So I figure that I need to catch up on the LightSquared saga. This is the company which, as Fox News reported on Thursday (the URL date is September 15, though the time stamp is the next day) is building "a nationwide, next-generation, 4G phone network."
The problem is, as Fox further noted, that there are concerns that "many, including (General William) Shelton, think (the network) would seriously hinder the effectiveness of high-precision GPS receiver systems, a product used most commonly by the United States military." Shelton told a congresspersons "in a classified briefing earlier this month" that he was asked by the Obama administration to change (but apparently didn't) his testimony about said dangers.
So I went to the Associated Press's main page at 9:50 this evening, did a search on the company's name, and got back the following:
Here it is:
Really.
A search on the "Light Squared" (not in quotes), done in case the Essential Global News Network's crack team of investigative reporters thought the company's name might be two words, also came up empty.
A search on "Falcone," the last name of the billionaire heavy-hitting Democrat donor who is LightSquared's CEO -- forget about it.
Finally, while a Google News search on the company's name (sorted by date, with duplicates) returned 550 items (the first pages said 718, but it was really 550), a Google News search from September 12-20 on [LightSquared "Associated Press"] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets) came back with two items -- neither of which tied to any AP-authored items.
Reuters has something. Bloomberg has something. Even UPI has something, for heaven's sake.
It takes a special talent for Obama administration butt-covering to be this completely negligent about following a news story found in over 500 other places. I guess everyone at AP has been too busy serving as White House stenographers to notice.
Anyone wondering why they haven't heard or seen a word about LightSquared coming from an AP-subscribing news outlet now knows why.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
