At AP, It's 'Heads We Report, Tails We Ignore' For Economic Data

May 15th, 2015 10:43 PM
On May 1, the Associated Press's Paul Wiseman was pleased to tell the wire service's readers and subscribing outlets that "The University of Michigan's sentiment index rose to 95.9 from 93 in March," reaching "its second-highest level since 2007." Among other things, the survey's chief economist said that the result reflected "improving prospects for jobs and incomes." What a difference two…
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Halperin Lamely Apologizes 'To Those Offended' by His Cruz Interview

May 11th, 2015 6:52 PM
Today, Bloomberg TV's Mark Halperin inadequately apologized for his conduct and line of questioning during an April 30 interview of GOP presidential candidate which came off as rude and racist to many who saw it — well, basically because it was. As Tim Graham at NewsBusters noted on Sunday, and as will be seen in the video following the jump, Halperin engaged in a "prove-you're-a-Cuban" line of…

Cummings: Baltimore Schools Are Awful; Others Have to Pay to Fix Them

May 11th, 2015 2:37 PM
With Camden Yards set to hold its first fan-attended Baltimore Orioles game in over two weeks tonight, it's a good time to go back to a May 2 item by Meredith Shiner at Yahoo Politics. Readers may remember the Duke-"educated" Shiner as the person who was flabbergasted that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz cited "God-given rights" when he announced his candidacy on March 23, tweeting in part…

Fiorina Registers ChuckTodd.org After He Cites Her 'Lost' .org Domain

May 10th, 2015 11:21 PM
Chuck Todd should have been ready for this, but he wasn't. Just a few days days ago, on the very network at which Todd toils, "Late Night" comedian Seth Meyers thought he would be cute and embarrass GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina over not registering the CarlyFiorina.org domain, thereby allowing a critic to take it and use it as a platform for criticizing her tenure as H-P's CEO.…

WashPost: People Who Give Flowers 'Are Terrible For Mother Earth'

May 10th, 2015 8:41 PM
On Thursday, Jennifer Grayson, who fancies herself as an "environmental journalist," exposed herself as a truly annoying scold. Grayson wrote in a Washington Post column that those of us who show our appreciation for others by giving them flowers as part of our overall enjoyment of life are really showing that we are either ignorant of or don't "care about Mother Earth." Grayson concocts her…
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'Oberlin Choir' Ridicules Feminist 'Victims' of 'Microaggressions'

May 10th, 2015 9:57 AM
One of the more simultaneously annoying and alarming developments on college campuses these days is how the idea of "microagressions" has regained visibility after four decades of previously well-deserved obscurity, largely under the establishment press's radar. Almost no one in "the real world" would know what microaggressions are if it weren't for stories and critiques at center-right media…

Press Ignores Admin's Invocation of Privilege in Immigration Lawsuit

May 6th, 2015 11:08 PM

Remember the cries of "Bush Lied" during the previous administration — even though he didn't? Or the obsession over the 16 words relating to Saddam Hussein's attempt to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, which George W. Bush's opponents tried to pretend were false but were really true? Good times. In federal court in February, the Obama administration seriously "misrepresented" the degree of…

AP's '3 Amigos' of Econ Reporting Differ in Recognizing Harsh Reality

May 6th, 2015 3:50 PM
Tuesday evening, I wrote that there appears to be a need for an intervention among the economics writers at the Associated Press. At the time, I was referring to how the wire service's Christopher Rugaber, in his dispatch on a trade group's upbeat business sentiment survey appearing about an hour after Martin Crutsinger's writeup on the horrible March trade imbalance, failed to report Crutsinger…

WashPost Blames Target: 'Almost Gleeful' Geller 'Offers No Apology'

May 6th, 2015 10:09 AM
The headline at Sandhya Somashekhar's Washington Post column on Pamela Geller, whose Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest was the target of a failed terrorist attack, acts as if that attack is her fault: "Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas." Somashekhar's work reeks of contempt for Geller and her efforts, even going beyond the media malfeasance cited in the…

AP Ignored Indicators of Islamist Involvement in Texas Terror Attack

May 4th, 2015 10:53 AM
(See Update Below) Since news broke of the terrorist attack in Garland, Texas Sunday evening and continuing until early this morning, the Associated Press, perhaps best nicknamed Allah's Press in instances such as these, was determined not to reveal the nature of those behind it. Two attackers were killed by police after opening fire and wounding a security officer, who, according to AP, "was…

NYT Strongly (and Falsely) Implies Mosby's Cousin Was Killed by Police

May 3rd, 2015 11:41 PM
One could spend hours critiquing the horridly written, agenda-driven Friday evening (Saturday print edition, front page) story at the New York Times about Marilyn J. Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore. On Friday, she announced the indictment of six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray. Earlier Sunday, "Open Blogger" at the Ace of Spades blog provided the Cliff's notes version of…
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AP Reports an ISIS Yazidi Massacre Death Toll Far Below Other Outlets

May 3rd, 2015 10:05 AM
Is the Associated Press playing a numbers game in its reporting on a massacre in Iraq? Stories about ISIS massacring 300 Yazidi captives have appeared in several places. Leftists and Obama administration's apologists who want to believe that the number involved is just a figment of the imaginations of UK tabloid troublemakers and U.S. right-wing bloggers can't use that copout to explain away a…

At AP, a Month of Strong Consumer Spending Marks a 'Spring Awakening'

May 2nd, 2015 10:31 AM
On Thurday, the government, apparently as determined as the press to create good news where there is none, opened its March report on Personal Income and Outlays as follows: "Personal income increased $6.2 billion, or less than 0.1 percent." Yeah, it was so much less than 0.1 percent that it rounded down to 0.0 percent in current dollars in the table which followed. In real terms, i.e., after…

PunditFact Calls Accurate Claim on Clinton Foundation 'Mostly False'

April 30th, 2015 11:06 AM
If Rush Limbaugh told his audience that the sun rose in the east today, it seems that PunditFact, an arm of Politifact, would find a way to determine that he wasn't telling the truth. That's pretty much what you have to conclude from the web site's laughable evaluation of Limbaugh's true assertion that "The Federalist reports only 15 percent of the money donated to the Clinton Family Foundation…