Associated Press

If you believe that there's a 50-50 chance that your take-home pay will be cut by almost one-fifth beginning in as little as five months from now, would that belief affect your current spending habits? Of course it would. But that idea apparently never occurred to the Associated Press's Mark Jewell. In the course of a 950-word article Monday about how the rich are getting more stingy, he focused…

Well, the Associated Press is certainly living up to its new rules of being opinion editorialists instead of reporters if the following headline is any indication: "Obama links energy troubles to unpopular Cheney." This was unleashed on the world by the AP on August 5. So, I ask you, does "unpopular Cheney" sound more like opinion than it does simple news reporting? Certainly we can face facts…

In its haste to publish the news about columnist Robert Novak's retirement (reported earlier by my colleague Matt Sheffield), the Associated Press left out an important word that might have led readers to believe that up until recently, the longtime journalist was emulating Ray Bolger in "The Wizard of Oz."The following was published by AP Online at 2:09 ET (photo right courtesy Yahoo): Novak has…

An Associated Press article printed in the Denver Post covers a recent concern of increased prostitution at political conventions from predominantly one angle - the Republican angle. The travesty of media justice starts with the screaming headline: Groups Predict Prostitution Spike at RNC Odd that the Denver Post would print such an article, without noting that the source…

Despite penning 38 paragraphs for his obituary, the closest AP's Douglas Birch came to mentioning the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Christian faith was by remarking how the bearded author and Soviet dissident looked like a religious icon:In a 1978 speech at Harvard University, Solzhenitsyn - who with his beard and dour demeanor resembled a figure from an Orthodox icon - denounced the Western view…

Talk about a puff piece, this Associated Press short is a story with absolutely no substance. Not only that but after seeing the headline and then reading the story, one is hard pressed to believe they belong together. This Amy Forliti puffery is incongruously headlined "Protesters expected to transform the streets outside GOP convention into marketplace of ideas," yet there isn't any discussion…

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…

What's going on at the Associated Press?First, it publishes an article about how the McCain campaign feels the New York Times editors are like a blogger "sitting at home in his mother's basement and ranting into the ether between games of Dungeons & Dragons."Then, a few hours later, it publishes a piece about presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama being afraid to debate McCain…

The battle between John McCain and the New York Times is getting very interesting.According to the Associated Press, the McCain campaign has struck back at two Times editorials this week highly critical of the Arizona senator. In fact, a campaign spokesman even went so far as to liken the editors of the Times to a blogger "sitting at home in his mother's basement and ranting into the ether…

“The progress in Iraq is so undeniable that now even the Associated Press is acknowledging it,” FNC's Brit Hume marveled Tuesday night. Citing a Saturday AP dispatch by Robert Burns, the AP's chief military reporter, and Robert Reid, its Baghdad bureau chief (Saturday NB post by Noel Sheppard on their article), Hume relayed how the story “says insurgents no longer have the clout to threaten the…

Does the media treat Democrats and Republicans differently when stories of their various peccadillos reach the Press? Well, in actuality, the question is essentially a moot point. There are stories today on the NewsBusters front page testifying to said bias. However, in Yahoo! News' choice of front-page stories today, we can see yet another example of this bias.

The Associated Press injected an editorial comment into the news... again. A few days ago, the AP issued a piece headlined Senate Republicans block heating aid bill, in which the AP made it seem as if Republicans don't care about "the poor" and are only interested in mere political partisanship. This report featured quotes showing how wonderful and caring the Democrats are but not a single quote…

If there is a previous record for "Highest Level of Saturation Press Coverage with No Political Party Affiliation Named" (HT to e-mailer Jason), the Cleveland press corps almost broke it. In looking over three publications' stories about today's massive and far-ranging police actions in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, I found only one reference to the Democratic Party affiliation of those…

Before moving on from “Barack Obama's Magical Media Tour” of the past week, a look at an Associated Press story so over the top that the Washington Posts's Howard Kurtz on Friday cited it as an example of coverage which “bordered on gushing,” though in this case there really was no “bordered.” In the July 22 dispatch in advance of Obama's arrival in Berlin, “Obamamania in full flight ahead of…