Only Partial Improvement: AP Finally Notes Fuller’s ‘Democracy Now’ Appearance, Waters Down What He Said
Yesterday (covered here at NewsBusters ; at BizzyBlog ), in his report on the arrest of Eric Fuller at an ABC “This Week” taping in Tucson, Arizona, the Associated Press's Bob Christie either failed to perform a basic web search that would have revealed Fuller's Friday “Democracy Now!” rant, or failed to report what he found. This evening's AP report from Christie and Amanda Lee Myers at least recognizes Fuller's appearance on the far-left program. But that acknowledgment appears at Paragraph 14 of a report that is primarily about Gabrielle Giffords's recovery (headlined “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords condition improves”), instead of in a different AP dispatch this evening (“With shock subsiding, pain sets in for AZ victims”) where addressing Fuller's outburst would have made more sense (what would have made the most sense is a separate report on Fuller alone). The submission by Christie and Myers also fails to go into much of the substance of Fuller's “Democracy Now!” appearance. Readers get the impression that Fuller was fulminating against conservatives in general, when in fact he called out several by name — including, bizarrely, new House Majority Leader John Boehner. Here are the relevant paragraphs from Christie's and Myers's mishmash : Meanwhile, a week after the Tucson supermarket massacre, more details emerged about one of shooting victims who police said became distraught and was arrested during a televised town hall meeting.
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on January 17, 2011. Filed under