AP's 'US Now Winning Iraq War' Analysis Getting Light Exposure

July 27th, 2008 10:16 AM
Robert Burns and Robert H. Reid created quite a stir in the blogosphere yesterday with their dispatch from Baghdad, "Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost." NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard accurately called it a "stop the presses" story, and ended his post with an important perspective that you really must read if you haven't already. Now that the story has had one overnight news…

A Week with No US Troop Deaths In Iraq

July 26th, 2008 10:54 AM
On July 16, Andrew Malcolm at the Los Angeles Times's Top of the Ticket Blog wrote the following (bold is mine): When President Bush ordered the surge in January 2007, (Barack) Obama said: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he…

Detroit Mayor Allegedly Commits Assault; What Party

July 25th, 2008 6:58 PM
The Associated Press's Ed White used almost 700 words in his story (link is dynamic; story in form found at 5:04 p.m. is also here) about the latest developments relating to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit, and failed to name his party affiliation even once. Even beyond that, though he did tell readers that Kilpatrick faces a criminal trial for perjury, misconduct, and obstruction of justice,…

‘Ask AP’ Writer Fails to Note Quick Retail Response to Oil-Price D

July 25th, 2008 12:10 AM
"Ask AP" is "a weekly Q&A column where Associated Press journalists respond to readers' questions about the news." Not surprisingly, given the deteriorating quality of their reporting, the journalists questioned sometimes give less than perfect responses. One such example came last Friday from Adam Schreck, AP's Energy Writer, at the end of a week when oil prices had already plummeted over 10…

Omission Watch: Dems 'Quietly' Call for Gas-Tax Hikes

July 21st, 2008 7:38 AM

AP Headline: 'Is Media Playing Fair In Campaign Coverage

July 20th, 2008 7:04 PM
Have the broadcast networks gone too far with their obvious infatuation with presumptive Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama?If the Associated Press is starting to think so, maybe the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz was right on Sunday when he warned "Reliable Sources" viewers that "there could be a big backlash against news organizations if this trend continues."On the other hand, wouldn…

O'Reilly: 'AP May Now Be Dead As an Objective News Organization

July 19th, 2008 7:18 AM
The fallout that began a week ago after the publication of the Associated Press's Tony Snow obituary continues. Fox News's Bill O'Reilly took his concerns about it to the top of AP, and didn't like the response he received. He shouldn't.In his column this morning at Townhall.com, he also reaches a conclusion about the self-described "Essential Global News Network" that is becoming increasingly…

AP's Snow Funeral Story Holds on for 20 Grafs, Then Goes Classless

July 18th, 2008 1:26 AM
After the firestorm that erupted Saturday over the Associated Press's classless story on the death of former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, I was hoping that the possibly-chastened wire service could get through its coverage of his funeral without getting in any gratuitous digs. In that horrid Saturday story (blogged at NewsBusters and BizzyBlog), the AP's Douglass K. Daniel, with the…

Media Flocks to Gore Speech on Energy; Mostly Ignore His Use of Gas-Gu

July 18th, 2008 12:06 AM

Oil Drops Over $6 a Barrel; I Wonder Why

July 15th, 2008 7:28 PM
I received this CNNMoney.com e-mail just before 6 PM ET: Hmmm. So they think it's all on Ben's shoulders. The headline at the Associated Press's coverage by Adam Schreck says that the drop was due to "bad economic news." But at least one person quoted earlier today (11:26 a.m., according to the link; HT NixGuy) had a different view, and he said what he said to CNNMoney.com, the same outfit that…

LiveBlog: President Bush's July 15 News Conference

July 15th, 2008 10:18 AM
Update (13:40 EDT): You can see in bold some of the questions I thought particularly biased. I've clipped Mark Smith's first question about turning the thermostat down and driving less and posted that video on EyeBlast.tv. You can find it embedded at right. [Official White House transcript available here.] 10:17 EDT: President Bush will hold a press conference in a few minutes, I'll be watching…

AP's New Muckraking Style, From Just-The-Facts to In-Your-Face

July 15th, 2008 2:53 AM
For those unfamiliar, since May of this year the Associated Press has had a new Washington Bureau Chief, a past AP reporter named Ron Fournier. According to Politico, the previous chief was pushed out to make room for Fournier in a "hard-feelings shake-up" with the old chief left worried that Fournier might "destroy" the AP. A pretty stark assessment, of course, but not necessarily all sour…

Obama: 'Little Doubt' We're in Recession. Where's the Outrage

July 14th, 2008 8:41 AM
Remember the grief Dick Cheney received in late 2000, and then President Bush in early 2001, when they were accused of “talking down the economy”? We already know from history that the economy had already slipped into negative growth during the third quarter of 2000; so it's fair to say in hindsight that Cheney and Bush were actually observing reality. Specifically, Cheney's 2000 statement was…

Classless AP Takes Cheap Shots at Just-Passed Snow

July 12th, 2008 9:03 AM
At long last, has the Associated Press lost all sense of decency?The AP's story (saved here for future reference in case the wire service is embarrassed into revising it; you might consider saving it too as Exhibit A on how far over the cliff the dinosaur media has driven itself) by Douglass K. Daniel, with Jennifer Loven contributing (I might have known), gets in at least three cheap,…