AP Writer Miscasts Housing Measurements to Hype Home-Value 'Crisis
March 3rd, 2008 10:48 AM
On Wednesday, Associated Press Business Writer J.W. Elphinstone used a curious definition of "narrow" to emphasize the importance of a home-price measurement index that only looks at the country's largest metro areas, while minimizing the significance of one that catalogs virtually the entire USA -- all apparently done to create an overwrought portrayal of home values as being "in freefall."…
Almost 70% Believe Traditional Media Out of Touch With Their News Need
March 1st, 2008 10:38 AM
The news just keeps getting worse for old-fashioned media outlets that disseminate news: more and more people are turning away from them and relying instead on the Internet for information.Such was the conclusion of a new We Media/Zogby Interactive poll released Wednesday.As reported by Reuters (emphasis added throughout):
AP's Snow Wants You to Know: Cuban Communism Is 'Unshaken
February 25th, 2008 11:10 PM
In a report yesterday from Cuba, Anita Snow of the Associated Press, with the help of the headline writers at ABC, seemed intent on telling any Yanqui imperialists or hard-liners in Miami's Little Havana who might have any ideas of doing something rash during the transition of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul to forget about trying anything (HT Rush Limbaugh; story #4 at link; link…
AP Article on States' Budget Woes Ignores Spending Excesses
February 25th, 2008 4:25 PM
Old Media coverage of government budget difficulties usually focuses on the here and now, and all the "tough decisions" that have to be made. Seldom is there ever an examination of how a state or local government entity got into its current fix. Scratch just a little bit beneath the surface, though, and you'll almost inevitably find that an annoying habit of overspending during the good times…
AP’s Nedra Pickler Has Obama’s Back
February 24th, 2008 11:51 AM
It now appears, as predicted by yours truly two weeks ago today, that Hillary Clinton will not be our next president, and that Barack Obama is going to be Democratic Party's presidential nominee.
This means that it must be time for Old Media to start playing robust defense on his behalf.
The 'Party ID' Game, Ct'd: MD DA not ID'd as Dem Until Paragraph
February 23rd, 2008 9:13 PM
Unlike Congressman Rick Renzi, who is a Republican, and whose party membership was identified in the first word of an Associated Press report yesterday about his indictment, the person involved in this situation, Wicomico County (MD) State's Attornery Davis Ruark, is not a Republican. This explains why the AP report of Ruark's drunk-driving arrest begins devoid of any indication as to what party…
Reuters Uses Trumped-Up 2004 Story to Support Obama Military Equipment
February 22nd, 2008 4:46 PM
In an attempt to salvage some degree of credibility for presidential candidate Barack Obama's assertions about military equipment shortages, Reuters reporter Andrew Gray went back to a long-discredited claim planted by a local Tennessee reporter, and resurrected a Donald Rumsfeld quote that was not relevant to his story topic. First, Gray went to what Obama claimed, and how the Pentagon…
AP Reporter's Indicted Pol Writeups Differ Sharply (Renzi vs. Jefferso
February 22nd, 2008 2:24 PM
There is no need to play the parlor game, "What party is this person a member of?" with this Associated Press story by Lara Jakes Jordan (Feb. 23 Note: The original link from AP's hosted.ap.org site was changed; the story link now goes to Jordan's story carried at SignOnSanDiego.com. Jordan's report has been saved for future reference at BizzyBlog's host for fair use and discussion purposes):…
AP Writer Cites ‘Groundswell of Public Criticism’ — In Communist
February 21st, 2008 7:33 PM
Associated Press writer Tini Tran, in covering the fallout inside Mainland/Communist China from Steven Spielberg's decision to resign from his position as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics over that country's involvement in Darfur, introduced the critical reaction to his decision as a "groundswell" rising up from the public. But the detail presented indicates that the reaction came from…
Taylor Marsh Criticism of Margaret Carlson Illustrates Larger Point
February 19th, 2008 10:11 AM
I'm in the unusual position of defending uber-liberal Margaret Carlson. Carlson, formerly of Time and CNN's old Capital Gang, now with uber-liberal Al Hunt's Bloomberg News, was unfairly ripped by Taylor Marsh over at Huffington Post Saturday. Carlson sent an e-mail to someone suggesting that, as far as Hillary Clinton's candidacy is concerned: ..... I covered the Clinton White House for 8…
AP Lets Hillary Adviser Ickes Play Both Sides of MI-FL Delegate Issue
February 17th, 2008 7:26 PM
In changing his tune on whether delegates from Michigan and Florida should be able to vote their preferences at the Democratic National Convention based on the results of those states' primaries, Harold Ickes has gone from DNC hack to Hillary Clinton flack. Yesterday, Associated Press reporter Hope Yen gave Ickes an open microphone to "explain" himself, and showed no skepticism regarding Ickes's…
AP Maximizes Negativity in Covering Realtors' Housing Report
February 15th, 2008 10:03 PM
Granted, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is a trade organization which will, as trade organizations do, try to put the best face on a bad situation. And granted, part of the press's job is to filter through hype and false sunniness to report the truth of what's really going on. But that is most emphatically not what the Associated Press did with yesterday's NAR report on the state of…
