in the first place. [E&P]