The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran this short on Saturday among seven Washington Digest items:

Saying the greatest threat to the country is not a recession or terrorist attack but liberal media bias, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, announced Friday that he is organizing the Media Fairness Caucus in the House.

Here’s more information on Smith’s thinking and the effort. Rich Noyes reported on NewsBusters.org that:

Smith told FNC co-anchor Bill Hemmer that the problem of liberal journalists skewing the information reaching Americans is a worse threat than “a recession or another terrorist attack,” and said his group’s goal would be to “encourage the media to adhere to the highest standards of their profession and to provide the American people with the facts, not tell them what to think.”

Newsmax’ Ron Kessler wrote about the formation of the new group yesterday: “The Media Fairness Caucus will point out unfair stories, meet with members of the media, and write op-eds and letters to the editor to highlight media bias. For the past two years, Smith has conducted his own campaign against unfair coverage in weekly one-minute speeches on the House floor. The caucus is intended to broaden and fortify the effort.”

Noyes’ article includes these excerpts from Smith’s Fox appearance:

To me, the greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession, or another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias. And I think that because, if the American people don’t get the facts, they can’t make good decisions. And if the American people can’t make good decisions, then our democracy is threatened….

The media have given the Obama administration a free pass. In fact, President Obama has gotten three times the positive coverage that President Bush got in his first three months in office. There’s very little criticism, and you have to rely, frankly, on Fox News and a few other media outlets to get the facts to the American people. Otherwise, they wouldn’t know….