ABC on Monday continued to assail Indiana's religious freedom law, hyping the "firestorm" over a law that "many" say could "legalize discrimination." Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts trumpeted "growing calls to move the men's Final Four and boycott the state over the new law that many say legalizes discrimination."
Indiana
By Tim Graham | March 29, 2015 | 8:12 AM EDT
Nancy Armour was a sports writer for Associated Press for years before coming a sports columnist for USA Today. Or a sports censor. Armour believes anyone holding a conservative view based on some ancient holy text that homosexuality is a sin should be punished and exiled in some say. It's a "lunatic fringe," she writes.
When Indiana’s governor signed a law creating a religious-freedom exception for gay marriages, giving the right to refuse to participate or endorse it, Armour wrote “NCAA's next moves should be out of Indiana.” Everyone should evacuate the Hate State immediately!
By Randy Hall | March 28, 2015 | 1:29 PM EDT
A contentious battle between supporters of religious freedom and people in favor of gay rights in Indiana reached a turning point on Thursday, when Governor Mike Pence signed Senate Bill 101 -- a measure that both the state House and Senate had passed earlier in the week -- into law after stating: “The legislation is about respecting and reassuring Hoosiers that their religious freedoms are intact.”
However, blogger Arthur Chu wrote an article the same day for the liberal Daily Beast website on this topic with the title “Gay Money Is No Good in Indiana” under the subhead “Bigots Vs. Business.”
By Ken Shepherd | March 26, 2015 | 11:07 PM EDT
In his March 26 softball interview with former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) -- "Barney's a good friend of mine, I hope we sell some books" -- Hardball host Chris Matthews misled his audience about the nature of a new law signed into effect in Indiana designed to protect the religious liberties of shop owners.
By Curtis Houck | March 9, 2015 | 11:14 PM EDT
The Indianapolis Star reported on Monday that it had obtained emails from an employee at the Indianapolis VA hospital who mocked returning combat veterans who were facing mental health issues and committed suicide. On Monday night, both the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley and NBC Nightly News failed to cover this story.
By Tom Blumer | January 15, 2015 | 12:31 AM EST
At the Lafayette, Indiana Courier Journal, reporter Mikel Livingston, that paper's social policiy reporter, set out to try to pass the Food Stamp Challenge.
The idea, in his words, was to "survive for one week on $29.69," because, he says, that is "what the average recipient of SNAP benefits, commonly called food stamps, receives each week in Indiana." By Day 6, he claimed, "faced with the possibility that eating all my remaining food on the final day would net me just 619 calories, I realized I had failed." What he really proved is that he was well on his way to succeeding with room to spare.
By Ryan Robertson | March 28, 2013 | 12:10 PM EDT
The Comcast Corporation, sole owner of NBCUniversal now, recently made the decision to refuse advertising from gun stores and ammunition manufacturers. Operating in 39 states and the District of Columbia, it is by far the largest cable company in the country. What's more, it holds a regional monopoly on cable TV in a multitude of markets, meaning it's the only affordable televised commercial access that many gun stores have.
The blanket directive was issued just as soon as its purchase of NBCUniversal was finalized, which has had a long-standing policy against gun-related ads on its networks.
By Clay Waters | October 25, 2012 | 9:41 PM EDT
New York Times reporters Jonathan Weisman and Michael Cooper both suggested Mitt Romney would be hurt by comments made by Indiana's Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock at a debate Tuesday night. While explaining why he doesn't support abortion in the case of rape, Mourdock said: "I've struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."
Democrats and their media allies pounced, devoting more airtime to Mourdock's comments than to damning emails showing the White House was informed within hours that the Benghazi attacks were terrorism, not a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video. The paper's get-Romney attack line was clear from the headline in Thursday's edition: "Rape Remark Jolts a Senate Race, and the Presidential One, Too."
By Clay Waters | May 12, 2012 | 7:12 AM EDT
The New York Times's Monica Davey and Trip Gabriel shared Democratic "giddiness" over the possibility of winning a Senate seat in the Republican-leaning state Indiana on Thursday: "With Primary Over, a New Battle for Indiana Senate Seat Begins." The text box was all sunshine for the Democratic Party's prospects for the Indiana seat: "Strategies emerge as Democrats now see a chance at a win."
The morning after Senator Richard G. Lugar, in his 36th year in office, was overwhelmingly defeated in a Republican primary election, this state awoke on Wednesday to another surprise: A new battle, now likely to be far fiercer and costlier than once expected, was already brewing over the seat he leaves behind.
By Ken Shepherd | February 2, 2012 | 11:50 AM EST
The passage of "controversial" right-to-work legislation in Indiana is a "blow to organized labor." That's the spin by Reuters reporter Susan Guyett, who front-loaded her coverage of the bill's passage by focusing on anger from liberals and labor unions over the new legislation (emphases mine):
AP's LoBianco Laments Financial Penalties Facing Indiana Dem Legislators Who Fail to Show Up for Work
By Ken Shepherd | January 6, 2012 | 4:11 PM EST Indiana House of Representatives Democrats could incur fines for every day that they refuse to show up to work. Democratic caucus members have threatened to fail to report for duty as a protest against a Republican bill that would make Indiana a right-to-work state.
Reporting the story for the Associated Press today, Tom LoBianco (available here on Twitter) heavily weighed down his report with sob stories about the potential financial difficulty facing Democrats should they boycott the job they were elected to do (emphasis mine):
By Clay Waters | September 9, 2011 | 10:44 AM EDT
The New York Times vs. fiscal discipline, once again. Monica Davey reported emotional anecdotes from Michigan Wednesday against attempts by the state to rein in costs: “Families Feel Sharp Edge of State Budget Cuts.”
Here in Michigan, more than 11,000 families received letters last week notifying them that in October they will lose the cash assistance they have been provided for years. Next year, people who lose their jobs here will receive fewer weeks of state unemployment benefits, and those making little enough to qualify for the state’s earned income tax credit will see a far smaller benefit from it.