AP's Washington Bureau Chief "in the tank" for McCain

News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:02 PM EDT

Article Source: Political Animal

politics, mccain, ap, media-bias, political-bias, a-p, ron-fournier, fournier

The AP's Washington bureau chief's bias for one of the candidates is pretty well documented even if not admitted. In addition to Fourniers "coverage" and "analysis" he was in talks with the McCain operation to join McCain's paid full time staff.

Despite declining to officially join McCain's official staff Fournier presents his pro-McCain opinions and spin and presents it under "analysis."

Fournier isn't exactly a neutral observer. I get it. But given Fournier's recent history -- he actually considered joining the McCain campaign's payroll last year -- one would like to think he'd take steps to bolster his journalistic credibility and objectivity. As the criticism has grown louder, even from mainstream news outlets, it stands to reason that Fournier would go out of his way to clean up his act.

He is, regrettably, doing the exact opposite.

Published to:

Catch22's Column, All of Newsvine
Groups: DemGuys, Election News, Left of Center, MSM Incinerator, Political Analysis, The Big 2008 Election
Regions: none

What's this?

Who's leading the conversation?

This visualization below allows you to see the impact that each user has on the current conversation. The top row contains the group of users who have had the most impact, the 2nd row the group of users who have had the 2nd most impact (et cetera). Users with similar impact are grouped together, and the average score of the group is shown to the left of the group. The author of the article is also shown on the left, in their corresponding group. Each user's score is based on the number of comments the user has made plus the number of votes their comments have received. The scores are calculated relative one another, so while their absolute value is not particularly important, their relative difference does indicate a larger difference in impact on the conversation.

0.5

{"commentId":2607064,"authorDomain":"Catch22"}

Catch22

"Barack Obama is my candidate," she said. "And he must be our president." But did she mean it? And would it matter?

True, her challenges Tuesday night were impossibly high, perhaps mutually exclusive.

This isnt "analysis" as much as it is opinion. The fact that the AP presents this McCain campaign framing of Clinton's speach as analysis is misleading and extremely poor judgement.

The opinion of Ron Fournier is obvious. If he cant keep his opinion from his job, he should recuse himself. "Impossibly high" is totally subjective and totally unsubstated opinion and framing it as such is EXACTLY the same way the McCain campaign wants to. His doing from the AP instead of his staff just makes it more misleading and cheap.

{"commentId":2607064,"threadId":"341237","contentId":"1792164","authorDomain":"Catch22"}

#1 - Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:07 PM EDT

{"canLink":false,"threadId":"341237","isPrivate":false}

CATCH22

Backyard

AP's Washington Bureau Chief "in the tank" for McCain

Published to:

FUN STUFF:

COMPANY STUFF:

LEGAL STUFF: