Bias by Omission

On Friday, in the course of a general complaint about the relative lack of coverage of the flooding in Nashville and much of Tennessee, the Associated Press received a deserved compliment for its coverage from Investors Business Daily, which correctly implied that AP can't make its subscribers publish its output. But IBD missed one item, and understandably so. On Wednesday, the AP ran an article…

The editorialists at Investors Business Daily are not pleased with the values on display in the relative importance given to three major stories: the deaths of 11 oil rig workers off the Gulf Coast, the oil spill that resulted from that rig's collapse, and the historic flooding in Tennessee that has taken at least 30 lives. Here's the newspaper's take: What does it say when 11 men who perish on…

If a genuine, sustained economic recovery is truly underway, why can't the government show us the money? This would appear to be a question the establishment press has no interest in answering. As seen in the graphic at the right (HT to an e-mailer), when the government's Monthly Treasury Statement is released next Wednesday, the anticipation is that it will show an April deficit of $85 billion…

Columbus Bureau Chief Jim Provance at the Toledo Blade is a one-man "Name That Party" creativity machine: In March of last year (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), in a story about late financial reports from Ohio's state government, Provance identified State Auditor Mary Taylor, who criticized Governor Ted Strickland's administration for being so tardy with the numbers that they could not…

Consistency, thy name is AP. The Associated Press's story roll-out on former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's anticipated guilty pleas to ethics violations followed the usual script: The initial report, carried here at Cleveland.com, failed to mention Dann's Democratic Party affiliation. A later extended report breaks down and reveals Dann's party membership in its ninth of eleven paragraphs…

CNN and the Associated Press on Wednesday and Thursday touted how the tea party movement apparently didn't get motivate voters to turn out and "throw out the bums" in Republican primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio. Both outlets, however, omitted how senate candidate Rob Portman ran unopposed in his primary race in Ohio.Anchor Rick Sanchez brought on CNN national political correspondent…

The Associated Press managed to report on yesterday's primaries in North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio while muddling the incontrovertibly disastrous results for Democrats in those states. Even while touting the races as harbingers for November, the AP failed to extrapolate the trends right before their eyes.In short, turnout for Republican primaries in all three states was up almost across the…

Editor's Note: NewsBusters Publisher and Media Research Center President President Brent Bozell released the following statement today regarding the broadcast and cable news media's silence about President Barack Obama's use of a crass sexual slang term to refer to Tea Party members. For a fuller statement, click here to access Mr. Bozell's Facebook page. For the full press release at MRC.org,…

[Update, 6:06 pm Eastern: CNN ran a slanted commercial promoting Tuchman's report on Anderson Cooper 360 on Monday afternoon, touting how then-Cardinal Ratzinger apparently "resisted" Bishop Cummins's requests to expel the abuser from the priesthood. (see video at right).] CNN's Gary Tuchman revisited a three-week-old story on a priest abuse case in California during a segment on Monday's AC360,…

Former leftist agitator Brandon Darby took the mainstream media to task today for toeing the administration line on supposed right-wing violence while ignoring the leftists who actually pose a threat to the nation's security.Few know the measures political violence better than Darby (pictured right). He spent years as a radical leftist/anarchist, espousing hatred for the United States and…

On Friday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez revisited a story he did on Tuesday where he forwarded Islamic group CAIR's publicity stunt about a Virginia license plate that apparently contained racist messages. The Washington Post, as well, updated their story on Friday, pointing to the driver's apparent Facebook page, which contained white supremacist messages, but CNN was unable to confirm their…

Last August, Maryland state delegate Jon Cardin (D-Baltimore County), nephew of the state's junior U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D), proposed marriage to his girlfriend. But unlike normal folks who might propose via the jumbotron at the ball park or by having a waiter slip the diamond ring in a champagne flute, Del. Cardin decided to get the local cops to help arrest his woman's heart -- by…

While the story of the South Park death threats may not specifically constitute bias in the media per say, it does highlight an embarrassing pattern that has sent Big Media the way of the dinosaur, and a disturbing pattern that has people kowtowing to aggressive threats from radical Islamists.  We'll start with the MSM.  Zachary Chesser, or Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee as he is known on the…

An unbylined Associated Press item carried at NPR quotes President Obama as follows about Arizona's recently enacted immigration law-enforcement measure: The president is repeating a blatant falsehood about the Arizona law that has gained instant currency in the establishment press and leftist circles. It has no basis in fact, or in the legislation Grand Canyon State Governor Jan Brewer…