Swaps Stopped: Cities in LA Co. Were Doing Stimulus Funding Deals With
March 12th, 2009 12:47 AM
It seems that so-called stimulus package funding is being spread around so widely that some of its beneficiaries can't figure out how to spend it as intended. When it became clear to a few small cities in California's Los Angeles County that they didn't have appropriate transportation projects for their promised stimulus funding, they decided to sell the rights to that funding to other nearby…
LA TV Station Notes ACORN Presence at School Board Meeting; Other Outl
March 11th, 2009 3:47 PM
Los Angeles's NBC television affiliate must not have gotten the memo telling them that they should not utter the name of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), lest anyone reach the "wrong" conclusions. NBC Los Angeles is the only media outlet I have found thus far to identify ACORN's presence in a story about a "disruptive display of disobedience" by members the United…
NYT Inadvertently Confirms IBD’s Logic in Denouncing Obama’s Embry
March 10th, 2009 11:44 PM
In a scathing editorial Monday, the folks at IBDeditorials.com ripped President Barack Obama's misguided, life-destroying, science-denying Executive Order that allows federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR). Later, Nicholas Wade at the New York Times, in two paragraphs of his March 10 report ("Rethink Stem Cells? Science Already Has"), in essence confirmed the validity of IBD's…
Tea Parties? What Tea Parties? Predictably, Established Media Coverage
March 8th, 2009 10:58 AM
Coverage of "tea party" protests in various cities around the country (this March 4 Pajamas Media press release, HT to FreeRepublic, cited 22 locations on February 27 and seven this weekend) has been sparse to non-existent, especially at major establishment media outlets. Most notably, based on a seach on "tea party" (not in quotes) at its ap.org home page at about 10:00 a.m., there has been no…
GM's Auditor Issues 'Going Concern' Warning; Press Ignores Post-Bailou
March 5th, 2009 11:57 AM
An early review of press coverage relating to this morning's warning by General Motors that "there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern" shows no coverage of the reason why, despite $13.4 billion in taxpayer money (NOT counting bailout money going to GMAC), things have gotten so much worse so quickly.The reason is that sales in the two full months since the Bush-…
Press Virtually Ignores Joe Biden's '400 Jobs Lost a Day' Louisiana Wh
March 3rd, 2009 1:18 PM
Did you hear the one about Joe Biden claiming that Louisiana under Governor Bobby Jindal is losing 400 jobs a day? Probably not. A search at the Washington Post on "Biden 400 jobs Louisiana" (not in quotes) came back with no results. No relevant results were returned with the same searches done at the New York Times and the LA Times. The math-challenged Biden, who infamously said during the…
NYT/CBS: Obama Has Reaganesque 'Broad Support'; Gallup Cites Slip, Dou
February 24th, 2009 3:36 PM
Two polls on President Barack Obama's popularity reach conclusions that could hardly be more different.A New York Times/CBS News poll says that Obama is "benefiting from remarkably high levels of optimism and confidence among Americans about his leadership." But a Gallup poll reports slipping support, and a doubling of his disapproval rate.What gives?The first clue about whose poll probably more…
AP's Loven Criticized Bush's Valid Arguments as 'Straw Men,' Silent on
February 21st, 2009 8:27 AM
The Associated Press's Jennifer Loven is now the President of the White House Correspondents Association (picture at right is from the WHCA web site). Loven was the first person on President Obama's preselected list of those permitted to ask a question at his February prime-time press briefing. Whether she received this top placement because of her office, or because of her years of George Bush-…
New York Times Co. Suspends Dividend; Share Price Less Than Cost of Su
February 20th, 2009 9:03 AM
Yesterday, The New York Times Company suspended its quarterly dividend. The company's stock slid 5% to close at $3.51, yet another all-time low in the company's nearly 23 years as a public company in its current form (the Times has been a public company since the 1960s).Henry Blodget at Silicon Valley Insider noted, even before yesterday's announcement and share-price dip, that the company's…
ABC Frets That NY Post Comic Could Harm 'Post-racial Glow' of Obama
February 19th, 2009 11:51 AM
"Good Morning America" reporter David Wright on Thursday worried that a comic strip appearing in yesterday's New York Post could harm the "post racial glow" that America has been enjoying since Barack Obama's inauguration. Wright recounted the outrage expressed by the Reverend Al Sharpton and others over an editorial cartoon depicting a chimp shot by police and connecting it to the just passed…
Name That Party: Chicago Alderman Sentenced to 4 Years; Sun-Times, AP
February 18th, 2009 12:23 AM
Former Chicago Democratic Alderman Arenda Troutman was sentenced today to four years in prison for mail and tax fraud. In covering her sentencing, both the Chicago Sun-Times article (picture at right is cropped from that article) and Jeff Coen's Breaking News piece at the Chicago Tribune failed to mention that Troutman is a Democrat. Now it would be easy to say, "But of course she's a Democrat;…
AP's 'Name That Party' Twist: Disgraced PA Judges' Dem Party ID Disapp
February 14th, 2009 6:55 AM
This "Name That Party" situation has many of the usual elements. There are several stories about two Democratic judges involved in criminal behavior in Pennsylvania, and, with one exception, they "somehow" don't get around to identifying their party. But this saga is different for two reasons: The crimes to which the judges have pleaded guilty involve "thousands" of juveniles. In one lonely…
New York Times Company Stock Plunges to New All-Time Depths
February 11th, 2009 3:48 PM
Lost in the overall cratering in the stock market yesterday in reaction to Tim Geithner's awful "soiled the bed" TARP II presentation yesterday -- New York Times Company stock closed at $4.23. As of 3:30 PM today, the stock was up 12 cents. Yesterday's close is the stock's lowest point since the company went public in July 1986 (down over 50% in real terms): At yesterday's close, the company was…
WaPo ‘Sleuth’ on White House Census Power Grab: A ‘Tom Delay-Sty
February 7th, 2009 11:09 AM
The Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers, aka "The Sleuth," has (Tom) Delay Derangement Syndrome (DDS), and she's got it bad. Akers's DDS outbreak occurred as she reported on the plan by the Obama Administration to have the director of the Census Bureau report to the White House instead of the Director of the Commerce Department. (On Thursday evening, after my original post [at NewsBusters; at…