Washington

Trading Like It's 1995: Press Ignoring Inflation's Impact in Reporting Stock Market's Dive
By Tom Blumer | March 4, 2009 | 9:55 AM EST

DownGraph0309This report carried in the Washington Business Journal typified yesterday's coverage of yet another decline in the stock market:

Dow declines further still

Wall Street’s major stock indexes followed Monday’s strong sell-off with a day of fluctuation, ending with more losses.

The Dow Jones Industrials Average gyrated between modest gains and losses throughout the trading day, ending the down 37 points, or 0.55 percent, to close at 6,726. Monday’s fall below 7,000 sent the Dow to its lowest level since April 1997.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ended Tuesday trading down 4.49 to 696, it first close below the 700 level since October 1996. The Nasdaq Composite Index ended Tuesday’s session down 1.84 to 1321.

But after considering inflation, the markets are, in real terms, stuck at 1995 values, as shown in the following chart:

'Lethal Medication'? AP Prefers Culture-of-Death Euphemisms for Assisted Suicide
By Tim Graham | March 1, 2009 | 3:54 PM EST

Count Associated Press as one American news outlet that prefers the terminology of the culture of death.

Seattle Paper Publishers Pictures and Addresses of Homes With McCain Signs
By Warner Todd Huston | November 1, 2008 | 3:16 PM EDT

**Update** 4PM 11/01/08

Like Obama, the folks that run The Stranger "newspaper" in Seattle are all about tolerance... as long as you believe the same things they believe. If you don't, well, then you deserve intimidation and a good "outing." just as Obama has tried to intimidate radio talk show hosts, just like he has tried to use the office of the Attorney General to quash political free speech, The Stanger publication has decided that the best way to force citizens of Seattle to toe the far left political line is to have their homes photographed and their addresses made public for the outrageous crime of having a McCain/Palin sign on their property.

Editorial Director Dan Savage, another boring Seattle gay activist, has helmed this intimidation disguised as "humor" in order to attack his political opposition. Good thing ol' Danny is all "tolerant" and stuff, isn't it?

Seattle Times Feels Threatened, Calls for 'Net Neutrality'
By Jacob S. Lybbert | August 13, 2008 | 7:21 PM EDT

Jeff Poor's recent post (picked up by Drudge) reported on the potential return of the Fairness Doctrine under a President Obama--specifically for the purpose of the governing the internet. He quoted FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell who said the following: 

AP's 'US Now Winning Iraq War' Analysis Getting Light Exposure
By Tom Blumer | July 27, 2008 | 10:16 AM EDT

Robert Burns and Robert H. Reid created quite a stir in the blogosphere yesterday with their dispatch from Baghdad, "Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost." NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard accurately called it a "stop the presses" story, and ended his post with an important perspective that you really must read if you haven't already.

Now that the story has had one overnight news cycle since its appearance at about 9 AM yesterday, I looked around to see how much coverage Burns's and Reid's work received.

I looked at what the three "newspapers of record" did (if anything) with the AP item; searched Google News for other coverage; and reviewed headline revisions made by outlets that carried it.

Results are below the fold.

Revolving Door: Seattle News Anchor Joins Liberal Mayor's Staff
By Ken Shepherd | May 28, 2008 | 4:28 PM EDT

Photo of KING reporter Robert Mak by Seattle Times | NewsBusters.orgIt's sort of like Linda Douglass but on the local level, I guess. I'll have to ask our Seattle-area readers to note in the comments section if KING's Robert Mak repeatedly displayed a penchant for gauzy coverage of liberal Mayor Greg Nickels (D).

The 10-time local Emmy-winning reporter is leaving TV news for a job that pays $10,000 more a year than his new boss.

From the Seattle Times (emphasis mine):

One of Seattle's best-known political reporters - KING 5's Robert Mak - has been hired as Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' communications director, the mayor's office announced today.

Mak, known to many viewers as host of the public-affairs program "KING 5 News Up Front," said he wasn't looking for another job when Nickels' office approached him a few weeks ago.

GMA Spotlights Woman Who Is Husband and Dad
By Kristen Fyfe | March 6, 2008 | 5:05 PM EST

NewsBusters.org | Media Research CenterA couple at the "cross roads" of a "complicated" love story.  That's how Diane Sawyer set up the feature on a transgendered Microsoft executive, his/her wife, and their son in the 8:00 half-hour on "Good Morning America."

The socially progressive bent of GMA was evident in the lack of context or perspective given to the family's story.  No consideration was given to the glaring social issues raised. It was reported as just another human-interest story.

Video (2:00): Windows (7.31 MB), plus MP3 audio (917 kB)

The five-minute feature, reported by Neal Karlinsky, explained the conflict Michael Wallent had with his identification as a male, his decision to become a female and the ramifications of that decision in his workplace and at home. 

A McCain Coincidence? NYT Stock Nosedived Thursday and Friday
By Tom Blumer | February 24, 2008 | 2:59 PM EST

During the four weeks preceding February 20, New York Times Company stock had been staging a nice comeback.

Lord only knows that the company's long-suffering shareholders, who before then had seen the share price drop more than 70% since June 2002, a point in time that roughly coincides with the onset of the Old Gray Lady's seemingly intractable case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, welcomed any kind of reversal of fortune.

For a while, they had it. From a intra-day low of $14.01 on January 23, the stock rose over 50%, closing at $21.07 last Wednesday.

But on Thursday and Friday, that climb was halted abruptly, and partially reversed. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4% in those two days, and the S&P 500 dipped 0.5%, NYT stock dove almost 9.7%, closing Friday at $19.03.

Seattle P-I: It's Not the High Taxes, Stupid
By Ken Shepherd | November 26, 2007 | 12:21 PM EST

Are voters sick of taxes? Gov. Chris Gregoire is worried enough about angry voters to call a special legislative session to reinstate I-747's tax limit.

That's how the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website front page teased a November 26 story by state capitol correspondent Chris McGann. The bottom line is that the Democratic governor -- who eked out a narrow victory in 2004 after a drawn-out recount process -- has called the state legislature to convene on November 29 in a special session to address a court ruling that struck down I-747, a tax limitation measure that voters approved six years ago.McGann found a politicial scientist and a Democratic state legislative leader to suggest that voters are not really all that steamed about high taxes. By contrast, McGann produced just one man, Tim Eyman, to suggest voters in Washington State are fed up with high taxes.What's more, nowhere does McGann find any conservatives to suggest that Washington State voters might chafe at their legislators failing to do anything to address overreaching or judicial activism by the court that struck down a ballot initiative approved by the voters themselves. Here's an excerpt of McGann's article, with portions in bold reflecting my emphasis.:

AP's Double Standard on Creepy Politician Sex Scandals
By Ken Shepherd | November 6, 2007 | 12:50 PM EST

Displayed prominently on the home page for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Web site at 12:30 Tuesday afternoon was this tease for a story about a local politician in hot water for crude remarks to a colleague:

GOP lawmaker punished Minority House Republicans have severely disciplined a Vancouver lawmaker for inappropriate remarks to a female staffer.

The link takes readers to AP writer Curt Woodward's story, "House GOP member punished for remark to woman aide," in which we learn in the lead paragraph that "Minority House Republicans" in the Washington state House of Representatives, "already reeling from a sex scandal that prompted one member to quit, have severely disciplined a Vancouver lawmaker for inappropriate remarks to a female staffer."

'We Have an Obligation to Show You Reality'
By Bill Hobbs | August 25, 2007 | 12:12 AM EDT

David McCumber, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer managing editor at the center of the storm over his paper's refusal to publish photos of two men the FBI was seeking to identify and locate as part of an investigation into possible terrorist threats to the Seattle-area ferry system, once justified his paper's publication of a photo to readers by saying the paper "did it because we have an obligation to show you reality."The photo in question came from the Indonesian tsunami tragedy.

UK's Times: France Left 'Moral Highground' Lending U.S. a 'Helping Hand'
By Lynn Davidson | August 24, 2007 | 2:31 AM EDT

 An August 22 article in the UK's Times Online gave some insight into the paper's behind-the-scenes views with this headline, “Paris vacates the moral highground to give Washington a helping hand” (h/t Fausta).

For the Times, France's “moral highground” was a four-year diplomatic lock-out with Iraq that began after the “US-led invasion” (and, interestingly, at the end of several Frenchmen profiting from the corrupt UN Oil For Food scam) that Sarkozy broke by sending his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to Baghdad yesterday for a three-day fact-finding trip with the goal of helping the Iraqis, through the UN, rebuild and stabilize a country that could easily devolve into genocide without adequate attention.