I noticed in the article written on Yahoo news, that Cunningham's affiliation was not mentioned.

I went to the internet to look it up, just because

I had a hunch. I know they would have used it if

the guy had been a democrat. Not a big deal, but

just shows how insidious the creeps are. Sharon

Heldenbrand

From past experiences about such outrages to friends who are journalists would point out that the fact the man was a Republican wasn't really relavant to the story...

The 'story' was the dude's admissions, and quitting congress. This is actually what 'fair' reporting looks like...

Stuff and nonsense sir!

Especially in a wire story, the first reference to a US Representative always, always, always contains both party affiliation and the state represented. To wit:

"Randy 'Duke' Cunningham (R-CA) resigned from Congress today. He pled guilty to charges of bribery before a federal court two days previously." Etc etc.

In fact, party affiliation is relevant to any story about an elected official. Even if it is just a parenthetical reference like the one above, it should be included in each and every story. Omitting affiliation is like writing about a sports figure and not mentioning what team he or she plays for. It simply isn't done.

If the newspapers picked up the AP story as is, with the Republican affiliation not listed in the lead, the question then becomes "why did the AP bury it?"

It doesn't have to mean a trumpeting headline such as "Republican congressman resigns for accepting bribes." But whatever happened to referencing the political affiliation (R-CA, in this case) after the first mention of a politician's name? This information is part of the "who," which is part of the 5 W's, according to journalism 101.

Add the Minneapolis Star Tribune to the list. Their mantra of late is "We're not liberals, really we're not," which makes them the joke of liberals and conservatives alike.

A few weeks back soon after Libby was indicted, I surfed the headlines on the major TV news sites.

CNN: Libby Indicted

MSNBC: Libby Indicted

ABC News: Libby Indicted

CBS News: Libby Indicted

and FOX:

Libby Resigns

They're not even pretending anymore...

I had to reread the article several times to try to figure out Cunningham's affiliation, and finally realized it just wasn't there. What was there -- in the very last paragraph -- was the line, "Cunningham's pleas came amid a series of GOP scandals." That wording, of course, leaves it rather ambiguous as to whether this is ANOTHER GOP scandal, or one that helps balance out GOP scandals with a Democratic scandal.

--Josh

Isn't anyone here picking up on the obvious clue that Fox and NPR probably ran the story straight from the wire? In other words, since the AP buried it, it got buried by default in the rest of the coverage.

It isn't exactly NEWS that news organizations run wire stuff verbatim, with little or no editing. It's quite possible you're all reading into this way more than you should.

NPR has been toting water for the Republicans for a LONG time - this is nothing new. "Experts" on their stories are far more likely to be members of right-wing think tanks than anything else; the American Enterprise Foundation and the Heritage Institute are biggies. These are nonetheless never identified as right-wing organizations. Reporters from the Washington Times are frequent guests, and the opposite side of the political spectrum is almost never represented.

When they do have "balance", it's FOX News style - a passive, straw man liberal vs. a raging, domineering conservative. Try timing the comments - I have. The Republicans invariably get twice as much air time, at a minimum - if the Democrats get any say at all.

And that's why I'll never give a dime to them.

From past experiences about such outrages to friends who are journalists would point out that the fact the man was a Republican wasn't really relavant to the story...

The 'story' was the dude's admissions, and quitting congress. This is actually what 'fair' reporting looks like...

The only problem is, I'm pretty sure FoxNews opinon/anchors would be crowing from the catwalks if it was a Democrat that the dude was a Dem...

It is in this way that Fox's coverage bias is subtle... This is further underscored by my observation that much of the time it's pretty obvious when the opinion/anchor is wearing his/her 'opinion hat'... the confusing bit is they break up actual newscast to give it, making their 'news' coverage seem to be biased...

I too believe this is remarkably shady and misleading... but if we are going to be accurate about things, let's be accurate and call the appropriate kettle black.

When listening to the same story on NPR today, I noticed that they too did not mention the affilation on the congressman. Sure, I'm not surprise that Fox didn't mention he was a republican, but it is hard to wag a finger when NPR didn't either.

The Today Show on NBC also failed to mention Cunningham's party affiliation in its piece this morning on his guilty plea and resignation. Hard to say if their oversight was bias or just bad journalism, however...

I heard it may have been subsequently corrected after some complaints though.

Did they really say "Bribery flap"! As a constituent of the former congressman, I find it completely offensive that they would dismiss this as a "flap." Lets look at the facts: (1) $2.4 MILLION in bribes is, as the prosecutor said "unprecedented in magnitude," (2) these were not campaign donations that you could possibly argue are not direct bribes, they were direct payments to the congressmen's personal bank account, (3) this happened during wartime on military contracts, which for all we know endangered our troops or at the very least wasted funds that could have been used to better protect them. Everyone has been playing the "fallen hero" angle (he was an Ace pilot in Vietnam), but what kind of veteran/hero sells out the safety of his brothers and sisters in the military during a war in exchange for bribes! On another note, Fox News can hardly be blamed for failing to mention the party affiliation when the AP article that went out didn't either (I hear it may have been corrected later).