Los Angeles Times

The most interesting thing (to me, at least) about Wednesday's report in the Los Angeles Times by Ricardo Lopez on how the author of an economic report out of UCLA has said that the U.S. economy's performance since the recession officially ended in June 2009 stinks -- "It's not a recovery. It's not even normal growth. It's bad" -- is how the Associated Press relayed it to its readers and…

Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio won't be subject to a recall election. It wasn't even close, though two press reports, one at the Associated Press and another at the Los Angeles Times, failed to accurately convey how seriously organizers failed. Both reports also trotted out an "if only" excuse which doesn't pass the stench test, let alone the smell test. Neither outlet gave an…

On Thursday night’s O’Reilly Factor, the Fox News host opened the show by attacking former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman for visiting the White House 157 times, almost four times as many appearances as Hillary Clinton. O’Reilly hinted this was a “smoking gun” of the White House running the IRS harassment campaign of the Tea Party. But guess what: this fact of Shulman’s well-worn path to…

Does L.A. Times reporter Michael Hiltzik read the news?  Apparently not, since he penned one of the most lapdog press-worthy articles praising the IRS to bubble to the surface in the wake of the news that it targeted conservative Americans.  Hiltzik’s column published in the May 25 Business section labeled the targeting as “supposed,” noted that for a small budget – the IRS does a pretty “good…

Just when you thought you'd seen it all, along comes an announcement from The Hub, a low-rated cable TV channel that is attempting to increase its audience of children between 2 years old and age 11 by airing a cartoon featuring a boy who gains super powers by wearing a special ring -- and dressing as a girl. Set to debut on Saturday at 12:30 p.m., the gender-bending program stars twelve-…

Code Pink's Media Benjamin managed to break into another presidential event on Thursday, namely Barack Obama's speech at the National Defense University. The topic was "U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy," meaning that the administration's aversion to the T-word seems to be diminishing as the damaging scandal-related news continues to pour in. Readers will see that Benjamin was relatively civil…

Occasionally, we hear from people who believe that liberal media bias isn’t really that big of an issue because most people don’t really trust reporters to tell the truth. While public trust in the media is at an all-time low, that hardly means they lack the power to shape opinion. A perfect case in point is the notion popularized by environmental alarmist Al Gore that the Earth is…

Blame the victim! Twenty-three liberal news operations have taken that strategy about the IRS attack on conservative nonprofits. Fifteen of the 63 members of the left-wing Media Consortium have thrown their support behind the IRS’s investigation. The 15 organizations either wrote or re-posted stories defending the IRS actions. Another eight liberal outlets, including MSNBC, ran similar…

Ever since libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch expressed an interest this past March in buying the Los Angeles Times, half of the daily newspaper's staff has threatened to quit if the deal goes through because the paper would become an “ideological mouthpiece” for conservative Republicans. Well, the people who oppose the sale -- including union members and the Los Angeles City…

New York Times's environmental reporter Justin Gillis earned an unusual two-column lead story part in Saturday's paper, part of his long-running scarefest series, "Temperatures Rising." The latest entry: "Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears." (Though that scary headline turns out to be upon further review a bit premature.) Gillis committed his usual smear of warming skeptics: "…

Friday's CBS This Morning played up the "vocal opposition" of liberal activist groups who are railing against the possible sale of several newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, to the libertarian Koch Brothers. Charlie Rose trumpeted that "critics fear politics could get in the way of journalism" if Koch Industries purchases the media outlets. Jan Crawford…

At the Daily Beast on Sunday, liberal Peter Beinart called on Democrats and liberals to "strongly denounce" former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian's insult campaign against Palmetto State Governor Nikki Haley, or else "Democratic Party bigotry is likely to get worse." It's too early to test Beinart's long-term prediction (such bigotry is bad enough already), but the…

"Mainstream media" are alarmed by reports that billionaires Charles and David Koch are considering the purchase of Tribune Company's eight daily newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. When Warren Buffett spent $344 million to purchase 28 newspapers, there were mostly sighs of relief from journalists glad to keep their jobs. However, reaction to reports of the Koch brothers' interest in…

The newspaper industry as a whole may be dying, but the liberal Democratic Los Angeles city council knows that an editorially-liberal broadsheet is invaluable to its continued monopoly on power. There are actually L.A. councilmen who want to explore using the city's pension funds to prevent the Los Angeles Times from being bought out by the conservative Koch brothers. Catherine Saillant of the…