In Fawning Virtual Press Release, AP Avoids Calling John Edwards a Dem
In the annals of fawning coverage of scandal-plagued Democrats, Michael Biesecker's Saturday morning report on John Edwards's illness and its effect on his upcoming trail on campaign finance violations surely must be among the worst.
Biesecker missed at least a half-dozen natural opportunities to tag Edwards as a Democrat, finally doing so in cryptic fashion in his 15th of 17 paragraphs. He…
Advisory Board: LightSquared, GPS Can't Coexist; Bland News Stories Av
On Friday, two Deputy Secretaries, one at the Department of Transportation and the other at Defense, in their capacities as co-chairs of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Executive Committee, released a one page letter concluding that the modified broadband deployment plan of LightSquared could not coexist with current GPS devices and their spectrum. That's…
Chris Matthews Takes Cheap Shot at George W. Bush
Years after President George W. Bush has left office, Chris Matthews still cannot resist taking a cheap and groundless shot at the former president. In his latest effort, Matthews has implied that the 43rd President did not write his own memoirs.
On this weekend's The Chris Matthews Show (Sun., 1/15/12), Matthews began his weekly "Tell Me Something I Don't Know Segment" by turning to one of…
'Doomsday Clock' Moves Closer to Midnight; Guess Why
The "Doomsday Clock" has been with us since 1947. It is a symbolic construct of the now left-leaning Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group which "was established in 1945 by scientists, engineers, and other experts who had created the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. They knew about the horrible effects of these new weapons and devoted themselves to warning the public about the…
Three Months in and With Weak Support, AP Says Annual Federal Deficit
I see that the Associated Press's Derek Kravitz is picking up where his colleague Martin Crutsinger left off in offering up incomplete information and inconvenient truth-avoiding coverage of Uncle Sam's financial results as described in the Monthly Treasury Statement. December's statement, which was released yesterday, showed a deficit of $86 billion and a year-to-date shortfall of $322 billion…
CNN's O'Brien Grills 'The Obamas' Author Over 'Controversial' Portrait
In a testy interview Friday morning on CNN's Starting Point, host Soledad O'Brien gave Times reporter Jodi Kantor the third degree over the credibility of her new book "The Obamas." O'Brien repeatedly hit Kantor for not having interviewed First Lady Michelle Obama since 2009, despite Kantor having used Obama's own aides as sources for her material.
In addition, Kantor responded to O'Brien…
WashPost Columnist Holmes Levels Screed Against Social Conservatives O
Conservatives' calls for taking away taxpayer funding for abortion provider Planned Parenthood and ensuring that religious organizations are not forced to pay for abortions and birth control through their health insurance plans proves we are not a "sane society," complains Jezebel founding editor and Washington Post columnist Anna Holmes in a Style section column today, blandly titled "The…
CNBC Posts, Retracts 'Bain Advised Obama/GM' Report
UPDATE: James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute's blog has more, including the possibility that the original story misidentified "Bain Consulting," as well as a theory as to the story's original source.
It looks like someone ran with something they thought was too good to check.
A retraction described as a "Correction" currently on CNBC's web site tells readers: "A previous…
It's Time to Run a 'Tebow' Option Play on the Liberal Media
Even fair-minded liberals, of which there must be a few, should acknowledge that the Saturday-Sunday "blitz" of the Republican presidential candidates by ABC and NBC correspondents looked like a play designed by the left wing of the Democratic Party.
Clearly the questions by ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer about contraception and same-sex marriage were asked to trap the GOP…
Deceptive Detroit Free Press Headline Reads as Blaming Tea Party for D
Given the underlying story, the following headline to a Thursday story at the Detroit Free Press is either a big mistake or a deliberate attempt to focus blame where it absolutely does not belong: "Man on probation, fined for role in tea party scam." Excuse me while I question whether the Freep deserves the benefit of the doubt.
L.L. Brasler's story is really about how the second of two…
AP Demotes Unanimity of Supremes' Decision on Religious Workers' Right
We can forgive Pittsburgh Steelers for avoiding the mention of the name of a certain quarterback who plays for the Denver Broncos in the coming days.
Related forgiveness does not extend to Jesse J. Holland at the Associated Press concerning his coverage of the Supreme Court's u-u-u-unanimous ruling today that religious workers cannot sue for job discrimination. As seen here at a Weekly…
Time Mag: 'Pretty Much All Americans' Want Gitmo 'Headache' to Go Away
In a 10-paragraph January 11 Battleland blog post marking the 10th anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Time magazine's Mark Thompson called the prison "the persistent headache that pretty much all Americans would like to go away."
Thompson failed to back up the claim with polling data, however, which actually runs squarely against his claim.
Priorities: AP Treats 20 People Spending Night at Zuccotti Park as Nat
The 8:52 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. national headlines page at the Associated Press's main site this morning teased a story about how twenty -- wow, a whole twenty -- Occupy Wall Street protesters spent the night at Zuccotti Park after barricades which had been up for almost two months were removed. Not only that, but the related brief story (saved here as a graphic for future reference, fair use and…
AP: Animal Rights 'Activists' Torch 14 Big-Rig Tractors, 'Several' Tra
Violent animal-rights radicals are claiming responsibility for an early Sunday morning fire at a California beef processing plant, and have described how they did it to prove they were really responsible.
A brief unbylined Associated Press report describes the perpetrators as "activists" -- twice:
