Wire Services/Media Companies

I struggle to come up with a reason, other than an irresponsible attempt to minimize the impact of the horror, why the headline at a Thursday evening Associated Press story by Zeina Karam and Ryan Lucas about "more than 160 Syrian government troops" massacred by ISIS is "JIHADISTS KILL DOZENS OF CAPTURED SYRIAN SOLDIERS." But that's how the wire service is presenting it:

The Golden Age of Obamacare has apparently not led to the Golden Age of access to medical care anywhere, any time its promoters promised. Thanks to non-payments, the true enrollment numbers aren't what we've been told. The networks patients can access — approved by government regulators — are often highly restricted. Sky-high-deductibles are present in most Obamacare plans before any kind of…

In a Wednesday report on the Congressional Budget Office's downward revision of this year's predicted gross domestic product growth to a dismal 1.5 percent, the Associated Press's Andrew Taylor acted as if the Obama administration's prediction of 2.6 percent still has a realistic chance of occurring. While one never wants to absolutely say never, the administration's higher prediction would…

Someone must have slipped the wrong data to the Associated Press's Josh Boak yesterday before he composed his dispatch on the Census Bureau's latest report on new home sales. Boak got the current month's news right, though likely by accident (like almost everyone else in the business press, he relies on seasonally adjusted figures, and rarely goes to the unadjusted data), telling readers that…

The Associated Press's Top Business News page lists the headlines and opening passages of what the wire service believes are the ten most important business stories at the moment. Its 9:16 a.m. version had a story entitled "JACKSON HOLE DEMONSTRATORS RALLY AGAINST RATE HIKE" listed fifth. Earlier in the morning it was fourth. Surely, I thought to myself, this must be about a group of at least…

The press never let George W. Bush forget about that "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln after Saddam Hussein was overthrown and his government's military was routed in Iraq. They often pretend that Bush said it, or adopted it. He did no such thing, saying only that “Our mission continues.” So while the press has come close to making a claim Bush 43 never made an article…

Over at Hot Air on Tuesday night, Mary Katharine Ham pointed to a headline at the New York Times, present at its web home page as well as at the story itself, which equally blames Hamas and Israel for the end of their cease-fire: "Rockets From Gaza and Israeli Response Break Cease-Fire." Someone needs to tell Isabel Kershner and Jodi Rudoren that it's the "rockets from Gaza" which broke the…

Kudos to Ed Driscoll at PJ Media, Eddie Scarry at Mediaite, and likely others in pointing out that the Associated Press has frequently violated its own stylebook in describing Michael Brown, the 18 year-old who was fatally shot in a scuffle with police in Ferguson, Missouri, as a "teen" or "teenager." The AP's latest stylebook, in sync with the one I have from over a decade ago, states that…

Recent news about Obamacare hasn't exactly been good, but the press has been pretty effective in keeping it quiet. To name just a few items, Enrollment is shrinking, because perhaps as many as 20 percent of enrollees aren't keeping up with their premiums. Rising costs have moved insurers to beg for bailouts, which appear to be forthcoming.  Then there's this: Just last week in Massachusetts,…

Vox's Max Fisher shamelessly invoked medieval history in a Monday post about Pope Francis. Fisher highlighted the pontiff's support for action against ISIS's "unjust aggression" in Iraq, and hyped that "there is good precedent for this...between 1096 and 1272 AD, popes also endorsed the use of Western military action to destroy Middle Eastern caliphates. Those were known as the crusades; there…

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who, in the oddest of coincidences (that's sarcasm), just so happens to be considered one of the Republican Party's stronger potential contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination, was indicted in Austin today by a Travis County grand jury. The charges are "abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant" in connection with a veto "threat" he carried…

The federal government reported a $94.6 blllion deficit in July, only marginally better than the $97.6 figure posted in July 2013. As has become its habit, the Associated Press's coverage of that result contained omissions, spin and half-truths about government tax collections, spending and the origins of the Obama administration's first four years of consecutive trillion-dollar deficits.…

Give the New York Daily News credit for surfacing a video which originally appeared at Ed Notes Online, a publication whose "about" page says it opposes "the education corporate-based reforms ... undermining the public school system" and exposes "the motives behind the education deformers." The video shows Michael Mulgrew, the president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers,…

This morning, the Census Bureau, in its advance report on retail sales, revealed that seasonally adjusted July sales were "virtually unchanged" from June. Expectations were for a 0.2 percent gain, supposedly with "solid upside" potential. Oops. June's result stayed at its previously reported 0.2 percent increase. Reuters did the "U-word" honors this time out: "U.S. retail sales unexpectedly…