Labeling

The Associated Press has posted four stories during the past week on the machete-wielding Islamist who attacked patrons at the Nazareth Restaurant and Deli in Columbus, Ohio on February 11, seriously wounding several. The wire service's coverage has been a textbook example of deliberate reality avoidance.

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, Jeffrey Toobin somehow thought it was necessary to point out that Justice Antonin Scalia's 120 Supreme Court clerks — many of whom were waiting for his casket to arrive at the Court — consisted of "an overwhelmingly white, male group." Toobin made this statement as the camera zeroed in on eight individuals who all appeared to be white. However, moments later, a different…

Liberal anchor Carol Costello shamelessly touted two ads from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom. Costello turned to a guest who works for a "group that creates television and radio ads," but failed to mention that his firm mainly deals with Democratic candidates. She prompted him to describe why Clinton's "ad is so effective." Later, Costello heralded the ad from the…

MSNBC's Chris Hayes is usually right less often than a stopped clock, i.e., fewer than two times a day. But he might get lucky if by some miracle he's right about something else today because of the matter discussed in this post. After the Obama administration announced that President Barack Obama will not attend Saturday's funeral for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch Catholic,…

CNN's Athena Jones spotlighted the latest pro-gun control headline on the New York Daily News's front page during Wednesday's New Day. Jones, who was following Jeb Bush's campaign, noted that the former Florida governor was "getting some attention for a tweeted photo of a handgun engraved with his name. The caption: 'America.' The New York Daily News having some fun with that picture, with the…

On Tuesday's CNN Tonight, Entertainment Tonight's Nischelle Turner and liberal commentator Marc Lamont Hill defended rapper Kanye West's "I made that bitch famous" shot at Taylor Swift on his latest album. Turner claimed that West "raised her [Swift's] profile" when he stormed the stage during an infamous 2009 incident at the American Music Awards: "We started paying more attention to her then."…

Yesterday, Matt Balan at NewsBusters noted that only two of the Big 3 broadcast news networks covered "the assault allegation against former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer that emerged over the weekend," and that only NBC mentioned Spitzer's Democratic Party affiliation. A broader look at news coverage of Spitzer's latest encounter with law enforcement indicates that omitting his party…

CBS This Morning was the sole Big Three morning newscast on Monday to not cover the assault allegation against former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer that emerged over the weekend. By contrast, NBC's Today aired a full two-plus minute report on Spitzer "facing another potentially embarrassing scandal," as Kristen Dahlgren put it. ABC's Good Morning America gave a brief on the story, but didn't…

Yesterday, New York Times editorial board member Brent Staples tweeted what was and apparently still is his best argument for why the Republican-controlled Senate should roll over and approve whoever President Obama wishes to nominate to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Antonin Scalia's death on Saturday: "In a nation built on slavery, white men propose denying the first black…

The best-known of the three declared presidential candidates for 2020 (not kidding) appears to be off to a good start as a leftist politician in love with deficit spending. According to a celebrity income estimate maintained by Forbes Magazine, rapper Kanye West has earned well over $200 million during the past 12 years. Saturday evening, he tweeted that he is carrying "$53 million in personal…

The Associated Press's choice of a headline to accompany business writer Stan Choe's Saturday morning report on the state of the economy — "MAIN STREET HOLDS UP AS WALL STREET STRUGGLES, FOR A CHANGE" — has a couple of interesting implications. Is AP celebrating the fact that Wall Street is struggling? Or does the idea that "Main Street" is holding up "for a change" mean that it hasn't been…

On Thursday, Venezuela's Supreme Court decided to grant Bolivarian socialist "President" Nicolas Maduro what an unbylined Associated Press report described as "broad decree powers" to deal with the economic crisis and humanitarian nightmare he and his predecessor Hugo Chavez created. Maduro's government now for all practical purposes has total control of that nation's economy, which in the…

The New York Times is again trying hard to hang the immigration issue around the collective neck of the Republican Party. A lead story by Alexander Burns, “Division Deepens In The G.O.P. Field On Immigration – Appeals In The South – Cruz and Trump Assail Moderate Rivals on ‘Amnesty’ Issue.” Note the quote marks in the headline around the word amnesty. There were more politically correct…