An AP writer runs various claims in Obama’s speech up the flagpole and does not exactly salute: HeadlineAlley
The guys last name: Woodward…
I don’t read the USA Today much while on road anymore and I let my sub to WSJ run out, so I have been getting my news from the AP almost exclusively for about a year. I have noticed much less bias as of late. They’ve covered the Health Care Debate relatively well.
I can only guess here, but my expectation is that there are probably 2 factors involved.
One, whether the news organization has individuals actually capable of thinking thoughts disagreeing with the Great Leader of their chosen party. I don’t believe this is an issue for any of the major news organization. (It obviously is an issue with some nut-hugging posters here, though.) I mention this factor only to be complete. It certainly does have relevance to whether a given reporter exposes a given “negative” thing about the Great Leader, though.
Two, approval ratings. When the approval ratings are high, then it is safe to be fully in the in-the-tank mode. But when the approval ratings are terrible, then critical articles are likely to do more for careers.
Obama’s approval ratings are not yet terrible, but they’ve dropped enough I think for this to become a factor.
This still doesn’t mean that they’ll bring to light anything adverse to their chosen party that they don’t have to, but for example with a SOTU speech, they hardly can ignore it.
Still, that article was more hard-hitting than we’d have seen more than a few month’s back. Obama’s honeymoon with at least some of the press seems to be over.