Transparent: AP Puts No-News Story about Sanford on National Wire

August 6th, 2009 2:56 PM

Could they be any more obvious about it?

Just in case you somehow haven't heard about it in the past couple of months, the Associated Press wanted to remind everyone this morning that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (who, to be clear, I believe should resign), who had AN AFFAIR(!!), went back to work today -- and that this really, really deserved to be a national story, as shown in the mini-pic of the AP's raw feed:

SanfordInAPrawFeed080609

The unbylined AP item also reminded readers that Sanford "had been a GOP darling" earlier this year. Of course, there's no bias in that dubious statement.

Here's a picture of most of the short AP report, produced for the purposes of fair use, discussion, and ridicule:

SanfordAPreport080609

You will note that there is no real news in the report. Apparently the only reason for running it is a need to keep fresh the memory that a fiscally conservative Republican had an affair.

Maybe someone at the AP is jealous that a book about a real "Culture of Corruption" is Number 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers List.

The AP would be better served if they paid attention to what is really in relatively important things like, oh, what's in the health care bill. I'll get to that shortly. (Update: It's here.)

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.