Associated Press

The Associated Press's obituary on Jack Kemp continued two troubling trends found in recent AP death notices.In July of last year, covering Tony Snow's passing (saved here; covered at NewsBusters here), AP reporters found seemingly everything negative they could think of to write about the former White House press secretary and 2008 Media Research Center Buckley Award winner (examples -- "good…

AP reporter Liz Sidoti – who writes as if every article is an opinionated "news analysis" – touted on Saturday how softening opposition to "gay marriage" is an opportunity for Democrats. That’s true, but Sidoti went further, pushing the theory that a liberal win is inevitable, and maybe even that moderate Barack Obama will change his stance: "This is not a sea change. This is a tide that is…

Somebody needs to 'fess up. Who put truth serum in Calvin Woodward's coffee this morning?Whoever it is, they're in a heap of trouble, as Woodward produced a fact-checking critique of Barack Obama that is so good you'd swear most of it was ghostwritten by a conservative talk host.It will be interesting to see how much distribution it gets. I would suggest not counting on too much, but being open…

The Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa, who became infamous last year for her stories of "vanishing jobs" that weren't, sounded hopeful early this morning before the release by Uncle Sam's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of its first-quarter report on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth:Economy's free-fall probably eased in 1QThe recession's grip on the country may be letting up a bit.The…

Imagine that former Vice President Dick Cheney was set to be honored next month at a Catholic university's commencement ceremony and news came down that another person to be honored at the same ceremony with a different award declined the honor, stating that she felt it inappropriate for the university to honor a man who believes in and furthered the use of torture by condoning waterboarding of…

An Associated Press story dated April 28 takes swine flu fears to a whole other level. A report datelined Washington by Ricardo Alonsozaldivar and Eileen Sullivan examined the worst-case scenario "if the swine flu gets out of control." "Two million dead," Alonsozaldivar and Sullivan wrote. "Hospitals overwhelmed. Schools closed. Swaths of empty seats at baseball stadiums and houses of worship.…

If George W. Bush's White House military office had staged an Air Force One photo op flyover of Manhattan without warning New Yorkers beforehand resulting in buildings being evacuated and widespread panic, would media have castigated him for his wreckless stupidity and obvious disengagement from tensions those in the area still have due to 9/11?This seems an important question given what happened…

Remember the outrage over the compensation paid out to AIG executives earlier this year, after the federal government had to extend a lifeline to troubled insurance provider? Will the executives of a media company receive the same treatment - should they get their wish and receive help from the government for their company? There's a little-publicized story that the parent company of The…

On Saturday, an Italian cruise liner was attacked by Somali pirates. The would-be hijackers, however, were repelled by the ship's private armed security detail, which hails from Israel.Well, today blogger Don Surber noted how the BBC is leaving out the nationality of the security crew by inaccurately attributing the "crew" of the Melody with fending off the attack. Far from being an insignificant…

The Associated Press's Stylebook (as of 2008, per this Houston Chronicle blog entry) has the following to say about political party identification in stories:Party Affiliation - Let relevance be the guide in determining whether to include a political figure's party affiliation in a story. Party affiliation is pointless in some stories, such as an account of a governor accepting a button from a…

I am not a doctor, but I play one on the Internet. So, take the following as a prescription for what ails you. Now, if for some unexplainable reason you have been feeling queasy since November of last year, if you have felt like you want to throw up but just can't seem to get that bile to overflow, well I have a little something here that will surely cause that gag reflex to result in a healthy…

News editors need to retake Journalism 101 or move to features when stories about the White House dog take precedence over a controversial veto by the President's unconfirmed appointment to Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill, House Substitute for SB 218, April 23 which would have placed additional restrictions on third trimester abortions and…

While President Obama was extoling the virtues of wind power in an Earth Day speech, his Justice Department lawyers were attempting to scuttle a lawsuit filed in federal court against Iran by former U.S. embassy hostages. The lawsuit alleges that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers who interrogated the captives. Two days after the story broke on the Associated…

Straight from UPI's transcript of Barack Obama's Earth Day remarks in Newton, Iowa yesterday -- in the midst of flights that reportedly expended 9,000 gallons of jet fuel -- here is the President's take on this country's oil dependency (bold is mine):Twenty percent of what we spend on imports is the price of our oil imports. ..... It's the cost we've known ever since the gas shortages of the…