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On ABC's This Week yesterday, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer -- who resigned in 2008 when caught dead to rights illegally purchasing the services of prostitutes but was never prosecuted because, as announced two days after Election Day in 2008, the Department of Justice decided that "the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges" -- called the verdict in…

At the Associated Press's Big Story page as of 10:25 a.m. ET (saved here for future reference), conditions relative to stories on Egypt are the same as I observed in the wee hours this morning: "That story (about Sunday's mass protest involving "millions" per several other news outlets) is no longer even present at all at the AP’s 'Big Story' home page." You have to click on "View More" at…

Brightening up my Monday morning (not) is an item carried at CNN.com last Friday whose headline basically tells loyal, faithful spouses that they're nature-defying freaks who in the vast majority of cases are ignorantly honoring an institution which doesn't make any sense. Meghan Laslocky doesn't have the gumption to use those words. But what else are we supposed to conclude from a column…

File this under: "She can dish it out but can't take it." Tuesday, the Turkish newspaper Takvim published a fictional interview of CNN's Christiane Amanpour said to have taken place in Atlanta. As seen in a Google (less than perfect) Translate screen grab, it is clearly identified as sarcasm at its end. That didn't stop Amanpour from tweeting her anger at the fake interview while implicitly…

Either CNN's Tom Cohen, his headline and subheadline writers, or both thought it was a bit over the top to describe the IRS's targeting of Tea Party, conservative, and religious groups as a "forgotten scandal" in a Friday story. Evidence that the subheadline originally read "Republicans try to keep the public focused on the forgotten scandal of IRS targeting of conservative groups" is here and…

A week ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I wrote up a post on the Miami Herald's coverage of how the chief of staff of Florida Democratic Congressman Joe Garcia had admittted to attempting to orchestrate "a sophisticated scheme to manipulate last year’s primary elections by submitting hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests." I also noted that the story, which broke on Friday, May…

The pity party for furloughed federal employees should be toned down. A story at CNNMoney.com notes something I don't expect will be only rarely be reported anywhere else, namely that there has been a concerted and likely largely successful effort on the part of federal employee unions to ensure that as many of their members as possible will be eligible to collect unemployment benefits during…

Code Pink's Media Benjamin managed to break into another presidential event on Thursday, namely Barack Obama's speech at the National Defense University. The topic was "U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy," meaning that the administration's aversion to the T-word seems to be diminishing as the damaging scandal-related news continues to pour in. Readers will see that Benjamin was relatively civil…

So the Boy Scouts of America have caved, voting on May 23 to allow openly gay Scouts. It was probably inevitable – just as the organization will inevitably be forced to drop its ban on openly gay adult Scout leaders. Cue the sound of popping champagne corks in newsrooms and TV studios up and down the coasts. When news first broke back in February that the Boy Scouts of America might allow…

The IRS scandal is an absolute fiasco, and we're already witnessing the media doing their level best to downplay its significance. Unfortunately, part of that concerted effort will include the attempt to shoehorn racial, religious, and ethnic victimology narratives into the mix. Submitted for your consideration is a May 15 post on CNN's Global Public Square (GPS) blog by Sahar Aziz headlined…

Well that didn’t last long. In fact, it barely happened at all. After a month of ignoring the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist accused of murdering one woman and seven infants, it looked like the media had been shamed into covering the story.  Barely. Even after the most gruesome detail in a trial full of them came out – a baby who survived an abortion “swimming” in a…

Whenever a disaster like the bombing at Monday's Boston Marathon occurs, members of the press try to be the first to report any “scoops” they can find regarding the catastrophe. However, news organizations are often so anxious to beat the 24/7 news cycle that they don't always check all the facts before posting a story. One recent example of this problem is an article on the CNN website…

Those who might have given the Associated Press's Jimmy Golen the benefit of the doubt early this morning for writing that the Boston Marathon bombings "raised alarms that terrorists might have struck again in the U.S." are going to have a tougher time doing so with his 8:15 a.m. report, in which he wrote that "the blasts among the throngs of spectators raised fears of a terrorist attack." In…

On Monday, Matt Vespa at NewsBusters noted the reluctance of the Associated Press to characterize what it would only call an "extremist attack" in Mogadishu, Somalia as "terrorism." In his early morning dispatch in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon, the AP's Jimmy Golen at least used the word. But, incredibly, despite law enforcement authorities and others describing the…