Old Media business reporters have a definitionally-incorrect habit of labeling single industries or economic sectors as being "in recession," when the term, as defined here, can only describe national economies or the world economy. Two examples of this are New York Times reporter David Leonhardt's description of manufacturing as being in recession in February 2007 (laughably incorrect, in any event), and the Times's employment of the term "housing recession" 25 times since October 2006, as seen in this Times search (with the phrase in quotes).

But if I wanted to be consistent with this routine form of journalistic malpractice, I would characterize the newspaper business -- at least in terms of the top 25 in the industry's food chain -- not as being in recession, but instead as going through a deep, dark, painful, protracted depression.

If you didn't know any better, you might think ABC correspondent Lisa Stark has a personal vendetta against airline mergers.

For the second consecutive night, Stark gave viewers every reason to oppose a merger between Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) and Northwest Airlines (NYSE:NWA) on the April 15 "World News with Charles Gibson." This time it came in the form of opposition on Capitol Hill.

"But there was swift opposition," ABC correspondent Lisa Stark said. "A powerful lawmaker from Minnesota, where Northwest is based, called it one of the worst developments in aviation history."

Ken Shepherd of NewsBusters posted Tuesday on Editor and Publisher's March 11 article listing the four-year circulation changes at the nation's top 20 newspapers, concentrating on the 20% loss at the Los Angeles Times during that period.

What's also compelling is that the Top 20 really has three winners and 17 losers during that four-year time frame, as the chart that follows demonstrates:

In another arrogant piece from a "professional" journalist claiming that Internet journalism is "dangerous," one where the writer imagines that he is somehow the personification of truth in "reporting," we get yet another screed on the theme that they are the only ones that should be allowed to be called "journalists." And this one is a hoot, too. In an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, former journo and current professor David Hazinski seems to imagine that it's the job of the "news industry" to "monitor and regulate" the content of blogs and Internet journalism. No, I'm serious, he really said that! This self aggrandizing piece is so filled with blind assumptions and presumptuous pap that it quite literally boggles the mind.

Lately, we have seen quite a few of these screeds against Internet journalism with nose-in-the-air, self congratulatory philosophies underlying their logic. Hazinski's takes it to the next step, though. In Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky, Hazinski, a former NBC correspondent and current professor of telecommunications and head of broadcast news at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism, has graciously deigned to lower himself and his fellow "professionals" to the role of overlord, making sure we ignerint Internet writers conform to the obviously higher standards that he and his fellow journalists employ so successfully in their field -- can you say Dan Rather and Jayson Blair?

A red meat speech to Gwinnett County, Georgia, Democrats was cause for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Rhonda Cook to whip up a 15-paragraph Max Cleland press release just in time for Veteran's Day. Not once were any Georgia Republicans quoted for balance in Cook's November 11 story, as the former senator and Vietnam veteran thundered about impending doom for Republicans both nationwide an in Georgia in 2008. But particularly offensive was how Cook uncritically relayed a tired, discredited liberal Democratic meme that Cleland was ousted from office in 2002 thanks to an ad questioning his love of country:

Democrats were especially angered by Cleland's loss to Saxby Chambliss five years ago because of an 11th-hour television ad in which the Republican challenger questioned the incumbent's patriotism.

Of course, Democrats and longtime Cleland supporters are welcome to think anything they want about the ads that questioned Cleland's voting record, but it's not objectively accurate, and neither Cook nor the AJC should uncritically further the Democratic talking point.

This is hardly the first time liberals have played the Max Cleland-as-a-victim-of-McCarthyism card. National Review's Rich Lowry capably addressed this three years ago (emphasis mine):

It is understandable, but not forgivable, that business reporters at Old Media newspapers might think that the economy is in bad shape. They first have to get past how poorly most of their employers are doing. The industry as a whole has not been doing well, and it's been that way for quite some time.

This table illustrates that point (September 30, 2007 figures are at this post, which originally came from this Editor & Publisher article, which will soon disappear behind its firewall; March 31, 2005 figures were estimated in reverse using annual percentage changes reported as of March 31, 2006, because older data I thought would remain available no longer is):

On Monday, President Bush honored a Cuban political prisoner, author Harper Lee, and former congressman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), along with five others in a Medal of Freedom ceremony. Yet while Washington Post Foreign Service staffer Nora Boustany led her November 6 article with a focus on the Castro-imprisoned Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, Post headline writers slapped a bland headline on the story, "Cuban Doctor Among Eight Honored at White House."

That's hardly an enticing attention grabber for your average Post reader flipping through page A14 while hunched over his corn flakes.

It appears that Editor & Publisher felt the need to get in front of some really bad news in the newspaper business. In fact, the sampling of numbers reported previews a report that will apparently be worse than others I have tracked (previous posts here, here, and here):

According to industry sources speaking to E&P, daily circulation for reporting papers in the six-month FAS-FAX period ending September is down about 2.5% while Sunday is expected to fall 3.5%. Those types of declines -- in the 2% and 3% range -- have been occurring as far back as the March 2005 period.

The media was fascinated with the story of the Americans in Michael Moore's "Sicko," who left the US for medical treatment in Cuba, a country with socialized medicine, and it was used to highlight the failings of the US health care system. When the exact opposite occurred, and an American fled Italy's socialized medicine for medical treatment in the privatized care of the US, the media decded that angle was no longer significant. 

In the coverage of Andrew Speaker’s TB quarantine, very little was mentioned about why he was so determined to return to the US that he ignored the CDC’s command to remain in Italy to treat his life-threatening illness, which is the most serious form of TB and is resistant to most drugs.

Speaker was so adamant about getting out of Italy and returning to the US health care system because Italy's was inadequate for his needs. The AP recounted the Diane Sawyer interview on ABC where Andrew Speaker said the doctors at a Denver research hospital said the US was his only hope (emphasis mine throughout):

"Before I left, I knew that it was made clear to me, that in order to fight this, I had one shot, and tha was going to be in Denver," he said. If doctors in Europe tried to treat him and it went wrong, he said, "it's very real that I could have died there."

Do you ever find it amusing when liberal newspaper reporters tear their hair out in frustration that all the Bush administration gives them is publicity, not news? If someone wants to argue that it's not a reporter's job to recycle robotically the publicity blurbs of the party in power, there is a two word retort: Bob Dart. Bob Dart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote an article on how the House was taking up a bill to make gas price gouging a federal crime, since we face "much of the nation complaining that gas prices are the highest ever."

Dart's story featured this lineup of the notable and the quotable: Speaker Pelosi (Democrat); Rep. Bart Stupak (Democrat), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; and Tyler Slocum energy expert with the left-wing group Public Citizen. He mentioned Sen. Maria Cantwell (Democrat) in passing. (CORRECTION: Dart's original story from the Cox News Washington Bureau also included, in paragraphs 19, 20, and 21, a statement from Marlo Lewis of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute and a refiners' representative, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution edited it out.)

Did you happen to see the reports last week predicting that summer temperatures in the southeastern part of the country could reach 110 degrees by the year 2080?

Well, according to a study just released by the Roger Pielke, Sr. Research Group, the media took “an otherwise interesting and informative research article” published in the Journal of Climate and translated it “into an almost hysterical claim of future weather.”

For those that missed it, here is an example of the hysteria as published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday in a piece marvelously titled “Ready for 110 Degrees? NASA Warns Climate Change Could Cook Atlantans” (emphasis added):

Conservatives often ponder why more young conservatives don’t go into journalism. Here’s one easy reason: the path to prizes and prestige doesn’t come from fierce investigative probing into liberal sacred cows or sharp-eyed conservative commentary. It comes from pleasing liberals with stories which advance their agenda.

The 2007 Pulitzer Prizes must have been a sad affair, what with no major prize for exposing and ruining an anti-terrorism program, and no major natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina to blame on President Bush. But that doesn’t mean the Pulitzers weren’t typically political. After all, the panels of judges are stuffed with long-standing figures in the liberal media establishment.

Let’s start with the Commentary prize, which was awarded to Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The official Pulitzer Prize Board’s press release hailed Tucker’s “courageous, clear-headed columns that evince a strong sense of morality and persuasive knowledge of the community.” Translation: she’s liberal, and she hates George Bush.

NewsBusters has reported for months how the mainstream media did an absolutely lousy job covering the controversy surrounding former President Jimmy Carter’s book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [see editor's note at bottom of post]. As odd as it may seem, the ombudsman for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution agreed with us.

Angela Tuck, the AJC’s public editor, wrote the following on February 24 (emphasis mine throughout):

The controversy surrounding former President Jimmy Carter's book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the story that won't go away. And frankly, this newspaper was slow to cover the book and the firestorm it created.

That was only the beginning of this fabulous account of liberal media bias that would make Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly proud:

Dr. Global Warming, aka Al Gore, in his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,” proclaimed that the internal combustion engine was “a mortal threat . . . more deadly than that of any military enemy.”

An op-ed written by an economics professor at the University of Georgia counters Gore’s dire assertions, and fervently stated that this invention is actually saving the planet.

In his piece published Tuesday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dwight R. Lee wrote (h/t JunkScience.com, emphasis mine throughout): "The motto of all environmentalists should be 'Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine.'"

Got your attention? Good, for Lee was armed for Gore, err, I mean bear:

For anyone who thought the worst racist ad of the electoral cycle was the RNC ad against Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee, Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics has an answer. (I heard this ad yesterday on the Sean Hannity show.) In Atlanta, a last-minute radio ad suggested that electing Republicans to the Fulton County Commission would be worse than the beatings administered in the civil rights era of the 1960s -- it might endanger the life of blacks. The script is amazing:

LEWIS: This is Congressman John Lewis.

FRANKLIN: And I'm Mayor Shirley Franklin.

YOUNG: And I am Andy Young.

LEWIS: On Nov. 7, we face the most dangerous situation we ever have. You think fighting off dogs and water hoses in the '60s was bad. [Now we] sit idly by, and let the right-wing Republicans take control of the Fulton County County Commission.

Several prominent liberal newspapers have weighed in with critical editorials on the Associated Press story that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid failed to disclose a real estate deal in which he made a $700,000 profit, including the Washington Post  ("Mr. Reid's Nondisclosure"), the Philadelphia Inquirer ("Practice What You Preach"), and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ("Sen. Reid Should Look in Mirror First").

Mike Luckovich, the liberal cartoonist for "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution," earned a chuckle from CNN anchor Miles O’Brien by claiming that "80 percent of the priesthood" is gay. Luckovich, who appeared on the October 6 edition of "American Morning," was promoting his new collection of comic strips, "Four More Wars." O’Brien began by asking the cartoonist about the Foley scandal and then attempted to link it with a plan by the pope to ban homosexuals from serving as priests:

O’Brien: "And why don't you explain this one?"

[Cartoon appears onscreen. One priest is looking at the other and says, "Does this make me look gay?"]

Luckovich: "Well, OK. The new pope wanted to -- wants to ban homosexual priests, so you are going to have to lose 80 percent of the priesthood if that happens. But -- so I've got a bishop here saying -- he's looking down at his vestments, and he's saying, ‘Does this make me look gay?"

O’Brien: [Laughs]: "It's -- well, you know, it is a fashion statement, isn't it? All right. And, of course-"

Luckovich: "Yes. You know, I was thinking -- Miles, I was thinking about maybe making Denny Hastert maybe like an archbishop and somehow, you know, making the comparison that way. I'll let you know if that -- if that works out."

O’Brien: "Oh, okay. That sounds like dangerous turf, but I would like to see that one for sure."

In case you're wondering why the cartoons in the Atlanta Journal Constitution are so slanted, one need only look at this interview with Pulleftist Prize-winning cartoonist Mike Luckovich.

You've satirized numerous presidents. How's this presidency different?
Previously, whether I was dealing with a Republican or a Democratic president, I always felt that they were kind of up to the job, basically. And this president, to me, doesn't seem that way at all. It's very scary to me that he occupies the office.

That doesn't sound so impartial. Are you a Democrat?
I am...

Some of your cartoons are kind of dark.
We're in a dark time in history now. The country is needlessly divided.

Yes, needlessly divided. All we have to do to be undivided is convert to liberalism. Just like we're needlessly at war with militant Muslims and all we have to do to stop it is convert to Islam.

A regular advertiser in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, the Mercedes-Benz dealership RBM of Atlanta, has apologized for an editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich that compared Al-Qaeda terrorists to the U.S. in torturing captives. Lest anyone think they were sponsoring the cartoon, the dealership paid for a full-page ad in the paper to beg for forgiveness.

To Our Clients: We are sorry!

While we strongly affirm the right of free speech, the June 22, 2006 Mike Luckovich cartoon depicting the U.S. as torturers on par with Al-Qaida was very offensive to us. Moreover, to publish this cartoon directly above the pictures of the two brave men who gave their lives, willingly, and were tortured and mutilated in service to their country (and each of us) is unacceptable.