AP's Hananel Weakly Covers Union's Threats Against USPS-Staples Retail

January 19th, 2014 10:29 AM
Presumed union member (the News Media Guild) and Associated Press reporter Sam Hananel's Sunday morning coverage of union threats against a pilot partnership between the U.S. Postal Service and Staples Inc. fails to deliver on at least three counts. First, while noting that American Postal Workers Union (APWU) boycott threats ended a similar effort at Sears stores in the late-1980s, Hananel "…

Barely News: N.Y. Gov. Cuomo Lambastes 'Extreme Conservatives' Who 'Ha

January 18th, 2014 12:10 PM
Imagine if Texas Senator Ted Cruz or Lone Star State Governor Rick Perry told a public radio show's host that "people who support abortion, gun control, and same-sex marriage have no place in Texas." There would be breaking news alerts on every cable news station. It would be a press obsession for weeks. More immediately, there would be intense pushback from the show's host. On the public…

Politico's Kyle Cheney Swallows Obama Fiction on When It Figured Out C

January 17th, 2014 7:36 AM
It's hard to imagine how the Politico's Kyle Cheney could have written up his Thursday story about the government's dissatisfaction with soon to be (but not yet) former prime HealthCare.gov contractor CGI with a straight face. But it appears that he did. The opening sentence of Cheney's report is an absolute howler. When you read it after the jump, keep in mind that the firm worked on…

CNN's Costello Bemoans 'Bizarre' Focus on 'Text Rage' Instead of Conce

January 15th, 2014 2:52 PM
Carol Costello hinted at her liberal slant on the gun issue on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom as she discussed the recent movie theater shooting in Florida. Costello lamented the "bizarre conversation now taking place in America: instead of talking about whether loaded guns ought to be allowed in movie theaters, many people are talking about 'text rage.'" An on-screen graphic during the segment…

MSNBC's Touré: 'Jobs' Is ‘An Ineffective Anti-Poverty Program

January 15th, 2014 8:41 AM
MSNBC's Touré Neblett, who recently condoned consumers lying to corporations like Amazon to get discounts to which they aren't entitled, really needs to stay away from Twitter — or have someone screen his tweets. On Tuesday, he tweeted (HT Twitchy) that "Many in poverty are working poor w two jobs. So 'jobs' is an ineffective anti poverty program." Note that he didn't indicate that "jobs"…

USAT's Wolken Impugns Integrity of Football Head Injury Researcher

January 14th, 2014 7:19 PM
We've seen it play out in several areas, one of which is climate science. Any researcher who questions the supposedly "settled science" of global warming is a hack who will produce whatever industry wants if they have ever accepted a dime from an energy company, while those who depend on government grants to sustain their livelihood — grants which heavily depend on toeing the politically…

CNN Spins Pope's 'Blunt Words' on Abortion as Reply to 'Conservative

January 14th, 2014 6:18 PM
Tuesday's New Day on CNN followed the lead of Reuters in giving ideologically-tinged reporting about Pope Francis's latest condemnation of abortion. Kate Bolduan hyped the "blunt words from Pope Francis on abortion", and played up how "conservative Catholics have complained the new pontiff...hasn't been tough enough on the issue until now." Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen added that "this is…

CNN: ObamaCare Sign-ups 'Good'; Blames Insurance Industry For Lack of

January 14th, 2014 2:20 PM
On Tuesday's New Day, CNN's Chris Cuomo and Elizabeth Cohen applauded the 2.2 million reported enrollments in ObamaCare as "good," but also lamented that only 25 percent of the sign-ups are young adults. The Obama administration had hoped that 40 percent of the enrollees would fall in the 18 to 34-year-old age group. Cuomo and Cohen pointed the finger entirely at insurance companies for this…

LAT's Terhune Claims Obamacare's Insurers, Not Government, Are 'Under

January 14th, 2014 12:45 PM
Let's see. We know, to name just a few of many impositions, that much of the enrollee information that HealthCare.gov and other exchanges have communicated to insurers has been erroneous, that insurers have had to deal with signing up hundreds of thousands of policyholders they originally cancelled, that deadlines for premium payments have been serially revised, and that there is no…

CBS Hounds Gates on Book 'Turmoil'; Wonders Why He Didn't Follow Advic

January 13th, 2014 4:32 PM
Rita Braver badgered former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the January 12, 2013 edition of CBS's Sunday Morning over his new memoir which, in her words, "has created such turmoil in Washington." Braver even used Gates's own words against him: "In your book, you say that one of your favorite adages is, never miss a good chance to shut up. And I wonder if you think, maybe, you violated your…

Two Reuters Headlines Presume Pope Has Condemned Abortion to Placate

January 13th, 2014 1:42 PM
A few hours ago, the folks at Twitchy.com caught the following headline at Reuters at a story about Pope Francis: "Pope, in nod to conservatives, calls abortion 'horrific.'" At roughly 11:45 Eastern Time, the headline at Philip Pullella's story carried at Yahoo News ventured even further into the unreal: "Pope, after conservatives' criticism, calls abortion "horrific.'" Phil, the Pope is…

Politico's Jose DelReal Calls Tasteless, Offensive 'BridgeGhazi' Hasht

January 13th, 2014 1:41 AM
Leave it to the left to trivialize the deaths of a U.S. ambassador and other Americans and congratulate themselves on their cuteness while doing so. Leave it to a Politico "fellow", who describes himself as a "reporter" at his LinkedIn profile, to try, along with his conscience-free employer, to promote the effort as a "a new recipe" for "naming scandals" (HT Twitchy):

AP's Rugaber: 'Jobs Report Puzzles Economists'; Fails to Cite Obamacar

January 12th, 2014 10:08 PM
Following up on Friday's awful jobs report from the government (only 74,000 seasonally adjusted jobs added, with the unemployment rate dropping to 6.7 percent only because adults continued to leave the workforce), the Asssociated Press's Christopher Rugaber tried to search for excuses. To its credit, the headline at Rugaber's report didn't blatantly dissemble like the one at Bloomberg, which…

Sen. Udall's Attempts to Bully Colo. Ins. Division Over Health Policy

January 11th, 2014 6:46 PM
Bullying by staffers of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has denied knowledge of their actions when they were taken, is a national news obsession. Bullying by staffers of Colorado Senator Mark Udall — which the Senator has acknowledged and is defending — is barely a blip. The story, first reported in the Colorado blogosphere at Complete Colorado, is that Udall staffers "worked…