Associated Press

AP Again 'Fact Checks' a Goal: Bush's 4 Percent Annual Growth Target
August 8th, 2015 12:04 AM
On Friday, in his desire to help his employer outdo Politifact as the last place to go for accurate fact-checking, the Associated Press's Josh Lederman "fact-checked" Jeb Bush's belief that the U.S. economy can grow annually at an average rate of 4 percent.
As seen in my Friday NewsBusters post, when the AP reporter "fact-checked" assertions that really are facts, specifically Bush's claim that…

AP: Jeb Bush Is Responsible for Jobs Lost Under Charlie Crist
August 7th, 2015 4:00 PM
The Associated Press seems determined to become even worse at "fact-checking" politicians' statements than Politifact, the current cellar-dwellar in that regard. At the rate things are going, the wire service, in addition to richly earning its nickname "the Administration's Press" since January 2009, appears to be in line for yet another: "Associated Politifact."
In his "fact check" following…

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Jon Stewart's Lowest Moment: Hiroshima Makes Truman a War Criminal
August 6th, 2015 1:16 AM
How absolutely serendipitous it is that alleged comedian and actual White House propagandist Jon Stewart’s last broadcast of The Daily Show is today, August 6, the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.
You see, Stewart, whose influence is especially nefarious when he is revising and distorting history for his relatively young audience, committed his most outrageous such act…

AP Buries Judge's IRS Contempt Threat in Final Graphs of Hearing Story
July 31st, 2015 11:11 PM
On Thursday, Curtis Houck at NewsBusters noted how the Big Three networks and the two leading Spanish-language networks ignored the latest developments in the now 813 day-old IRS targeting scandal. As usual, only Fox News covered a congressional hearing on, in Fox's words, "the lack of accountability following the IRS targeting of tea party and other groups" as well as a federal judge's threat "…

More Deadpan at AP: We're 'Entering ... Historically Slow Growth'
July 31st, 2015 6:44 PM
These economics reporters at the Associated Press have become experts at deadpan humor.
Earlier today, I noted how the wire service's Christopher Rugaber told readers, in the wake of a government report showing the lowest wage and benefit increases on record, that "the job market is not yet back to full health." No kidding, Chris. On top of that, the AP's Martin Crutsinger reacted to yesterday's…
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AP’s Pace Claims ‘Not Much Diversity’ in GOP Field, Gets Corrected
July 31st, 2015 2:43 PM
Talking to the latest Republican to enter the 2016 presidential race, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, on Fox News’s Special Report Thursday, Associated Press White House correspondent Julie Pace worried about the makeup of the GOP field: “If you look at the 17 Republican candidates right now, there's not much diversity in terms of gender and race. What does that say to the American public…

Deadpan Humor at AP: 'Job Market Is Not Yet Back to Full Health'
July 31st, 2015 11:22 AM
Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press and the "expert" he quoted in his writeup on the government's awful Employment Cost Index report seemed to be taking their cues from Steven Wright's deadpan comedy act. The problem, of course, is that they were writing and saying isn't funny at all.
Rugaber, with his "expert" help, assembled an impressive array of understatements and misstatements in…

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Ohio Press Mostly Ignores Black Democrat's Inspiring Pro-Life Speech
July 30th, 2015 11:46 PM
Ohio's newspapers have reported that two state legislators, one Democrat and one Republican, are cosponsoring a bill to defund Planned Parenthood in the Buckeye State. But they have mostly failed to note the key points made by Cleveland Democrat Bill Patmon in his inspiring, passionate speech at an Ohio Right to Life rally announcing his cosponsorship.
You see, Mr. Patmon is black, and he has…

Venezuela Orders Food Providers: 'Divert' Output to Empty State Stores
July 29th, 2015 6:23 PM
The news out of Venezuela has apparently become so grim that the arguably Chavista-sympathetic press barely bothers to report it in any kind of sutstantive fashion. Inflation has gone wild, the level of violent crime has become frightening, and the government has taken to jailing citizens who dare to tweet their dissatisfaction with the regime of Nicolas Makuro (note that the linked report was…

'Unexpectedly' Again: Pending Home Sales Fall 1.8 Percent
July 29th, 2015 3:46 PM
Yet another important economic statistic confidently predicted to rise has fallen — hard.
This time it was June's pending sales of existing homes. Just in time for summer, they were predicted to increase by a seasonally adjusted 1.0 percent to 1.5 percent. Instead they fell by 1.8 percent, the steepest drop since December 2013. Additionally, May's original 0.9 percent increase was revised down…

AP Fails to Note That Consumer Confidence Drop Is Worst in Four Years
July 28th, 2015 6:08 PM
The Conference Board's July Consumer Confidence report released earlier today threw a heavy dose of cold water on the idea that the economy might finally achieve a broad-based, genuine recovery this year.
Despite month after month of "all is well" reporting — and excuse-making when all hasn't been well — from the U.S. business press, the American public has apparently finally figured out that…

Press Mostly Fails to Note Union Exemptions in Some Minimum-Wage Laws
July 27th, 2015 11:52 PM
I guess the slogan of labor has changed from "Look for the union label" to "Look for the union waiver."
The Los Angeles Times published a long front-page story early this morning on an issue some people thought disappeared after its initial exposure two months ago. The issue is whether union workers should be exempt from minimum wage laws, especially the sky-high minimums being enacted in some U…

AP Waits Four Paragraphs to Reveal Size of Historic Chinese Stock Dive
July 27th, 2015 3:17 PM
Based on how they handled it today, it's pretty obvious that the Associated Press's Ken Sweet and his wire service's headline writers want the lowest possible number of users of their reporting — consumers and subscribing print and broadcast outlets — to know about the mainland Chinese stock market's historically deep 8.5 percent Monday dive.
It took four paragraphs for Sweet to get to the…

Obsessed AP Whines About Perry's 'Pricy,' 'High-Powered' Legal Team
July 27th, 2015 12:32 AM
2016 GOP presidential candidate and former Texas Governor Rick Perry is fighting a legal battle against an out-of-control Lone Star State county. That county's prosecutor has sued Perry, claiming that a) he committed an illegal act of "coercion" by threatening to veto legislation funding a "public integrity" office headed by Travis County's Rosemary Lehmberg, who was convicted of drunk driving in…