USA Today

Updated below: In late 2001, "Punisher" storyline had threat against President Bush's life. Spider-Man will swing to the rescue at the Obama inauguration in the Marvel comics universe, USA Today's David Colton reported in a January 8 story for the newspaper's Life section. Colton's story sought to portray the move not merely as a money-maker for Marvel but part of a storied tradition of graphic…

The main stream media is continuing a fervent assault on Sarah Palin, covering the mundane, the non-existent, and the factually devoid news stories of the day.  Problem being, when those dramatic news stories become less sensational due to the latest revelations, the media is not as excited to report the correction. There's been no secret that the media has been salivating over the chance to link…

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz found a story in USA Today that qualified for the "Obama Adulation Watch." Reporter Maria Puente oozed over incoming First Lady Michelle Obama on Friday as the black Jackie Kennedy, and insisted the Obamas undermined the conservative "caricature" of her "through widely viewed television interviews in which they demonstrated warmth, affection, humor --…

While the media are fixated on the ire gay activists are directing at the president-elect for selecting Prop 8 proponent Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Obama inaugural, I've noticed little attention given to the fact that the man selected to give the benediction is pretty much the polar opposite of Warren on some key doctrinal matters related to homosexuality.Rev. Joseph Lowery, a…

You can just see the scene from the Wizard of Oz, where the wizard says ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.' When it comes to diverting attention from a scandal plagued home state, don't worry Senator Obama, USA Today has your back. In a bizarre demonstration of spinning numbers with the sole purpose of getting people to look away from the recent Blagojevich scandal, John…

(Also, see Matthew Balan's NB post on CNN.com's Name That Party Blagojevich whiff, and related posts by Mark Finkelstein and Warner Todd Huston.)Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested today. The Associated Press's Mike Robinson actually identified "Blago's" party in the third paragraph of his 10:27 a.m. report (link is dynamic; cited report is also here for future reference; underlying…

Condensing a December 7 story by Des Moines Register's Grant Schulte on a lawsuit in Iowa that may create same-sex marriage in the Hawkeye State, USA Today's left out the meat of conservative critiques of the lawsuit, citing three supporters of the lawsuit to one conservative critic. The lone conservative was given just four words in print in the December 7 article "Iowa high court to hear gay-…

“People who elect a new President are eager for the change to take place. The sooner the better,” USA Today founder Al Neuharth argued in his Friday column in which he asked, coincidentally just a week-and-a-half after Barack Obama's election: “Why wait until late January to turn the Oval Office over to a new President elected in early November?” He proposed: “We should move the President's…

Why wasn't there more of this before the election? The headline at a Greenville, SC News story carried at USA Today says, "Priest urges penance for Obama voters." Father Jay Scott Newman is actually demanding it of those who would claim to be faithful Catholics. In the process, he is also stating longstanding Church policy on abortion that has largely been absent from Sunday pre-election…

How is it that in this time of historic change and euphoria, the media can remain so pessimistic? The messiah has been elected, ACORN and Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie are stealing an election in Minnesota, conservatives are going to be silenced via the Fair-Less Doctrine, and gay marriage activists are assaulting the elderly. It is a time of hope and optimism in this, our…

Perhaps this is coming a little late with the election already underway, but the idea the current economy is as threatened as it was during the Great Depression is unfounded, according to the Nov. 4 USA Today. "Failed banks. Panicked markets. Rising unemployment. For students of history, or people of a certain age, it all has an all-too-familiar ring. Is this another Great Depression? Not yet,"…

Give them credit for noticing. Pass out demerits for incompleteness.Friday's USA Today carried a slightly inaccurate Page 1A tease ("Iraq is safer for US troops; October is on track to tie July for the month with fewest combat deaths"). It went to a top of Page 7A story ("US Deaths in Iraq on track for record low") that noticed how relatively well the month of October has gone for our troops in…

Al Neuharth's Friday mini-column in USA Today should have been in a section the paper doesn't have: the comics.Neuharth claimed that today's newspapers play the news straight, while in the "olden days" they didn't.Put down all drinks before reading (bolds are mine): Fewer newspapers try to dictate votesPlain Talk by Al Neuharth More newspaper bosses across the USA have wised up to the fact that…