Censorship

AP Writeup on Muslim Billboard Campaign Ignores Terrorist Ties in Sponsoring Group's History
By Tom Blumer | September 4, 2015 | 11:58 PM EDT

On Thursday, the Associated Press published the equivalent of press release promoting a pro-Muslim billboard campaign orchestrated by the Islamic Circle of North America.

The writeup's author, Rasha Madkour, failed to get any kind of skeptical comment from anyone about the nature of the campaign, and utterly failed to tell readers anything about the Islamic Circle's or its spokesperson's past (and possibly still-present) terrorist ties. Instead, readers were given the equivalent of a feel-good story about members trying to "reclaim the message" of Islam.

Press Fawns Over Minn. 'Black Lives Matter' Rally, Ignores 20K 'All Lives Matter' March
By Tom Blumer | August 31, 2015 | 3:00 PM EDT

On Saturday, "more than 20,000" people — perhaps as many as 25,000 to 30,000, according to some police — marched through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama at a Glenn Beck-led "Restoring Unity" rally chanting "All Lives Matter." The event has been described as possibly "the largest march in Birmingham since the civil rights marches of 1963."

Searches at Google News and at the Associated Press's main national and "Big Story" sites indicate that no establishment press outlet gave the rally national coverage. The AP only managed to push out terse three-paragraph and seven-paragraph local stories. Meanwhile, a Reuters story on the less than peaceful march by the "Black Lives Matter" crowd attended by an estimated 325 (compared to an expected 900) in Minneapolis was carried at Yahoo News and the New York Times (at least).

The Dean Pipedream: Hillary's Email and Server Scandal 'Manufactured' by a 'Bored' Press
By Tom Blumer | August 23, 2015 | 11:31 PM EDT

11-1/2 years ago, we had the "Dean Scream." After finishing a disappointing third in the Iowa caucuses, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean attempted to further fire up his strangely giddy supporters by telling them about upcoming state primaries they would fight to win. After finishing his list, Dean told them: "And then we're going to Washington, DC to take back the White House!" — and shouted out the scream heard 'round the world which ended his electoral viability.

Sunday on Meet the Press, we saw the "Dean Pipedream." Asked by host Chuck Todd how well Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has handled the scandal over her use of a private server for personal and government emails while serving as Secretary of State, Dean blamed her situation "partly ... (on) a press that's bored." 

LA Times Reporter: CMP's Anti-Planned Parenthood Vids Are Like 'Discredited' Swiftvets 'Smear'
By Tom Blumer | August 22, 2015 | 1:11 PM EDT

Well, this was inevitable. On the same day that the Center for Medical Progress exposed the CEO of former Planned Parenthood partner StemExpress laughing "about shipping whole baby heads," a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, in what I have beeen told is a front-page story, has compared CMP's video campaign exposing the commerce in baby body parts to the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth's campaign. The Swift Boat Vets' effort successfully exposed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's serial lies about his service in Vietnam and his smearing of Vietnam veterans as war criminals after he returned.

Times reporter Maria L. La Ganga joined the paper in 1981, and "has served as San Francisco bureau chief, edited in the Business section and pitched in on five presidential elections." Even if one of those five elections wasn't 2004, and even if she didn't dig into conflicting claims over whether Kerry truly earned the Vietnam War medals he received, it's virtually inconceivable that she doesn't know about his frequently stated "Christmas in Cambodia" lie.

AP Report on Hillary's Email 'Worries' Ignores Judge's Order, Reuters Bombshell
By Tom Blumer | August 21, 2015 | 4:16 PM EDT

The time stamp on an Associated Press report on Hillary Clinton's email "worries" ("CLINTON FACING FRESH WORRIES IN CONGRESS OVER EMAILS") by Ken Thomas and Julie Bykowicz this morning is 11:21 a.m. Eastern Time.

Despite that time stamp, the report fails to mention a bombshell report from Reuters ("Dozens of Clinton emails were classified from the start, U.S. rules suggest") originally posted at 5:17 a.m. (time stamp has since been updated). Going even further back, the AP story fails to mention a Thursday afternoon story about how "A federal judge has ordered the State Department to cooperate with the investigation into the Hillary Clinton private email scandal." The decision to ignore these developments is in all likelihood deliberate.

AP Keeps Hillary's Press Conference Walkout, 'With a Cloth?' Response Out of Coverage
By Tom Blumer | August 19, 2015 | 5:45 PM EDT

The Associated Press works very hard to ensure that its subscribing outlets and low-information voters who rely solely on its work — knowingly or unknowingly — never learn about Hillary Clinton's smart-aleck, sarcastic, condescending, reality-avoiding behavior.

Tuesday night, four AP reporters (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) — Jack Gillum and Stephen Braun in Washington, with the help of Ken Thomas and Eric Tucker in North Las Vegas — failed to report that Mrs. Clinton cut her press conference short after getting a genuine question from Fox News's Ed Henry, and that part of her answer to Henry's query about whether her hard drive was wiped was "With a cloth?"

AP's Boak Finds Millennials Can't Afford to Buy Homes, Cites No Policy-Driven Causes
By Tom Blumer | August 17, 2015 | 6:32 PM EDT

Several commenters at my econ-related posts during the past several months here at NewsBusters and my home blog have noted how Washington's mix of high deficits, over-regulation, and quantitative easing never seem to get any kind of blame for the economy in establishment press coverage.

One could hardly find a better example of that deliberate avoidance than Josh Boak's writeup today at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, on how "Home ownership ... is increasingly on hold for younger Americans." While he identified several symptoms which could easily be traced to Obama administration and Federal Reserve policies, Boak never tagged anyone who might be responsible, instead acting as if all these adverse conditions just sort of happened and ... oh well, here we are.

Word Non-Association at AP: 'Hillary' and 'Crime'
By Tom Blumer | August 15, 2015 | 10:49 AM EDT

All you need to know about the Associated Press's interest in accurately reporting current developments in the investigations into 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private email server is this: A search at its national site on "Hillary crime" (not in quotes) returns nothing.

Ken Thomas's coverage of the former Secretary of State's "forceful defense" last night in "a speech before influential Iowa Democrats" is all too typical: Mrs. Clinton gets to say that all of this is "partisan games" involving "playing politics." All I see is substance-free whining. "My opponents don't like me" is not a defense. Several paragraphs from Ken's calamity follow the jump:

Not News: StemExpress's Thursday Courtroom Setback Against Center For Medical Progress
By Tom Blumer | August 14, 2015 | 11:50 PM EDT

As Spencer Raley at NewsBusters noted earlier this evening, StemExpress, "the now infamous biomedical company which allegedly bought fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood for profit, is breaking off its relationship with the nation’s leading abortion provider." Raley referenced a Politico item by Jennifer Haberkorn with a mid-afternoon Friday time stamp. As far as I can tell, it is the only establishment press outlet to note this development.

No establishment press outlet has noted a key courtroom development yesterday which may have been what really drove StemExpress to make its move — a move which, by the way, has not been announced in the "news" section at the company's web site, even though it has posted five other items during the past month relating to the Planned Parenthood fetal tissue outrages.

AP Changes Description of Job Growth in Report on Retail Sales From 'Seemingly Robust' to 'Solid'
By Tom Blumer | August 13, 2015 | 2:32 PM EDT

It "seems" that a bit of doubt seeped into an economy-related Associated Press report today. An hour later, it was gone.

An early report by Josh Boak with a 10:22 a.m. time stamp found at a subscribing outlet's site described job growth in the past 12 months as "seemingly robust." An hour later, in an expansion of that early report primarily covering today's government release on July retail sales, Boak, in collaboration with Anne D'Innocenzio, described it as "solid."

Press Downplays, Hides EPA's Responsibility for Western River Contamination
By Tom Blumer | August 9, 2015 | 10:25 AM EDT

On Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency committed an act which would have likely become instant national news if a private entity had done the same thing.

On Friday, John Merline at Investors' Business Daily succinctly noted that the EPA "dumped a million gallons of mine waste into Animas River in Colorado, turning it into what looked like Tang, forcing the sheriff's office to close the river to recreational users." Oh, and it "also failed to warn officials in downstream New Mexico about the spill." Yet here we are four days later, and the story has gotten very little visibility outside of center-right blogs and outlets. That's largely explained by how the wire services have handled the story. After the jump, readers will see headlines and descriptions of the stories which have appeared thus far at the web site of the New York Times:

AP Shows Double Standard in Covering State Planned Parenthood Fetal Parts Followups
By Tom Blumer | August 8, 2015 | 11:56 PM EDT

The Associated Press has demonstrated a double standard in covering developments in various states in the wake of the gruesome Planned Parenthood videos posted by the Center for Medical Progress. Bad news for Planned Parenthood gets only local coverage. Exculpatory news, even if artificially concocted, gets national exposure.

In Florida, a statewide review of the state’s 16 Planned Parenthood facilities ordered by Governor Rick Scott led to four citations, as reported at Townhall: "[T]hree were conducting procedures that were outside of their licenses (a.k.a late-term abortions) and the last one was improperly logging the disposal of infant remains." The AP treated this news as a local story. Meanwhile, news that there have been no transfers of fetal tissue from the three abortion facilities in Kansas has been posted at both the wire service's main national site and at its "Big Story" site.