AP Applauds 'Blistering Pace' in Jobs, Buries Awful Wholesale News

January 9th, 2016 8:47 AM
Yesterday at NewsBusters, Ken Shepherd noted how quickly and gleefully the New York Times jumped ("an impressive sprint capping off a year of solid job growth") on December's relatively strong jobs report. The Associated Press joined the parade — "US EMPLOYERS HIRE AT BLISTERING PACE, DEFYING GLOBAL TRENDS" – and kept its story as its lead in its Business "Top Stories" until late afternoon.…

AP Highlights One Piece of Good Economic News, Buries 3 Weaker Ones

January 6th, 2016 4:29 PM
Today was a fairly brisk day for economic data, as four noteworthy reports were released. One of them contained good news, but with a heavy asterisk. The other three were either not good, period, or came in below expectations. Readers here probably know which one the Associated Press was still carrying at its Top Business Stories page as of 2:39 p.m. Of course, it was the one with good news.

AP Admits: Obama's Gun Actions 'Would Not Have Prevented' Sandy Hook

January 6th, 2016 12:13 PM
The liberal media, especially the Big Three networks, have been so caught up in President Obama's "deeply emotional appeal," as he issued his executive orders on gun contro,l that they haven't bothered to check the effectivity of the actions. On Wednesday, the AP's Michael R. Sisak pointed out that "the gun control measures a tearful President Barack Obama announced Tuesday would not have…

AP's Scott Bauer Has a New Obsession: Negatively Describing Ted Cruz

January 5th, 2016 5:31 PM
At the Associated Press, Wisconsin-based reporter Scott Bauer, who has spent the better part of the past five years describing Badger State Governor Scott Walker as "polarizing," has been given the opportunity to get involved with 2016 presidential campaign coverage. Leftists and Democrats rarely earn negative descriptors in Bauer's reports, while Republicans and conservatives receive them…
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WashPost: Putting Black Opponent in Darker Light in TV Ads Is Racist

January 2nd, 2016 11:58 PM
A time-honored tactic in political TV ads is to use contrasting degrees of photographic exposure, one bright and snappy for your candidate and a darker hue, sometimes even going to old-fashioned black-and-white, for your opponent. On December 29, at the Washington Post's Wonkblog, Max Ehrenfreund cited a conveniently timed "study" which looked at 2008 ads produced by and on behalf of GOP…

Obama's NSA Spying on Congress Not a Story at AP — Until GOP Responds

January 1st, 2016 9:19 PM
The Wall Street Journal ran a blockbuster story Tuesday afternoon ("U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress") about how the Obama administration's National Security Agency's "targeting of Israeli leaders swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers." In other words, the NSA spied on Congress. As talk-show host and commentator Erick Erickson drily observed: "Congress began…

On Economy, AP Wraps Year With Two Weak Stories and a Glaring Omission

December 31st, 2015 3:50 PM
This week, the Associated Press wrapped up a year of largely pathetic business reporting with three items exemplifying the wire service's habits of data-twisting, sloppiness, and convenient omissions. A deceptive AP post-Christmas story pretended that Christmas-season "spending" was twice as high as anyone else has predicted. A report on pending home sales omitted a concerned comment from a…
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Year-End Awards: The Most Outrageous Media Quote of 2015

December 31st, 2015 9:04 AM
Wrapping up the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” it’s time to present the “Quote of the Year” for 2015, and the top runner-up, as selected by our panel of 39 expert judges, who were extremely generous with their time as they reviewed a large ballot of outrageous quotes. Winning the dubious distinction of worst quote of the year, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, who on…

Poll: Americans Divided on Religious Liberty for Christians, Muslims

December 30th, 2015 5:16 PM
People place a higher priority on preserving the religious freedom of Christians than for other faith groups, ranking Muslims as the least deserving of the protections, according to a new survey released on Wednesday. A skeptic might think the Associated Press did this poll less to explore the question of religious liberty than to make mischief about Muslims being less favored in America. The…

No Media Repercussions for Minn. Councilwoman Who 'Doxed' Constituents

December 29th, 2015 5:37 AM
Did you hear the story about the conservative city councilman who was so incensed at his private-citizen critics that he or she published their names and addresses and accused them of racism in the process? Of course you didn't. If it happened, press coverage of "right-wing intimidation" would be everywhere. Instead, "doxing," the term given to such exposures, is a technique predominantly…
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Hillary Gaffe: Close Any School Not 'Doing a Better Than Average Job'

December 28th, 2015 8:08 PM
According to NewsBusters' own Blonde Gator, Hillary Clinton has, in the 8-1/2 months since she declared her candidacy, committed 51 gaffes and goofs. That's an average rate of six per month. Imagine how many there would be if Mrs. Clinton genuinely campaigned among the people instead of among preselected groupies. One of her latest gaffes, which occurred last week at an elementary school in Iowa…

AP Claims Christmas 'Spending' Up 8 Pct. — On Number of Transactions

December 28th, 2015 5:27 PM
As I noted in a pre-Christmas post, "The desperation is palpable at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, over how the Christmas shopping season is going." Desperation has clearly descended into outright deception at the wire service, where an unbylined story claims that spending is up 8 percent, but that the source involved "does not include spending by dollar amounts." As will…

Another Gaffe Ignored: Sanders Doesn't Understand Interest Rates

December 28th, 2015 2:06 PM
While the establishment press lies in wait for Republican and conservative candidates to make some kind of off-color or foolish statement — or one that can be twisted to become one, even if it originally wasn't — it consistently ignores howlers made by leftists and liberals. The list of President Barack Obama's gaffes alone, all totally or almost completely ignored by the press when they were…

IBD Notes Three Global Warming Stories The U.S. Press Has Ignored

December 27th, 2015 10:17 AM
Yesterday, I noted that Associated Press reporter Karl Ritter actually wrote, and AP actually published, a story about how complying with the Paris climate agreement would require greenhouse gas emissions "To Drop Below Zero." Perhaps Ritter, whose beat includes "cover(ing) climate change, from UN negotiations to Arctic melt," looked around and realized that if he didn't put out something…