Bias by Omission

In New York, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has ordered the release of eight more grand jury transcripts from the famous 1951 spy case that led to the conviction of the husband and wife pro-Soviet spy team of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reuters reports this story as if there is some cloud of doubt still hanging over the Rosenberg's conviction despite that their guilt is no longer debatable…

Joe Biden's 1987 stump-speech plagiarism of Neil Kinnock likely occurred more than once. Additionally, according to contemporaneous New York Times reports, including an editorial, Biden's orations featured unattributed speech-lifting from John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey. That's a lot more than Joe Biden's defenders and two of his Wikipedia entries have thus far revealed.…

The Friday evening version of Joe Biden's Wikipedia entry remains firmly ensconced in a Firefox tab on my desktop, so it can be compared to its current form as Obama-Biden's busy bees brush it up. I'm doing comparisons as time allows, and there isn't much of it at the moment. One thing is quickly obvious -- a section heading for a whole year has disappeared: Amazing. Where did 2004 go? You'll…

In my post on Tuesday, I wrote about Stanley Kurtz's efforts to access the Annenberg Challenge files housed at the University of Illinois-Chicago. These files documented an educational initiative started by Bill Ayers and chaired by Barack Obama.At that point, only AP writer Pete Yost had written anything about the story. Additionally, U of I rep Bill Burton issued a press release. Since that…

According the Associated Press, "Ask AP" is "a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers' questions about the news." Given how biased the wire service's news reporting is, you wouldn't expect "Ask AP" responses to be very different. They usually aren't. Case in point (second question at link) -- Reader Cindy Garcia of Vista, California asked AP about the costs and benefits of…

CNN correspondent Mary Snow’s report on Monday’s The Situation Room about Barack Obama’s charge that pro-life "folks are lying" about his abortion record actually just presented both sides of the controversy without getting to the reality of the matter. The report, which was promoted as "checking the facts" by host Wolf Blitzer, also omitted how Obama’s campaign conceded on Sunday that the pro-…

Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales heaped loads of praise on Helen Thomas even as he lamented that documentarian Rory Kennedy will present HBO viewers tonight with"A Story With a Few Holes." Shales found it disappointing that Thomas's affinity for Israel's enemies was left untouched in Kennedy's "Thank You, Mr. President." Shales started by insisting that "[o]ne can't help wondering if the film…

Here's news the traditional media will work very hard to ignore. According to data released by Uncle Sam's Bureaus of Labor Statistics today, the unemployment rate in Illinois is the fifth-highest in the country. The Land of Lincoln had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 7.3% in July, up 2.2% from the previous year's 5.1%. That puts Illinois, along with California, in a tie for fourth…

CNN correspondent Tom Foreman omitted identifying a "foreign policy expert" as a former member of Bill Clinton’s National Security Council during a report on John McCain’s strong position towards Russia on Wednesday’s Election Center program. This expert, Charles Kupchan of the Council of Foreign Relations, accused McCain of becoming a belligerent position towards the country: "Well, over the…

You would think that someone working for the self-described "Essential Global News Network" known as the Associated Press as an Education Writer might go beyond using the Copy and Paste commands in reporting on national college entrance exam test scores. From all appearances, you would be wrong. AP Education Writer Justin Pope's report on the 2008 ACT exam results appears to contain nothing that…

This is one of those "I hope against hope that I'm wrong, but I doubt it" stories.According to a Denver TV Station (HT Michelle Malkin), many of those who are expecting tickets for Barack Obama's Invesco Field speech on the final night of the Democratic Convention in the Mile High City are being told they have to do volunteer work for the campaign -- this week -- to qualify. Will this story get…

"Three prominent Republicans declare their support for Obama" insisted the August 13 Financial Times front page headline. But who are these "prominent" GOPers that have gone Obamacan? Staffer Edward Luce pointed to two left-of-center Republicans ousted in the 2006 mid-terms and one Rita Hauser, who is no stranger to supporting Democrats for president:Barack Obama won the endorsement yesterday of…

CNN co-anchor Don Lemon, during a brief report on Tuesday’s Newsroom program about a pro-life measure on the ballot in South Dakota that would greatly restrict abortion, gave only the pro-choice side of the debate over the proposed law. He also oversimplified Barack Obama’s stance on the abortion issue.Lemon stated how the Great Plains state "is becoming a new focal point in the abortion debate"…

It's a bit early for politicians to be creating distance between themselves and their party's presidential candidate, is it not? Whether it's because of a (cough, cough) "clerical error" or an exercise in political self-defense, Louisiana Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu has done that. But in a report early this afternoon, Associated Press writer Melinda Deslatte was curiously incurious (saved at…