Bias by Omission

Wednesday evening, the Associated Press's Sam Hananel, with predictable help from Scott Bauer, tried to do a Bing Crosby imitation ("Unions look for silver lining in Wisconsin recalls") in an attempt to "Accentuate the Positive" in reporting on the results of yesterday's attempts to defeat six Republican Badger State Senators in recall elections. Democrats, leftists, and public-sector unions…

Today CNN's Politics Web site carries the story "Republicans name fiscal conservatives to debt committee," written by Deirdre Walsh and Tom Cohen.  The piece begins: "Republican leaders on Wednesday named fiscal conservatives for their six picks for a new congressional "super" committee charged with crafting a plan to cut the country's deficit." OK, the GOP's selections would be seen by…

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…

In an otherwise typically dismal column about President Barack Obama which is one part pity party and another part an attempt at building him a he-man reputation (not kidding), New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd describes an upcoming movie featuring the exploits of Navy SEAL Team 6 in the operation which killed Osama Bin Laden on May 1. Dowd celebrates the fact that the movie's currently…

On August 2 on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed that the economy under George W. Bush lost eight million jobs. PolitiFact, which occasionally seems to engage in verbal gymnastics to give Democrats and leftists the benefit of the doubt, was more than a little annoyed with Reid's claim, giving it a rating of "Pants on Fire." As will be demonstrated later, virtually no…

The past three weeks in the stock market have gone as follows: Week ended July 22 -- Pretty good; week ended July 29 -- Really bad; week just ended -- Absolutely awful. After I received a remarkably vague e-mail from CNN just after 4 p.m. today, I thought I'd go back and see how it handled its closing-bell emails during the previous two weeks. It was quite revealing. The three emails follow…

While CBS's Early Show and the New York Times both highlighted their own poll showing support for further spending cuts, the CBS Evening News ignored it. Americans three-to-one believe the spending cuts in the debt ceiling deal were too small rather than too big, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll. As NewsBusters reported, Thursday's CBS Evening News ignored the support for cuts…

It seems that every time I see something possibly redeeming put forth by the Associated Press, they figure out a way to ruin it. Take Larry Margasak's report this afternoon on John Boehner's attempts at persuading House Republican members to support his various attempts at debt-ceiling legislation during the few two weeks. (I've made my general unhappiness with the ultimate result pretty…

Louis Magazzu, whom I shall nickname "Louis the Lewd," was a Democratic County Freeholder in Cumberland County, New Jersey. A "freeholder" is the Garden State equivalent of a county commissioner. His position is in the past tense because Louis the Lewd resigned on Tuesday after nude pictures of himself sent to a woman with whom he had online correspondence for several years were published.…

On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams reported on another development in the Great Obama Recovery: "We saw some astounding new numbers that came out today. They showed the number of Americans relying on food stamps has hit another all-time record. These numbers would come as a huge disappointment to President Lyndon Johnson, who launched his War on Poverty back in 1964.…

If we're to believe Paul Wiseman and David K. Randall at the Associated Press in their Wednesday afternoon report on the economy, all of the alleged solutions which might shake the U.S. economy out of its weakness either aren't available or no one has the will to try them: stimulus, infrastructure projects, jobs programs, or another round of quantitative easing. Oh, and governments are damaging…

I don't normally get emails from CNN when the markets go from negative territory to positive, or vice-versa. But I did today, as the Dow and the S&P 500 oh-so-temporarily showed plus signs? So why did CNN send the email? Could it be that the markets' plunge is getting more widely known, and the network feels the need to tamp down the spreading pessimism? The CNN email, along with a…

On Monday, Politico reported that "several sources" in a private meeting of House Democrats confirmed that Vice President Joe Biden accused Tea Party Republicans of having "acted like terrorists." CBS and ABC completely punted the story on their evening and morning newscasts. NBC made mention of the controversy, but only to further Biden's denial of having made the comment. CBS's omission…

The illegal immigrant advocates at CASA de Maryland have really called in the big guns with their lawsuit in Maryland aimed at thwarting a popular voter referendum on the so-called Maryland DREAM Act, which provides for in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. The law firm for which former Democratic National Committee (DNC) general counsel Joseph Sandler works has taken up the case, the…