Labeling

Just days after the Street of Dreams arsons suspected to be at the hands of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a federal jury found one Briana Waters guilty for her role in a 2001 ELF arson that destroyed the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture.NewsBusters has noted that the Seattle Times has avoided calling ELF a terrorist or eco-terrorist organization, preferring to call the…

Many people have noticed a distinct change in the way that the media cover terrorism. Right after 9/11, the Society of Professional Journalists issued “diversity guidelines,” which are now posted online. No longer confined to the quaint idea of impartially reporting the news, the media were advised to change opinions, engage in public relations and "demystify" Islam and even ask "targeted…

Once again, the mainstream media displays their party preference, as it is yet another edition of Name That Party! In this instance, as reported by CBS television station KDKA Channel 2, Pennsylvania State Representative Frank LaGrotta stands accused of two criminal counts of conflict of interst. Strangely, though the story discusses LaGrotta's purported transgressions in detail, his party…

Former Navy signalman Hassan Abu-Jihaad was convicted today on charges "of leaking information about the movements and vulnerabilities of ships in his battle group to suspected terrorism supporters" in spring 2001, months before 9/11. These secrets were sent via e-mail to a pro-Taliban Web site. But in reporting the story, MSNBC.com ran an Associated Press story that failed to note Abu-Jihaad is…

Microsoft is taking all of that unnecessary thinking out of the process by pre-chewing your news and spitting it on your plate. The software giant is developing a new kind of news-aggregator that doesn't just collect news; it determines news stories' ideological bias and “emotional charge.” No longer will you need to wonder if Maureen Dowd has a liberal bias or if NPR injects “emotional charge”…

It's time for yet another edition of Name That Party! Disgraced Newark, New Jersey mayor Sharpe James' trial for abusing his powers for favoritism and corruption began today in federal court. According to the prosecutor, the former mayor, ...abused his office by steering discounted city property to a girlfriend who then sold the parcels for large profits, a prosecutor told jurors Monday at James…

Update below.Neither the Seattle Times nor the Seattle Post-Intelligencer are high on your average conservative's daily to-read list, but at least the latter is not gun-shy about calling recent suspected Earth Liberation Front (ELF) arsons acts of eco-terrorism. The Times opted for "radical environmentalists" to tag ELF even though it's pretty clear that investigators clearly think the Street of…

A pricey Seattle suburb appears to be the recent target of arson at the hands of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a radical environmentalist group that destroys property in the name of protecting the earth. In other words, ELF is an eco-terrorist organization.Yet when covering the story, Seattle Times reporter Peyton Whitely refused to use any such label for the ELF. The Seattle Post-…

Leftist Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is threatening neighboring Colombia with war after that country successfully killed via airstrike FARC terrorists in a camp in Ecuador. Yet in reporting the story, CBSNews.com and the AP downplayed the terroristic nature of the leftist rebel movement.The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been on a Comprehensive List of Terrorists and Groups…

Item: Less than six weeks after legendary editor Wesley Pruden's retirement, new Washington Times editor John Solomon has begun selling out to politically correct and objectively inaccurate language (additional HTs to NewsBusters' Tim Graham, and to John Haskins in an e-mail). The reason for the Times to even exist is slowly but surely being eliminated. Accordingly, this parody, sung to the tune…

Standard-free journalism on parade all day on NBC's SundayForgotten But Not GoneIt was another do-as-we-say, not-as-we-do day for the National Broadcast Company this past Sabbath. Over the weekend NBC offered up their latest versions of Tim Russert's Meet the Press and the Chris Matthews Show -- the latter being political television's answer to Jerry Springer. In them we were treated to two…

Apparently the Washington Post isn't the only newspaper to be taken aback by aging Communists holding a tight grip on the Communist regime in Havana. "Old guard in Cuba keeps reins," blares the February 25 headline in the Los Angeles Times.Oddly enough, the "old guard" is still labeled "revolutionary" twice in the story by Miguel Bustillo and Carol J. Williams:MIAMI -- Cuba's parliament signaled…