Online Media

Despite reports and statements containing the term coming out of Germany during the past week, searches at the Associated Press on "no-go zones," and even on "no-go," return nothing. The New York Times has no recent report identifying European no-go zones, but has at least demonstrated that it might be getting over its nearly allergic reaction to the term by observing that parts of Ramadi, Iraq…

At the Associated Press, as seen at its "Top Business News" page Friday afternoon, Christopher Rugaber opened his song of praise for yesterday's jobs report ("US EMPLOYERS HIRE AT ROBUST PACE, DEFYING GLOBAL TRENDS") as follows: "American employers added a robust 292,000 jobs in December, suggesting that the U.S. economy is so far defying global weakness and growing solidly. ..." Rugaber's…

Yesterday at NewsBusters, Ken Shepherd noted how quickly and gleefully the New York Times jumped ("an impressive sprint capping off a year of solid job growth") on December's relatively strong jobs report. The Associated Press joined the parade — "US EMPLOYERS HIRE AT BLISTERING PACE, DEFYING GLOBAL TRENDS" – and kept its story as its lead in its Business "Top Stories" until late afternoon.…

With President Obama preparing to deliver his last State of the Union next Tuesday, the folks at Twitter thought they'd celebrate by making a "Moment" of it, collating a number of tweets related to the forthcoming address. But the end result was more or less a gauzy advertisement for the president's speech. 

Tricia Bishop, the deputy editorial page editor at Baltimore Sun, also writes a biweekly column. Bishop was impressed three years ago when the White Plains, New York-based Journal News published an interactive online map showing "the addresses (and names) of all pistol permit holders" in two Empire State counties. Very few others were. Though the outrage over the paper's move was (excuse the…

Whining that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution "has been contorted, misinterpreted, and applied in a way that destroys its intended meaning and threatens the safety and stability of our nation," self-described "race-and-culture journalist" Barrett Holmes Pitner set out to explain today at the Daily Beast's website that no, "President Obama Isn’t Taking People’s Guns—But Maybe He…

Today was a fairly brisk day for economic data, as four noteworthy reports were released. One of them contained good news, but with a heavy asterisk. The other three were either not good, period, or came in below expectations. Readers here probably know which one the Associated Press was still carrying at its Top Business Stories page as of 2:39 p.m. Of course, it was the one with good news.

In November and December, the New York Daily News characterized the NRA and its CEO Wayne LaPierre as a jihadists and terrorists. Now it has set its sights on Republican Party presidential candidates and leaders who are defending the plain, Supreme Court-upheld wording of the Constitution's Second Amendment and Congress's power to make laws over lawless presidential actions. Wednesday's NYDN…

In 1992, late-night TV host Arsenio Hall made a bad joke comparing the Pat Buchanan for President campaign to black-and-white Nazi footage. In 2016, the target is Ted Cruz. Alex Nazarayan, a writer for the shell of a publication branded as Newsweek, caused a Twitter frenzy when he compared Cruz to the Nazis, as captured by John Nolte at Breitbart: "Ted Cruz has a strong ground game in Iowa,"…

On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing Index for December came in showing contraction for the second consecutive month, and with a slightly worse reading (48.2 percent, versus 48.6 percent in November; any reading below 50 percent signifiies contraction). These two results followed readings which just slipped over the expansion bar (50.2 and 50.1 percent, respectively) in…

Tuesday's CNN Newsroom gave a platform to left-wing commentator David Love, who asserted in a Monday column for theGrio.com that "if Black Lives Matter protesters were to take over a federal building armed to the teeth with firepower — and they certainly would not do this — they would wind up dead or in prison for life on terrorism charges." Love criticized the handling of an armed occupation of…

At the Associated Press, Wisconsin-based reporter Scott Bauer, who has spent the better part of the past five years describing Badger State Governor Scott Walker as "polarizing," has been given the opportunity to get involved with 2016 presidential campaign coverage. Leftists and Democrats rarely earn negative descriptors in Bauer's reports, while Republicans and conservatives receive them…

Since last night, Matt Drudge has teased his link to CNN's coverage of Hillary Clinton "heckler" Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien with the following headline: "Clinton heckled in NH by rape survivor." The headline at CNN's story by Dan Merica is quite different: "NH GOP lawmaker heckles Hillary Clinton over Bill Clinton's sex scandals." The headline difference is not unusual. What is unusual is that…

Media bias is hydra-headed in its perniciousness.  It operates on many levels - in many ways.  One of its practitioners’ favorite moves is the terrible headline.  In which they knowingly - or unknowingly - tip their hand on the story at hand.  These heinous headlines can effectively work to sway casual, drive-by media consumers - who don’t go deep into multiple articles to get a more fully-formed…