Labeling

The Associated Press has done it again, even beyond what Ken Shepherd of NewsBusters noted in a related post on June 4. In that post, Ken cited an AP report that did not identify the political party of Democratic Massachusetts State Senator and alleged serial sexual assaulter James Marzilli until the eleventh and final paragraph. AP Writer Denise Lavoie went one step further in her 300-word July…

"McCain Goes Negative, Worrying Some in G.O.P.," the New York Times fretted Wednesday in a headline over a story by reporter Michael Cooper. Times readers learned that while it's perfectly acceptable for the Times to call conservative Sen. Tom Coburn "Dr. No" in a front-page headline, it's bad for John McCain to call Barack Obama the same thing.Cooper opened his story:In recent days Senator John…

Pitching a mix of softballs and loaded questions, US News & World Report writer Jay Tolson failed to press Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson with any queries from a conservative, orthodox Christian perspective in his July 30 interview with "The Gay Bishop at the Center of the Anglican Storm."Indeed, at one point Tolson prodded Robinson to criticize the worldwide Anglican Communion for doing…

The ABC, CBS and NBC evening shows on Tuesday night properly identified indicted Senator Ted Stevens as a Republican -- though not very creatively as they all employed the identical language in describing Stevens as “the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate” -- but they weren't so eager to name the party of Democrats in trouble in recent years. ABC anchor Charles Gibson teased World News…

A new Virginia law that seeks to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States is dismissed as "unwelcoming" to illegal immigrants by the Washington Post's Bill Brubaker.The editorial comment comes two paragraphs into his July 28 front page article: A year after Prince William County launched a crackdown on illegal immigrants, Virginia has implemented a law that requires something similar…

Barack Obama's overseas trip this past week proved “he's not a left-wing ideologue” or a “dove” and, “if anything, he's center, even center-right, on foreign policy issues,” Bloomberg News world affairs columnist Fred Kempe, a veteran of the Wall Street Journal, declared on this weekend's Political Capital show which airs several times Friday night and Saturday on Bloomberg TV. Host Al Hunt,…

It's bad enough that Barack Obama's trip to the Middle East is getting an insane amount of MSM coverage (the three big network news anchors? Whoa!); now, NBC News believes it apt to compare Obama's sojourn to ... an actual military tour of duty. Yes indeed. Check out at right how anchor Lester Holt introduces last evening's Nightly News.HOLT: "Tour of Duty" as Obama visits the war zone: The fight…

Retiring New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse has answered some more questions from readers at nytimes.com. After an earlier revelation that she considers the former ACLU lawyer Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a centrist comes details of her deep affection for late ultra-liberal Justice William Brennan, whose decisions favored explicit racial quotas, no limits on abortion, mandatory…

The New York Times sent veteran Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse into retirement in grand style on Sunday, turning over to her the front page of the Week in Review for "2,691 Decisions," a title marking the number of court cases she had covered during her tenure. Unmentioned were her off-the-clock denunciations of conservatives, such as her infamous speech at Harvard in June 2006 when she…

They were a little slow on the pick up but “CBS Evening News” gets credit for finally acknowledging a report that shows serious side effects associated with the vaccine Gardasil, which protects against HPV, a sexually transmitted disease the can cause cancer.The report, by Sharyll Attkisson, aired July 7 a full week after WorldNet Daily reported the findings.  As CMI’s wonderful intern Julia…

Rounding another turn in the race to November 4, The New York Times's "Election Guide -- Potential Running Mates," compiled by Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny and posted to nytimes.com Monday, handicapped various potential vice presidents for Barack Obama and John McCain.The Times first counted up twenty-one potential nominees, 11 Democrats and 10 Republicans (Democratic Sen. Jim Webb was removed…

London-based broadsheet the Financial Times spilled vials of poisonous ink in a July 5 obituary marking the death of former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, going strong out the gate by charging that Helms was "little less than a monster" to "many around the world."Writer Jurek Martin boiled down the political career of Helms, "The reviled Republican courted by his adversaries," as nothing…