Crime

In a 12:35 p.m. story at the Associated Press's main site (pictured here, here, and here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes), reporter Jim Fitzgerald covers the conviction of White Plains Mayor Adam Bradley ("Suburban NY mayor convicted of attempted assault"). At Paragraph 12, Fitzgerald writes: Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore, also a Democrat, praised…

Correction: My initial post incorrectly conveyed that Chandra Levy was an intern for then-Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.). She was in fact an intern for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "Salvadoran Immigrant Ingmar Guandique Found Guilty of Murdering D.C. Intern Chandra Levy " That was the breaking news headline that was blasted to my inbox from ABCNews.com regarding today's murder conviction of…

 On Thursday’s Fox and Friends, FNC hosts Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy gave attention to a University of Virginia study which found that, since Prince William County in Virginia became more strict in dealing with illegal immigrants in 2007, the jurisdiction has enjoyed a substantial drop in crime - including a 32 percent drop in violent crime - while neighboring Fairfax County has seen…

A couple of NewsBusters posts during the past week -- one from yours truly and another courtesy of Ken Shepherd -- have pointed to the press's reluctance to identify the Democratic Party affiliations of indicted Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson and his also-indicted wife Leslie, who is a County Council member. Today, the Associated Press's Brian Witte kept up the wire service's…

Persistent pursuit of a story by journalists has in all too many cases been replaced by a dogged determination to keep politically incorrect facts out of important stories. An Associated Press item out of Grand Island, Nebraska this morning illustrates this point. It's not very difficult to identify aspects of the story reporter Josh Funk worked mightily to leave out (bolded items hinting at…

Last month I noted the October 1 arrest of CBS Radio's Howard Arenstein on marijuana possession charges. The Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist allegedly grew pot in his Georgetown backyard. But just yesterday D.C. Magistrate Judge Kimberley Knowles dropped the charges against Arenstein and his wife, Israeli newspaper reporter Orly Azoulay Katz, after a witness for the prosecution…

 On Friday’s CBS Evening News, travel editor Peter Greenberg filed a report in which, without challenge, he passed on Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s charge that America is "the key part of the problem" of drug cartels in his country. And, even though the overwhelming majority of guns seized from Mexican drug cartels are known to originate from countries outside the U.S., Greenberg seemed…

In Maryland, Prince George's County's top elected official, County Executive Jack B. Johnson (pictured at right on NB's home page) was arrested yesterday, and "is accused of accepting cash in return for helping a developer secure federal funding." Johnson's wife, a recently elected councilperson, was also arrested yesterday. The couple are both accused of "tampering with a witness and…

Here's the headline at the Associated Press's 12:49 p.m. report today on Steven Slater's plea bargain: "Attendant who slid on chute to fame pleads guilty." Earlier headlines had used the word "famous" (example here: "JetBlue attendant in famous meltdown pleads guilty"). For those who still care about what words mean, the primary meaning of "famous" is "having a widespread reputation, usually…

On the front of the New York Times Sunday Week in Review, Managing Editor Jill Abramson tried to link anonymous pro-Republican donors of the 2010 election cycle to  illegal campaign donations made to Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign: “Return of the Secret Donors -- In 2010, corporate cash, anonymous contributions and other echoes of Watergate.” Enforcing the link, the top half of the…

UPDATE: A 12:16 p.m. AP report gets to details the initial report (not labeled "breaking") should have contained.In an unbylined Associated Press story about the wife of incumbent Democratic Massachusetts Congressman John Tierney pleading guilty in a federal tax case, the wire service fails to mention which district Tierney represents. Far worse, it only reports that Tierney "is facing a…

UPDATE: Did AP read this post and react? An updated AP story time-stamped at 6:35 p.m. reports the following: "He (Shahzad) said the Pakistan Taliban provided him with more than $15,000 and five days of explosives training late last year and early this year, months after he became a U.S. citizen." (Original post follows) The Associated Press's Tom Hays did not report who trained Faisal Shahzad in…

Edward R. Murrow Award-winning radio journalist Howard Arenstein was arrested Friday by the Metropolitan Police Department for growing marijuana plants in his Georgetown backyard. Arenstein is the manager for the Washington, D.C. bureau of CBS Radio. CBS network officials have declined to comment, but feel free to leave yours below.