Online Media

The competition is fierce, but perhaps the most consistent area of outright and arguably deliberate U.S. and worldwide press distortion is found in their coverage of the Catholic Church and its pontiff. Last week, the major international wires and several U.S. outlets once again demonstrated that readers, listeners and viewers can never trust that they will get an accurate story relating to…

On May 5, PolitiFact's Louis Jacobson kept with the alleged "fact-checking" web site's actual role as pack of leftist hacks by issuing a fundamentally dishonest "Half True" ruling on a statement made by CarlyFiorina.org's cybersquatter. I raise the matter now because the web site's critics, while raising most of the relevant points, haven't gone far enough in tearing apart Jacobson's work. As…

On Tuesday, Associated Press reporter Martin Crutsinger celebrated the federal government's large April budget surplus, caused by "a flood of tax payments (which) pushed government receipts to an all-time high." He didn't mention that the tax payments were higher largely because of tax increases passed in 2013. It certainly didn't occur because of an improving economy — because it's not…

On May 1, the Associated Press's Paul Wiseman was pleased to tell the wire service's readers and subscribing outlets that "The University of Michigan's sentiment index rose to 95.9 from 93 in March," reaching "its second-highest level since 2007." Among other things, the survey's chief economist said that the result reflected "improving prospects for jobs and incomes." What a difference two…

Today, Bloomberg TV's Mark Halperin inadequately apologized for his conduct and line of questioning during an April 30 interview of GOP presidential candidate which came off as rude and racist to many who saw it — well, basically because it was. As Tim Graham at NewsBusters noted on Sunday, and as will be seen in the video following the jump, Halperin engaged in a "prove-you're-a-Cuban" line of…

With Camden Yards set to hold its first fan-attended Baltimore Orioles game in over two weeks tonight, it's a good time to go back to a May 2 item by Meredith Shiner at Yahoo Politics. Readers may remember the Duke-"educated" Shiner as the person who was flabbergasted that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz cited "God-given rights" when he announced his candidacy on March 23, tweeting in part…

Chuck Todd should have been ready for this, but he wasn't. Just a few days days ago, on the very network at which Todd toils, "Late Night" comedian Seth Meyers thought he would be cute and embarrass GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina over not registering the CarlyFiorina.org domain, thereby allowing a critic to take it and use it as a platform for criticizing her tenure as H-P's CEO.…

On Thursday, Jennifer Grayson, who fancies herself as an "environmental journalist," exposed herself as a truly annoying scold. Grayson wrote in a Washington Post column that those of us who show our appreciation for others by giving them flowers as part of our overall enjoyment of life are really showing that we are either ignorant of or don't "care about Mother Earth." Grayson concocts her…

One of the more simultaneously annoying and alarming developments on college campuses these days is how the idea of "microagressions" has regained visibility after four decades of previously well-deserved obscurity, largely under the establishment press's radar. Almost no one in "the real world" would know what microaggressions are if it weren't for stories and critiques at center-right media…

In what is certainly not the most consequential development in presidential politics but nonetheless a fun moment, recently declared Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina decisively one-upped NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers, who seems to have thought he could inflict a bit of harm on the former tech CEO's credibility. In an era where dot-whatever domains have proliferated, Fiorina's…

In a "completely unexpected" (no, not really) development, Dorian Johnson, the person who was with Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri when Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson, has been arrested. I know, I know, it's a real shock to learn that the guy who completely fabricated the "hands up, don't shoot" lie and, along with Brown, "stole a box of cigars" from a store before their…

Tuesday evening, I wrote that there appears to be a need for an intervention among the economics writers at the Associated Press. At the time, I was referring to how the wire service's Christopher Rugaber, in his dispatch on a trade group's upbeat business sentiment survey appearing about an hour after Martin Crutsinger's writeup on the horrible March trade imbalance, failed to report Crutsinger…

CNN's Chris Cuomo made an eyebrow-raising argument about the First Amendment in a Wednesday post on Twitter. Cuomo replied to a post that decried that "too many people are trying to say hate speech (isn't equal to) free speech," and claimed that "it doesn't. hate speech is excluded from protection. don't (sic) just say you love the constitution...read it."