As Paris Talks Loom, AP Goes Full-Bore Over 'Trying to Save' Earth

November 30th, 2015 7:46 PM
From time to time over the past nine years, I have written about "globaloney," a shorthand term for the pseudo-science behind “climate change,” and “globalarmism” to describe the enviro-hysteria over "global warming" and the misguided public-policy prescriptions arising from that hysteria. Since the Paris climate talks have just begun, the press hysteria has reached a fever pitch. At the…

Former Reporters: AP Suppressed Story on 2008 Israeli Peace Offer

November 30th, 2015 12:23 PM
In predictably disingenuous fashion, the Associated Press claimed in a November 18 story that "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has shined new light on the breakdown of a potentially history-altering round of 2008 peace talks." Abbas acknowledged that Israel offered Palestinians 93.5 percent of the West Bank and other significant concessions. The "light" isn't "new" at all. The wire service…

AP, Despite Weak Economic Data: 'Fundamentals Remain Solid'

November 29th, 2015 10:03 PM
As yours truly noted in several posts at my home blog on Wednesday and at NewsBusters on Friday and Saturday, the torrent of pre-Thanksgiving "getaway day" economic data was largely disappointing. That didn't stop the Associated Press's Chris Rugaber from pushing the "All is well" meme late Wednesday afternoon, declaring, contrary to what anyone's eyes could see, that "the fundamentals of the U.…

AP Hides the Overall Decline in Thanksgiving and Black Friday Sales

November 28th, 2015 6:46 PM
The truth about this year's Thanksgiving and Black Friday store and online sales is out there. It's just that Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, wasn't interested in clearly revealing all of it. Instead, the AP economics writer told readers about the dollar amount of this year's and last year's Thursday and Friday store sales, but failed to quantify the…

AP's Boak Says New-Home Sales 'Recovered' In October; No They Didn't

November 28th, 2015 10:16 AM
On Wednesday, the Associated Press's Josh Boak added to the wire service's collection of weak "Getaway Day" business journalism by declaring that new-home sales "recovered in October." No they didn't. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 495,000 units reported by the Census Bureau was the fourth-lowest monthly level seen this year, even well below the 521,000 and 545,000 reported in the…

AP: Japan Is in a Real Recession, But Trying to'Pump Up 'Recovery'

November 27th, 2015 11:24 PM

Twenty years of economic growth averaging less than 1 percent have failed to convince Japan's leaders — and apparently its citizens — that Keynesian-style government spending and handouts are not the answer to turning that long-suffering nation's economy around. So the Shinzo Abe government, fresh from learning that the country is in yet another recession — its fifth since 2008 — is doing more…

AP Accentuates, Makes Up Positives in Covering Durable Goods Report

November 27th, 2015 7:00 PM
Ever since the White House changed hands almost seven years ago, press reports on the U.S. economy have annoyingly overaccentuated whatever positives reporters might find (or think they have found), while ignoring glaring negatives and omitting key items. One example of such biased reporting came from the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger on Wednesday. In covering the Census Bureau's October…

AP Headline, Opening Graf Disagree in Tagging Awful Consumer Spending

November 27th, 2015 12:49 PM
Economic news on Wednesday's pre-Thanksgiving "Getaway Day" was largely dismal. The government's report on October's personal income and outlays headed up the disappointing news. While incomes increased nicely — at a rate which needs to be repeated about two dozen more times before it can be seen as genuinely impressive — spending only rose by 0.1 percent, while prior months were revised…

'Islamophobia Victim' 3 Years Ago Arrested in Turkey as Part of ISIS

November 24th, 2015 9:49 PM
There are plenty of problems with the government's "no-fly list," and especially the plans by some congressmen and senators to abuse it. That said, it appears, almost three years later, to have gotten one name right. In late 2012 and early 2013, leftists like Chris Hayes at MSNBC, Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones were upset that Saadiq Long, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was living…

AP: Consumer Confidence Drop Occurred Despite 'Strengthened' Economy

November 24th, 2015 3:09 PM
There was yet another sighting of the U-word ("unexpectedly") in connection with disappointing economic news today. Bloomberg News, which most frequently employs the word, told readers that "Consumer confidence unexpectedly declined in November to the lowest level in more than a year as Americans grew less enthusiastic about the labor-market outlook." Expectations were that confidence would…

Media Miss: Year-Over-Year Oct. Existing Home Sales Up 1%, Not 4%

November 23rd, 2015 1:56 PM
Gosh, this gets tiresome. Once again, with one noteworthy exception, the business press's virtually blind acceptance of seasonally adjusted economic data, and its accompanying refusal to look at the underlying raw data, led it to paint a deceptive picture of an important element of the economy. This time, it was existing home sales for October. The seasonally adjusted annual rate for October…

AP Only Tells Readers That 'Several' Obamacare Co-ops Are 'Hurting'

November 21st, 2015 12:38 AM
The press's reluctance to relay Obamacare-related bad news has been obvious for years. Nowhere is this more consistently the case than at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. Over half of the state non-profit co-ops set up under Obamacare with $2 billion-plus in taxayer funding are failing. The AP has generally treated those failures as local stories, even though they relate to…

AP Buries Steep Industry Group Drops in Fed's Production Report

November 18th, 2015 2:46 PM
The catalog of wishful thinking technically classified as reports on the economy emanating from the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, grows with virtually each passing business day. One of yesterday's additions to the mountainous pile came from the AP's Christopher Rugaber. Tasked with covering the Federal Reserve's report on October's industrial production, he devoted 10 of his…

AP, NY Times Not Reporting Obama's Disinterest in 'America Winning'

November 16th, 2015 4:22 PM
The obvious pull quote of the day from President Obama's contentious press conference in Antalya, Turkey is this statement: "What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with ..." Obama then claimed that any ideas coming from those who believe in such a notion have "no relationship to what is…