The Associated Press Chronicles 'Guerrilla Warrior' Castro's 'Push to

Associated Press writer Will Weissert apparently thought that the Communist government in Cuba wasn't doing a good enough job of white washing and glorifying Fidel Castro's legacy and decided to try his hand at it. Thus he wrote a little piece describing the humble hut that Castro used as a head quarters during his Communist rebellion:Before he was Cuba's unchallenged "Maximum Leader," Fidel…

AP Cries That People Are Mean to Poor Barack

While, instead of simply reporting the news, the Associated Press spends its days looking for every which way it can find to attack George W. Bush, Governor Sarah Palin and any number of other conservatives or Republicans, it has a corresponding penchant to go easy on The One and his Democrat cohorts. Nothing is a better illustration of the difference between the AP's treatment of the right and…

AP Attacks Gov. Palin EVEN in Birth Announcement of Grandson

The Associated Press is classy, indeed. They can't even keep sniping at Sarah Palin out of a story announcing the blessed birth of her grandson. Ah, but wait, it gets even more annoying because not only did the AP snipe at Palin in its first birth announcement story, once called on it the AP went back twice to rearrange the piece rewriting history to make it seem as if they never sniped at her in…

Weekend Captionfest

Al Sharpton and Caroline Kennedy have lunch at famed Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem, December, 18, 2008.  (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Great Holiday News: We're Spending $1 Billion Less a Day on Gas

Looking for your own financial bailout?Well, the unprecedented decline in gasoline prices the past five months is actually giving regular Americans a much-needed boost to their balance sheets possibly greater than what the government is doling out to the financial services and automobile industries.New data just released by the Oil Price Information Service reveals that we're currently spending $…

Good News: Nov. Real Consumer Spending Increase Sets 3-Year Record; Bi

Here are the key numbers (in red) in Uncle Sam's November Personal Income and Outlays report (the July : Common sense says that the chart's results after adjusting for inflation are more important (identified as "Chained [2000] dollars") than those in current dollars. Consmers' disposable income went up 1.0% in real (after-inflation) terms in November after a 0.7% increase in October. It took a…

For Zimbabweans, A Cow Dung Christmas; AP Still Partially Deflects Bla

I held this item for a couple of days after I found it because I didn't want to spoil Christmas. Readers can fairly criticize me for waiting. It is truly astonishing how little attention this two week-old story has received (Warning: Very disturbing content; the underlying news at caritas.org is here; bolds are mine) Out of food, Zimbabweans eating cow dung Harare, Dec 10, 2008 / 08:01 pm --…

AP Flunks 'Meltdown 101' in Comparing US and Foreign Car Companies

You would think from reading yesterday afternoon's report by the Associated Press's Tom Murphy that companies like Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are not that far from finding themselves in the situations US taxpayer bailout recipients General Motors and Chrysler are in. Murphy tries mightily to make the foreign-owned companies' situations look serious, at one point even putting out the howler that…

Venezuela Mall Expropriation Update: AP's Latest Whitewash Headline an

It's almost as if the Associated Press's Ian James and the wire service's headline writers think that Hugo Chavez's latest announcement that he plans to expropriate a huge, city block-sized, nearly complete shopping mall is sort of cute and quirky. James even gave it a "clever" name: drive-by socialism. My post at NewsBusters yesterday noted that James's initial report Sunday evening was short on…

AP's 'Novel' Name That Party Wrinkle: Purging Dem Party IDs from Origi

Two situations over the weekend illustrate that the Associated Press's habitual failure to identify the political party of Democrats in trouble is more than likely a conscious decision. This is despite the AP Stylebook's guidance (as of 2000, the latest free edition I can find; a PDF is here) that a reporter should "include party affiliation if readers need it for understanding or are likely to…

Chavez Plans Expropriation of Nearly Complete Megamall; AP Avoids Key

Hugo Chavez has announced that he plans to expropriate a huge and nearly complete shopping mall in Caracas. The Spanish language web page of Constructora Sambil that describes the project (pictured at the right) says that it's 21,600 square meters. Chavez appears to have no idea what he will do with it. The Associated Press's Ian James apparently had no idea what to do with that shocking bit of…

AP Parrots Henry Waxman's Lie About the Still-True 'Sixteen Words

It seems that some in Congress are so upset that our troops and their president have achieved what looks like victory in Iraq to seasoned, on-the-ground observers like Michael Yon that they feel compelled to get in their final digs to somehow discredit the war's legitimacy.One such congressman is Democrat Henry Waxman of California (image originally found at the Washington Post), whose Committee…

Name That Party: MA Speaker's 'Pal' Indicted

Associated Press writer Glen Johnson's story on the indictment of a close friend of Salvatore DiMasi, Massachusetts's Democratic Speaker of the House, is the latest in a long line of fairly long stories about Democratic politicians in trouble that fails to identify their party affiliation.The story names a half-dozen politicians, all of whom are Democrats, without identifying the party of any of…

In Case You Forgot, AP Still Reminding Palin's a 'Failed Republican Vi

I don't know. Maybe the Associated Press thinks that no one is aware that John McCain lost his race for the White House? Maybe the AP thinks no one is aware that his choice for VP, Governor Sarah Palin, lost right along with him? Maybe the AP thinks that hardly any American has gotten the word that Obama and slow Joe Biden won on November 4th? The AP sure acts as if they think people still need…