The terrorist shootings and bombings that murdered over 100 people in Paris on Friday were carried out by the group known as ISIS (Islamic State), but there was little discussion of Islam in the front-page coverage of the massacres in Saturday's New York Times. The paper demonstrated an unseemly reluctance to talk seriously about the probable identification of the terrorists, despite their own reporting that witnesses heard shouts of "Allahu akbar!" ("God is great!") inside the Bataclan concert hall.
Bias by Omission
By Tom Blumer | November 15, 2015 | 11:44 AM EST
As of early this morning, Matt Drudge was carrying a link to a story headlining how President Obama is "under fire for saying ISIS 'contained' just hours before Paris attack."
Well, Obama is under some fire, but Drudge's link is to coverage at the UK Daily Mail. That's unfortunately unsurprising, because there is little to no mention of Obama's naive, foolish and callous statement in the U.S. establishment press. So Obama may be "under fire" from people who are paying attention, but low-information news consumers (and voters) who didn't happen to see the original Thursday interview will likely remain unaware of it. In one such example of convenient oversight, the Associated Press published a Thursday evening story on that interview, and decided that its only newsworthy element was Obama's immigration-related criticism of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
By Tom Blumer | November 13, 2015 | 6:02 PM EST
The federal government kicked off fiscal 2016 yesterday by reporting that its October deficit was $136.5 billion, 12 percent higher than the $121.7 billion shortfall seen in October 2014.
Single-month comparisons can be tricky because of timing differences, but the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger noted that analyzing the results from this October and last October is an apples-to-apples proposition when he wrote that "In both years, Nov. 1 fell on a weekend, which required the government to mail out November benefit checks in October." But instead of diving into and comparing the two Octobers, the AP reporter devoted the vast majority of his writeup to virtual cut-and-paste regurgitations of previously published news about the 2015 fiscal year and projections for the next two years. He wrote just one sentence directly comparing any of the details in two October statements, and buried it at the end of his report.
By Tom Blumer | November 12, 2015 | 11:55 PM EST
The "fact-checking" press has become a parody of itself during the past several years.
It's not only because of their irritating penchant for putting statements by Republicans and conservatives under a twisted microscope while ignoring drop-dead obvious falsehoods delivered by Democrats and leftists. It's because, among other things, the fact-checkers often admit that a statement is true, but then proceed to essentially say, "So what?" They also take policy goals articulated by candidates, which may or may not come to pass, render an opinion that it can't be done, and then pretend that they've actually proven something. An example of each annoying habit was found in Tuesday evening's Associated Press "fact check" of statements made by Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush during the most recent Republican presidential candidates' debate.
By Tom Blumer | November 12, 2015 | 10:58 AM EST
Tuesday evening, Associated Press economics writers Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak attempted to "fact check" statements made by candidates at the just-completed Republican presidential debate.
Claiming that "The fourth Republican presidential debate was thick on economic policy — and with that came a variety of flubs and funny numbers," the two writers botched at least half of the six points they tried to make. Their most obvious economic error concerned the impact of minimum-wage increases (I will cover two others in a future post):
By Curtis Houck | November 11, 2015 | 11:43 PM EST
On Wednesday night, NBC Nightly News neglected to inform its viewers of a new report concerning the scandal-ridden Department of Veterans Affairs and the $142 million it paid out in bonuses to employees (including some who were facing discipline and/or recently fired). Compiled by the House Veterans Affairs Committee, the report stated that some of those who received bonuses still got them despite the fact that “several of them were under investigation or accused of mismanagement.”
By P.J. Gladnick | November 11, 2015 | 2:45 PM EST
The New York Times is displaying an astounding lack of curiosity about a significant charge of racism relayed by its own editorial page editor. Brent Staples was quoting a Missourian article by University of Missouri journalism professor Cynthia Frisby when something she wrote just leaped off the page. It was a charge of racist slurs being hurled at her by fellow School of Journalism faculty members. So what is the response from the Times? Nothing. Even though it would be easy to investigate, they have not checked into her charges. Here is the shocking claim by Professor Frisby as relayed by the incredibly incurious Staples:
By Tom Blumer | November 10, 2015 | 11:48 PM EST
Name the missing word in the following sentence from tonight's Associated Press report on the current situation at the University of Missouri: "On Friday, the now-former chancellor issued an open letter decrying racism after a swastika smeared in feces was found in a campus dormitory." The obviously missing word is "allegedly," as in, "was allegedly found." That word is also missing in sentences found in three separate reports at the New York Times. On October, 24, the Washington Post unskeptically accepted the recounting of the incident in a report shortly after it — ahem, allegedly — occurred.
There's a really big problem here. Sean Davis at The Federalist was unable, after extensive efforts, to locate any evidence that the incident really took place. Additionally, he found that a photograph supposedly representing what was done has been present elsewhere on the Internet for a year.
By Tom Blumer | November 10, 2015 | 7:54 PM EST
Today's "I'm just making stuff up on the fly" award nominee is Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press.
The AP reporter, named by National Review's Kevin Williamson as America's "Worst Economics Writer" in 2013, lived down to his designation in a Tuesday report on the Census Bureau's September Monthly Trade Inventories and Sales release. He described a sales increase which didn't come close to offsetting the previous month's decline as "robust," failed to note that the reported increase in inventories will likely increase third-quarter GDP while perhaps depressing the fourth quarter, and described a "major effort to work down an overhang" in inventories not found in the report he was covering. His most important miss, though, was failing to note that trade inventories remain dangerously bloated.
By Matthew Balan | November 10, 2015 | 1:46 PM EST
CBS This Morning stood out as the sole Big Three network morning newscast on Tuesday to cover a University of Missouri academic shouting down a reporter, briefly physically attacking him, and then calling people over to "get this reporter out of here...I need some muscle over here." Norah O'Donnell spotlighted Melissa Click, "an assistant professor of mass media," who along with "students, were telling the media...to back off." ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today didn't mention Click.
By Seton Motley | November 9, 2015 | 1:04 PM EST
The political definition of Cronyism is: government policy that favors one or more specific beneficiaries - at the expense of everyone else. To wit: $80 billion of the 2009 “Stimulus” was wasted on “green energy” companies - 80% of whom were Barack Obama donors. Amongst the parade of horribles contained therein: the government took money from energy companies - to fund competitors to their energy companies.
Sadly, a $3.5-trillion-a-year federal government budget is filled to the rafters with nigh-endless Cronyism. There’s so much to undo - one must triage and prioritize. And while we work to reduce and eliminate, we most certainly should not create a whole new Cronyism - that will dwarf all the others combined.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) late last week gave us a quintessential example of aiming at the tiny - while they have for years championed the huge. Behold:
By Curtis Houck | November 6, 2015 | 8:40 PM EST
On Friday night, two of the three major broadcast networks saw no interest in telling their viewers that the Supreme Court of the United States had decided to accept another major case on the future of ObamaCare as the high court will hear arguments pertaining to the law’s contraception mandate. Surprisingly, NBC Nightly News not only covered it, but offered a full, one-minute-and-21-second report from Justice correspondent Pete Williams.