When the AP takes sides
In March, at a conference of the nation's newspaper editors, two of the Associated Press' top political reporters greeted John McCain with a box of Dunkin' Donuts. One of the reporters was careful to get McCain his favorite kind — "Oh, yes, with sprinkles!" he said — and then passed McCain a cup. "A little coffee with a little cream and a little sugar," the AP's Liz Sidoti said.
Since then, I can't help but notice that the AP hasn't exactly been neutral. A month ago, the AP ran an article about the "people who might complicate Obama's campaign," including Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright. The piece not only read like a slam job, it actually resembled an RNC oppo dump.
Two weeks ago, the same reporter who made sure McCain had coffee to go with his donuts wrote a scathing, 900-word reprimand of Obama’s decision to bypass the public financing system in the general election. It was filled with error of fact and judgment, and ignored the fact that McCain has illegally played fast and loose with the public-financing system this year.
When Obama unveiled his faith-based plan this week, the AP got the story backwards. When Obama talked about his Iraq policy yesterday, the AP said he'd "opened the door" to reversing course, even though he hadn't.
And the AP's David Espo wrote a hagiographic, 1,200-word piece, praising McCain's record of reaching across the aisle. Reading it, one was unsure if maybe the AP had accidentally stuck a byline on a McCain campaign press release -- Espo went so far as to laud McCain's "singular brand of combative bipartisanship."
For more than a decade, on tobacco, health care, immigration, judicial nominees, creation of a commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and more, McCain has championed high-profile legislation opposed by President Bush or others in his own party.
His record of accomplishment is mixed, yet he has made his willingness to cross the political aisle a central theme in his campaign for the White House in an era when voters are plainly tired of partisan gridlock in the nation's capital.
Who cares what the AP "thinks"
McCain is going to lose.
BIG time!
And it ain't going to matter what AP says or does or thinks because the people know what's what. This country has been dealt a blow and we have organizations like AP who are still doing the destroyers bidding. Unbelievable.
Don't these people see that when aids like Scott McClellan come out and diss the administration it's time to fold the tent?
Mcain has said he was going to rely on the MSM. Are any of us surprised. There is no left wing media.
.
The McMedia loves them some McDoh-NUTZ, McFish with a side of McLIES, BBQ McRibs...
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Liberals are as thin-skinned as conservatives.
Even if two reporters are critical of Obama and favorable of McCain doesn't mean the AP has taken sides. It's a ridiculous statement. Address the content of the AP stories and write about their inaccuracies rather than completely label them as in the McCain camp. And if you have problems with the story, contact the reporters themselves and point out the mistakes. They're human too and many reporters aren't hardheaded know-it-alls.
When you write a post like this, it makes you sound like a crybaby and like one of the wacko Republicans.
And for the record, I'm a liberal who supports Obama.
FunMe @ 1:
I hope you're right. Tell enough lies enough times and it becomes true in the MSM.
Vincennes @ 5:
The reporters are supposed to report the news and if they have an opinion that they want to express fine, but don't change the facts. I'm am tired of hearing and reading the blatant lies and you should be, too.
Vincennes @ 5:
You say they are human I say they are not. Btw you support Obame.
Cut the bull. :-(
Vincennes @ 5:
Why it matters who you support is still lost on me...
And for the record, Steve Benen IS commenting on the content and which way it leans.
Are you suggesting that the AP doesn't take sides?
Or, to "just get over it"?
Or just belching the Waaahhhhpublican cry?
.
Vincennes @ 5:
So you are admitting to being thinned-skinned, then.
We should all start calling him McSprikles.
This does not surprise me. This past week it has been Obama flip flops, Obama changes his stance, Obama goes to the middle and just more Obama in a negative reporting style. NOT ONE LOUSY word on how McCain has changed his positions on just about everything. The media is going after Obama which is okay because that's politics BUT where the hell are they on McCain's changes and misstatements. The press IS doing McCain's campaigning for him just like they did with George Bush.
And so the neocon virus still spreads.
Vincennes @ 5:
*sniff* *sniff*
Methinks the odor of troll be about - arrrrrrr...
What kind of sissy drinks a little coffee with a little cream and a little sugar?
You use milk not cream.
And in my case it's French Roast or Jamaican coffee drunk black by the mugful.
Wasn't Vicennes the site of the Catholic monarchist forces that supported King Louis-Phillipe?
poor john mccain -moseying along on all fours, like a tired old hound dog, chasing a steak on a stick...
The reason for their coverage is pretty simply. The Moonies bought the AP awhile back and that whole cult is in real cushy-like with the Republican party, particularly the Bushes. When Bush struck that deal with McCain back in his first term that he'd support McCain's presidential run if he'd lay off his opposition to Bush's agenda, uniformly positive coverage, story-feeding, and general flakking by the AP was part of the deal.
The AP always has been pretty much a POS.
Even the creation of AP Style (which sacrifices precision for "readability") has probably f@cked this country up more than "No Child Left Behind."
Then they use it to talk sh@t about sh@t they don't know sh@t about, and on top of that, they do so under the guise of "objectivity," of which humans, at least, are incapable.
Also, I love the "(XYZ) couldn't be reached for comment." Oh, I'm so sorry, Your Holiness, that you called me fifteen minutes ago, and I wasn't available to give you a comment that you'd have distorted to fit your views, anyway, before your deadline.
Perhaps a "filtered site" (like that Gay/Homosexual one) could be made to change all "couldn't be reached for comment" phrases to "I would have liked to have communicated with, but I was licking McCain's ass and forgot to call until the last minute."
McCain-Stream-Media
Glad to see you are coming to this conclusion, been noticing for several months now that Associated Press has lost objectivity and has gone to the right wing. Another news source that should be placed in the same group as Fox News, CNN,ABC and the Republican party. I sure hope this does not become a permanent thing.
Ratface Says:
You say they are human I say they are not. Btw you support Obame.
Cut the bull. :-(
So Ratface, you're saying if I support Obama I have to agree with you 100 percent? Well I don't. Maybe Republicans require 100 percent loyalty. Thankfully Democrats don't. They actually let you practice free speech and celebrate difference of opinion.
As Will Rogers said: "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
McCain has voted with Bush 95% of the time.
When he shows up to vote, that is.
The AP gave up their neutrality some time ago. Articles by AP writers that are critical of Obama aren't worth the ink it takes to write them.
*
Newsflash: Jesse Helms is really really dead.
maybe a 2x4 to the head might jolt
some of these fuckhead
journalistsreichwingneocon pundits to use facts
and the truth.........
sorry, the fascists are taking over
this country and the public is asking
to be waterboarded en masse.
Well, CNN gets news from the AP so Obama is screwed in the corprate media .
If Obama had a major shake up in his campaign like McCain, they would crush him.
ysbaddaden @ 15:
Mmmmm, jamaican blue mountain. It ain't cheap, but its worth it. I'm a Third Coast Espress ground man myself which is Austin-based sold in H-E-B. I snort it.
StirFry @ 23:
... and I'm still more concerned about whether Brett Favre will come out of retirement.
They're pulling out all the stops. They are very scared and very dangerous.
FunMe @ 1:
I truly hope you're correct. I fear that a press united behind McBush could sway enough voters to throw it to the Scalia court again.
Last night, NBC's Nightly News with Lester Holt subbing for Williams took the AP story and ran with it. Refine became reverse and intro's to carefully edited video made Obama look like he had become a hawk. The object - disillusion Obama's base.
Perhaps the worst example of partisan "reporting" was Kelly O'Donnell's piece from Mexico City in which she gushed how McBush had become the statesman by traveling to visit our trading partners.
To their credit, they didn't try to tie McBush to the hostage rescue in Colombia. Tell me his presence was a coincidence. LOL
I sent an e-mail asking if they shouldn't have identified the half hour show as a paid political commercial. I'm sure the e-mail was deleted half read.
Bitter Bud @ 14:
i agree. but the troll wears the latest
in troll eau d'pou.
Embittered & Anti-Republicrat - Max-Hussein-1 @ 4:
I must steal your quote
dadams @ 30:
Wow.
Why is your skepticism limited to Vincennes? Fact of the matter is that you probably know him/her as much as you know anyone else who comments here. Who's to say- excepting yourselves, dadams and bitter bud, of course- that you aren't the trolls? Or me? Or Amato?
Now I'm not saying that you are, but I don't see why Vincennes perspective on this one issue makes him/her one. Tossing that T-word around loosely isn't very friendly. Savez?
FunMe @ 1:
FunMe @ 1:
My biggest fear is it doesn't matter. BOTH seem to be turning out to be similar. Only difference is starting to look like their party colours and nothing more. I am deeply saddened. I had hoped that Obama REALLY meant change, but I think that it was all just a charade. Warshington is not going to change.
Since AP decided to go after bloggers for cutting and pasting parts of their valuable property (stories), I've had my antennae up. The Steve Benen story is timely for me, since I've noticed the same stories he has, and there lack of content. The jury is still out in my mind, since almost all reporters just seem to love McCain, but it is something to keep in mind.
Don't be so over confident that it doesn't matter. The media matters, and if we don't push back, they will only get worse.
Andy K Jong Il @ 32:
Agreed, Vincennes has been around here for a long time. The term troll is being used to much lately.
But we still have to be leary of impostors being that it's election time again. Cause we all know that their coming.
muddy@35
Their coming what? ;^D
how's the trans-fats johnny
Boycott the AP today by cancelling your newspaper subscriptions. It will send a clear message to them that we know they are nothing more than Propaganda Megaphones for the reichwingnuts.
Andy K Jong Il @ 36:
Their coming to take me away ho ho, their coming to take me away. To the funny farm. LOL. Hey all you folks have a great 4th. hasta.
Steve - an absolutely great post! Hard-hitting, well-written, not a wasted word. Great stuff!
Notice how they also worked in a free ad for the Carlyle Group with that box of Dunkin Donuts. Carlyle will not only supply the bombs to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, they will also deliver donuts and coffee to the freshly liberated oil rigs.
The issue re AP bias is that they ARE widely distributed and picked up by practically all mainstream media and some blogs/websites.
Further evidence of their bias can be seen in their reporting of Judge Vaughn's decision in
Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation regards the use of 'state secrets' as a defense.
"While the TPM News headline is 'Judge throws out wiretapping suit by Islamic
foundation' and is by the AP, the New York Times indicates the Judge in the case
-Vaughn Walker- DID NOT throw out the case:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/washington/03fisa.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&o...
in&adxnnlx=1215108095-LqkvoBk66a2VCEAxc8Oz7w " is what I wrote a blog.
Didn't I read recently that the AP got bought by some right-wing group? Similar to the Wall Street Journal getting bought recently by Rupert Murdoch?
Which of course means that to any patriotic American citizen, the AP and the WSJ can no longer be trusted.
And is another indication that the neo-Nazi, neo-Communist right-wing propagandists are trying to consolidate their death-grip on all of our news media outlets before Bush and Cheney slither on their bellies out of the White House, as part of the right-wing propagandists' mad, almost Satanic attempt to establish their "permanent Republican majority."
The Republicans learned something from the Nixon "embarassment": that if they planned on committing anymore crimes, and hoped to avoid criminal prosecution, they'd have to put in place a right-wing controlled news media to keep as many U.S. citizens in the dark as possible about the true intentions of the post-Nixon Republican Party, populated with such shining examples of American patriotism and "rule of law" observers as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, David Addington, Scooter Libby, and a cast of thousands of other criminally-insane Republicans.
Plus, these post-Nixon Republicans had to pack the federal judiciary with as many of their "type" as possible, in hopes of derailing any criminal prosecutions of them for what they planned on doing, establishing a "permanent Republican majority," uncontestable in any democratic forum.
Plus, these post-Nixon Republicans planted a conservative "mole" group in the Democratic Party, in the form of the Democratic Leadership Council, whose intent was to move the Democratic Party more right-ward, making the Democratic Party more "Republican friendly"...and we all know how that has worked out in recent years, with DLC Blue Dog Democrats providing cover for Republicans, thwarting any attempt (by liberal, progressive Democrats and a few moderate, more-patriotic Republicans) to hold these criminally-insane Republicans accountable for all the criminal and un-American acts they've committed in pursuit of their "permanent Republican majority" and permanent elitist, oligarchal, corporatist class, who will rule benevolently over all other American citizens, even as people die due to tainted air, tainted water and tainted products, even as energy/gasoline prices go through the roof, because of criminally-insane Republican policies.
I'm not fooled...just as a huge majority of other patriotic American citizens are no longer fooled. Vote Democrat in November, or vote for a criminally-insane Republican and kiss our democracy, the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights good-bye.
The_Oracle@43
AP is a non-profit cooperative of the papers that use it's service, so it isn't really owned.
I believe you're thinking of UPI, which was bought by Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church in 2000.
Thanks crooksandliars for setting the faith-based thingy straight. I almost cried when I heard he wanted to give federal money to an organization that doesn't pay taxes.
Thankfully, (hopefully?) it isn't true.
It's a pity very few people read this site.
Where Is The Liberal Bias
The current state of the media is one sided. We all get the same opinions shoved
down our throats. If you let the current media establishment describe their coverage, they would say "we are fair and balanced." In appearance, the media will give you a "song and dance" of two sides arguing opposing opinions. However, a closer look will reveal the "song and dance" the viewer signed up for is not the one he's getting. Control is control; when you have it, you have an advantage.
To see this story concerning the Associated Press is scary. It means the print alternative to the MSNBCs and CNNs of the very bias right-wing media is now, you guested it, right-wing also. Now we have the right covering all bases. Oh yes, this should be very scary to all of us who know what we get from the current media is slanted, paid for, and created.
There is no Liberal bias. However, we sure could use some counter representation. As it stands, when networks like CNN does provide an appearance of "fair and balanced," the ratio is usually three to one. I recall watching CNN's version of "fair and balanced" once. It involved three would be Barack Obama supporters and one Clinton supporter. The Clinton supporter was also a former member of the Bush administration. Talk about "throwing a dog a bone."Today, the same ratio will apply with three John McCain supporters and one Obama supporter. If you have not scene it yet, wait it will come.
The counter to this problems is to support a move back to fairness, assuming it once exist. Nancy Pelosi is talking about re-establishing the fairness doctrine. When that time does come, we need to support it.
Joseph
I've noticed in the last year or two that something seems a little odd about some of the AP stories. They seem to be misleading, especially the headlines.
I really suspect they are being used or have been corrupted by propaganda operatives.
All week Lush LimpBalls was complaining about how the AP was in the tank for Obama. Now the lefties are complaining how the AP is in the tank for McSame.
Grow up already. You sound like whiney snot nosed brats...
FU TomfumTenn...we ain't whinin', we'uns is jus gonna git them APers jus lik we's gonna git the rest of you geedubya bush enablers...when we git in auffice. You think Gittymore was a good place to be? You'll find out fust han.
PS - I thought I would speak to you in your native tongue.
rupert murdicKKK is on the board of AP, along with a few other Reichers.
Gee, kinda looks like what Clinton supporters said all along is comin true huh? The corporate media was in the tank for oBOMBalamadingdong, couldn't do enough to cram the empty suited conman down the Dems throats during the primaries. And NOW! I am shocked, SHOCKED!! They're not falling all over themselves for bambi anumore!?! HOW could this be happening!?! WOW, looks like we're gonna finnaly see all the stuff they wouldn't report on during the primary huh? BWAHAHA! And the repugs haven't even STARTED doing THEIR adds yet. How sick of ms.dong saying "for the FIRST time in my adult life I'm proud of my country" and the Rev. saying "NAW,NAW,NAW, not Gawd BLESS America...GAWD DAMN America" Or how bout "the U.S. of KKKA"? This is soooo gonna be fun to watch.
Yeah dirtydawg, UOU'RE gonna win over ALOT of votes in Tenn. with THAT schtick! Or should i say...HEY Mofo, don be trippin!
bullfrog @ 16:
or in McNastys case they treat him with 'begging bacons' fake treats for a fake candidate.
Edward_Bernay @ 19:
Its been permanent for decades
AP is owned by a consortium of 1,500 newspapers. When its reporters serve as political partisans it needs to be noted. Perhaps a disclaimer would be in order. Something that would declare they are or are not biased for one point of view and aren't on the take. Why would anyone trust the press anymore?
that simpering cow in the foto looks like she's about to cum out of pure joy at the nearness of greatness, innit?
How to reply to a story after the racists have thrown their tantrums? Treat 'em like any other five year old - shush child! Daddy is talking now!
Let us say that we are not surprised. Of course the repug members of the press were not going to stop rehashing the same tired garbage. It is all they have. And not to see that they would attack his message of change and his symbolism of change would be moronic. What we do about it is ALL that matters.
Do not give up. Keep talking about Obama. Keep defending him. Keep reminding people of the failures of the conservative brand, the corruption, the lying, the backward policies, the conformity, the total incompetence at running anything. Remind our voices on the radio to be straight - I am speaking directly to Bill Press who railed against Obama for saying he would continue Bush's Faith Based Initiative. I didn't like what I thought Obama said (because somebody else was saying it), after hearing it from Obama I am certain Bush's version is NOT Obama's vision. Bill Press should be ashamed of being so inflammatory and misleading. Disagree but tell the truth Bill! Only we can force the truth into the open, but we must be able to recognize it and know it.
---now back to the racists---
StirFry @ 23:
{ Deleted, SiteMonitor}
If the AP is not bought, take a look at the huffpo piece on the heckling of Bu$h at Monticello. The AP piece is there, stenographers to the end, as well as the video from CNN. It is easy to compare the reporting. The news was not that shrub had stammered his way through jabbering about the sanctity of apple pie and motherhood, but that the president was heckled at the home of America's greatest founders. The cheek of this man who has pissed on the graves of the founding fathers to, by his presence, defile the home of one of the greatest is beyond disgusting. But see how AP played it. Who are you going to believe the AP or your lying eyes and ears?
It's just the typical Reslug crap that will cause McBush will lose badly.
Did anyone think that the Right wing would not attack any Democrats regardless of who the candidate was. Now people be smart and don't let the media do your thinking, these cooperate whores aren't thinking, they are doing what they are told to do by the masters.
The difference is folks, Rupert Murdoch is on the board of AP. This is why the AP is siding with McCain in the general.
The AP has lost alot of credibility. It reads and sounds more like the washington times. That woman in the picture clearly a right wing tool. The same goes for the david espo piece which I read and said wtf.
What these far right ap idiots think is that the American people are stupid in regards to the propaganda they write.
AP Sucks and Spins...Nuff Said...They are part of the msmachine.
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