Regional Media

Friday, California's High-Speed Rail Authority published its draft 2018 Business Plan. Its 800-mile bullet-train project's estimated cost is now $77.3 billion, up from $64 billion two years ago, and its final completion has been pushed out another four years to 2033. The current estimate is now more than 70 percent above the $45 billion presented to voters in 2008. The related Associated Press …

On Sunday, CBS's San Francisco affiliate appears to have originally thought it had a sympathetic story about an illegal immigrant "taken away" in front of his wife and daughter. But two-thirds of the way into its report, KPIX finally told viewers and readers that the man "does have a dangerous past" — but never mentioned four previous deportations.

Sunday, Australia's The Today Show host asked Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff whether he should apologize for starting and backing away from a rumor of an extramarital affair between UN Ambassador Haley and President Trump. Wolff then claimed that his earpiece wasn't working. At one point, when the host asked Wolff if he could hear him, the author responded almost immediately. Today …

In an epic self-awareness fail, several liberal commentators claim that Broward County police officers who remained outside as Nikolas Cruz massacred students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were "good guys with a gun." This, they believe, shows that a good guy with a gun doesn't always stop a bad guy with a gun. It apparently hasn't occurred to them that these officers who…

Tuesday at the Louisville Courier Journal, part of Gannett's USA Today network, two reporters claimed that whoever vandalized a prominent billboard in that city to read "Kill the NRA" had "called out" the gun-rights group. David Harten and Darcy Costello never described the billboard as what it was while it was briefly visible: a violent threat.

On Thursday, Minneapolis station WCCO reported on guns and crime in Minnesota. Anchor Frank Vascellaro's introduction: "More people are carrying guns than ever before, but the crime rate remains low." Imagine that.

As bad as the establishment press's coverage of national stories is, the situation with bias, ignorance, and sloppiness seen at local and regional news outlets may be worse. Here's an example from Monday: A story at St. Louis TV station KSDK about "crimes involving stolen guns" was headlined "More legal guns used in St. Louis area crimes."

At the Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday, reporter Jessie Balmert "fact-checked" President Donald Trump's afternoon speech at a suburban manufacturer. Balmert is the Enquirer reporter who in mid-2016 told readers that there were 220,000 U.S. murders in 2015 (actual number: 15,192). As would be expected, her Monday "fact check" was riddled with obvious errors and distortions.

Shortly after the Nunes memo's Friday release, five reporters — three at the Associated Press and one each at MSNBC and CNN, pushed the long-discredited claim that, in the AP's words, "(Christopher) Steele’s opposition research effort was initially funded by the conservative Washington Free Beacon."

Wednesday afternoon, the Tennessean reported that Nashville Mayor Megan Barry disclosed that "she had an extramarital affair with the police officer in charge of her security detail." The paper's story tagged Barry as a Democrat (in their fourth paragraph), but national stories seen at the Associated Press and ABC News have not.

On Friday, the College of William & Mary announced that former FBI Director James Comey, a 1982 graduate, will "will teach a three-credit course on ethical leadership" beginning this fall. Establishment press coverage of Comey's assignment, coinciding with being named "an executive professor in education," has mostly avoided the myriad reasons why having him teach such a course is a horrible…

Dedicated tax-and-spend liberals often get help from the press in describing their plans to raid constituents' pocketbooks in vague terms, while nobly describing the alleged benefits of their plans to use the money. Washington's Democratic Governor Jay Inslee has the Associated Press running that kind of interference for his carbon tax.

The City of Seattle probably didn't expect pushback from Costco, seen by many on the left as retail's "anti-Walmart," after its "sugary drink" tax of 1.75 cents per ounce went into effect January 1. But that is exactly what has happened. In moves the national press, which largely supports such taxes, has thus far ignored, Costco is itemizing the built-in cost of the tax on its Seattle store's…

On Saturday, Frank Miele, the managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana, recounted what he called an "unexpected chance to put my finger in the dike holding back the flood of fake news caused by those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome." Miele acted on an "unfounded" story about one of President Donald Trump's tweets by the Associated Press's Darlene Superville, who "…