Bias by Omission

Given the opportunity to directly relay the two sentences of House Speaker John Boehner's statement on the status of debt-ceiling and budget negotiations tonight, the Associated Press's Andrew Taylor and Jim Kuhnhenn, in their 9:29 p.m. report (saved here at my web host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) disgracefully cut the Speaker's statement off after its first sentence…

If we are believe two late Friday afternoon dispatches from the Associated Press following the government's awful Employment Situation report earlier in the day, you would think that even a cadre of cops with the talent of Sherlock Holmes couldn't solve the mystery of the underperforming job market. Economics Writers Christopher Rugaber and Paul Wiseman went with themes of "baffled economists…

Looking for updates on the Connecticut state budget mess earlier this afternoon, I searched the Associated Press's national site on the last name of Democratic Nutmeg State Governor Dannel Malloy, and found nothing recent (graphic saved here for future reference). But there were two stories originating from the state which the wire service, the nation's de facto news gatekeeper, deemed worthy…

I had to do a double take when I looked over this afternoon's dispatch out of St. Paul, Minnesota from Patrick Condon of the Associated Press. Readers unfamiliar with the Gopher State budget impasse to this point would fail to learn from the AP report that the dispute is all about raising taxes. Democratic Governor Mark Dayton wants tax increases on "the wealthy" (which really means high…

Wednesday afternoon, BigJournalism.com editor-in-chief Dana Loesch reported that Arizona Senator John Kyl had been on the receiving end of what I would call "mis-tweetment" at the hands of someone irresponsibly chirping away at Reuters. The Reuters tweet stated that "Republicans have agreed to $150 billion to $200 billion in increased tax revenues as part of budget talks," and claimed Senator…

Maybe we ought to nickname him Rip Van Geier. In his coverage of this weekend's We The People Convention in Columbus, Ohio early Saturday morning, Columbus Dispatch reporter Ben Geier found it "surprising" that many attendees would "go after the Republican Party and House Speaker John Boehner" in expressing their opinions relating to developments in Washington. It's as if he's totally unaware…

On Thursday's CBS Evening News and Friday's Early Show, CBS glossed over President Obama's aim to break a campaign promise with a proposal to raise taxes on people who make less than $250,000 a year. Both Chip Reid and Bill Plante noted that "the White House is also insisting on...a limit on deductions for people...making more than $200,000 a year," but didn't reference the Democrat's 2008 tax…

New York Times reporters Danny Hakim and Nicholas Confessore filed another in a series of front-page stories Friday  revolving around the natural gas industry, especially the “fracking” process by which natural gas is obtained from shale and is opposed by liberal environmentalists. This time the scene is the paper’s own backyard: “Cuomo Moving To End a Freeze On Gas Drilling.” The Cuomo…

Recently the New York Times has run several stories on various abortion legislation in the states, none more slanted than Eric Eckholm’s piece on Monday, “New Laws in 6 States Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks.” In February, Eckholm called the abortion providers Planned Parenthood “advocates for women’s health,” and his new story had a similar case of bias by omission involving abortion providers.…

One might be an accident. Two indicates a bit of a trend. Yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that an early dispatch from Bloomberg on a disappointing consumer confidence report opened by telling readers that "Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell in June to a seven-month low ..." A later version purged the dreaded U-word ("unexpectedly"), opening with "Consumer confidence…

While the vast majority of those in the establishment press doggedly insist on reporting seasonally adjusted numbers in most economic spheres, there is an odd exception: Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. Not that it's completely the press's fault. S&P emphasizes the raw numbers over the seasonally adjusted ones, and for a pretty good reason: The raw numbers represent…

It looks like someone in the establishment business press might be getting a little touchy about the razzing they continually receive for delivering "unexpectedly" bad economic news. As captured by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and corroborated in this Google News description, Bloomberg's 10:16 a.m. report on consumer sentiment told readers that "Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell in June…

ABC, CBS, and NBC all failed to mention former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's affiliation with the Democratic Party on their Monday evening news broadcasts and the Tuesday morning shows. Blagojevich was convicted by a jury on Monday on 17 out of 20 charges, mainly related to the attempt to sell the Senate seat of President Obama. Only CBS's Early Show noted his party with a "D" on-screen…

With apologies to King Solomon, as a dog returns to its vomit, so a biased MSNBC anchor repeats his tired talking points. [video follows page break] On the June 14 edition of his eponymous program, conservative New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp hit Martin Bashir for marveling at Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.) June 13 debate performance, given her history of gaffes. At the time,…