Major Newspapers

USA Today's Wednesday cover story ("Killings Escalate Piracy Crisis"), has this reference to a quote obtained by the Associated Press: Killing hostages "has now become part of our rules," said a pirate who identified himself as Muse Abdi in a statement to the Associated Press. "From now on, anyone who tries to rescue the hostages in our hands will only collect dead bodies," Abdi said. "It…

Earlier this week Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett  fired state workers whom he believes should have taken decisive action to shutter abortionist Kermit Gosnell's Philadelphia abortion clinic. You may recall that Gosnell was arrested in mid-January for murdering newborn babies. Authorities in Philadelphia also detailed for reporters instances of malpractice as well as the unsanitary working…

Twice on Monday (here and here), I took serious issue with the opening sentences of two Associated Press stories on Uncle Sam's fiscal situation. First, there was Martin Crutsinger's Sunday stinker, which described the level of spending in President Obama's yet to be released 2012 budget as "$3 trillion-plus," timed so that early morning news readers, radio listeners, and TV viewers would…

The Washington Post Style section mounted its latest favorite hobby horse again this morning with yet another article devoted to the controversial "Hide/Seek" Smithsonian exhibit, which is closing this Sunday. NewsBusters sister organization CNSNews.com broke the story in late November that sparked the controversy. You can read that story here. Shortly after Penny Starr's story, the Gallery…

What would be worse: if Norah actually believes it--or if she doesn't? Norah O'Donnell has claimed that the Washington Post and the New York Times provide straight-up information, without bias, of the sort that would be appealing to members of the putatively non-partisan "No Labels" group. Norah's mind-boggling assertion came on today's Morning Joe during a discussion of AOL's acquisition…

UPDATE: The full text of the referenced Dallas Morning News item, courtesy of Rich Noyes at the Media Research Center, is here (posted for fair use and discussion purposes). While looking for something else, I accidentally stumbled across a 2007 item in my blog's archives that makes the current soft media treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood even more outrageous than it already appears. In…

April 1984 was the U.S. economy's 19th post-recession month while Ronald Reagan was President. It was a month during which the government initially reported that the unemployment rate remained at 7.7%, while the number of jobs added was 269,000. By the time the government made all its subsequent revisions over the next few years, the final jobs-added figure was 363,000. On May 5, 1984, in an…

On Sunday evening, an event in Washington preemptively made mincemeat of the usual press claims that "thousands" would participate in the next day's March for Life. The next day at the Washington Post, Michelle Boorstein and Ben Pershing followed form ("Thousands of abortion opponents rally in march on Mall"), but did make an interesting, seemingly reluctant observation: "Some attending the…

What's with the New York Times and its inability to practice what it preaches when it comes to avoiding gun-filled images and rhetoric?  A few days ago I noted how the Times had placed a bullet-riddled ad for a violent video game right on its online op-ed page. Now comes this Times headline: "Republicans’ Budget Man Draws Fire".  That is of course a metaphorical invocation of someone who by…

Although the Washington Post had no mention on Monday of the annual March for Life rally in Washington D.C., the paper still found time to devote 48 paragraphs and 2850 words to profiling Ron Reagan and his controversial claim in a new book that his father had symptoms of Alzheimer's while in the White House. Staff writer Manuel Roig-Franzia made sure to highlight in the fifth paragraph, "The…

There I was this morning at the New York Times online op-ed page, the scene of so much self-righteous hand-wringing in recent weeks over the violence in our culture and rhetoric.  I was deciding whether to subject myself first to Gail Collins or Charles Blow, when my eye was drawn to the ad you see here for something called "Project Blackout."  A busty babe wields an assault rifle the Times…

Like Rahm Emanuel, who wouldn't waste a crisis, Frank Rich doesn't want to let a murderous rampage pass without trying to wring political advantage.  By now, even most ardent liberals have had to admit that there was no nexus between conservatives and the manifestly psychotic AZ shooter.  But there was Rich, in his New York Times column of this morning, still bitterly clinging to the accusation…

On Wednesday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), in commenting on USA Today's poor decision to quote a paragraph from a New York Times op-ed by former Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) -- a bad decision because Kanjorski's call for "civility" directly contrasts with his call for someone to shoot Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott just a few months ago -- I wrote that USAT Founder Al…

The folks at USA Today really ought to vet their candidates for the "Et Cetera -- Smart insights on the news of the day" section of the print edition of its editorial page a bit more thoroughly. Wednesday morning's opener in that section (apparently not available online) featured two paragraphs from a New York Times op-ed by former Pennsylvania Congressman Paul Kanjorski, including this final…