Associated Press

For the past month, the conventional wisdom about the U.S. economy has been that consumer spending and "(not really) robust" job growth will continue to prop up the economy, even as weaknesses in manufacturing, trade and other areas continue to present problems. President Obama bragged in early March that the economy is "pretty darned good now." Today, the first of those two pillars got pulled.…

Media outlets around the world are reporting that Faycal Cheffou has been arrested for his alleged involvement with last week's terrorist attacks in Belgium. Media outlets around the world are reporting that Faycal Cheffou was a journalist — except for the Associated Press.

Perhaps it would be understandable if U.S. media outlets chose not to cover the death of Asad Shah in Scotland. After all, it occurred overseas, and only one person has died. But the Associated Press did decide to cover the story and post it at its subscribers' U.S. news sites. As such, the AP has a duty to reveal what is known at the time its reports appear. Thus far, it has failed miserably.…

When was the last time a badly trailing presidential candidate in either major party won relatively late-in-the-game contests by lopsided victory margins of greater than 70-30, as Bernie Sanders did in Washington today, and greater than 80-20, as Sanders did in Alaska? I'm virtually certain that the answer to that question, regardless of what happens in Hawaii's Democratic primary much later…

As noted in my previous post, the press is determined that the world not learn of profound statements made by world leaders it despises. The specific reference was to Israeli Prime Mininster Benjamin Netanyahu's five-word admonishment to those who believe that some accommodation can be reached with Islamic terrorists: "Terrorists Have No Resolvable Grievances." Meanwhile, the press protects…

On Wednesday, at a joint press conference with Argentine President Mauricio Macri in Buenos Aires, President Obama told the world that it can defeat the Islamic State "in part by saying, you are not strong; you are weak." Fortunately for him and unfortunately for those who wish to be fully informed, the establishment press is almost always there to save Obama from himself. Google News searches…

It has been nine days since Ingham County, Michigan prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, a Democrat, was arrested and charged with "15 criminal counts" in three different counties involving engaging prostitutes, pandering prostitution, and willful neglect of duty by a public officer. The press has been reluctant to identify Dunnings as a Democrat in its news coverage, either avoiding the tag…

Today's report on February's new-home sales from the Census Bureau showed seasonally adjusted declines in three of the nation's four regions and an increase in the West. The Associated Press and reporter Josh Boak, displaying brazenness which might have even embarrassed the scribes at Pravda during the worst days of the Soviet Union, concentrated on how great things were in the West in their…

At Salon.com at 10:28 a.m., Amanda Marcotte wrote that "It will likely be days, perhaps weeks, before we know much about the horrific terrorist attacks on an airport and subway in Brussels on Tuesday morning that killed dozens of people." Actually, dear, as of when I began this post about 90 minutes later, we alreadly know plenty. Most crucially, the Associated Press reported that the Islamic…

Ridicule by media critics has apparently made some headway against the business press's annoying habit of describing bad news about the economy as having occurred "unexpectedly." Now they seem to be reserving the "U-word" for unexpected improvements, which haven't been seen very much during the past seven-plus years. Instead, reacting to today's bad news from the National Association of Realtors…

The major broadcast networks omitted from their Thursday morning and evening newscasts e-mails revealed late Wednesday that Hillary Clinton was denied requests in 2009 when she became secretary of state that she be outfitted with a government-secured Blackberry in order to handle classified information on her smartphone. 

Most readers here are by now painfully familiar with how miserable mainstream media reporting on police shootings of criminals can be. That said, the Associated Press's headline writers and reporter Lindsay Whitehurst have lowered the bar even further in their coverage of the shooting of a 17 year-old who was beating a man "near a homeless shelter" in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The government's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that consumer prices fell 0.2 percent in February. Lower prices should be good news, right? Wrong, at least according to Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press. Crutsinger's Wednesday dispatch also managed to ignore the fact that even the supposedly low inflation seen during the past 12 months has eaten up most of workers' very…

On Wednesday night, the top English broadcast networks and Spanish-language network Univision failed to cover news that the Justice Department had finally confirmed that a gun in possession of the now-captured Mexican drug lord El Chapo was linked to the scandal-ridden Operation Fast and Furious.