Articles

24th Jul, 2006 3:20pm
     It’s a slow news day and you’re an environment reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper. What do you do to kill time before your bicycle ride home? If you’re The Washington Post’s Michael Grunwald, you might pen a couple opinion pieces telling your readers they are destroying the Earth and that Al Gore can help save it with another vice presidency.     That’s essentially what reporter Michael Grunwald did in the pages of the July 23 Outlook section for the liberal Washington paper. A…
24th Jul, 2006 9:33am
     If you want to read between the lines for politicians, it helps if you know what book they’re reading. In the case of liberal would-be tax fixer Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), it appears to be Mao’s “Little Red Book.”       Wyden, according to the July 24 Washington Post, “has made it his mission to force Congress to rewrite the entire tax code.” Wyden’s plan isn’t particularly new – it’s another left-wing attempt at soaking the rich. According to the Post, “Wyden’s Fair Flat Tax Act would lower…
21st Jul, 2006 4:29pm
      ABC’s Charles Gibson gave viewers of the July 20 “World News Tonight” little to chew on when he told them the government was scaling back testing for mad cow disease. The anchor only put forth the anti-industry side of the story and left out how cattle ranchers were pleased with government findings that prompted the testing cutback.     “The Agriculture Department has said that it’s going to eliminate about 90 percent of its test for mad cow disease,” Gibson informed viewers, noting that…
21st Jul, 2006 4:22pm
     Instead of worrying about the burst of the “housing bubble” you might as well watch paint dry or your grass grow. CNN’s “American Morning” is no longer forecasting doom and gloom for the US housing market. On July 21 Gerri Willis declared the latest housing market news “kinda boring.”     Willis’s statement was in contrast to comments made earlier this year on American Morning. On March 22, Soledad O’Brien said “If you are worried about the housing bubble bursting, sell, sell, sell, it’s a…
20th Jul, 2006 4:21pm
     On July 19, a federal judge struck down a state law aimed at punishing Wal-Mart for spending “too little” on health insurance. The next day’s coverage in The New York Times and The Washington Post portrayed the court case as a victory for the ultimate Big Business at the expense of workers – overlooking the impact that extending such a law would have on businesses in general.        New York Times writers Reed Abelson and Michael Barbaro opened their July 20 story lamenting “a setback to…
19th Jul, 2006 5:56pm
     A think tank with ties to liberal financier George Soros was called simply as “nonprofit” in a recent New York Times article on privatized prisons.        “The increasing privatization of immigration detention has its critics,” writer Meredith Kolodner noted in her July 19 story, citing unnamed “immigrant advocates” and the “nonprofit research group Justice Strategies.”       “Private prisons have unleashed an entrepreneurial spirit in this country that is unhealthy,” complained Judith…
19th Jul, 2006 3:39pm
     Oil speculators are staying busy these days, and they’re not just on the trading floor. They’re active at all three broadcast news networks, helping to hype oil prices even higher than they are.        “Four dollars a gallon may be coming down the pike,” said CBS’s Jim Acosta on the July 15 “Evening News.” “If you think $3 gas is bad, what about 4?” said NBC’s Anne Thompson the day before on the “NBC Nightly News.”       And as Thompson said on that broadcast,” “All this…
19th Jul, 2006 1:28pm
     Washington Post food writer Candy Sagon gave a sour assessment of her grocery store quandaries in her July 19 article “Is There Anything Left That We Can Eat?”       Sagon’s latest story was somewhat tongue-in-cheek about confusing and conflicting advice in the media on what is safe or healthy to eat both in fast food and in the grocery store. However, the Post writer pointed to a food industry critic who says Americans are paying too little to stock the pantry.       “Spend more, eat less…
18th Jul, 2006 4:38pm
     Greedy drug companies are making a killing off the medicine cabinets of the poor, complained New York Times correspondent Milt Freudenheim in his July 18 article “A Windfall from Shifts to Medicare.”      Yet while the Times reporter reminded readers that the drug prescription plan was seen by leftist critics “as a sop to the drug industry,” Freudenheim failed to include critics from the right who complained about the explosive growth of Medicare spending and its toll on taxpayers.     …
17th Jul, 2006 5:45pm
     Al Gore may have rubbed elbows with some of the world’s most prominent leaders, but he looked awkward in staged photos as cover boy in the July 14 issue of Entertainment Weekly. He appeared denim jacketed in the hot desert and looked hard pressed to interact with stuffed monkeys let alone save a jungle of real ones. That didn’t matter to EW which still declared his efforts a success and the global warming debate “over.”       The issue praised Gore’s newfound hipster status and mentioned…