Press Ignores Admin's Invocation of Privilege in Immigration Lawsuit

Tom Blumer
May 6th, 2015 11:08 PM

Remember the cries of "Bush Lied" during the previous administration — even though he didn't? Or the obsession over the 16 words relating to Saddam Hussein's attempt to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, which George W. Bush's opponents tried to pretend were false but were really true? Good times. In federal court in February, the Obama administration seriously "misrepresented" the degree of…

 

AP's '3 Amigos' of Econ Reporting Differ in Recognizing Harsh Reality

Tom Blumer
May 6th, 2015 3:50 PM
Tuesday evening, I wrote that there appears to be a need for an intervention among the economics writers at the Associated Press. At the time, I was referring to how the wire service's Christopher Rugaber, in his dispatch on a trade group's upbeat business sentiment survey appearing about an hour after Martin Crutsinger's writeup on the horrible March trade imbalance, failed to report Crutsinger…
 

AP's Crutsinger Acknowledges Likely Q1/15 Contraction; Rugaber Ignores

Tom Blumer
May 5th, 2015 8:55 PM
It appears that someone might need to schedule an intervention with the Associated Press's economics writers. In his dispatch published a half-hour after the government's March release on international trade at 8:30 this morning, the wire service's Martin Crutsinger quoted a normally upbeat economist who was singing the blues about the result's effect on previously reported first-quarter…
 

At AP, 1.9 Percent 2nd-Quarter Growth Would Be 'A Significant Rebound'

Tom Blumer
May 4th, 2015 6:14 PM
At the Associated Press today, Martin Crutsinger's coverage of the Census Bureau's March Factory Orders report admitted that a leading economic forecasting firm currently believes that the economy will grow at an annualized rate of just 1.9 percent in the second quarter. Despite the fact that just about everyone who is anyone had until very recently been saying that the figure will be 3 percent…
 

AP Ignored Indicators of Islamist Involvement in Texas Terror Attack

Tom Blumer
May 4th, 2015 10:53 AM
(See Update Below) Since news broke of the terrorist attack in Garland, Texas Sunday evening and continuing until early this morning, the Associated Press, perhaps best nicknamed Allah's Press in instances such as these, was determined not to reveal the nature of those behind it. Two attackers were killed by police after opening fire and wounding a security officer, who, according to AP, "was…
 
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AP Reports an ISIS Yazidi Massacre Death Toll Far Below Other Outlets

Tom Blumer
May 3rd, 2015 10:05 AM
Is the Associated Press playing a numbers game in its reporting on a massacre in Iraq? Stories about ISIS massacring 300 Yazidi captives have appeared in several places. Leftists and Obama administration's apologists who want to believe that the number involved is just a figment of the imaginations of UK tabloid troublemakers and U.S. right-wing bloggers can't use that copout to explain away a…
 

At AP, a Month of Strong Consumer Spending Marks a 'Spring Awakening'

Tom Blumer
May 2nd, 2015 10:31 AM
On Thurday, the government, apparently as determined as the press to create good news where there is none, opened its March report on Personal Income and Outlays as follows: "Personal income increased $6.2 billion, or less than 0.1 percent." Yeah, it was so much less than 0.1 percent that it rounded down to 0.0 percent in current dollars in the table which followed. In real terms, i.e., after…
 

AP Cites Weather Three Times in Excusing Construction Spending Dive

Tom Blumer
May 1st, 2015 10:04 PM
The so-called experts supposedly took March's worse than usual weather in many parts of the country into account when they predicted that this morning's March Construction Spending report from the Census Bureau would come in with a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.4 percent or 0.5 percent. Instead, the result was a decline 0.6 percent, "unexpectedly" sending that metric to a six-month low.…
 

AP Writers: Cities Hit by 1960s Riots 'Have Taken Decades to Recover'

Tom Blumer
April 30th, 2015 9:49 PM
An Associated Press report on small businesses hit with looting, fires and property destruction in Baltimore during the past several days wraps up with a final paragraph only a historically ignorant person could possibly believe. Without getting too personal, David Dishneau and Joyce M. Rosenberg, the two AP writers responsible for that final sentence, appear to be old enough and learned enough…
 
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Not News: Duncan Threatens to 'Step In' Over Common Core Test Opt-Outs

Tom Blumer
April 29th, 2015 9:27 PM
Well, this is awkward — or rather, it would be if the press cared about the federally-driven tyranny which is in the process of capturing the nation's public and private K-12 schools. Common Core's proponents have insisted and still insist that "it was and will remain a state-led effort" (italics is theirs). Yet when faced with the "problem" of too many parents opting out of its intrusive…
 

In Baltimore, 6 Fan-Attended MLB Games Lost; No Press Interest in Cost

Tom Blumer
April 28th, 2015 11:19 PM
At NewsBusters this morning, Matthew Philbin posted on how Michael Eric Dyson, in a guest appearance on MSNBC (where else?), placed a great deal of blame for Baltimore's blight on "the ways in which the Baltimore Ravens and Baltimore Orioles with their tax-exempt status were given tremendous goodies to stay into the city." It would be reasonable to believe that Dyson, who has revealed a vengeful…
 

AP Omits Obama's 'Thugs' Mention, Carries Mayor's 'Thug' Use Apology

Tom Blumer
April 28th, 2015 7:12 PM

The language police came out in full force today, expressing outrage that President Barack Obama employed an accurate word — "thugs" — to describe many of those involved in Baltimore's three days of rioting. The PR flaks at a leftist media group went to a spokesperson for a Latino "organizing" group. He attacked Obama, not for using the word, but for having the temerity to apply it a "handful…

 

Japan's Retail Sales Dive; Press, Pundits Want Even More 'Stimulus'

Tom Blumer
April 28th, 2015 12:47 PM
Japan just reported yet another awful retail sales result. Though it far exceeeded predictions of a 7.3 percent fall, the 9.7 percent March 2015 plunge compared to March 2014 doesn't reveal much, as March 2014 saw a splurge at the stores ahead of a steep sales tax increase which took effect on April 1. The really telling figure is the 1.9 percent seasonally adjusted dive compared to February.…
 

Inadvertent Truth? AP Headline: 'Obama Pledges Help to Riot'

Tom Blumer
April 27th, 2015 8:17 PM
The headline is already gone from the Associated Press's national site, but it's still present elsewhere. In the context of events in Ferguson and elsewhere since August of last year, one could argue that it contains more truth than the wire service and the headline's accidental creators will ever admit.