On his must-read "Best of the Web Today" column for Opinion Journal, the online home of the excellent Wall Street Journal editorial page, James Taranto did a nice analysis on Associated Press reporter Mark Sherman:
An Associated Press dispatch about Justice Sam Alito includes this gem of legal analysis:
Alito has voted with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in every case in which the court has been ideologically divided.
Really? We found 15 cases in which Alito did not vote the same way as Roberts, Scalia and Thomas, including five in which Alito was on one side and all of the other three were on the other.
Read the whole thing.
Taranto also mocked the privacy-defending watchdogs at the New York Times for sounding a little hypocritical, according to the Village Voice:
Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.
The news didn't make everyone all googly-eyed. In fact, some people at the paper's annual stockholders meeting in the New Amsterdam Theatre exchanged confused looks when Janet Robinson, the company's president and CEO, uttered the phrase "data mining." . . .
Robinson was talking about money this time. Data mining, she told the crowd, would be used "to determine hidden patterns of uses to our website."
Taranto added his own take to the Voice article:
A few weeks ago we attended an Intelligence Squared debate (PDF) on civil liberties vs. national security. Debater Andrew McCarthy noted that "visitors to the ACLU's New York office are confronted when they come in with big signs on the wall that say, 'Your bags are subject to search.' "
The ACLU's Nadine Strossen, on the other side of the debate, replied that this practice was imposed by the landlord over the ACLU's objections. We wonder if the Times has a similar excuse.
I was too busy this week, since I read through the week's Taranto columns in one sitting, or I would have passed these along earlier.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
And what about Brian Ross/A
May 12, 2007 - 07:03 ET by Jack BauerAnd what about Brian Ross/ABC's own little recent exercise in "data mining"...
Remember the DC Madam hysteria of just 2 weeks ago?
The funny thing is Ross also opined on the evils of "data mining" during CIA leak cases last year, when he panicked that his "confidential sources" might be revealed by their telephone numbers being matched to their names.
Oh yes, it's yet another one rule for the ruling mediacrocy and one rule for us serfs.
I guess what they meant was
May 12, 2007 - 07:07 ET by motherbeltI guess what they meant was that in cases where they lumped "conservative justices" together and "liberal judges" together, they put Alito in with the conservatives, if he voted the same as them. If not....oh, nevermind
Never ever ever confuse facts
May 12, 2007 - 07:32 ET by mytwocentsNever ever ever confuse facts with reporting.
It boggles my mind how "repor
May 12, 2007 - 09:20 ET by old croIt boggles my mind how "reporters", with all the resources available out there today, can make such a misleading statement and try to get away with it just to promote their own agenda. We definately have two Americas out there Mr. Edwards, the informed and the uninformed.
"I always keep a stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy."
WC Fields
Big-media brother
May 12, 2007 - 10:12 ET by acumen"The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits."
I'm not sure which side to come down on this one. I disagree with the premise "ordinary" citizens visit the NY Times website. The statement would make more sense if the premise was; The Times company plans to do its own data mining of terrorists searching for the next US national security disclosures, in the name of online profits (of course). Or The Times company plans to do its own data mining of big-media brother wannabees...