Regional Media

AP: 'Islamic State Membership Has Its Privileges'
By Tom Blumer | May 27, 2015 | 11:22 AM EDT

Associated Press reporter Sarah El Deeb and Abu Bilal al-Homsi, the person she now describes as a "Syrian fighter," have had a long acquaintance.

Sarah's and Abu's long-term relationship culminated in a Tuesday afternoon story which AP condensed into 140 characters on Twitter as follows: "Marriage, honeymoons and welfare: @AP exclusive shows Islamic State membership has its privileges." A great deal of justified outrage has followed the release of El Deeb's dispatch for "romancing the Stone Age" by glorifying the advantages accruing to an Islamic State jihadist. More attention needs to be paid to her history with al-Homsi, and her "reporting" in general.

Attention Ohio Media: Former Governors Whose States Lost a Combined Million-Plus Jobs Set to Rally Party Faithful in Late June
By Tom Blumer | May 20, 2015 | 5:38 PM EDT

The former Democratic governors of Michigan and Ohio are on tap to be in the same place at the same time on June 27 in the Buckeye State capital of Columbus.

This is a made-for-the-media event for the record books. I certainly can't recall a time when two former governors who oversaw a combined total of over 1 million peak-to-trough job losses during their terms in office have been at the same place at the same time — to celebrate. Yes, I said celebrate.

MSNBC Mocks Cop Dragged by Fleeing Suspect
By Tom Blumer | May 18, 2015 | 2:39 PM EDT

The folks at MSNBC exhibited a sick sense of "humor" on Friday.

As Gateway Pundit's Kristinn Taylor reported Friday afternoon, the network posted "a video to MSNBC’s Facebook page that mocks police over a criminal dragging a police officer by a car as he attempted to flee ..." The post asked the following question, which was also tweeted: "Does it count as a police chase if you take the cop along for the ride?"

AP Reports an ISIS Yazidi Massacre Death Toll Far Below Other Outlets
By Tom Blumer | May 3, 2015 | 10:05 AM EDT

Is the Associated Press playing a numbers game in its reporting on a massacre in Iraq?

Stories about ISIS massacring 300 Yazidi captives have appeared in several places. Leftists and Obama administration's apologists who want to believe that the number involved is just a figment of the imaginations of UK tabloid troublemakers and U.S. right-wing bloggers can't use that copout to explain away a report from their venerable BBC:

Press Ignoring Maryland Sheriff’s Insistence That Baltimore Cops Were Told to Stand Down, Retreat
By Tom Blumer | April 30, 2015 | 10:51 PM EDT

On Wednesday, Fox News reported that "a senior law enforcement official" who has since emerged from anonymity told them that Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake "gave an order for police to stand down as riots broke out Monday night."

That source, Michael Lewis, currently the Sheriff in Wicomico County and a former Sergeant with the Maryland State Police, appeared on the Norris and Davis show in Baltimore today and repeated his assertion, while adding that the orders included commands to retreat. Those who listen to the interview following the jump will have little doubt that Mr. Lewis is telling the truth, leaving all to wonder how it can be that, from what I can tell, no one in the nation's establishment press at this point has reported what he is saying:

Not News: Obama Education Secretary Threatens to 'Step In,' Plays Race Card Over Common Core Testing Opt-Outs
By Tom Blumer | April 29, 2015 | 9:27 PM EDT

Well, this is awkward — or rather, it would be if the press cared about the federally-driven tyranny which is in the process of capturing the nation's public and private K-12 schools.

Common Core's proponents have insisted and still insist that "it was and will remain a state-led effort" (italics is theirs). Yet when faced with the "problem" of too many parents opting out of its intrusive testing regime — something they are supposedly free to do without penalty or reprisal — guess who steps in with threats and smears? You guessed it: Federal Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Sherrod Brown's Fictions About Bush 41 and Trade Spanning 12 Years Don't Interest Ohio's Newspapers
By Tom Blumer | April 28, 2015 | 9:45 PM EDT

It must be nice to be a leftist Washington politician representing congressional districts in or the entire state of Ohio.

You can serially fib about something for years on end, and ordinarily the folks back home won't know any better. Even when you're caught red-handed by the national press occasionally breaking down and doing its job, your area's or the Buckeye State's press will ignore it. A case in point is the Washington Post's finding on April 23 at its Fact Checker blog that Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown has for a dozen years completely fabricated statements about trade which he has attributed to President George H.W. Bush.

Columnist Slurs the South, Sees 'White Micro-Aggression' in Reporter's Question to Jesse Jackson About Cop Cameras
By Tom Blumer | April 27, 2015 | 2:27 PM EDT

At Instapundit, Elizabeth Price Foley caught a real doozy of a column in the Cincinnati area's only daily newspaper — if you insist on calling something which looks like it was cobbled together overnight at Fedex-Kinko's a "newspaper."

If there was a daily prize for the largest quantity of subtle but arrogant condescension in an opinion column, Cincinnati native, Ohio State graduate, and current North Charleston, South Carolina middle school teacher Meg Stentz would be yesterday's hands-down winner. Proving that she's keeping up with the latest trends in political correctness, she even dragged one of the left's favorite new words into her Sunday writeup.

Cincinnati Enquirer Reporter: Cancellation of High School's 'Covered Girl Challenge' May Signal 'Bigotry'
By Tom Blumer | April 19, 2015 | 10:35 PM EDT

At Mason High School in Ohio this past week, the school's administration originally supported but has now cancelled a "Covered Girl Challenge." The goal, according to a school email captured in full at Jihad Watch and almost nowhere else, was to "celebrate ... diversity and promote open mindedness" by promoting the Muslim Student Association's invitation to "all female students to ... wear a headscarf for the whole school day."

Jihad Watch, unlike every Ohio-based establishment press outlet report I have seen, including one found in the Cincinnati Enquirer, also linked readers to a reminder that collegiate chapters of the Muslim Student Association, which also encourages the creation of high school chapters under its aegis, have served as breeding grounds for terrorism (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Bill Daley: 'Uneven' Recovery Has Only Benefited 'A Small Slice'
By Tom Blumer | April 13, 2015 | 4:07 PM EDT

Well, this is awkward.

Undermining most of what the business press has done to try to portray the post-recession U.S. economy as performing adequately under President Barack Obama, Bill Daley, Obama’s former chief of staff, told CNBC today that Hillary Clinton "can’t run as the third term of Barack Obama economically," because the recovery has been "uneven" and has only benefited "a small slice" of U.S. households.

Richmond, Va. Hack Reports Memories Pizza's GoFundMe Effort For 'Fraud' — 'Just in Case' (Upated)
By Tom Blumer | April 4, 2015 | 11:28 PM EDT

UPDATE, April 6: An email sent by "Virginia Commonwealth University News" insists, despite the November 2014 tweet originally found at the link about Bryan's "GoFundMe" effort, that Alix Bryan "has not been employed by Virginia Commonwealth University." Accordingly, the text in this post's final sentence now refers to Bryan's claim in her WTVR bio and at her LinkedIn profile to have received a "Master’s in Multimedia Journalism from Virginia Commonwealth University."

Opening up a new frontier in the left's ongoing effort to intimidate opponents into silence, a Virginia TV reporter tweeted on Wednesday that "I have reported the GoFundMe for Memories Pizza for fraud. Just in case." In doing so, social media reporter Alix Bryan of CBS affiliate WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia, effectively admitted that she had no factual basis upon which to file such a report — but did so anyway.

To the surprise of very few, after she was publicly criticized for this disgraceful behavior, Bryan went to a wide variety of failed defenses before she ended up very inadequately "apologizing."

At Memories Pizza, New Threats Arise; Press's Determination to Ignore Them Continues (See Update)
By Tom Blumer | April 2, 2015 | 10:41 PM EDT

Update, April 3: The Indiana man who claims to have been hacked now admits that he wasn't, but says he was "joking" about robbing Memories Pizza, and is threatening to sue those who exposed his (ahem) public comments. 

Those of us following the Memories Pizza story won't have trouble remembering it as the years go by, thanks only partially to the Walkerton, Indiana store's fairly unusual name for a pizzeria.

What will also easy to recall are the "memories" of the unhinged and threatening leftist behavior that accompanied its owner's simple statement that, if the request ever arose, they would have to turn down catering a same-sex "marriage" because participating in or supporting such a ceremony violates their firm Christian religious beliefs — and the press's attempts to cover up what their journalistic malfeasance unleashed.