Bias by Omission

In the 2008 campaign, "[t]he media were awestruck, embarrassingly so," over Barack Obama and failed to vet him thoroughly, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on last night's edition of Hannity. "In the primaries in 2008, we counted 29 different times when the networks either called him a rising star, an emerging star, a rock star, or a superstar. Twenty-nine different times," but they…

The liberal media generally but the Associated Press in particular are acting as mere "stenographers" for Barack Obama, failing to scrutinize the president's campaign rhetoric about the economy, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham noted on today's Your World with Neil Cavuto. "As much as they say they hate being stenographers to power, this really is what we're seeing in this reelection year…

UPDATE: The headline at AP's 9:37 a.m. report now reads "US unemployment claims signal slower hiring." That's nice, but it won't what was broadcast immediately after the report's release until news outlets become aware of the revision. The games the Associated Press's Chris Rugaber and the wire service's headline writers are playing with the weekly unemployment claims from the Department of…

Yesterday at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, the headline at reporter Jim Kuhnhenn's story on President Obama's latest excuse to add more bureaucrats to the government payroll ("Obama wants to target oil market manipulation") presupposed the existence of oil market manipulation when none has been proven. In 850 words, he didn't find any space for critics of the move, who…

On today's 3:00 pm edition of CNN Newsroom, anchor Brooke Baldwin teased her next segment: BALDWIN: Coming up next, House Republicans they want to cut billions of dollars in food stamps. We will talk about who exactly in terms of numbers this would impact and why my next guest calls this whole suggestion appalling -- back in 60 seconds. Baldwin interviewed Edward Cooney, executive director…

After reading Derek Kravitz's final report of the day at 4:45 p.m. on the housing market at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, I just had to check the other wires to see if they were sipping from the same housing-market-in-recovery koolaid. The answer is no. At Reuters, Jason Lange's 3:22 p.m. dispatch reported that "Output at U.S. factories slipped in March and builders…

Monday brought more downplaying of violence and vandalism within the Occupy Wall Street movement, from the New York Times. Joseph Goldstein and Colin Moynihan reported for the Metro section: "3 Arrested in Manhattan as March Turns Into a Melee." A group of people who had attended an anarchist book fair in Manhattan later marched to a nearby Starbucks on Saturday night and began swinging at…

The stunts the folks at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, continue pulling to downplay, minimize, or whitewash bad or embarrassing economic and other news shouldn't surprise us any more. But they continue to disappoint nonetheless. Last month, a consumer sentiment index reported by the Conference Board fell by a relatively modest amount. Headlines and descriptions at…

Of all the myriad scandals of the Obama administration, there is one, largely ignored by the mainstream media, that could actually be its worst. That scandal is the operation run from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, under the Justice Department, known as "Fast and Furious," through which the federal government actually encouraged and even ordered American gun shops to…

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter was the latest to downplay Obama-supporter Hilary Rosen's insult of Ann Romney of having "never worked a day in her life," in his Sunday Review "news analysis," "From Flash to Fizzle." Stelter argued that Hilary Rosen's insult would be the latest controversy to burn hot and then be totally forgotten:

Derek Kravitz and Alex Veiga at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, must have doubled down on the energy drinks over the weekend. A Sunday morning report (HT to a NewsBusters tipster) telling readers that signs are "pointing to a long-awaited recovery" in the housing market went on, and on, and on, and on for over 1,350 words. The factors the AP pair cited were primarily…

On Monday's Morning Edition, NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty touted how "liberal religious leaders said the Republican [budget] plan...was an affront to the Gospel, and especially Jesus's command to care for the poor." At the same time, Hagerty avoided mentioning the left-wing ideology of two critics of the proposal: Peter Montgomery of People For American Way, and liberal academic Stephen…

The willingness of the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, to cover for Democratic Party flubs, crimes, and scandals is something to behold. On Sunday, the wire service's Gary D. Robertson (pictured from a recent YouTube video) opened his coverage of North Carolina's Democratic Party executive director Jay Parmley with the following sentence: "The executive director of the North…

There are a few Democrats in Vicki Smith's coverage at the Associated Press, aka the Adminsitration's Press, of the fraud investigation of former Mine Safety and Health Administration Director J. Davitt McAteer. As is AP's derelict custom in cases where Dems are involved in scandal or corruption, the party affiliation of those Democrats isn't mentioned. The first Democrat is McAteer himself,…