Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard used a pair of Dec. 22 NewsBusters posts to launch screeds against the Associated Press -- and in so doing, demonstrate that he has no concept whatsoever about the concept of news reporting.
In the first post, Sheppard took offense to a list of the year's top stories that described the Iraq war this way:
The "surge" that sent more U.S. troops to Iraq was credited with helping reduce the overall level of violence. But thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. personnel were killed nonetheless during the year, and Iraqi political leaders struggled to make meaningful progress toward national reconciliation.
Sheppard's response:
Good grief! Was such shameful editorializing either important or appropriate?
After all, the real news concerning Iraq this year is indeed that the surge - despite all the media's advanced and coincident errant pessimism - is working.
That's the story!
So, for Sheppard, noting relevant facts is "editorializing."
Sheppard takes a similar tack in another post, headlined "AP Begs Readers to Put More Democrats in Office Next Year." Of course, the article in question does no such thing; it merely reported on the failure of the Democratic-led Congress to accomplish much of its agenda this year due to Republican obstruction. Sheppard offers no evidence to the contrary -- he can't because it's true -- instead fulminating that it was "disgraceful" for the AP to point this out and that it was "mimicking Democrat [sic] talking points" in doing so.
Sheppard then attacked the article for ending with a quote from Democratic Senate Majority Leader, which Sheppard interpreted as a "final sycophantic exclamation point." Sheppard continued: "Could these folks be any more obvious? Much like a Democrat talking points letter of memorandum, this was actually how this AP article ended -- with a distinct call for more Democrats to be put in office next year."
So every article that quotes a Democrat is an endorsement of "Democrat [sic] talking points"? Doesn't he know that it's the function of a genuinely balanced media to report all points of view? Not that Sheppard has any personal experience in doing so, of course, being an alll-too-willing shill for the likes of James Inhofe and Marc Morano on global warming.
