It wasn’t labeled “news analysis” or “commentary,” but AP reporters Gregory Katz and Angela Charlton began a story on England approving gay marriage by mocking the French.
“The French like to make fun of the British, joking about their repressed ways in matters of the heart,” wrote the AP duo. “But when it came time to debate same-sex marriage, it was France that betrayed a deeply conservative streak in sometimes violent protests — while the British showed themselves to be modern and tolerant.”
To fix a problem you must first admit that you have one. There may be no stronger evidence that the establishment press in the U.S. is miles away from admitting that it has any kind of problem with persistent party and ideological bias than a report filed by Associated Press reporters Raphael G. Satter and Gregory Katz on Friday. In it, the pair observed without even a hint of irony how "many of Britain's most-read papers take sides."
Meanwhile, in the course of discussing the out-of-nowhere rise of Nick Clegg, Satter and Katz noted how the Liberal Democrat's debate performance was "threatening (Conservative leader David) Cameron's lead," while "somehow" forgetting that Clegg & Co. have for the moment relegated Gordon Brown's Labour Party to third place in many polls, including this one from a week ago at the Financial Times. No bias there, eh?
(The latest from the Daily Telegraph is that Clegg won't rule out a LibDem-Labour coalition government as long as Brown isn't Prime Minister.)
But back to the AP's comic relief, seen in Satter and Katz's first five paragraphs: