Former CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien, now CEO of Starfish Media Group and a correspondent for Al Jazeera America, is our Mainstream Media Scream for taking up Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes' charge that "thug," like the reference to looters by the city's mayor, is code for the N-word.

Discussing the issue on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," she said:

"Listen, I think what the Baltimore city councilman, Carl Stokes, was trying to tell Erin Burnett is that thug is a proxy, it is a word we use instead of the N-word. And I think that's really true. I can't think of a situation where there's ever been a headline or someone has called a white young person who's in the middle of a violent protest, demonstration, whatever, a 'thug.' We use it all the time when we're talking about people in the inner city."

Brent Baker, vice president of research at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: "So much for calls for open and honest dialogue about crime and race. Journalists like O'Brien, and she's not the only one, want to disallow accurate words from being used to describe criminals, thus limiting the discussion by suggesting anyone who using the term 'thug' is a racist."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.