Nedra Pickler

AP's Nedra Pickler Airbrushes Obama's Frustration and Self-Cited Constituent Anger in Santa Monica Speech
By Tom Blumer | June 20, 2015 | 9:39 AM EDT

Imagine if any Republican president in the past fifty years had said the following: "I get letters, people say, you are an idiot -- (laughter) -- and here’s what you didn’t do, and here’s the program that is terrible, and all kinds of stuff. But this gentleman, he said, I voted for you twice but I’m deeply disappointed. And it went on and on, chronicling all the things that hadn’t gotten done." The chance that the establishment press would report that constituents had called the president an idiot would be prohibitively high.

President Barack Obama said these very words at a Santa Monica, California fundraiser on Thursday; the White House has posted the transcript here. Yet the Associated Press's Nedra Pickler acted as if he said nothing of the sort in the final three paragraphs of her early Friday report on what Obama said.

Ignored Gaffe: Obama Says Washington, Who Never Lived in the White House, Made 'Some Booze' There
By Tom Blumer | February 2, 2015 | 9:44 AM EST

It only took about 15 seconds into a live segment NBC aired from the White House kitchen before Sunday's Super Bowl for President Barack Obama to commit a historical gaffe about the very place where he resides. He told the network's Savannah Guthrie that "We make beer — The first president since George Washington to make some booze in the White House."

Heavens to Betsy. The White House's construction wasn't completed until 1800, when John Adams, the nation's second president, moved in.

AP Pair Pretends Obama and Staff Were Interested in 'Cooperation' at Friday Lunch
By Tom Blumer | November 8, 2014 | 10:05 AM EST

Late Friday afternoon, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Washington got their first taste of what they will likely see from the supposedly "objective" reporters at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, as they cover their relationship with President Obama and his White House apparatachiks during the next two years.

The headline at a story by Nedra Pickler and Erica Wener ("Immigration dispute erupts at White House lunch") and that story's first seven words ("A White House lunch aiming for cooperation") are fundamentally dishonest and untrue, respectively. The article's later text proves both of my contentions.

Politico's Coverage of Obama's 'LGBT Executive Order' Ignores Left's Withdrawal of Support for ENDA
By Tom Blumer | July 21, 2014 | 11:59 PM EDT

President Obama signed an executive order on Monday which will force many religious organizations and their members to sever their service and business ties with the federal government if they wish to stay true to their beliefs.

The EO adds "sexual orientation and gender identity" to the bases upon which contractors cannot discriminate if they wish to continue doing business with Uncle Sam. Jennifer Epstein's coverage at the Politico blithely assumed that everybody knows what "LGBT" means. The acronym is in her headline and content, while none of the four words comprising its meaning — lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender — appear anywhere in her writeup. Epstein also erroneously contended that "LGBT" advocates are still shooting for passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), when the fact is that, in the wake of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, they now oppose it. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

AP's Initial Report From Obama's 'You Can Keep It If It Hasn't Changed' Speech Ignored That Statement
By Tom Blumer | November 6, 2013 | 9:22 AM EST

The Associated Press's initial coverage of President Obama's attempt to "reinvent history," the term used yesterday by the National Journal's Ron Fournier, is instructive. Monday evening, Obama claimed that his core "you can keep your (health care) plan" guarantee — made dozens of times from 2008 through 2012 — was only relevant "if it (your current plan) hasn’t changed since the law was passed."

Let's look how the AP's Nedra Pickler — or perhaps the White House correspondents' pool reporter, if Team Obama limited press access — wrote things up (HT to NB commenter Alfred Lemire) immediately after Obama's speech (6:34 p.m. report after a speech which began at 5:58 p.m.):

Nobel Consideration of Adult Stem Cell Researcher Should Be Teachable Moment to AP Political Reporters
By Tom Blumer | October 4, 2010 | 8:05 AM EDT
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx40/mmatters/StemCellsDo the science writers and political reporters at the Associated Press ever compare notes? Based on their divergent coverage of stem cell research, it seems doubtful.

On Sunday, AP science writer Milan Rising reported that a Japanese scientist was under probable consideration to win this year's Nobel Prize in medicine:

A Japanese researcher who discovered how to make stem cells from ordinary skin cells and avoid the ethical quandaries of making them from human eggs could be a candidate for the medicine award when the 2010 Nobel Prize announcements kick off Monday, experts said.

Several prominent Nobel guessers have pointed to Kyoto University Professor Shinya Yamanaka as a potential winner of the coveted award.

Though the prize, announced this morning, went to another gentleman, the question remains: How could this be? As a court case over President Obama's executive order permitting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research has been progressing through its various appeals during the past several weeks, AP's political writers have been giving readers the clear impression that it is the research involving the destruction of human embryos that holds the real promise of scientific progress. Uh, not exactly. In fact, not at all.

In Coverage of Latest Court Ruling, AP Continues Press Tradition of Stem Cell Obfuscation
By Tom Blumer | September 29, 2010 | 2:55 PM EDT
stemcellpicIt is truly remarkable to observe how press outlets continue to misreport and misinform the public in the area of stem cell research.

One of the latest examples came yesterday at the Associated Press. In a report covering a court ruling on government funding of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), the AP's Nedra Pickler completely failed to acknowledge that there are any other kinds of stem cells. Every single use by Pickler of the terms "stem cell" or "stem cells" has no modifying adjective, except the very first, whose modifier is "embryonic."

It's as if there are no other avenues besides ESCR for "scientific progress toward potentially lifesaving medical treatment." In fact, Pickler's less-informed readers would have no reason to believe that there is any form of stem cell research besides ESCR. The reality, which will be shown later for the umpteenth time, is that non-embryonic stem cells, often referred to as adult stem cells, have already shown that they can do virtually everything embryonic cells can with far less potential for side effects and, of course, no loss of human life. The word "adult" does not appear in the AP report.

Here are several paragraphs from Pickler's pathetic piece, which also includes a deeply deceptive quote (is there any other kind?) from Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (bold is mine):

MSM Ignore Obama DOJ Urging Court to Drop Iran Hostage Lawsuit That Implicates Ahmadinejad
By Ken Shepherd | April 24, 2009 | 11:47 AM EDT

While President Obama was extoling the virtues of wind power in an Earth Day speech, his Justice Department lawyers were attempting to scuttle a lawsuit filed in federal court against Iran by former U.S. embassy hostages. The lawsuit alleges that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers who interrogated the captives.

Two days after the story broke on the Associated Press wire, it appears the mainstream media have virtually buried the story, with no televised coverage save for a brief mention on CNN and one story in the Boston Globe.

A search for "'lawsuit' and 'Iran'" in Nexis from April 22 to 24 found no mentions of the story on MSNBC nor ABC, CBS and NBC broadcast network news programs. Likewise the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, and Washington Post were devoid of stories. A search of "major newspapers" in Nexis did yield one hit, a 380-word AP wire story by Nedra Pickler printed on page A6 of the April 23 Boston Globe.

In that April 23 story, Pickler noted that (emphasis mine):

AP's Nedra Pickler Has Bigfoot in Mouth in Corsi Controversy
By Tom Blumer | August 16, 2008 | 10:10 AM EDT

NedraPicklerAP0808Bigfoot0808The back-and-forth over Jerome Corsi's book, "The Obama Nation," has been heated, largely unfair to the author, and predictably marred by attacks from allegedly "objective" journalists as well as Democratic mouthpieces (but I repeat myself). Blatant examples of media bias have been noted by several NewsBusters posters, including Tim Graham (here, here, and here), Geoff Dickens, Mark Finkelstein, and Clay Waters.

But that doesn't mean there haven't been moments of humor. A delicious one comes at the expense of the Associated Press's Nedra Pickler.

FNC Notes AP Hails Edwards: ‘Scrappy Underdog...Steered Rivals to Progressive Ideals'
By Brent Baker | January 31, 2008 | 6:22 AM EST
NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterFNC's Brit Hume, in his Wednesday “Grapevine” segment, highlighted the contrast in a glowing a AP review of John Edwards' unsuccessful campaign sympathetic toward his hard-left approach to the race, versus a much less laudatory look by the wire service at Republican Rudy Giuliani's aborted presidential quest.
AP's Vastly Different Obits for Edwards, Giuliani Failed Candidacies
By Ken Shepherd | January 30, 2008 | 2:06 PM EST

The presidential campaigns of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) were both derailed yesterday in Florida. But in covering the story, the AP was considerably more morose about Edwards's train wreck than Giuliani's (h/t NB reader Joe Loiacono).Let's look at the AP coverage. First the Edwards write-up by Nedra Pickler (emphasis mine):