Oxford University Think Tank Complains Media Aren't Covering Climate C

November 15th, 2010 3:45 PM
An Oxford University think tank is taking the media to task for not doing more to whip up a frenzy about global warming. Apparently the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism crunched the numbers and found that "[l]ess than 10 percent of the news articles written about last year's climate summit in Copenhagen dealt primarily with the science of climate change." The study lamented the…

Reuters Plops Old Priest Photo Into Obama-Cozy-with-Christians Story

October 7th, 2010 12:13 PM
In an op-ed posted on our site CNSNews.com on "Obama's Clever Use of Catholics," Judie Brown wrote about how Barack Obama’s being pictured happily engaging with Catholic clergy to undergird his proclamation at an Albuquerque event that he was a "Christian by choice." But sometimes the media's willingness to promote Obama themes means the pictures are utterly unrelated to the news event:Reuters,…

Infatuated With Clergy Condemning Koran-burning, Media Now Silent as M

September 23rd, 2010 11:58 AM
UPDATE (9/30 - 1:13 pm): The Society of Professional Journalists emailed me requesting a correction. Clarification - though no correction - below the fold. When American religious leaders spoke out against the planned burning of Korans by a crazy Florida pastor, it was a hot news item. Likewise, when another group of clergy condemned the supposed "anti-Muslim frenzy" in the United States, the…

Bad News Out of GM Is Not News at AP

September 2nd, 2010 10:27 PM
The news out of Government/General Motors during the past couple of days hasn't been particularly good. First, August sales results were disappointing. Second, it become known today that GM will attempt to go public on November 18, a later than originally hoped post-election date chosen to hopefully allow for another reported quarterly profit to boost investors' appetite for its shares. As so…

July New Home Sales: Wire Reports Dour, But Still Understated; Reuters

August 25th, 2010 1:35 PM
July's bad news in new home sales is even worse than it first appears. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units is bad enough. That is an all-time low since records have been kept and 12% lower than June's annual rate. It's also lower than what analysts predicted by about the same percentage. The lazy business press is running with those figures. But, as has been the case so many…

Reporters Visiting WH for Off-the-Record Lunch Work For Pubs That Dema

August 13th, 2010 9:59 PM
File the news in this report filed late yesterday afternoon by Michael Calderone and John Cook at Yahoo's Upshot Blog under "D" for Double Standards: White House reporters mum on Obama lunch, even as papers back transparency White House reporters are keeping quiet about an off-the-record lunch today with President Obama — even those at news organizations who've advocated in the past for the…

Wire Watch: Rostenkowski Name That Party Round-up (See Update

August 12th, 2010 12:46 AM
Wednesday evening, Brent Baker at NewsBusters noted that two of the Big Three television networks failed to tag Dan Rostenkowsi, the former long-time congressman from Chicago who was ousted from his seat in 1994 over corruption charges and ended doing prison time, as a Democrat. Rostenkowski (RIP), who was 82, died yesterday. At the five major wire services whose reports I reviewed -- The…

In 'Context': Two June Housing Stats Are Worst For Any June Since Such

July 27th, 2010 1:07 PM
Thanks to Shirley Sherrod, Andrew Breitbart, and the NAACP, political journalists have supposedly discovered the importance of "context" (though they strangely seem to lost interest once fuller context items like this and this became known). It would be helpful if such an interest in full context would legitimately and consistently spread to business reporting. Full context would include looking…

Name That Party: Bell, California Edition

July 25th, 2010 8:46 PM
This is almost too obvious. Many readers may already be familiar with recent exposure of the treasury plunderers disguised as public officials serving up hefty salaries to themselves while allegedly serving their constituents in the LA suburb of Bell, California. Here's some of the latest from the Associated Press, carried at the Los Angeles Times, which broke the original story, for those who…

Reuters: Racist Images ‘Often Displayed at Tea Party Rallies

July 24th, 2010 7:31 PM
(Update:  Reuters quietly improves statement by eliminating the word 'often'.  Thank you Reuters, for being forthright in the error, er, slipping this in, in the hopes that your readers won't notice.  We're certain that all of the Tea Party Patriots being wrongfully portrayed as racist appreciate the effort.) Reuters recently ran a piece that analyzed persistent race issues amidst the Obama…

Reuters Editor Thinks Financial Regulation 'Still a Very Feudal' Syste

July 16th, 2010 6:01 PM
Chrystia Freeland, global editor-at-large for Reuters, believes the new financial regulations are still pretty loose."It is still a very feudal, very Byzantine regulatory system," Freeland complained on the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer, referring to the Senate's approval of a financial regulations bill yesterday.A radical policy, Freeland maintained, could have done away with the current "…

WaPo Finally Runs Story on NASA Administrator Bolden: Eight Paragraphs

July 13th, 2010 5:15 PM
In a June 30 interview with "Talk to Al Jazeera," NASA administrator Charles Bolden revealed that President Obama had tasked him with "find[ing] a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."The media largely ignored the story, with a few exceptions, such as…

Investigation Clears Israeli Commandos of Wrongdoing; AP, WaPo Focus o

July 12th, 2010 3:44 PM
The Israeli commandos who intercepted a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip on May 31 were cleared of wrongdoing by a military inquiry into the matter. The same panel faulted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for "mistakes that were made in decisions, including some taken at relatively high levels," according to retired Israeli Major General Giora Eiland. While we at NewsBusters have taken Reuters…

AP Breaking: Supremes' Ruling 'Casts Doubt' on Chicago Handgun Ban

June 28th, 2010 10:54 AM
Lord have mercy, even when it hits him in the face, the Associated Press's Mark Sherman won't concede the obvious: "Cast doubt"? Is that what court rulings do now? A USA Today item has it right: