Agence France-Presse

Headline: 'Antarctica's Ice Loss Helps Offset Global Warming'
By Noel Sheppard | November 10, 2009 | 10:21 PM EST

A British study has found a new area of sea off the coast of Antarctica, supposedly caused by global warming, that is soaking up carbon dioxide climate alarmists like Al Gore and his media minions believe is responsible for -- wait for it! -- global warming.

You really can't make this stuff up!

Professor Lloyd Peck, a near-shore marine biologist from the British Antarctic Survey, marvelously said about the find, "It shows nature's ability to thrive in the face of adversity."

With obviously little fanfare, this supports the view of much-maligned climate realists who maintain that fluctuations in global temperatures are largely cyclical, and that nature typically balances such changes over the course of time.

As Agence France-Presse reported Tuesday:

Sean Penn Heading to Cuba to Interview Castro for Vanity Fair
By Noel Sheppard | October 26, 2009 | 12:53 AM EDT

If Fidel Castro and Sean Penn are in the same room, which one do you think hates America more?

Such a question doesn't seem to concern Vanity Fair who according to the website TMZ has hired Penn to write an article about how Barack Obama and his administration have impacted Cuba.

As reported by Agence France-Presse Sunday (h/t Big Hollywood):

'Beds'r Burning': Celebs to Sing Song to Stop Global Warming
By Noel Sheppard | September 15, 2009 | 10:11 AM EDT

All together now: "I'd like to teach the world to stop global warming."

Though such likely won't be the lyrics, a group of the world's leading celebrities have joined together to create a new song to draw attention to climate change.

After all, with an Oscar-winning film, a Nobel Peace Prize, and all the focus on Al Gore's now completely debunked schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth," there certainly hasn't been enough attention given to what is indeed becoming one of the biggest scams in history.

Despite all that, folks who regularly fly around the world emitting more carbon dioxide in a year than most people on the planet will all of their lives feel the need to scold those barely making ends meet.

As reported by Agence France-Presse Monday (h/t reader Rod Richardson):

Not News: AFP Runs Stale Obama-Supporting Health Care Poll Done Before House Bill Even Debuted
By Tom Blumer | August 7, 2009 | 5:39 PM EDT
AFPpicSidebarOnObamaPollStory080409About the only thing you can conclude about the Agence France-Presse wire service's August 4 "news" item about a health care poll result ("Majority back Obama on health care reform: poll") is that they couldn't find anything more recent than three weeks old to provide the result they were looking for. So AFP went back to a poll done between July 9-13 -- an online one no less. As NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard would say, "I kid you not."

The House Democrats' 1,018-page health-care plan wasn't even released until late in the day on Tuesday, July 14. To say that AFP's report and the related poll results are worse than worthless to any current discussions is almost to praise them too much.

Here is a mini-pic of the first several paragraphs presented for fair use, discussion, and repudiation purposes:

'Apparent' or 'Clear'? AFP Waters Down Iranian Diplomat's Statement On Nuke Weapon Intentions
By Tom Blumer | June 20, 2009 | 1:50 AM EDT
AFPlogo

Question: How do you water down the possible significance of a statement by an Iranian diplomat?

Answer: Wait for an AFP journalist to revise a previous raw report.

A short unbylined dispatch from the wire service reported that the diplomat "apparently misspoke" when he said that Iran has "the right to a nuclear weapon" not long after the incident occurred. (Dictionary.com tells us that "Used before a noun, apparent means 'seeming.'")

In a later full story ("Iran denies wants nuclear weapon as insurance"), AFP's Simon Morgan reassured readers that the statement by Ali Asghar Soltanieh "was clearly a slip of the tongue."

How can he be so certain?

Here is most of the brief early report after the incident (note that the headline, "Bombshell: Iran envoy in nuclear weapon slip-up," already had the excuse down pat; bolds are mine):

AP Calls Terrorism Financier a 'Muslim Charity Member'
By Noel Sheppard | May 27, 2009 | 4:42 PM EDT

If you saw the headline "Muslim Charity Member Gets 65 Years In Prison," would you assume his crime was funding terrorist activities, or possibly something totally unrelated?

Given that this "charity member" was convicted last November on 108 charges surrounding the transfer of more than $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas, one would think a stronger, more direct and informative headline would be in order.

Apparently not to the Associated Press (h/t NBer DMartyr):

Lost in Translation: Biz Press Reports Dollar Amounts of Toyota's Losses, Not Its Sales
By Tom Blumer | May 10, 2009 | 9:01 AM EDT

Here are the first two paragraphs of Toyota Motor Corporation's press release announcing its financial results for the year ended March 31, 2009 (most Japanese companies end their fiscal years on March 31; bolds are mine):

Tokyo - TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (TMC) today announced operating results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009.

On a consolidated basis, net revenues for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009 totaled 20.53 trillion yen, a decrease of 21.9 percent compared to the last fiscal year. Operating income decreased from 2.27 trillion yen to a loss of 461 billion yen, and income before income taxes, minority interest and equity in earnings of affiliated companies was a loss of 560.4 billion yen. Net income decreased from 1.72 trillion yen to a loss of 437 billion yen.

Across the board, the financial press reports I read translated the company's reported losses expressed in yen into dollars ($4.4 billion in $US for the year, and $7.7 billion in the fourth quarter), but not its revenues (about $207 billion and $35 billion, respectively).

Why is that?

AFP: 'The Obamas Are the Planet's Hottest Rock Stars'
By Noel Sheppard | April 27, 2009 | 9:42 AM EDT

Move over Madonna, Miley, and Britney -- the Obamas are the hottest rock stars on the planet!

So wrote wire service Agence France-Presse Sunday in a piece so filled with sugar one might require an insulin injection to survive the full reading.

In an article entitled "Obamas Rock and Rule," AFP sunk to new lows in gushing and fawning over the first family:

AP, AFP, Reuters: French Supporters of Pope 'Far-Right' or 'Right-Wing'
By Matthew Balan | March 23, 2009 | 12:21 PM EDT

The three largest mainstream media wire services all agreed that supporters of Pope Benedict XVI who dared to stand up to anti-Catholic leftists in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Sunday were extremists of the right of some sort. The Associated Press used the “right-wing” label to describe the faithful Catholics. Both Reuters and the French Agence France-Presse both used the term “far-right youths,” with the AFP going so far as describing the pro-Benedict protesters as  “far-right militants” in another report.

ACT-UP Paris, joined by communists and “green” activists, protested in front of the famed Gothic cathedral to voice opposition to the pontiff’s recent remarks against condom use during his visit to Africa. In addition to holding signs which labeled Benedict XVI an “assassin,” they threw condoms on the ground while giving others to passers-by as people were leaving Mass. The radical left-wing activists skirmished with the supporters of the Pope, leading to the arrest of eleven people by police.

LA TV Station Notes ACORN Presence at School Board Meeting; Other Outlets Ignore
By Tom Blumer | March 11, 2009 | 3:47 PM EDT

Los Angeles's NBC television affiliate must not have gotten the memo telling them that they should not utter the name of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), lest anyone reach the "wrong" conclusions.

NBC Los Angeles is the only media outlet I have found thus far to identify ACORN's presence in a story about a "disruptive display of disobedience" by members the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) at a school board meeting Tuesday (the story credit is to "Associated Press/NBC Los Angeles," but as you will see later, I found no AP story containing an ACORN reference).

Here is the story headline that the Google News crawler apparently originally found:

LAschoolBoardmtgHline0309.jpg

Look at how it changed.

GM's Auditor Issues 'Going Concern' Warning; Press Ignores Post-Bailout Sales Deterioration
By Tom Blumer | March 5, 2009 | 11:57 AM EST

GMsilverLogo0309.jpgAn early review of press coverage relating to this morning's warning by General Motors that "there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern" shows no coverage of the reason why, despite $13.4 billion in taxpayer money (NOT counting bailout money going to GMAC), things have gotten so much worse so quickly.

The reason is that sales in the two full months since the Bush-approved, Obama-cheered bailout took place have tanked (see graphic at this NB post yesterday):

  • December 2008 (last [mostly] pre-bailout month) — down 31.2%
  • January 2009 (first full bailout month) — down 48.9%
  • February 2009 (second full bailout month — down 53.1%

Press reports I have seen are saying nothing about this frightening decay in the past 60 days:

AFP Criticizes Fox News for Obama-Critical Article -- Written by AP
By Tom Blumer | February 26, 2009 | 1:34 PM EST

Maybe it was just too easy to assume the worst of the news network most others in the press love to hate. Or perhaps it was deliberate.

Whatever the reason, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) wire service's Wednesday story about reaction to Barack Obama's sort-of State of the Union Speech the previous evening spent four of its last five paragraphs pinning a report harshly critical of various claims in the speech on Fox News. 

True, Fox News's web site carried the story ("Fact Check: Obama's Words on Home Aid Ring Hollow"). But it was actually written by the Associated Press's Calvin Woodward and Jim Kuhnhenn. (Yes, the AP actually wrote an Obama-critical story. More on that in a bit.)

Here are the four paragraphs in question from the AFP report, which otherwise lavishes praise on Obama's speech and rips into Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's GOP response performance: