Labeling

So here's how it appears to me and I suspect many other news readers, never mind the real motivations. At the Associated Press, when you're covering situations like suicide bomber attacks on Christian churches in Nigeria yesterday, you hold out as long as you can in speculating about who is responsible, even though Islamist Boko Haram terrorists (and only Boko Haram terrorists) have claimed…

It may be a fluke, but it seems too coincidental. What it may be is a leading indicator that the establishment press and international advocates of global wealth redistribution have figured out that "global warming" and "climate change," its deceptive substitute term, have lost their luster thanks to a lack of scientific rigor, scandals, and deception. What I'm referring to is the fact that…

During the 1980s, despite data which even then was telling them they were wrong, it became a mantra of a desperate establishment press that the booming economy under Ronald Reagan really wasn't that impressive because so many of the new jobs created were part-time or temporary. The data was not then readily available for temps, but it certainly was for part-time vs. full-time employment. It…

It would appear that the establishment press is determined to portray a "both sides are at fault" equivalency as much as possible in Nigeria where almost none exists. Earlier today, Patrick Poole at the PJ Tatler pointed out that a brief initial Associated Press item from Lagos would cause a person, in Poole's words, to "come away mystified as to why these churches were subject to apparently…

You'd think from the reaction to Daily Caller White House Correspondent Neal Munro's shouted question during President Obama's announcement of de facto amnesty for 30-and-under illegal aliens at the Rose Garden yesterday that it's the first time any reporter has ever shouted a question at a U.S. president out of turn. Friday afternoon, the Daily Caller, Munro's employer, carried his explanation…

NPR rushed out of the gate on Friday afternoon to defend President Obama's announcement to "lift the shadow of deportation" from young illegal immigrants. Correspondent Frank James spun the policy change as Obama getting to "the stage in his presidency, like so many of his predecessors, where his frustration with congressional inaction has led him to act unilaterally." James cited several…

Given two chances, New York Times reporters Jonathan Weisman and Michael Shear couldn't identify the universal-health-care backers Families USA as liberal in their Friday piece on what happens after the Supreme Court's imminent ruling on the constitutionality of Obama-care: "Parties Plan Next Move Once Supreme Court Rules on Health Care." Yet they had no problem spotting conservatives on the…

If you're starting to lose Jonathan Alter, reporters at Politico, and other left-leaning outlets, you're starting to get into trouble. Double that if you can't even get Julie Pace at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, to muster more than eight paragraphs relating to a 53-minute speech pre-positioned as a "major address." Hunter Walker has compiled several less than…

Sometimes it takes a bit of exertion to disprove an assertion made by an establishment press reporter. Not this time. Today's Department of Labor report on initial unemployment claims told us that such filings "unexpectedly" (as relayed by Reuters and Bloomberg) rose to 386,000 from an upwardly revised (of course) 380,000 the previous week; expectations were for a fall to 375,000. About an hour…

Don't you find it odd that the word extremism seems to apply only to conservative Republicans? Terminology often drives political discourse and those who control the terms often determine the outcome. Establishment Republicans have too often been uncomfortable in their own skin. When they win elections, they sometimes seem unsure of what to do next. Democrats never seem to have this problem.…

Maybe the answer to eliminating much of the annoying bias in establishment press business reporting is to have the reporters involved eliminate the could-might-maybe statements which almost inevitably follow the initial relay of the primary news. Take the first paragraph of Christopher Rugaber's report Tuesday on recent increases in state tax collections (bolds are mine throughout this post):

"Christians On Right Urge Reform On Migrants," ran the headline over Trip Gabriel's Wednesday piece. If it sounds familiar, it's because the New York Times runs these wishful-thinking "conservative Christians break with movement on immigration enforcement" on a regular basis. From a July 2010 article by Laurie Goodstein: "At a time when the prospects for immigration overhaul seem most dim,…

To illustrate how factually negligent this afternoon's report by Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press on the federal government's financial results embodied in its Monthly Treasury Statement was, let's take a look at how Pedro Nicolaci da Costa at Reuters communicated more in a four-sentence brief than the AP reporter did in 18 painful paragraphs. Here is da Costa's item, in full:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is attracting lots of media attention Bush for claiming that even conservative hero Ronald Reagan would struggle in today's Republican Party, a Tea Party-infused "orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement." New York Times Political reporter Jim Rutenberg was intrigued: "Jeb Bush Offers Critical Views of Modern Republican Party and Its 'Orthodoxy.'" The online…