The entire MSM with the exception of MSNBC is in the bag for the Republicans. I nearly threw up last night as I flipped around the channels an listened to some of the comments after. Grampa Brokaw on NBC said "well Obama said McCain won't go to the cave where Osama is hiding, boy john McCain isn't going to like that" WTF! Tom Brokaw there is a reason why you are retired. Then this morning who does the today show turn to for their in depth analysis...why the Fair and Balanced Murdock Street Journal operative Peggy Noonan. Fuck them all

I wonder if the corporations that own these traditional services (that we still need), instead of revitalizing their product and direction, are actually TRYING to commit suicide?

Oh, we hear them whining that they are losing readership and ad revenues, but when you hand people feces & tell then it's gourmet chocolate, you're not going to get a lot of repeat customers.

The man responsible for directing the wire service's coverage of the presidential campaign, Ron Fournier, considered joining the McCain campaign's payroll

Fournier is a more effective campaign operative where he is, apparently, and his salary isn't being paid by Cindy's credit cards. Win-win.

Look who is at the top of the AP. Ron Fournier is just a hired hand. The movement conservatives running the AP know who they hired and why. What is needed is for the AP to face some real push back and ultimately some real competition.

For now the AP is just Fox News writ large.

I hope this is the last straw.

I went to sleep last night, for the first time in months, feeling good about the election. Yes, the speech was amazing. But what I found most incredible were the immediate postgame reactions.

I watched an hour of cable coverage after the confetti came down. And Juan Williams, alleged Faux News "liberal," was the only one who was even remotely critical about the speech.

I watched in awe as Bill Kristol said Obama "exceeded expectations." My mouth was agape as MSNBC had to stop Pat Buchanan's gushing about the speech to cut to commercial. Even reanimated corpse Charles Krauthammer the creepy mustache GOP consultant on CNN had nothing but praise.

And then, this morning, more Republican propaganda from the AP. Unreal. This term gets thrown around a lot, but maybe, just maybe, the media's endless shilling for McCain has jumped the shark. One can only hope. Will anyone outside the liberal blogosphere take note?

Babington from the AP has always been a Republican operative. In 2007, the Washington Post sort of traded Babington to the AP for John Solomon, another Republican operative, who himself went onto the Washington Times.

McCain must be in trouble though. These so-called reporters, who are actually Republican operatives, are not operating with the least bit of subtlety. It makes what they do so much less effective.

Haven't more and more newspapers been dropped the AP newswire service? If your local paper hasn't dropped it yet, now's the time...

...but Republicans almost surely will decry the lack of specifics.

Oh, you mean like they decried the "lack of specifics" back in 2000 when W said he was gonna cut taxes, increase military spending, and still have a surplus? Or how they decried his "lack of specifics" in his "case for war"? Or the "lack of specifics" in how to handle the 5-1/2 year (so far) occupation of a foreign country after waging a war of choice against a country that posed no threat to us?

Yeah, we all know how big the GOP is on "specifics".

The AP story was correct.

We've nominated a guy who ran the whole fucking primary campaign without specifics.

But if Olbermann says to fling poo at the AP, poo gets flung.

Every wonder why General Electric is taking the positions they're taking? Ever wonder what General Electric's agenda is?

Personally, I prefer the Democratic Party to the MSNBCDEMOCRATIC Party...

This is criminal malpractice writ large beyond belief. If a doctor, surgeon, accountant, engineer, or anyone with professional responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of others behaved like this they'd be locked up for the rest of their natural days.

So why is a dangerous criminal like Ron Screw-U Fournier still at large walking the streets?

The Associated Press is just too important to slip so far from where it once was.

Why? I mean, why are they so important? They're losing business and influence and yeah, it's a pain now, but it may be best if they discredit themselves and sink under the waves. Note that the Obama people are calling out the Chicago reporter pushing Rezko lies; I don't see why they wouldn't do the same, increasingly, as AP devolves.

petey just earned enough McCain points to win himself a whole half a gallon of Exxon gas! Congratuations petey! Try not to use that gas to kill yourself by letting your car run in the garage while you take a nap in the drivers' seat, despondent over your blind stupidity! Toodles!

Umm, Petey, did you watch the speech? Did you notice Obama made 29 specific policy proposals? If you think "We've nominated a guy who ran the whole fucking primary campaign without specifics" then you obvious are unable to find Obama's web site, which has 10 times the material than McCains. Let me help you -- go to barackobama.com click on "go to website" and then click on "issues".

As for Babington, one of the main blogs (forgot who) pointed out that Babington not only got the length of the speech wrong, but filed the article a mere 26 minutes after the speech ended -- evidence that Babington probably wrote most of his article ahead of time.

We've nominated a guy who ran the whole fucking primary campaign without specifics.

Exactly. I mean, aside from the 12-page, multi-point proposals on every issue under the sun that have been available on his website for a year, the detailed wonkish answers in town hall meetings, and the specific answers he's given on everything from timelines for Iraq withdrawal to the number of divisions we should have in Afghanistan to the terms of universal health care to the enumerated sections of the tax code he'd reform, where were the specifics?

Once you look past all the details and facts, and have the front lobes of your brain removed, it's hard to see anything specific at all!

The AP is a partisan outlet at this juncture, and it saddens me greatly! -Kevo

But instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. [...] - Charles Babington, AP

This is one of the Republican talking points that is the easiest for the Obama surrogates to refute:

It takes less than 30 seconds to find Barack Obama's campaign website using a web serach. Once there you'll find pages and pages and PAGES of specific policy proposals from Sen. Obama's foreign and domestic agendas -- hours of reading with enough details to make the wonkiest wonk happy.

Any "journalist" who says that Barack Obama hasn't been specific enough is either lazy or is already in the tank for McCain.

Obama needs better surrogates.

A growing number of newspapers have dumped the AP, and while the AP's tilt to the GOP may be part of it, by far the biggest reason is that they've determined that the financial costs far outweigh the benefits. Newspapers actually supply a large percentage of the AP's content, which the AP then sells to broadcast and internet media, who just happen to be the primary competitors of newspapers. Why should newspapers subsidize their competition? Far from something that needs to be kept alive, the AP will die a well-deserved death, and Karl Rove BF Ron Fournier is the perfect guy to administer the coup de grace.

Gives whole new meaning to the term "AP style," doesn't it? I can't wait to see the forthcoming parodies of the AP Style Guide.

Moreover, I can't wait to see one of the "new media" news organizations take over the job of being America's wire service. The blogosphere has been wrapping its tiny ropes around the legs of this giant for several years now. Time for it to fall.

Hey, I have an idea - how about that dude who used to do the Blog Report on Salon? ;-)

Seriously, though, it is time for somebody to put a lot of money behind somebody and build a business plan that will take AP out over the next five to ten years.

A lack of subtlety from known Rethug operatives is the least of Obama's worries. That has become predictable, and the lack of objectivity in the MSM, dare I say, journalistic standards (assuming there ever were any) is SOP.

Obama is a good candidate, an excellent orator and organizer, but he may not be the right candidate. Race is certainly a big issue, but 2000 and 2004 should have taught us that the corporate Rethug establishment will do anything to steal, I mean win, the 'election.' The stakes are again extremely high. That's where we need to focus our attention; on Diebold, October surprises, vote caging, and everything else the Rethug playbook of dirty tricks has in store for Obama. Don't expect the MSM to be of any help.

I've stopped reading news sites, like Yahoo News, that are fed from AP. I'll just follow blogs with Google Reader...

Its coverage of the race has not only been biased and misleading, but has become an embarrassment to once-great media institution.

Which, of course, presumes the AP (along with the rest of the so-called "liberal media" is unintentionally parroting the Republican line. The increasing evidence suggests the incompetence dodge doesn't apply.

The Associated Press is just too important to slip so far from where it once was. It can become credible again, but the service is in desperate need of sweeping changes.

Firing Fourneir for starters.

SB is doing a real service by harping on this issue, folks. The Republicans have woked for decades to undermine the credibility of the media that revealed the inevitable failure of Republican policies, to the point where it's an article of faith among Republicans that the media is liberal, despite all evidence to the contrary. (At the same time, they've engineered, through governmental policy, the increasing corporatization and consolidation of the media.)

The AP is willing to throw away its credibility because they presume that among low-information voters is will have credibility. For several years now Democrats have been pushing back. The more the American people realize the media -- Faux News most obviously, of course -- is simply parroting GOP propaganda and not delivering what the viewers imagine to be its product, the less credibility it'll have.

As cmdicely points out, the real productthe media offers is viewers to the advertisers. If the media loses creibility, it'll lose viewers. Thus, the market can help enforce an unbiased media.

Of course, returning the Fairness Doctrine and breaking up media conglomerates will help. Which is more likely to happen under a Democrat, so the corporate media is in the tank for the GOP. Simple.

AP has sought and reached the journalistic point in history that few credible organizations aspire to; earning a reputation as nothing more than a questionable appendage of the McBushylvanian Ministry of Truth, where faux factoid after faux factoid is manufactured without any connection whatsoever to Truth, but depending entirely upon the sought-after outcome being the hypothesis upon which the premise is founded.

In the past, I have held the undesirable honor of having to review essays, research papers, and dissertations that were written in such a blatantly, profoundly, and irresponsibly-stupid way as to resemble the piece of dog-barf produced by the "supposedly-sensible" Chuckles Babbington---and I have, upon those few instances, found it essential for the cause of higher learning to demolish not only the work, but also the individuals who dared the ideological synaptic terrorism of expecting me to show any respect for such intellectually-insulting tripe.

No one individual among those few completed their degree program. They were driven into "higher-learning obscurity."

Such is the only recourse to AP. They will not change, because those who own them will not change. They have their wealth. They have their societal position upon the pedestal of that wealth. They imagine the power that comes with that wealth, coupled with the power that comes from effectively possessing a legal monopoly on what the national newswire produces for consumption by this nation's citizenry.

The only possible solution to the propaganda-churning slit latrine that is the Associated Press is to launch an effective counter to their version of events---not by thousands of angry individuals with thousands of angry versions of what the Truth really is, but by harnessing those thousands of voices, with their pens, pencils, keyboards, and voices, and wade into AP in an offensive manner.

Attack mode (metaphorically-speaking, of course): If Truth gets a bruise, AP gets a scar. If Truth gets a limp, AP gets a wheelchair. If Truth gets singed, AP gets immolated.

It's not going to be enough to merely trade blow for blow with these scum; we must play full-bore offense, with the ultimate goal being either to (a) force the surrender of AP to a new series of owners who will resuscitate the organization's greatness, or (b) wipe the organization from the face of the planet, and replace it with another organization; one that is free from the enslavement of the Right, and one that can demonstrate, once again, what a national news wire organization is supposed to be....

Time to hit the AP where it counts -- just cut 'em off. Use McClatchy. Hey, UPI is still there, too. If the AP is going to become a Fox New Annex then let them negotiate exclusive contracts with Rev. Moon & The Washington Times.

Untethered-from-reality-crap like Fournier writes may be why newspaper readership is declining. As the post-swift boat generation of voters reads and observes more critically the AP is killing off a major source of their income. Babington's ideologically-driven "leadership" is actually bad for business.

Who needs to read the right-wing's Pravda? You can get the same information for free off the Republican Campaign Committee web site. What's weird is that Repubicans seem to think this incredibly biased reporting somehow is payback for an offense committed 10-20-30-40 years ago. Vietnam, perhaps?

Some people just can't let go. They are becoming irrelevent to the public debate.

As PaulW said, NOW IS THE TIME TO:

- Write the AP writer directly(first initial last name @ap.org, e.g., rfournier@ap.org, or cbabington@ap.org)

- Write Michael Oreskes, AP Managing Editor, moreskes@ap.org

- Write your local papers and demand (politely) that they stop having AP feeds - and tell them specifically WHY you feel that way (show them the lies and explain the truth)

This is outrageous and until it starts to hit them in the pocketbook, they will not stop.

I long said that we should go after Miers law license. Take away her bread and butter (rightfully, what attorney dares to tell Congress to sod off?) and she will cooperate. Throw Libby in jail and he, too, will cooperate. Show the AP that you refuse to read their drivel, lies and bullshit.

It is up to us to make a difference. It won't be easy but it must be done!

I will be announcing a new organization to help us fight the smears of all journalists shortly. As soon as the paperwork is signed and the site is active. In the meantime...please, do your part.

Yes We Can! starts with YOU!

She said Republicans will criticize him no matter what. They will argue that his lofty speeches lack substance and details, she said, and a detailed speech that scrimps on soaring rhetoric will prove "he has lost his gift."

"They will try to Catch-22 his speech," Napolitano said.

Republicans don't even have to criticize no matter what, they have the AP to do that for them. Disgusting article, one of the worst I have ever read.

The AP is getting everything wrong these days. To wit, here's part of a photo cutline on an article about McCain's veep choice:

"Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the so-called "hockey mom" credited with reforms of her tiny, out-of-the-way state. (AP Photo/Al Grillo)"

Alaska is a tiny state? What drugs are these guys on? This is what happens when you let your standards for reporting slip so far.

And even Babington couldn't help ending his article by contradicting everything he started with. His ended his article like this:

"Even if Obama had talked for three hours, of course, he could not have detailed enough proposals to quiet all his critics. But that's not
the strategy....as Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano...said: 'What he should not do is what he will be criticized for not doing: Give a detailed policy speech. This is not the place for that.' She said Republicans will criticize him no matter what."

Babington thus ends his article with a quotation that undermines exactly the way he started the article. Do you think he's feeling a bit conflicted, maybe (or is considering his personal options in journalism under an Obama administration)?

You have to remember that AP reporters don't make all that much. The McCain BBQ may be their only chance to eat a decent meal.

The AP is making the same mistake CNN made in light of Fox News's success at the start of the Bush Administration: they think a sharp turn to the right will drive viewership. Trouble is, they haven't learned from Fox New's subsequent plummet in the ratings now that the conservative brand is in the tank. I hope they go under.

Babington wrote his piece before Obama even spoke. It was a pre-speech
hack job:

"The piece is 603 words. So we are to believe, that Babington watched the speech, gave it due consideration, wrote it, turned it in, had it go through editing, had it go through copyediting, and had it posted online -- all in 26 minutes?"

Vinson Valega
Consilience Productions
"dialogue BEYOND music"
MUSIC | DEMOCRACY | EARTH | MONEY

If a national political reporter for the Associated Press does not see or appreciate the historic significance of a Democratic nominee for president taking on the core of his base in front of a national audience by suggesting there is a moderating, middle way on such divisive culture war issues as abortion and gun control, then the reporter needs to stick with obituaries and classified ads and leave real “analysis� to somebody else. What we saw last night, if it is allowed to take root, is an entirely new brand of politics reaching out across party lines and partisan divides. Too bad for all of us that the AP does not see it.

Ron Fournier got where he is by starting out as a reporter in Little Rock following the Clintons, then all the way into the White House. A true Neocon mole, just like Dick Morris.

Solid ideas. We must keep pointing out the bias, and boycotting those who continue it. Frankly, I'm figuring out how to do that myself (you have to actually read the crap to find the prejudice), but PA, TPM and Media Matters are all valuable resources.

Minor quibble: "born" in the Olberman quote should be "borne." It's the past tense of "bear."

Solid ideas. We must keep pointing out the bias, and boycotting those who continue it. Frankly, I'm figuring out how to do that myself (you have to actually read the crap to find the prejudice), but PA, TPM and Media Matters are all valuable resources.

Minor quibble: "born" in the Olberman quote should be "borne." It's the past tense of "bear."

Last night the actual possibility of a "President Obama" began to take shape in the unconsciousness of the Republican psyche. It was too incredible to believe before, but after last night, not so much. Their resulting reaction is understandable (and not dissimilar to my shock when I first realized that W might get elected in 2000). Noonan's comments are just one example of a spontaneous reaction to the possibility. But, more revealing, take a look at Brook's column. He's always tried to play to Liberals as a more enlightened Conservative. But, based on his column this morning, I think he's had a private epiphany and is experiencing some sort of "Dark Night of the Soul" (yes, I am assuming he has one). In short, he's lost it and filed some sort of giberish rant. My guess is that somewhere inside of Invesco field he's rocking back and forth in a chair. Someone should send security. Barack Obama just presented the case for a New Liberalism that, should he win, could supplant Neoconservatism. Just Look across the pond at Cameron, the new Tory leader, there are striking similarities to Obama, e.g. personal responsibility (granted that Britain is further left than the US) However, it isn't Noonan and Brooks that worry me, they are to be expected, it is the increasing number of comments this morning on the blogs that are flat our rascist and suggest violence to Obama. It is not just the Republican party that is at stake here, but the underlying socio-economic that is threatened. That worries me more.

AP = "Absolutely Pathetic"

My email to Mr. Babington:

Reading your piece on Obama's speech last night, I'm beginning to wonder if you even bothered to watch it.

For example, you wrote: "He said he would 'cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families,' but did not say how."

Seriously? You want to know how this happens?

Did you expect Mr. Obama to pull out a pie chart and break it down for you, piece by piece? Was he supposed to give a civics lesson on how a bill becomes law? Because that's how one lowers taxes -- by passing a law that does so. Do you honestly not get that?

Would it kill you to actually do some research and find the many, many explanations (both on his site and other independent ones) that break down how it will be done?

Or is it just easier to complain about how Obama didn't hold your hand through the process and, thus, you have no clue how it will happen?

The rest of your piece is in the same vein, even though Obama laid out 29 -- 29! -- specific policy ideas and direction. I don't know what you expect from a speech such as this, but it's almost as if you expected him to read aloud some white paper, or perhaps put some PowerPoint slides up in the screen. Would that have been enough for you?

I challenge you to find any other acceptance speech that had as many specifics as this one.

And I challenge you to watch McCain's speech next week and find as many specifics.

You know, watching the AP produce such transparently ridiculous pieces such as this is just plain sad.

Maybe it's because of Ron Fournier, who almost took a position with the McCain campaign last year (yet who doesn't disclose that when writing about politics). Maybe it's because the AP is worried McCain will cut off access. Or maybe it's because the AP thinks carrying McCain's water will somehow lead to some sort of reward should he win.

All I know is that the AP is becoming a shell of the organization it once was, and pathetic, not-grounded-in-any-discernable-reality pieces such as this will erase what credibility your organization has left.

It's time for you all to look into the mirror because, like it or not, change is coming, and no amount of wire-distributed half-truths, distortions, and flat-out lies will stop it. You can either get on board and and start realizing reality has no bias, or keep trying to pass off partisan garbage in the hopes no one notices and be left on the wrong side of history.

Your call.

I doubt I'll get a response ...

"What, exactly, did the AP's Charles Babbington expect Obama to do? Break out a chalk board and some pie charts? Start reading white papers?"

Seriously, as Steve pointed out, what do the pundits and detractors consider to be substance in a speech?

Should he have done a Powerpoint presentation?

But then if Obama's going to use Powerpoint, obviously he'll need to pass along handouts.

And make sure the handouts are printed with the lines next to the slides, so people could take notes.

And a laser pointer. How can people know where Obama's at in the presentation if he doesn't have a laser pointer?

And yet, there was the Associated Press, doing what it's been doing far too often: parroting the Republican line.

Or, in this, case, anticipating it, and wrongly. I've just finished reading raves from the likes of Pat Buchanan and Bill Kristol. You'd think it would be the "news" half of a propaganda machine that would be more likely to make concessions to reality than the "analyst" half, but that's the AP in 2008 for ya.

Seriously, as Steve pointed out, what do the pundits and detractors consider to be substance in a speech? Should he have done a Powerpoint presentation?

If he had done so, they would have criticized him for *that*.

It's the job of dishonest conservative pundits -- but I repeat myself -- to find some flaw in the Democrat, even if it's something they called on him or her to do a week ago or even -- rather, especially -- if it's something for which they give the Republicans a free pass.

I wrote this below, but it bears repeating:

I WAS THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was beyond what words can describe. I will never forget it. I have tons of pictures, but just got home and haven't had a chance to look at them yet. Any pudit that claims the speech was "mostly" well received by the crowd was lying through his or her teeth! What a bunch of crap! I don't know how all the news media could carry on in that roar--I thought the stands would collapse! Up in the top tier where most of the Community Credential attendees were sitting it was just non-stop exhilaration. What an experience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I forgot: From the ramp between the 5th and 3rd tiers I stood and watched the people walking in for from the streets. It was AMAZING! This went on for HOURS--I could not believe my eyes. I thought the line was about a mile long, but I heard today on the radio driving home that it was 2 miles long.

Steve Benen wrote: "The Associated Press is just too important to slip so far from where it once was. It can become credible again ..."

Fox News could become credible too, if they chose to devote their considerable resources to genuine, ethical, professional journalism instead of to partisan propaganda, deliberate lies and hate-mongering.

Gee, I wonder why they don't. Such a mystery.