Associated Press

“What’s Going On Here?” Oh, Just the Usual Biased and Slanted Journalism Making It Impossible to Know What’s Going On Here…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I cannot describe how sick I am of this phenomenon.

Here is the Conservative Brief’s report on the recent decision by a judge not to take further steps enforcing his order that the Trump White House cease discriminating against the Associated Press following its refusal to embrace the President’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. Headline: “Associated Press Loses Court Case To Regain Coveted White House Access.” But it didn’t “lose the case.” Still, the slanted analysis was reported as fact by the conservative news site PJ Media. Here’s the New York Times spin. [Let’s see if the Gift Link works this time…]. Headline: “Judge Rejects A.P.’s Challenge to New White House Press Policy, for Now.” For now. “The judge said that he needed more time to determine whether the new policy was discriminatory, but said that the elimination of rotating access for newswires was ‘facially neutral.’”

Here’s the Associated Press: “Judge won’t take further steps to enforce his order in AP case against Trump administration.” “U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who handed the AP a victory last week in its efforts to end the ban, said it’s too soon to say that President Donald Trump is violating his order — as the AP suggests. ‘We are not at the point where we can make much of a determination one way or another,’ said McFadden, ruling from the bench. ‘I don’t intend to micromanage the White House.’”

Having read these three reports and a couple more, what seems to be the story is that the judge who said that the White House couldn’t punish the AP for which name it chooses to call the Gulf by banning it from White House functions (thanks to the White House announcing publicly that this was its motivation, making the ban a government infringement on free speech), the Associate Press could not insist that it has special privileges due to its once-justifiable status as long-time trustworthy news source, and could be placed in rotation with other news services instead of keeping a regular, permanent spot in the press pool.

The judge made clear what his conclusion was: that the proverbial jury is still out on whether the White House is engaging in viewpoint discrimination, which it may not do, or simply treating the AP like any other news service. However, he did reject the idea that because the AP has been anointed with special deference by past Presidents, the Trump White House is constitutionally obligated to continue them.

Especially since the AP now sucks. (But the judge didn’t say that.)

The Associated Press Generously Demonstates Why It Should Be Kicked Out of White House Briefings

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard saying President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “are very good friends.” Gabbard was talking about Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The AP will publish a corrected version of the story.”

Oh. WHAT???

How in the world does a news organization get the Prime Minister of India mixed up with Putin?

Why, it does this when that news organization is so eager to publish negative stories, rumors and gossip about President Trump to undermine his Presidency and the will of the electorate that it doesn’t bother to check and verify such a tale that they view as just what they are looking for— an item that will be quickly gobbled up, regurgitated and spread all over social media by the Trump Deranged to show that, as Stephen Colbert so eloquently (and, to the intended audience, humorously) put it, President Trump is Putin’s “cock-holster.”

The Associated Press is suing the White House, you may recall, arguing that stopping this persistently partisan hack news organization from being guaranteed one of the limited numbers of seats in the White House press room constitutes a First Amendment violation. After this latest fiasco, AP’s victory in the case would justify The Babylon Bee, The National Enquirer and the Weekly World News—you know, these guys…

…being guaranteed places as well.

A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Addendum To The Democratic Porn-For-Pay Virginia House Candidate Story

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Several news media sources have now reported that the Associated Press was informed about Susanna Gibson and her husband selling sexual perversions-on-demand via videos on the public porn site Chaturbate. A candidate for a state legislature seeking compensation for letting an audience see her urinate, perhaps on said husband (just to pick one possible videoed activity) is obviously both newsworthy and of legitimate interest to voters (despite the absurd line of defense now taken by Gibson, her defenders and her party), but the AP’s editors deliberately refused to report on it. Instead, the AP alerted Gibson that the secret of the videos was out, so she could take them down, which she did. This was on September 5.

The outlet then waited until September 12, after the scandal had been reported by others, including the Washington Post, to report it as news. Nice.

Observations:

Continue reading →

One Ethics Villain Promotes Another, As The Associated Press Pimps For Black Lives Matter On Its Anniversary

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Sometimes an ethics story defies my ability to devise an appropriate headline. The AP story “Black Lives Matter movement marks 10 years of activism and renews its call to defund the police” is a prime example. The story is even worse than the headline (“activism” is a deceitful and deceptive euphemism for violence, lies, divisiveness and fraud), with the once-trustworthy news organization displaying the worst of U.S. journalism’s ethics rot.

The scam that is Black Lives Matter has done nothing but damage since its emergence in 2013, but to hear the AP tell it, this is a movement for Americans to honor. Let’s see…I haven’t checked yet, and I promise to reveal what I find: is the AP’s reporter who wrote this junk, Aaron Morrison, an African American?

Why yes, he is! What a coinkydink. This piece of propaganda could only have been written by a devoted supporter; the AP rigged the story. That’s American journalism in 2023.

Let me provide some highlights with commentary:

Continue reading →

From The Great Stupid, Linguistics Division, Res Ipsa Loquitur Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Wait—does that include “The woke,” “the politically correct,” “the Language Police” and “the Too Silly to be Taken Seriously?”

The Associated Press’s Stunning Corruption [Link Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The corruption, bias, and ethical void within the mainstream media is now difficult to overstate. The latest revelation is so damning, 95% of the media isn’t reporting it, since it points to the ethics rot of one of its most esteemed members. This is the news media’s recent tactic to avoid being exposed as the lying, manipulating propaganda agents they and their partisan allies in Big Tech and social media are. Hide the facts

The Associated Press, the august and once respected newswire service, accepts donations to fund its climate coverage. In 2022, the AP received $8 million in donations to fund its climate doom reporting, with money coming from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Quadrivium, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, all climate change alarmists. The AP isn’t alone: what it calls philanthropy-funded news is a trend, with other news sources accepting charitable funds as well. The Salt Lake Tribune, The Seattle Times and the New York Times are also accepting grants from interest groups.

Yes, non-profits are interest groups.

The $8 million over three years allows the AP to hire 20 more “climate journalists.” AP News Vice President Brian Carovillano says without giggling that the money comes “without strings attached” and asserts that funders have “no influence on the stories conducted.” He’s lying. He’s unquestionably lying: if I give a publication 8 million dollars to hire ethics specialists to report on the importance of ethics, those hires are certain to influence the publication’s content. Is there any chance the “climate journalists” will write stories about how so much climate science is speculative, politically-slanted hooey? I think not.

Continue reading →

Would You Buy A Used Fact Check From This News Organization?

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Hey, anyone can make a mistake, right?

Well, some mistakes have lasting consequences, and result in fair and permanent judgments about an individual’s or an organization’s trustworthiness. I winced a bit at comments in the previous post using the term”mistake” in reference to a grown woman who was selling heroin with her boyfriend, and then after he was arrested and asked her to “take care of” his co-defendant, lured the hit-target into a homicidal ambush by another “business partner” of her and her boyfriend. What is the single “mistake” in that sequence? When did it become a mistake—after she was caught? After she was sentenced to life in prison?

The “mistake” in the case at hand isn’t a crime, just a metaphorical journalistic one. The miscreant is the Associated Press. Last week, the AP published a story about a new group buying up Spanish-speaking radio stations. “The Latino Media Network, a startup founded by two political strategists who worked for President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, reached a $60 million deal to acquire 18 AM and FM stations in ten U.S. cities from Televisa/Univision,” it reported. “The agreement announced June 3 still needs Federal Communications Commission approval.”

The piece included comments about the purchase attributed to Martha Flores, who served for years as a host of a show on Radio Mambi. Flores has been dead for two years.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month: AP Libel Victim Vito Gesualdi

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Vito-Netflix-walkout

“The media sucks!“

—-Comedian and videographer Vito Gesuald, after discovering that the Associated Press lied about his conduct while circulating his image to news outlets around the country.

A detailed account of this illustrative event is here, but the basic facts are these. During the walk-out of Netflix employees who want the streaming service to censor comedians who dare to make jokes about the anointed untouchables in our culture, currently transexuals (among others),  a counter-protester named Vito Gesualdi staged a mild counter-protest with a sign that read “Jokes are funny.” He makes videos and has a humorous podcast, and was on the scene to support  Dave Chappelle’s First Amendment right to make jokes even if some people find them offensive. Vito was photographed by an Associated Press photographer named Damian Dovarganes, with the result you see above.  But the AP captioned the photo, “Comedian and videographer Vito Gesualdi screams profanities as he engages with peaceful protesters begging him to leave…”

Vito was horrified and understandably so. “Screams profanities?” he tweeted. “Dude, I just yelled ‘I love Dave Chappelle’! The media sucks!”  A bit later, Vito discovered with a Google search  that the falsely captioned photo was turning up everywhere.

“Oh great, it’s a stock Associated Press photo caption so that lie is on dozens of news sites now. Any lawyers in the house? This is BS,” he wrote adding with another tweet, “Worth noting that my co-host Dick Masterson is currently at the hospital getting a CT scan after having his head bounced against a concrete planter by these ‘peaceful protestors.'”
 Continue reading →

Monday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 3/1/2021: Soccer, Evasion, A Drunk Driver And A Rewind

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

That clip has nothing to do with ethics, but it makes me laugh every time I see it, and then makes me angry because John Belushi threw his life away.

1. Not that I need more reasons to avoid watching soccer, but the U.S. Soccer Federation’s National Council formally voted to repeal a policy that required players to stand for the National Anthem. That’s right: athletes representing the United States of America are now permitted to show disrespect for the nation they are representing while appearing in foreign countries, in which such useless grandstanding as taking a knee during the Anthem are meaningless and confusing to non-American audiences. At the Zoom meeting in which the vote was taken, USSF president Cindy Parlow Cone embraced Rationalization #64 (“It isn’t what it is”) by caliming that the policy repeal wasn’t in any way intended to disrespect the flag or the military. “This is about the athletes’ and our staff’s right to peacefully protest racial inequalities and police brutality,” she said. “So I urge our membership to please support our staff and our athletes on this policy.”

She’s an ignorant fool, or she’s lying. The team has no “right” to protest on the playing field, before or during games, while representing the United States. This is just more cowardly woke capitulation. Anyone who says they are protesting racial inequalities and police brutality should be asked to specify 1) exactly what inequality they are protesting, 2) what instance of police brutality, and 3) how their grandstanding accomplishes anything that substantively addresses the issues.

2. Regarding Donald Trump’s speech at CPAC…I don’t want to have to write all this stuff all over again. If Trump tries to make another run for the Republican nomination, or, worse, launch a third party bid, he will be causing incalculable damage to the nation purely to satisfy his own ego. Go back to the posts here when he announced his short-lived candidacy in 2012. This is one reason I am hoping he takes the route of running for a House seat to exact his revenge. He’ll do less damage there, and Andrew Johnson will have some company in the history books for returning to Congress after being impeached.

Continue reading →

High Noon Ethics Shoot-Out, 10/21/2020: Religious Bigotry Vs Anti-Gay Bigotry! “Whitewashing” Vs Anti-Semitism! Google Vs Trust!

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

As you may (and should) know, the classic Western “High Noon” was and is regarded by some conservatives as anti-American. I think it is, as excellent as it is. The ending, where the heroic law man (played by Gary Cooper in an Academy Award-winning performance) throws his star in the dirt in disgust (imitated by “Dirty Harry” for very different reasons in that conservative film years later), is widely seen as a rejection of American society as hypocritical. (The fact that the screenwriter, Carl Foreman, was a Communist doesn’t help.)

My favorite scene in the movie, where Cooper begs the church congregation to help, plays like a “Twilight Zone” episode, with the whole town rationalizing furiously to avoid helping the desperate law man minutes away from having to face, alone, vengeful thugs determined to kill him. (The whole scene is not on YouTube; I searched.) “Rio Bravo,” one of the best John Wayne Westerns and a personal favorite, was devised by director Howard Hawks as a direct rebuke of the selfish and craven America “High Noon” posits. In the Duke’s movie, the lawman, Wayne, constantly rejects the offers of help he receives, though he knows hired killers are massing to free his prisoner. Yet people go out of their way, at great personal risk, to help him anyway, time after time. “High Noon” is a better movie (maybe), but “Rio Bravo” is a fairer depiction of American values and history.

1. This is why I tell lawyers and government employees that it’s unethical to use Google for professional communication and client matters. Mac programmer Jeff Johnson has discovered that if you set Google Chrome to eliminate all website cookies and site data when you close the browser, the data remains un-erased for YouTube and Google itself.

What a coinkydink!

“Perhaps this is just a Google Chrome bug, not intentional behavior, but the question is why it only affects Google sites, not non-Google sites,” Johnson says. “I’ve tested using the latest Google Chrome version 86.0.4240.75 for macOS, but this behavior was also happening in the previous version of Chrome. I don’t know when it started.”

Bottom line: Don’t trust Google. Like I’ve been saying….

Continue reading →