Bias by Omission

The public learned on September 3 from William McQuillen at Bloomberg (possibly earlier elsewhere) that now-bankrupt Soyndra's private investors restructured the company's finances in January by lending the company "$75 million." As a condition of doing so, they convinced the government to give the new loan senior status over all other creditors. Now taxpayers face a likely loss of hundreds of…

The Obama administration and the Obama campaign aren't the only ones who should be embarrassed by the AttackWatch.com snitch site Obama for America recently created. As demonstrated last night in a series of Associated Press searches (not in quotes) which resulted in nothing relevant and still don't (here on "attackwatch.com"; here on "Attack Watch"; here on "Obama campaign"; and here on "Obama…

Darlene Superville's Associated Press report earlier this evening on President Obama's visit to North Carolina ("Obama touts jobs bill benefits for small business") had an interesting final paragraph. Concerning Obama's openness to compromise on his "jobs plan" (otherwise known as "spend now, pay for with taxes later"), she wrote: "President Obama has made clear he'd sign a portion of the…

Last night at 11:31 p.m., as shown here at the Columbus Dispatch, the Associated Press's Beth Fouhy was treating the special congressional electoral contest in NY-09 as if Democrat David Weprin would likely fend off the challenge from Republican Bob Turner. The 11:31 p.m. time stamp appears to be accurate, since only about a half-hour earlier, at 10:56 p.m., Fouhy put up a brief item at an AP…

It would appear that there is a reason beyond alleged "journalistic integrity" why the New York Times hasn't pulled its error-riddled, only partially corrected mid-August story by Eric Lichtblau ("A Businessman in Congress Helps His District and Himself") about California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa. Issa has identified 13 serious errors in the Times story, the cumulative effect of…

The August Monthly Treasury Statement released by the government today reveals that Uncle Sam ran a $134.2 billion deficit in August. That figure was $44.7 billion, or 48%, higher than the $90.5 billion deficit seen in August 2010. The year-over-year deficit increase occurred because outlays increased by 19% to over $303 billion, while receipts went up by 3% to $169 billion. Gee, that wasn't…

Rachel Rose Hartman's Tuesday item for Yahoo! News's "The Ticket" blog carried a misleading headline ("Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die") implying that the majority, if not all, of the audience at Monday's GOP presidential debate thought that the critically injured who are uninsured should be left to die. In reality, only a handful cheered and/or laughed in response…

A month before the 9/11 attacks, American missionaries Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry were captured and imprisoned by the Taliban. Their detention and subsequent rescue by American troops in November 2001 received extensive media coverage at the time, including criticism by "Dateline" correspondent John Larson about their proselytizing in a Muslim country. So far, however, it seems no…

CBS's Early Show on Monday devoted two segments and a news brief to the Obama "jobs bill," but in none of the three stories did they allow a single Republican to speak. Correspondent Bill Plante filed a report that was almost all Obama soundbites -- and to make the sound of a sales job complete, it even included a clip of a TV ad from the Democratic National Committee to help push the $447…

(This post has been updated, 12:34pm EDT) You may have heard/seen President Obama's gaffe during his jobs speech Thursday night where he stated that Abraham Lincoln was the "founder of the Republican Party."  The quote, via to the New York Times, was "We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union.  Founder of the Republican Party.  But in the middle of a civil war, he…

The folks involved in the storming of Israel's embassy in Cairo are probably wondering what they have to do to become the press's pet word for rampaging Muslims (the country is 90% Muslim, and it would be a very safe bet that heavily persecuted Coptic Christians aren't involved): "militants." I guess breaking through the Israeli embassy's security wall, ransacking offices, and dumping…

It's hard to figure out why Tom Krisher at the Associated Press bothered filing a report on the status of contract talks between Detroit's Big 3 automakers and the United Auto Workers. The only reason I can discern is that he wanted to brag about how he and his wire service pals have access to anonymously-sourced info about how the talks are going. Surprise: As has been the case almost always…

Yesterday, at organized labor's traditional Labor Day picnic at Cincinnati's Coney Island amusement park, Vice President Joe Biden gave the keynote address. His key lines, as reported by Carl Weiser at the Cincinnati Enquirer's Politics Extra blog (video is here at MRC-TV): "... this is a different kind of fight. This is a fight for the heart and soul of the labor movement. This is a fight for…

New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes spent Labor Day with President Obama in Detroit, who spoke at a heavily union rally featuring speakers from organized labor. One of them, Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa, used just the sort of militant rhetoric against the Tea Party that would certainly have been condemned by the Times if coming from Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, or any other conservative…