What do 'media hog' and 'sweet baby' mean, how offensive are they?

Question

I happen to see the following three episodes in today’s Washington Post, all of which seem to me related to derogative usage of words or actions:

1. The Navy is expected to relieve Capt. Owen Owen Honors as commander of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as a part of an investigation into a series of videos made by Honors that use anti-gay slurs and mimic masturbation.

2. Despite the fancy sounding name, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee has almost zero legislative authority. All they can do is hold hearings. While most members of Congress have no interest in being on the committee, it seems to be a dream post for media hogs like Issa and Joe Lieberman.

3. ESPN host calls reporter 'sweet baby': ESPN, the sports network where male announcers have repeatedly faced disciplinary action in high-profile episodes of sexist behavior, has benched yet another host for his remarks to a female colleague.

Although Quote 1. is self-explanatory, what does ‘media hog’ of Quote 2. mean? Does it mean “those who wish to stand out in media exposure? How derogatory the word is?

What kind of connotation “sweet baby “in Quote 3 have in this particular case? How offensive is it?

I’m afraid my questions are insensible, but it is difficult for non native English speaker like me to fathom exact degree of destructiveness of derogative English words.

Answer 1

A media hog can be either someone who watches or listens to all kinds of media without paying much attention to their content, or someone who likes media exposure just for the sake of it. In your quote, it is the media exposure. It is no more offensive than its definition is: it implies that someone is vain. It is especially effective because the insinuation is impossible to disprove.

Sweet baby is a pet name you could use for a woman. When used by a man for a woman he is not intimate with, such a pet name often evokes a traditional male-female distribution of roles, in which the woman is inferior in skill and power. Emancipated women do not like this if it is used without irony. They might reply "I am not your baby, you troglodyte". I don't think it has any more specific connotation.