Jesse Holland

AP, Covering Latest Government Report, Hides the Obama Era's Poverty Rise, Household Income Decline
By Tom Blumer | September 16, 2015 | 5:21 PM EDT

From its "Don't read this story, it's boring" headline to its obfuscating content, today's coverage at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, of the Census Bureau's 2014 report on income and poverty in the United States was all about ensuring that readers know as little as possible about the declining incomes and disheartening increases in officially-defined poverty seen during the Obama administration.

I'll focus on just two of the many shortcomings in Jesse J. Holland's AP report.

AP Falsely Claims This Year's Reported Poverty Drop is 'First Since 2006'
By Tom Blumer | September 18, 2014 | 12:09 AM EDT

As been its habit since Barack Obama took office in 2009, the Associated Press has, whenever possible, considered the impact of news developments on the President and his party as far more important than what's actually happening in the lives of real people.

The latest example is the wire service's coverage of Tuesday's Census Bureau report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage in the U.S. Nothing — not even fundamental accuracy, as will be seen shortly — was more important to reporter Jesse J. Holland, the AP's "Race and Ethnicity writer," than telling readers that a half-point fall in the poverty rate from 15.0 percent to 14.5 percent constituted "a bit of encouraging news about the nation's economy as President Barack Obama and Congress gear up for midterm elections." The fact that the Obama Era has brought us levels of poverty not seen in 20 years — this year's figure matches 1994's — apparently doesn't matter.

Supremes Let Little Sisters Have Their Way During Appeal; AP Ridiculously Calls That Result a 'Compromise'
By Tom Blumer | January 24, 2014 | 11:49 PM EST

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a one-paragraph order in Little Sisters of the Poor et al v. Sebeluis et al. It told the Sisters that for the case to continue with no enforcement of the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate, they need only to inform the government in writing "that they are non-profit organizations that hold themselves out as religious and have religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services." That's easy, because that's what they are, and that's their position.

As a result, the government has been "enjoined from enforcing against the applicants the challenged provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and related regulations pending final disposition." In other words, the Sisters will get their way until the case is decided. After the jump, I'll present a bit of the sane coverage by the Washington Post's Robert Barnes, followed by portions of the reality-avoiding writeup of Jesse Holland found at the Associated Press.

Memo to All AP Propagandists: It's Okay to Call It 'ObamaCare' Now
By Tom Blumer | March 27, 2012 | 1:16 PM EDT

Apparently most reporters at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Propagandists, lost the memo that Reuters got ("Obama Campaign: Obamacare Not a Bad Word After All"). Either that, or they haven't been paying attention their Obama For America emails.

OFA and President Obama himself both say it's now okay to call the fraudulently named Affordable Care Act which became law in March 2010 "ObamaCare"; the only matter in dispute is whether one should capitalize the "c." Jeff Mason at Reuters, which was already a bit late with its own report, tried to explain it all Monday evening, but "somehow" forgot what may be the most obvious motivation, namely that the "affordable" part of the original bill's title has been proven to be anything but:

AP Demotes Unanimity of Supremes' Decision on Religious Workers' Rights in Subsequent Revisions
By Tom Blumer | January 11, 2012 | 5:34 PM EST

We can forgive Pittsburgh Steelers for avoiding the mention of the name of a certain quarterback who plays for the Denver Broncos in the coming days.

Related forgiveness does not extend to Jesse J. Holland at the Associated Press concerning his coverage of the Supreme Court's u-u-u-unanimous ruling today that religious workers cannot sue for job discrimination. As seen here at a Weekly Standard excerpt, the unanimity of the ruling was in the first sentence of the wire service's initial report. Now look how deep it's buried in the 4:10 p.m. version of Holland's report, and how the AP writer attempted to water down the ruling's significance in the interim (bolds are mine):

Nobel Consideration of Adult Stem Cell Researcher Should Be Teachable Moment to AP Political Reporters
By Tom Blumer | October 4, 2010 | 8:05 AM EDT
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx40/mmatters/StemCellsDo the science writers and political reporters at the Associated Press ever compare notes? Based on their divergent coverage of stem cell research, it seems doubtful.

On Sunday, AP science writer Milan Rising reported that a Japanese scientist was under probable consideration to win this year's Nobel Prize in medicine:

A Japanese researcher who discovered how to make stem cells from ordinary skin cells and avoid the ethical quandaries of making them from human eggs could be a candidate for the medicine award when the 2010 Nobel Prize announcements kick off Monday, experts said.

Several prominent Nobel guessers have pointed to Kyoto University Professor Shinya Yamanaka as a potential winner of the coveted award.

Though the prize, announced this morning, went to another gentleman, the question remains: How could this be? As a court case over President Obama's executive order permitting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research has been progressing through its various appeals during the past several weeks, AP's political writers have been giving readers the clear impression that it is the research involving the destruction of human embryos that holds the real promise of scientific progress. Uh, not exactly. In fact, not at all.

AP Item on Judge's Embryonic Stem Cell Action Mostly Avoids Naming Adult Cells, Dodges Efficacy Issues
By Tom Blumer | September 8, 2010 | 12:03 AM EDT
MuscleStemCellsIn a Tuesday evening report, Associated Press Writer Jesse L. Holland engaged in a great deal of word massage which appears to have been designed to mislead relative newcomers to discussions about stem cell research.

The news concerned Federal Judge Royce Lamberth's refusal of the federal government's request that he lift his August 23 order blocking federal funding for embryonic stem cell research during the appeals process.

Less-informed readers could be excused for believing, at least through first nine of the eleven tortured paragraphs in Holland's report, that stem cells can only be obtained from human embryos. In Paragraph 10, Holland finally acknowledged the existence of adult stem cells, but then dubiously implied that the litigation was brought solely because the plaintiffs don't want competition from embryonic research. The AP writer also ignored a fine piece written in early August by wire service colleague Malcolm Ritter (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), who accurately reported that "Adult stem cell research (is) far ahead of embryonic."

What follows are several paragraphs from Holland's horror, including a ridiculous title falsely implying that no federal funds are going into any kind of stem cell research (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Judge won't let stem cell money keep flowing