Wire Services/Media Companies

With the Olympics coming on, what's more poignant than the image of the sprinter hopefully awaiting the official time, only to learn he missed the record by 1/100th of a second? I'm in that same heartbroken mood for the Associated Press this morning. The wire service came so close to equalling the world record for revealing the Republican party affiliation of someone finding himself sideways of…

Today, talk-show heavyweight Rush Limbaugh picked up on a curious oversight by an AP business reporter whose negative spin in supposedly objective stories on the economy has frequently been noted here. In a Friday story about a survey of top financial company executives, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger wrote the following (bold is mine): Turmoil in credit and housing markets will be…

Well, this time the AP has really done it. Dateline Custer County, Oklahoma: Sheriff Mike Burgess resigns after authorities charged him with running a sex-slave operation out of his jail using female inmates he bribed for the purpose. So, which party did the AP tell us our crafty entrepreneur was from? Well, they seem to have forgotten to mention it... shocking, I know. Oklahoma sheriff charged…

You gotta love McClatchy "Truth to Power" Newspapers. Not for their reporting, but for their entertainment value. McClatchy editors last night won an MRC DisHonors Award for an October 2007 headline that bemoaned the drop in business Iraqi gravediggers saw with the drop in violence thanks to the U.S. military surge.Now the newspaper chain is highlighting the rampant online speculation on whether…

The winner of the MRC's 2008 Dan Rather Memorial Award for Stupidest Analysis went to the editors of McClatchy Newspapers for an October 16 headline that spun the good news of the surge's success in Iraq into a tale of woe for Iraqi gravediggers. See, with the success of the surge and the corresponding drop in violence and death, Iraqi cemetery workers were "feel[ing] the pinch" to quote the…

The Associated Press's out-of-whack news priorities and seemingly boundless determination to distort never cease to amaze. Hope Yen's Sunday report on VA credit-card charges is yet more evidence that the wire service has lost its way. The beginning of Yen's report is so typical, and so misleading: Investigators Review VA Credit Charges WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans Affairs employees last year…

There are more examples of biased reporting in connection with Charlton Heston's death beyond what Tim Graham discussed earlier this morning.AP movie writer David Germain devoted the second paragraph of his story chronicling reactions to Heston's passing to, of all people, Michael Moore:Nancy Reagan was heartbroken over Charlton Heston's death. President Bush hailed him as a "strong advocate for…

Is it just me, or is the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa doing an end-zone dance because she thinks that the recession Old Media has been pining for has finally arrived? Someone needs to remind her that one negative quarter, if it even occurs, does not a recession make. In an early-Saturday story on the economy, Aversa treated the recession as a lock in her first paragraph, even though the…

Now playing defense for Team Obama: Karen Hawkins and Christopher Wills of the Associated Press, as carried in the Washington Post ("Obama Found a Home in His Church") on Thursday. Call it a Wright-wash -- Hawkins and Wills managed to avoid any mention of the main tenets of "Black Liberation Theology" (details after the jump) that form the foundation of the belief system of the Trinity United…

Did you know that 574,000 and 1.1 million more Americans had jobs in March than in February and January, respectively? Seriously, as you can see on the right (data can be retrieved from this BLS page; select the very first "not seasonally adjusted" table). Now the fact remains, as you can also see, that job growth during the past two months is nowhere near as great as it was during the same two…

In a post earlier this evening, Lynn Davidson at NewsBusters chronicled the myriad errors in a March 31 Reuters "Factbox" relating to the Kyoto Protocol. Among the errors Davidson noted was the wire service's claim that "The United States ..... came out against the pact in 2001" -- implying, but not actually stating, that the US government was perfectly happy with Kyoto until mean old George W.…

The Institute for Supply Management issued its March Manufacturing Report on Business today: PMI at 48.6% Economic activity in the manufacturing sector failed to grow in March, while the overall economy grew for the 77th consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business®. The report was issued today by Norbert J. Ore, C.P.M., chair of the…

An Associated Press story by Chris Talbott on the indictment of Mississippi judge Bobby DeLaughter waited until the end of the second paragraph to even name him, and never identified his party: Miss. Justices Suspend Embattled Judge The Mississippi Supreme Court suspended a prominent judge Friday who is being investigated for his role in a dispute over fees involving attorney Richard "Dickie"…

Color me unsurprised.The Associated Press, reporting the indictment of Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila (pictured at right via AFP/Getty Images file photo) failed to note Vila is a Democrat, let alone that he is an Obama superdelegate.But Vila's party affiliation is hardly a state secret. Indeed, ABC's Jake Tapper noted the Obama connection on his Political Punch blog this morning: