Here's a news story that should be interesting to watch as it develops further.

The New York Police Department executed a raid on the circulation offices of four New York newspapers earlier today.

The Associated Press reported the story shortly after 1 p.m. EST (h/t Alex Yuriev):

By COLLEEN LONG

NEW YORK (AP) - A law enforcement official says the New York Police Department raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers as part of a union corruption probe.

That the Associated Press's basement-level poll-cooking and poll-reporting standards are quite low, and quite agenda-driven, might as well be an article of faith by this time.

But the wire service-commissioned poll on health care, and Erica Warner's report on it (saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes; HT JammieWearingFool via Instapundit; the full poll report in PDF format is here) plumbs new depths of partisanship while making errors of both omission and commission.

Warner and AP want the big takeaway to be that taxing "the rich" is the idea the public overwhelmingly favors to pay for ObamaCare -- never mind that the same public also opposes the plan itself.

What follows is a graphic containing selected paragraphs from Werner's report:

Twitter has announced that it will end a list service that blatantly favored Democratic politicians by attracting viewers to their profiles while excluding GOP officials from the service.

The list service provided new Twitter users with lists of prominent message-posters they might like to follow. Watchdog groups discovered late last month that Democratic officials were prominently listed by the service, and gaining large swaths of followers as a result, while many prominent GOP politicians were excluded.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has since withdrawn his bid for Governor, was one suggested user, and had roughly 1.2 million followers when the Associated Press reported the story on October 27. His opponent in the race for the Democratic nomination also appeared on the lists, and garnered 960,000 followers.

But none of the GOP's gubernatorial contenders appeared on the lists, and all three had fewer than 5,000 followers.

In the alternative universe known as Government/General Motors Land, you can:

• Talk about how your financial results are going to be better than last year's and in the next breath caution that the numbers won't be comparable.
• Inform the public that the financial information to be released on Monday isn't going to be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and is going to simply skip about 3-1/2 months of activity that will apparently never be reported, even though your majority-owning government forces your publicly-held competitors and every other publicly-held company to prepare full-blown financial statements under those same GAAP rules.
• Tell the world that you're a private company, even though the federal government owns a majority of your stock (in effect making you more of a public company than any other public company around), and thereby insist that you're doing the world a favor by releasing any financial information at all.

In the alternative reporting universe known as the Associated Press, you parrot these points without questioning whether they are correct, proper, or even less than fully transparent.

Here are key paragraphs from that Wednesday unbylined AP report (bolds after title and footnotes are mine):

The Associated Press recently assigned eleven of its writers to fact-check Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue." AP's team of truth-seekers only found six errors the former Alaska Governor's book, most of which were trivial and presumably not worth the time of a team of reporters.

"AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report", reads the sign-off of Calvin Woodward's fact-check. Even with this impressively large crew, the AP seemed to stretch to find objectionable statements in "Going Rogue".

Here's a fact-check that supposedly required a squad of reporters to unearth:

In a report that is so riddled with bias and factual errors it's hard to know even where to begin, Associated Press Writers Tom Raum and Andrew Taylor yesterday gave making President Obama look like a born-again deficit hawk their best shot.

The pair's work is partially saved here for fair use, discussion and in this case entertainment purposes.

The biggest error Raum and Taylor made was publishing the following "we wish it were true" statement:

The national debt is the accumulation of annual budget deficits. The deficit for the 2009 budget year, which ended on Sept. 30, set an all-time record in dollar terms at $1.42 trillion.

Well, Tom and Andy, using this readily available tool, if that's the case, why was the national debt on September 30, 2008 $10.02 trillion and then $11.91 trillion on September 30, 2009? That's a difference of $1.89 trillion, a whopping $470 billion more than the past year's $1.42 trillion deficit.

The answer is, sadly, that the national debt is NOT the accumulation of annual budget deficits, as shown in the graphic that follows:

In what is presented to readers of an Associated Press report as a done deal, the Netherlands will impose a mileage tax on drivers beginning in 2012. It goes beyond most if not all other government-imposed taxes in that it will charge more during so-called peak times or if a vehicle is considered a heavier polluter.

The abolition of two other taxes is apparently the mechanism for enticing the Dutch into acquiescing to this intrusive arrangement.

Media bias watchers will not be surprised to know that the AP's unbylined Saturday report saved the government's overhyped promises for the report's second-last paragraph, and the tax-detailing punch line for the final one.

Here are some excerpts (bolds are mine; I believe that "mike" in the first paragraph refers to "micrometer"):

It might seem odd, given its content, that I'm about to criticize yesterday's Associated Press report on the deficit.

After all, AP business writers Martin Crutsinger and Daniel Wagner did give us the facts about Uncle Sam's October Monthly Treasury Statement, put them into historical context, and told us that we face $1 trillion-plus shortfalls in fiscal 2010 and 2011.

But the pair missed a couple of receipts-related items that would have hit readers right between the eyes if noted, and would have indicated just how dire the government's financial situation has become.

The first omission: Collections of corporate income taxes were negative, as the government paid out an astonishing $4.5 billion more in refunds to corporations than it collected. The second: In a month mostly unaffected by individual estimated payments (these are normally paid in April, June, September, and January), year-over-year collections of individual income taxes were down by 29%.

Here are the key paragraphs from Crutsinger's and Wagner's coverage:

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn is stepping down at the end of the month.

NewsBusters readers should remember Dunn as the outspoken Adminstration official who made quite a splash in October when she said the Fox News Channel "really is not a news network at this point."

Now, according to the Associated Press, she's passing the baton:

It's a development that I wouldn't wish on anybody, but one that the City of New London, Connecticut largely brought upon itself by pursuing and winning the Kelo v. New London case at the Supreme Court in June 2005.

Some "win." In what Ed Morrissey at Hot Air calls "a fitting coda to a chapter of governmental abuse," pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer is leaving the global research and development headquarters it built in New London just eight years ago.

The significance of the move should resonate nationally, because, as the Washington Examiner explains, Pfizer's original decision to locate in New London was driven by the City's promises to eliminate a nearby neighborhood -- promises which led to the Kelo litigation once residents, including Susette Kelo (pictured above), pushed back:

To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to the land Pfizer was buying for next-to-nothing. Suzette Kelo fought the taking to the Supreme Court, and lost. Five justices found this redevelopment met the constitutional hurdle of "public use."

The New London Day elaborates, while petulantly managing to avoid any mention of what has clearly become the local four-letter word -- "Kelo" (bold is mine):

Reporters at the Associated Press are clearly unhappy that Maine voters turned out to refuse to honor "gay marriage" at the ballot box. An AP dispatch two days ago by Lisa Leff and David Sharp suggested conservatives are misleading voters with charges that have "no evidence," like students going on a field trip to a lesbian wedding.

Are they that factually challenged at AP? From Fox News on October 13, 2008, just weeks before the vote on California’s Proposition 8:

First-graders in San Francisco took a field trip to City Hall to celebrate the marriage of their lesbian teacher on Friday, but opponents of same-sex marriage in the state say the field trip was an attempt to "indoctrinate" the students, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The field trip was suggested by a parent at the Creative Arts Charter School, and the school said the trip, where students tossed rose petals on their teacher and her wife as they left City Hall, was academically relevant.

"The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate."

That's not a quote from National Review, the Weekly Standard, NewsMax, or World Net Daily.

Such was the opening paragraph of a truly surprising Associated Press article published moments ago:

NB reader Steven Parker sends along this mangled caption of a Fort Hood photo from AP on Yahoo! News:

U.S. Army soldiers lower the flag following Revile in front of the III Corp Headquarters building at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, Friday, Nov. 6, 2009.

We're guessing the caption writer meant "Reveille," which is often the bugle call.....when the flag goes up, not down. Ouch. Buglers often play "Retreat" for the retirement of the colors.

This might inspire some Army people to want the draft reinstated -- just so the journalists aren't so ignorant.

Did you know that activist filmmaker James O'Keefe and partner Hannah Giles made only one undercover video showing ACORN employees willing to assist them in illegal and human rights-violating activities?

Absent prior knowledge, that's the impression you would have upon reading the Associated Press's coverage of the latest development in the ACORN saga, namely the raid on the organization's New Orleans office by Louisiana state investigators.

AP writer Cain Burdeau only mentions O'Keefe's and Giles's videotaping efforts in Baltimore. The fact is that the pair have thus far presented the results of their efforts in five other locations, and may have more episodes in inventory for other opportune times.

Here are the first five paragraphs of Budreau's coverage (bold is mine):

The October unemployment rate has just been released and it has jumped to  double digits at 10.2%, the worst rate since 1983. Just a little over half a point higher would make this the worst recession since the Great Depression. So how is the Associated Press reporting the growing unemployment numbers? "The economy is rebounding." I kid you not.

This AP report by Christopher S. Rugaber was published earlier this morning before the official unemployment rate was released.  Notice how AP tries to cushion the blow by speculating that it would probably just rise to 9.9% for October:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy is rebounding from its deepest slump since the 1930s, but it probably won't seem that way when the government releases its monthly employment report on Friday.

Employers aren't expected to start adding jobs for several more months. Many are skeptical about the strength and sustainability of the recovery,

The nation's economy probably lost a net total of 175,000 jobs in October, pushing the unemployment rate to 9.9 percent, according to a survey of Wall Street economists by Thomson Reuters. The Labor Department report is scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. EST.

Most economists think the rate will eventually surpass 10 percent, a level last seen in June 1983.

Here's news you can virtually guarantee won't get noticed by what remains of the establishment media.

Whole Foods (WFMI) announced its financial results for the quarter ended September 30 yesterday. The quarter closed about 50 days after outraged leftists called for a boycott of the grocery chain to retaliate for a Wall Street Journal op-ed written by CEO John Mackey. In that column, Mackey identified "Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit," asserting that:

The last thing our country needs is a massive new health care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction — toward less government control and more individual empowerment.

Well, if there's so much support out there for statist health care, you would think that the Whole Foods boycott dedicated to punishing an opponent would have had a significant impact on the company's most recent quarterly results.

You would be wrong:

As readers of Cal Thomas’s latest syndicated column already know, the Media Research Center is releasing a new report today on the media’s coverage of communism, timed to coincide with the 20 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Monday. Sad to say, but before, during and after those momentous events two decades ago, many in the liberal media continuously whitewashed the true nature of communism, or suggested free-market capitalism was somehow worse.

For our report, Better Off Red?, Scott Whitlock and I combed through the MRC’s archives; the quotes (and 19 audio/video clips) we pulled together show some liberal journalists utterly failed to accurately depict communism as one of the worst evils of the 20th century, and often aimed their fire at those who were fighting communism rather than those who were perpetuating it. The full report has more than 70 quotes; here's a sample from the Executive Summary:

■ Before it collapsed, these journalists insisted those enslaved by communism actually feared capitalism more. "Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy," CBS anchor Dan Rather asserted in 1987.

Well, it only took them the better part of a year to pick up on what yours truly first noted in early February (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), , and what anyone with eyes has surely known for months. But the Associated Press has finally acknowledged it -- or at least it's the first time I've seen the wire service do so.

In the eighth paragraph of their article covering October's auto sales, AP reporters Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin recognized part of the reason -- and perhaps the most important reason -- why Ford has been cleaning the clocks of General Motors and Chrysler all year long:

Ford has benefited from consumer goodwill because it didn't take government bailout money or go into bankruptcy protection, as General Motors and Chrysler did.

Though October seems at first glance to have turned out somewhat differently than the first nine months of the year for Detroit's sort-of Big 3, that really isn't the case:

On Nov. 3, 53 percent of Maine voters rejected a six-month-old law redefining the state's definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. The next day, an AP article about the vote read more like a direct mail appeal for the Human Rights Campaign than a news piece.

Headlined "Maine Voters Repeal Law Allowing Gay Marriage," the article called the repeal of the legislation that granted marriage for same-sex couples a "stinging defeat" for the gay rights movement and focused almost exclusively on the reactions of gays and lesbians. Framed around the thwarted wedding plans of a lesbian couple, the article contained three quotes from supporters of same sex-marriage and only one from an advocate for traditional marriage.

"Cecelia Burnett and Ann Swanson had already set their wedding date," began the article. "When they joined about 1,000 other gay marriage supporters for an election night party in a Holiday Inn ballroom, they hoped to celebrate the vote that would make it possible."

Laurie Kellman, call your office, check your e-mail, and tap in to your Twitter.

The Associated Press reporter didn't get the memo that recession is supposedly over, and that at a minimum you shouldn't be writing as if it will be with us for a while. She also erred in citing the weak economy as a bad thing for Democrats. The New York Times told us about a week ago that a bad economy is a good thing for Democrats who want to pass state-controlled health care and other freedom-restricting agenda items, because a bad economy increases personal insecurity. They're such pals of the little guy, you see.

Both busts against the conventional media wisdom are in Kellman's brief item from late this morning (bolds are mine):

Health care issues: Hold off for a better economy?