Labeling

The AP's coverage of the U.S. economy late Friday focused on high gas prices as the dominant, uh, driver of this year's anemic growth both visually and in its text. As will be seen after the jump, the graphic at the AP's national site is of a gas price sign. The final sentence in the caption of the full-size version reads "High gas prices and scant income gains forced Americans to sharply…

Throughout his tenure, there have been several facets in which President Obama has been demonstrably weak on leadership, with the debt debate coming to the forefront in recent months.  Now however, lost in that news cycle has been another failure of leadership for the President – his own request to tone down violent rhetoric in this country.  For it was mere months ago that Obama stood in front…

Yesterday on "The Fix", a politics blog of the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake wrote "Five Members to watch in the House debt ceiling vote."  One of the five is Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT).  He's described as a potential "yes" vote for Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) debt ceiling bill: Matheson, a Democrat, has managed to keep his Republican-leaning Utah seat by voting very…

On Friday, all three network morning shows played up the theme of stubborn House GOP conservatives opposing Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling plan. On CBS's Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge proclaimed: "House Republicans will meet again this morning after hardline conservatives handed House Speaker John Boehner a major setback." On ABC's Good Morning America, co-host George Stephanopoulos…

On three occasions between July 22 and July 26, 2011, CBS's Bob Schieffer carried water for President Obama when he echoed the Democrat's inaccurate claim about Social Security: "Millions of Americans...may not get their next [Social Security] check if the debt ceiling crisis is not resolved." In reality, there is enough federal revenues and authorized expenditures to pay for the program [audio…

Two "alert" emails hit my inbox this morning concerning the Department of Labor's just-released unemployment claims report. The one I expected came from CNNMoney.com, which read: "Initial unemployment claims fall below 400,000 for the first time in more than 3 months, dropping 24,000 to 398,000 in latest week." The other one came from USAToday.com, which does not ordinarily issue alerts when…

Gosh, isn't it convenient that Associated Press reporter Jim Abrams, in a Wednesday evening dispatch ("Democrats say Obama should invoke 14th Amendment"), was able to find "some legal scholars" who believe that President Obama can invoke Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to ignore the nation's current debt ceiling and have the government go out and borrow more money, but "…

What is it with New York Times columnists likening Republicans to terrorist groups? On Sunday Nicholas Kristof  compared Tea Party sympathizers in Congress to Al Qaeda. Now Thomas Friedman in his Wednesday column “Can’t We Do This Right?”, not content to argue that Tea Party Republicans are misguided, calls them the “Hezbollah faction” of the G.O.P.

Wednesday’s New York Times lead story on the debt ceiling standoff by Jennifer Steinhauer and Carl Hulse,  “Facing Obstacles, G.O.P. Delays Vote On Plan For Debt – Conservatives Restive – Boehner’s Grip on His Caucus Is Put to the Test in Standoff,” is the second consecutive Times lead overloaded with “conservative” labels, as if only one side of the debate has an ideological motivation.…

CBS's Michelle Miller leaned towards supporters of taxing junk food on Tuesday's Early Show, playing three sound bites from them and none from opponents. Miller only made one vague reference to the opposing side, and she immediately followed it by playing up the supposedly positive result of a tax: "While some say a new tax is the last thing we need, it could mean a healthier America." The…

Frank Schaeffer -- the embittered liberal progeny of the late evangelical Christian scholar Francis Schaeffer -- appeared on MSNBC's "Martin Bashir" program this afternoon where he availed himself the opportunity to spew forth more venom against American evangelicals, who tend to vote for conservative Republicans. Schaeffer was ostensibly brought on to react to new polling data that show 56…

Today's Washington Post provided a sympathetic profile for Nebraska abortionist LeRoy Carhart, who in December of last year expanded his practice to include abortions in a Maryland clinic about 30 miles from the District of Columbia. "From abortion provider to activist," read the below-the-fold headline on page A1 of today's Post. " Physician is committed to doing late-in-pregnancy procedures…

On Wednesday evening (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted the absurdity of Associated Press coverage characterizing the 5-page document with 3-1/2 whole pages of text issued by the "Gang of Six" as a "plan" -- 12 times, plus in the item's headline. Though I didn't bring it up then, an obvious point to make about any of these items floating around Washington is that if the Congressional…

As soon as the Senate rejected the "Cut, Cap and Balance" plan, CNN.com shot out a biased Breaking News alert to e-mail subscribers that labeled the measure as one "favored by hard-line conservative [sic]" (screen capture attached below page break):