Labeling

On August 15, the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, and the Associated Press all reported that Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Oddly enough (no, not really), The New York Times, which published a 1,600-word report in January (HT to an NB emailer) on the company's competitive difficulties, did not take note of Evergreen's filing. Each of the three…

On the August 19 "Fox & Friends" panel segment, co-host Gretchen Carlson highlighted the Media Research Center's (MRC) "revealing" labeling study comparing broadcast network coverage of the 2007 Democratic primary to the 2011 Republican primary. Published by MRC Research Director Rich Noyes on Tuesday, the study reviewed the ABC, CBS, and NBC morning and evening news programs from January…

Toledo-area blogger Maggie Thurber recently referred me to a week-old item at the odious, leftism uber alles Toledo Blade. Written by "Blade Staff" (can't say I can blame anyone for not wanting to put their name on this disgrace), it described a violent shooting incident which took place in Lambertville, a town in Monroe County, Michigan just north of the Glass City. If you knew nothing else…

As defined by Collins English Dictionary, a bigot is "a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, especially on religion, politics, or race." In contemporary culture, those who claim to tolerate everything are intolerant of ideas that come from perspectives other than their own, especially when those ideas are rooted in conservative politics or evangelical faith.

On Monday's CBS Evening News and Tuesday's Early Show, CBS failed to cover an Iowa Tea Party activist's confrontation with President Obama. Both ABC's GMA and NBC's Today mentioned the encounter. Just days earlier, CBS and ABC spotlighted how left-wing protesters heckled Mitt Romney at an Iowa appearance and how the Republican apparently made a "gaffe" in reply. NBC correspondent Chuck Todd…

A daring Czech anti-Communist freedom who escaped to West Berlin in 1953 and later served in the U.S. Army died on August 13 "of an undisclosed illness in a war veterans residence in Cleveland." When it came to noting his passing, the Washington Post ran a slightly-edited version of an AP story by Karl Janicek that Post editors headlined "Czech who fought communism still controversial."* By…

On Sunday's Face The Nation, CBS's Norah O'Donnell interrogated Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on a 2006 statement she made about being "submissive" to her husband. O'Donnell not only played a clip of the five-year-old moment, but asked her three questions about the biblical verse: "What do you mean wives should be submissive to their husbands?...Do you think submissive means subservient?" […

I can hardly believe that the President of the United States, whose team is apparently deeply concerned about their guy's declining popularity and news stories which kept Republicans in the headlines this weekend, is going on a "Me Too" bus tour of Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois this week. The only plausible reason for this is to attempt to blunt the generally positive GOP vibe coming out of…

Sunday, Alexa Olesen at the Associated Press wrote an item headlined "One-child policy a surprising boon for China girls." My immediate comeback: "43-60 million Chinese girls aborted because they were of the 'wrong' gender or would have violated the one-child policy were not available for comment." While nowhere near as odious as Nick Kristof's "Mao Tse-tung wasn't all that bad; look what he…

Tuesday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yours truly noted an email from the Associated Press's Images Group which encouraged subscribing outlets to use its "iconic images and videos" to promote the 85th birthday of Fidel Castro, the "Legendary Cuban revolutionary and longtime leader." Today, writing what may be the wire service's last calendar-driven excuse to heap praise on him while he is…

NPR pretended that there wasn't a single supporter of Pope Benedict XVI in Spain on Friday's Morning Edition, choosing to devote an entire report on the "many people are grumbling at the cost" of the upcoming papal visit to the country. Correspondent Lauren Frayer not only failed to mention the 428,000 people from around the world who are registered for the World Youth Day event with the Pope,…

The next time I plan to escape reality for an extended time, I won't go to the trouble of forwarding the phones to voicemail and swearing off the Internet and TV for a few days. I'll just take whatever the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger must be consuming. Crutsinger's 11:45 report this morning claims that "The better-than-expected retail sales report is the second strong signal on the…

On Thursday's Early Show, CBS brought on Dr. Logan Levkoff, a radical sexologist, who not only advocated distributing birth control to 11-year-olds during an October 2007 appearance on ABC's Good Morning America, but also wouldn't rule out giving contraceptives out to elementary school students. When anchor Chris Wragge asked if "eleven is too young" for sex education, Levkoff replied, "There's…

First, to be fair to Associated Press reporter Christopher Sherman, because there is no equivalent reference in the 3:34 p.m. version of his report on Rick Perry's immigration positions, the headline which will follow the jump does not appear to be of his doing. But whoever at the wire service decided on the headline to use at Sherman's piece definitely has a problem with anyone who questions…