The Associated Press and the President

As I've mentioned before we have a small digital news alert from AP on our elevator TV (about the size of a 1949 TV screen). Probably the most important international event in the last 60 years is taking place today (signing of the Gaza peace plan), but it is showing 2 stories about the death of Dianne Keaton, 2 on football and I think I saw something about JD Vance, but it was not about the historic accomplishment not only of Trump but indeed all the countries in the middle east. What a worthless waste of someone's investment, career and time is Associated Press.

So, I checked to see what its beef is about Trump--and among others it is suing for its First Amendment rights because the Trump Administration blocked 2 reporters on reporting on a White House event. Oh goodie. It gets to ignore important history and pouts that there are consequences for bias, middle school nastiness and disinformation. Wikipedia (not always a good source, but it's handy) says it is a not for profit association made up of members who report news.

 

"As a cooperative, the Associated Press is owned and governed by its members. There are approximately 1,300 U.S. newspaper members and thousands of television and radio broadcast members.

These organizations are the collective owners. They elect the board, contribute to the cooperative's news report, and in return, gain access to the vast amount of content produced by AP journalists worldwide.
This structure is designed to support journalism, not generate profit for investors. Revenue generated by the AP, including from licensing its content to non-members, is reinvested back into its news-gathering operations." (SEOAves)

1300 newspapers and thousands of TV and radio members. Hmmm. I wonder what percentage have ever had a good word to say about President Trump or conservatives? Yet AP's reports are the "backbone" of all news reporting.

My elevator AP news feed

I know how much AP hates to announce anything positive about Trump, his economy, his tariffs, his supporters, his values, his patriotism or his family, so that's why I used the AP article. Our elevators at the Forum use a news feed from AP (left of center) and I just wait for it to switch to volleyball or pick up sticks tournaments. It's all in the verbs. https://apnews.com/article/economy-gdp-spending-trump-federal-reserve-rates-97346d37c4edaa00f519e45941f75264?

"An uptick in consumer spending helped the U.S. economy expand at a surprising 3.8% from April through June, the government reported in a dramatic upgrade of its previous estimate of second-quarter growth.

U.S. gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded in the spring from a 0.6% first-quarter drop caused by fallout from President Donald Trump’s trade wars, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The department had previously estimated second-quarter growth at 3.3%, and forecasters had expected a repeat of that figure."

White House Briefing—going badly for Carney

Poor Jay Carney. Benghazi is far worse than Watergate, and yet he tells US to check our history (Tuesday, May 14, press conference). Has to stand in front of the nation which doesn't believe a word and then gripe that the Benghazi tragedy is just a political side show by the Republicans, that the IRS story is an "if" and that Obama doesn't support the leaks snooping by Department of Justice and Eric Holder, his best bud.  He lamely whines about the "worst recession since the Great Depression." (That's code for this is all Bush's fault.)

Obama made clear yesterday he has been lying through his teeth about who did what when by "rewriting" the history of the last 8 months. On Sept. 25 he was still blaming a video for Sept. 11 attack. Hillary blamed a video in “comforting” the families and swore to get the film maker; Rice blamed a video on 5 talk shows. They all knew it wasn't true. Then he repeated that lie when he knew it was a planned terrorist attack and not a video when he told it on Sept. 25 at the United Nations, which he circuitously denied yesterday:

"That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity. It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well -- for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we are a country that has welcomed people of every race and every faith."

MSNBC labels AP ‘inherently racist’ for accurate translation of Obama speech

I call this the Don Imus rule of journalism. A bi-racial President who learned to talk black as an adult can try to jive the Black Caucus, but Associated Press is racist if it records the mess he made of it.

During his speech, Obama attempted to fool the black audience into thinking he was one of them and not a paid teleprompter reader for Wall Street by dropping the g’s at the end of his words.

“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” Obama lectured the audience. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

However, after the Associated Press accurately transcribed Obama’s dropped g’s, MSNBC aired a debate segment asking whether the decision not to “clean up” Obama’s words was “racist”.

MSNBC labels AP ‘inherently racist’ for accurate translation of Obama speech « InvestmentWatch – The best source of news, analysis, and intelligent discussion

Eleven AP fact checkers for Palin’s book

Did AP fact check Obama's book? Just point to the article. It used 11 on Palin. She must really be a threat.

Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine plus Calvin Woodward all contributed to the article “fact checking” her book. Mark Steyn said that equaled about l.8333333 errors/facts per writer. Surely, if all 11 actually read it they could have found more. I find errors in books and web pages all the time. Spent some time tonight at a FEMA site and found three errors within three clicks. And the facts they disputed? Not so much. They were really flimsy--like “railed against taxpayer-financed bailouts.” Please? Most Americans on both the left and right have done that.

Has AP in 10 months of brilliant journalistic analysis even come up with 11 criticisms of Barack Obama? Like his deficit which makes George W. Bush, the biggest spender up to Jan. 20, 2009, look like a penny pinching piker? Taking over huge segments of the economy? Calling the Cambridge police stupid? Not knowing how or when to salute? Bowing to foreign leaders? Or his marxist passion to redistribute wealth? Or how about that terrorist trial he wants in New York City? Don't bother to count. It was just a rhetorical question.

Has AP ever looked so ridiculous?

Definitions of leaks

Some bloggers do have ears for the leaks, but mainly those go straight from the government's lips to AP, NYT or WSJ "sources" then the bloggers go to work. I wrote about this maybe 2.5 years ago, and found these definitions really interesting. Leaks about the current financial crisis weren't too important. It was all out there loud and clear. Even the talking heads could hear Maxine and Barney defending Fannie, and no one cared because their own portfolios were doing fine. We all wanted to believe the house of cards built in the suburbs was the "American dream" for people who couldn't afford it.

Source: Stephen Hess. The Government/Press Connection: Press Officers and their Offices. Washington, DC : Brookings Institution, 1984. 77-79;

Ego Leak: Giving information primarily to satisfy a sense of self.

Goodwill Leak: Information offered to “accumulate credit” as a play for a future favor.

Policy Leak: A straightforward pitch for or against a proposal using some document or insider information as the lure to get more attention than might be otherwise justified. The leak of the Pentagon Papers falls into this category.

Animus Leak: Used to settle grudges; information is released in order to cause embarrassment to another person.

Trial-Balloon Leak: Revealing a proposal that is under consideration in order to assess its assets and liabilities. Usually proponents have too much invested in a proposal to want to leave it to the vagaries of the press and public opinion. More likely, those who send up a trial balloon want to see it shot down, and because it is easier to generate opposition to almost anything than to build support, this is the most likely effect.

Whistleblower Leak: Usually used by career personnel; going to the press may be the last resort of frustrated civil servants who feel they cannot resolve their dispute through administrative channels. Hess is careful to point out that Whistleblowing is not synonymous with leaking.

The Big Chill

Liberals rampaging already and Obama isn't even in the White House yet. "The Associated Press went on blog patrol recently and threatened some bloggers with lawsuits unless they removed quotes from its stories from their sites. . . There is already a body of copyright law that covers this territory, of course, and many irate bloggers contend that AP is overstepping its bounds by attempting to thwart its fair use provisions. AP and the Media Bloggers Association will meet this week to discuss the issues." see story at Keith Regan, e-Commerce Times

I suppose one could paraphrase AP and NOT link to their stories at all--just get the general drift, or twist it to the right (i.e., untwist it), but give them the nod. But that wastes a lot of time on the part of readers who then have to go search for it. No one should copy someone else's entire story or material, but excerpts are allowed by law. The bloggers may be well within their rights, but law suits are expensive, so the purpose of this is to chill freedom of information and speech, and we'll see more of this during the Obomb era.