Labeling

Certain members of Congress abused their positions Monday to imply that "Hands up, don't shoot" was something Michael Brown actually said before he was killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri in August. On Friday, the Associated Press irresponsibly gave voice to those who say that the slogan is now a "metaphor" for police brutality targeted against blacks, even though the…

On Monday's At This Hour, CNN's Brian Stelter brushed aside a regular conservative critique about the media – that the press has a double standard about covering controversial remarks from Republican/conservative officials, while ignoring similar comments from Democrats/liberals. Stelter, replying to a Republican flack's attack on the news coverage of GOP staffer Elizabeth Lauten's critique of…

The establishment press's performance in Ferguson has certainly been disgraceful, especially its role in turning one local death into a national obsession. One element of that buildup involves Shawn Parcells, one of two men hired by the family of Michael Brown, the 18 year-old man who was killed in an altercation with Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in early August, to look into his death…

Lisa Bloom describes herself as a "Fighter for justice at my law firm, The Bloom Firm," and is "legal analyst for NBC News & Avvo." NBC and Avvo should seriously reconsider their relationships with Ms. Bloom. In a series of tweets on Tuesday, she seethed over the grand jury's failure to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Since then, she's been…

To grievance-mongers in the fever swamp, Trayvon Martin will always be a cute little kid who had just bought Skittles and iced tea, and then got shot by a bloodthirsty racist on neighborhood watch. The truth — that Martin bought Skittles and AriZona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail, two of the three key ingredients in a mind-altering, dangerous concoction known as "lean," and that Martin's autopsy…

Sometimes, one has to remember that op-ed writers don't always get to pick their headlines, though I would hope that they're allowed to register their objections. So it's not clear that Los Angeles Times guest blogger Joel Silberman is responsible for the headline at his Monday blog post about how, or even whether, to deal with relatives who disagree with you politically on Thanksgiving. But…

It's amazing how any reporter can cover the deepening economic crisis in Venezuela without saying a word about how the country got there. But Associated Press reporter Hannah Dreier was up to the task. In a bizarre, sickening November 20 report on how its people are having to get "creative" in the face of chronic shortages of basic goods to get by, she acted as if those shortages — and the over…

An Associated Press story late this afternoon has New York Senator Chuck Schumer saying the darnedest things, with only a tiny bit of pushback from reporter Charles Babington. In the wake of a midterm election rout which saw Republicans win at least eight Senate seats, increase their House majority, and take gubernatorial races in at least three deep blue states (MD, MA, and IL), Schumer now…

Two CNN anchors channeled the supporters of Michael Brown's family on Tuesday's Early Start, as they played up how St. Louis County, Missouri Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch presented the Brown case to a grand jury, instead of pursuing charges himself. Chris Cuomo pointed out that "the prosecutor could still bring charges even after the grand jury." Deborah Feyerick later forwarded her…

It looks like the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, is choosing to become an active participant in the covering for the failure by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to carry out his most basic duty as the state's chief executive in a timely fashion. The AP's unbylined three-paragraph report published at 2:12 PM ET this afternoon acts as if the Guard had a meaningful presence in…

The New York Times continued its annoying, Winston Smith-like habit of rewriting history in virtually real time yesterday. Helene Cooper's original Monday afternoon report on Chuck Hagel's sacking as Secretary of Defense is no longer available at the Times. However, since I anticipated that the paper would conduct a comprehensive cleanup yesterday when I posted on the paper's original coverage,…

While it is indeed nice that the Associated Press did a fact check on President Obama's Thursday night immigration address — an item P.J. Gladnick at NewsBusters covered on Saturday — it would have been even nicer if the wire service better described as the Administration's Press had fact-checked Julie Pace's and Josh Lederman's awful Friday evening backgrounder on the speech. The AP pair couldn…

As is the case with so many executive changes in both the public and the private sector, there is vagueness in the circumstances surrounding the end of Chuck Hagel's stint as Obama administration Secretary of Defense. While it's not unusual for an exec to be asked to resign to avoid being formally fired, which was apparently the case with Hagel, the higher-ups involved are usually smart enough…