More Grading on the Curve: At RTT, Acceptable Weekly Unemployment Clai

March 8th, 2012 10:29 AM
The Department of Labor reported today that initial claims for unemployment benefits increased to 362,000 from an upwardly revised (as usual) 354,000 the previous week. Expectations were for a reading of 351,000 (Business Insider's email) or 352,000 (Bloomberg). Over at the Associated Press, also known as the Administration's Press, the headlined reaction in its 9:17 a.m. report was: "…

AP's Boring Borenstein: Gleick's Heartland Doc Theft 'Mirrors' Climate

February 24th, 2012 3:52 PM
On Thursday, over 40 hours after the Pacific Institute's Peter Gleick (pictured here) revealed that he stole documents from the Heartland Institute by posing as one of that organization's board members, Seth Borenstein at the Associated Press finally broke the ice and filed a related three-paragraph "this is boring, you don't need to read it" dispatch. Two hours later, the AP science writer…

Name That Party: Reuters, AP Fail to Tag Ray Nagin, Under Federal Inve

February 13th, 2012 11:56 PM
Maybe there's some unwritten guideline in the press relating to when a politician who is no longer holding office doesn't have to have his party label applied if he gets into some kind of trouble -- even if that trouble is related to when he was in office. The suspicion here is that the rule only applies to past Democratic Party officeholders, and that the guideline period is unduly short. A…

Biz News Wire Reuters Spins Passage of Ind. Right-to-Work Bill with Li

February 2nd, 2012 11:50 AM
The passage of "controversial" right-to-work legislation in Indiana is a "blow to organized labor." That's the spin by Reuters reporter Susan Guyett, who front-loaded her coverage of the bill's passage by focusing on anger from liberals and labor unions over the new legislation (emphases mine):

Reuters Touts Pro-Abortion Study in One-Sided Article

January 24th, 2012 10:36 AM
The day after the March for Life, a one-sided article from Reuters touted the safety of abortion, claiming that getting an abortion was much safer for women than giving birth. But Reuters failed to include vital information about the study and the people it quoted - namely, that the authors of the study and both of the experts it cited were either abortion doctors or had strong ties to the…

Beware False Claims: 'Romney's Tax Rate Is Below That of Most Wage-Ear

January 24th, 2012 9:41 AM
Now that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has released some of his recent tax returns, it is quite clear that the Obama-loving media are going to use the information against the former Massachusetts governor in any way they can. Take for example the wire service Reuters who was quick out of the gate early Tuesday morning with the following bogus report (emphasis added):

Reuters: Gingrich 'Canceled Appearance,' Showing He May Not Be 'Discip

January 20th, 2012 10:53 PM
In the final three paragraphs of a report that was primarily about Mitt Romney trying to lower expectations concerning the results of tomorrow's South Carolina Primary voting, Steve Holland of Reuters told readers that Newt Gingrich canceled an appearance. Holland then used that appearance as an opportunity to build on a meme the press has been working on for some time about the former…

Press Virtually Ignores Upheld Holy Land Foundation/Hamas Funding Verd

December 9th, 2011 10:28 PM
On Wednesday, as Terry Baynes at Reuters reported, "A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of five leaders of an Islamic charity on charges of funneling money and supplies to Hamas, designated a "terrorist" group following a 1995 executive order by President Bill Clinton. ..." The organization involved was the Holy Land Foundation based in Texas. The five involved received…

AP Kept Blago's Party ID Out of Three Pre-Sentencing Stories on Tuesda

December 8th, 2011 12:33 AM
Wednesday afternoon, Matthew Balan at NewsBusters noted that two of the three network morning shows failed to mention disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's Democratic Party affiliation. Not that it's an excuse, but what was probably their primary raw material, namely three Tuesday reports from the Associated Press, completely failed to tag Blago as a Democrat, specifically the…

Wesley Smith Notes Pro-Embryonic, Anti-Adult Stem Cell Research Bias i

November 25th, 2011 11:52 PM
On November 15 (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I compared how two of the leading wire services, Reuters and the Associated Press, covered the announcement by Geron Corp. of its decision to halt the first government-approved clinical trial involving embryonic stem cells. Reuters fairly noted that "teams working with adult stem cells -- a less ambitious area -- are making good progress." While…

Rezko Sentenced to 10½ Years, Media Ignore It And/Or His Ties to Obam

November 23rd, 2011 10:40 AM
Depending on which news outlet you rely on for current events, you may not have heard that convicted Chicago real estate developer Tony Rezko was sentenced to 10½ years in prison Tuesday. On top of this, unless you read the following report from Reuters, you mightn't have known just how connected he was to a junior senator from Illinois who just so happens to be the President of the United…

As Firm Ends Embryonic Stem Cell Efforts, Reuters Notes Adult Cell Res

November 15th, 2011 9:32 PM
Give Ben Hirschler and Kate Kelland at Reuters credit for a fair presentation this morning of the relative progress made in adult stem cell research compared to that achieved thus far in the embryonic arena. Maybe it was because they were reporting from London, where the constraints of insufferable political advocacy in journalism seem (sad to say) less present than they are in the U.S.…

Wires Virtually Ignore Corzine's Dem Party ID, Rarely Associate Him Wi

November 2nd, 2011 12:19 AM
Consider this post the print and online follow-up to the report early Tuesday evening by Matthew Balan at NewsBusters on the failure of the Big Three TV networks to note the Democratic Party/Obama fundraising affiliation of former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, whose now-bankrupt MF Global financial firm has apparently admitted to diverting client money in a futile attempt to battle its…

Big Three Nets All But Ignore Occupy Oakland Violence and Arrests

October 25th, 2011 7:21 PM
The morning shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC on Tuesday devoted just 19 seconds to the arrests of 75 people in northern California, after police evicted Occupy Oakland from their encampment in front of city hall there.  The Early Show devoted a news brief to the story during its last half hour, noting the violent reaction from some of the protesters. Good Morning America and the Today show both…