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MSNBC's Mitchell Rolls Her Eyes As She Discusses Netanyahu
July 15th, 2015 1:20 PM
In an extraordinarily and inappropriately indulgent interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif yesterday, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell rolled her eyes as she mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's position that the "deal" between Iran and an alliance led by the U.S. is a "mistake of historic proportions."
Immediately after doing so, she refocused her attention on Zarif, smiled…
AP Hides Another Decline, This Time in Manufacturing and Trade Sales
July 14th, 2015 7:47 PM
First, the good news. The Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger didn't handle his coverage of today's release of May's "Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales" report by the Census Bureau as incompetently as he did the report on wholesale sales and inventories he filed on Friday. Visitors here may recall that the AP reporter referred to a key figure as "inventories" when it really…
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Today Show Celebrates: Atticus Finch 'Knocked Off His Pedestal'
July 13th, 2015 10:12 PM
The media instinct to trash all that is inspiring and noble was unmistakable in Monday morning's Today report on the new novel (Go Set a Watchman) by Harper Lee, the author of the widely celebrated, best-selling To Kill a Mockingbird, first published in 1960.
Debate has raged over whether Lee, who is in very poor health and whose mental competence has been questioned, ever wanted her manuscript…
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USAT: Murders Up, Poor and Minorities Hardest Hit, Guns to Blame
July 12th, 2015 11:07 PM
Aamer Madhani at USA Today took the easy way out on Friday in covering the sharp increases in murders in many U.S. cities during the first half of this year.
He quoted Milwaukee's police chief bemoaning "absurdly weak" gun laws. He noted that "the increased violence is disproportionately impacting poor and predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods." He found a university prof to…
NYT Blames Roof's Gun Purchase on 'Loopholes' in System, Law
July 11th, 2015 11:54 PM
Apparently nothing is ever the government's fault during the Obama era — even a clear failure by authorities to prevent an alleged mass-murderer from acquiring a gun, and their failure to retrieve it once he obtained it.
Earlier today, before it went down the paper's frequently used memory hole, reporter Michael S. Schmidt wrote in his second paragraph that alleged mass murderer Dylann Roof got…
At AP, Too-Convenient Mislabeling Hides Steep Wholesale Sales Decline
July 11th, 2015 3:11 AM
Martin Crutsinger has been a business and economics writer at the Associated Press for over three decades. Certain people in high places apparently hold him in high regard. In early 2014, on his 30th anniversary with the wire service, he is said to have received congratulatory letters from soon-to-be Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, soon-to-be-former chair Ben Bernanke and Obama administration…
AP Pair: Sit Back and Accept This Lousy 'New Normal' Job Market
July 8th, 2015 11:40 PM
As seen in two previous posts at NewsBusters, once the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber didn't get the job market "nearing full health" he expected and briefly thought he got in Thursday's jobs report, he quickly downgraded it to "painting a mixed picture," and took it further down to "a bleaker picture" about eight hours later.
That still left the problem, six years after the recession's…
AP Changed June Jobs Report Take Again, From 'Mixed' to 'Bleaker'
July 8th, 2015 12:07 PM
The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber had a very bad day on Thursday as he covered the government's June jobs report, but it was all self-inflicted.
I noted much of the problem in a NewsBusters post yesterday, citing how the AP economics writer got badly burned while engaging in the wire service's usual practice of analyzing expected and reported economic results instead of concentrating on…
Factory Orders Dive Again; AP, As Usual, Hides Full Extent of Decline
July 5th, 2015 11:57 PM
All the attention given to the decidedly mixed employment report the government issued early Thursday morning and the ongoing debt drama in Greece overshadowed a very disappointing release on factory orders which arrived from the Census Bureau 90 minutes later.
In a cursory eight-paragraph report at the Associated Press, Martin Crutsinger relayed the basic bad news, but studiously avoided citing…
Former Obama Official: 'Can Gay Marriage Defeat the Islamic State?'
June 30th, 2015 2:46 PM
In a column at ForeignPolicy.com, a former Obama administration defense official who "served as a counselor to the U.S. defense undersecretary for policy from 2009 to 2011" has asked: "Can Gay Marriage Defeat the Islamic State?"
Rosa Brooks, who "is a law professor at Georgetown University," is serious. Her earnestness and deep ignorance are especially troubling, because it's clear that there…
Hillary Deleted Passages From and Edited Emails; Will Press Ignore?
June 29th, 2015 11:39 PM
Yeah, yeah. This post is about Hillary Clinton. The left and the press (but I repeat myself) insist that nobody cares about her scandalous behavior, or her evasiveness, or her demonstrated serial dishonesty. And even though a large and growing percentage of Americans don't trust her, that doesn't matter either, because she'll still get most of their votes. That's because no one wants to ever-ever…
AP Writer Dodges Own Question on the State of China's Slowing Economy
June 29th, 2015 3:12 PM
The world's financial markets had a terrible Monday. The debt crisis in Greece (population: 11 million) has been dominating the headlines and the press's attention, while serious deterioration in China (population: 1.36 billion) is getting short shrift.
It isn't just that the mainland Chinese stock market has broken the bear-market decline threshold of 20 percent in less than three weeks,…
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Bob Costas Rips Cubs Pitcher, Unmasks Intense Anti-Religious Hostility
June 29th, 2015 8:57 AM
To be clear, professional sports broadcasting is thankfully long past the time when the announcers would annoyingly sugarcoat dismal player performances. (Though I would prefer that those who actually played the game engage in this criticism, and that play-by-play announcers who haven't try to stay away from it.)
So it would have been somewhat acceptable if veteran NBC broadcaster Bob Costas, as…
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MSNBC's Hayes Misstates O'Reilly's Confederate Flag Stance, Apologizes
June 28th, 2015 5:57 PM
This item is only worthy of note because it's about an apparently genuine apology from a leftist — something rarely seen from the "I'm sorry you were offended" crowd — and because the chances are that very few have actually seen the apology.
Early last week, MSNBC's Chris Hayes claimed that Bill O'Reilly had asserted, as if it was the Fox News host's opinion, that the Confederate flag "…