Eric Tucker

Preelection FBI 'Active Shooter' Study Team Admits Media Misinterpreted It — Six Months Later
By Tom Blumer | June 13, 2015 | 1:18 PM EDT

In late September 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released "A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States, 2000-2013."

To say the least, the report's issuance, timed six weeks before the midterm elections, and its topic ("a specific type of shooting situation law enforcement and the public may face") were curious. Given the press's inclination to sensationalize and politicize any report on gun violence, its findings were especially vulnerable to misinterpretation. When that quite predictably happened, the FBI and the study's authors appear to have done nothing to correct errant media reports. It also appears that they would have remained silent about those media distortions if longtime gun rights advocate John Lott Jr. hadn't called them out in a professional criminal justice journal.

As Hundreds of Thousands March For Life, Salon's Williams Asks: 'So What If Abortion Ends Life?'
By Tom Blumer | January 27, 2013 | 12:29 AM EST

In a Wednesday Salon column which should be saved onto the hard drives of everyone in the pro-life movement as a reminder of the fundamental evil of their opposition, Mary Elizabeth Williams stated why, to her, it doesn't matter that abortion involves the taking of a human life: "I believe that life starts at conception. And it's never stopped me from being pro-choice."

The establishment press has consistently refused to apply the "pro-life" label to a movement which has always been not only about ending abortion, but about respecting and protecting human life from conception to natural death. I believe that refusal has occurred because many reporters share Ms. Williams's brutal, strongly held but rarely expressed beliefs articulated after the jump. The Salon staff writer proves that her side richly deserves to be called "anti-life" -- because that's what they are (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Prince George's Co. Executive Johnson Sentenced to 7 Years; Dem Party Affiliation Virtually Unmentioned
By Tom Blumer | December 7, 2011 | 12:32 AM EST

Former Prince George's County, Maryland Executive Jack Johnson was sentenced today to over seven years in prison for, according to Eric Tucker at the Associated Press, "extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes during a tenure that prosecutors say was rife with greed, corruption and an unchecked pay-to-play culture." Tucker failed to identify Johnson as a Democrat.

The AP is not alone. A Google News Search on "Jack Johnson Prince George's County" (not in quotes, past 24 hours, without duplicates) returned 51 items at 11:40 p.m. tonight (the first page says 152, but it's really 51). The following number of results came back in the same search when I added the word "Democrat" (also after the jump -- sordid details of Johnson's astonishing corruption):

AP's Academic 'Expert' Excusing Flash Mob Crime Is An Undisclosed New Media Leftist
By Tom Blumer | August 10, 2011 | 12:27 AM EDT

NOTE: This post replicates one which originally appeared on August 10 but was inadvertently deleted due to system complications two days later.

For some reason, Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker and Thomas Watkins, in a story about the wave of flash mob crime in the U.S. this summer, felt compelled to find an "expert" who would express some sympathy for its participants.

Well, they supposedly found one. His name is Jonathan Taplin. Here's what he told the AP: