There are intelligent, talented editors at newspapers across the nation, and then there's Henry Fredrick, city editor of the Taunton (Mass.) Gazette. "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy." That, of course, was the late Lloyd Bentsen, the vice […]
Today's editorial in The New York Times on Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's free boxing tickets (one of which was valued at $1,400) manages to allude to a "culture of corruption" that includes only Republicans. This doesn't prove Mr. Reid wrong, but it does illustrate the power of the Caesar's wife rule these days as […]
Sen. John Kerry is still fighting battles he lost long ago. In today's New York Times, there is what can only be described as a puff piece on Kerry's continuing efforts to lose Vietnam in 1971 and win the presidency in 2004. There's no immediate news hook on which to base today's article. The story […]
The good news is that now more than ever, the news media can't get away with sloppy reporting. If you weren't following last week's battle between House Speaker Dennis Hastert and ABC News' Brian Ross, then maybe ABC News can still count you as a viewer. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has a succinct summary […]
Moody's Investors Service downgraded the New York Times debt rating to Baa1. Just for comparison, the financial disaster that is the City of San Diego has its general obligation bonds rated A3. [PDF format] That's one grade higher than the Times.
Earlier this week the Union-Tribune published a front-page article that used the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to list the California spotted owl as an endangered species as a news hook to hit at the Bush administration for listing fewer species than previous administrations. It's not until after the jump that you get a […]
If you don't follow the left-wing moonbats or various media criticism Web sites you may have missed a May 13 story that "broke" on the left-wing Web site Truthout.org. The story claimed that Bush adviser Karl Rove had been indicted that Friday after his lawyers had a 15 hour meeting with special prosecuter Peter Fitzgerald. […]
If you're looking for a glimpse into what's going on in a copyeditor's head, put them in a training class and ask them to write a headline. I've been spending a lot of hours the past few months working on a new computer system at work, in addition to my regular duties. (That is why […]
Today's journalistic malpractice comes to us courtesy of the "Today" show (via Newsbusters). In a little intro to an interview with Chevron CEO David O'Reilly, "Today" broke down the costs of a gallon of gas -- sorta. You can follow the previous link to see a couple of the images, but these are the "facts" […]
I'm going to take issue with one line in today's Union-Tribune editorial on the NSA phone database. Earlier this year, when it was disclosed that the NSA was intercepting calls to and from foreign countries, the president told the nation that the program did not cover calls within the United States. We now know that […]