Prominent Liberal Blogger Takes on the AP. Pls. Read Action Alert

[babylonsister]

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/groundgame/2008/02/prominent-liberal-blogger-take.html

Prominent Liberal Blogger Takes on the AP

By Eric Pfeiffer | February 26, 2008 5:20 PM


Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher has launched an email campaign directed to local and national newspapers against the Associated Press' Nedra Pickler, for her recent story documenting conservative attacks questioning Barack Obama's patriotism. Ultimately, I think Pickler's story was one worth reporting, but as TPM notes, the first source in her story is Roger Stone, a disgraced former GOP strategist who has been in the news lately for less-than-savory antics. It's also not the first time liberal bloggers have turned their sights on Pickler.

Hamsher opens by saying:

It was pretty much world-record speed with which the smears against Barack Obama's patriotism alley-ooped from the right wing attack machine into the pages of legitimate media, neatly laundered into the AP by Nedra Pickler.

And then directs her readers:

The AP probably doesn't care a whole lot about what you think, but it does care what the papers who subscribe to their wire service think. So we've set up a page where you can plug in your zip code and automatically send an email to the papers in your area who syndicate the AP and let them know this is beneath what you expect their coverage to be -- for this election cycle and beyond.

See FDL's link here:

http://firedoglake.com/2008/02/25/action-tell-ap-papers-to-stop-smearing-obamas-patriotism/

ACTION: Tell AP Papers to Stop Smearing Obama’s Patriotism

[devilgrrl]

1. About Nedra Pickler

Nedra Pickler (born Oct. 13, 1975) is a partisan U.S. political reporter for the Associated Press (AP).

Background

Pickler was born in Flint, Michigan, but her family moved to Rector, Arkansas to run a catfish farm shortly after she was born. After her parents separated in 1983, she moved back north to Flint with her mother Marcy and sister Anna. <1> She describes growing up in poverty, with her mother going to Mott Community College when she couldn't find a job.<2>

Pickler attended Michigan State University, graduating in 1998 at the top of her journalism class <3>. She interned with the Detroit Free Press and Houston Chronicle as a college student.<4>

In 2000, she suffered from identity theft, and was interviewed by CNN. <5>

Pickler married Eric Conner, who works for Fox News, on November 24, 2007. <6> She first met him in 2006 while on a trip to Mexico covering President George W. Bush.<2>

Career

Pickler was hired by the Detroit offices of AP shortly after graduation. In March 2000, she transferred from the Lansing bureau to the Washington, D.C. bureau where she won the annual John L. Dougherty award for her work covering Michigan's congressional delegation. <7>

Pickler was promoted to cover national political issues for the AP in December 2002, and was the lead reporter covering Democrats in the 2004 United States Presidential Election. In her coverage of the 2004 presidential race, Pickler drew criticism for her treatment of Democratic candidates, including Howard Dean <8> and John Kerry. <9>

Pickler worked as a White House correspondent until September 2006, leaving to cover national politics, including the 2008 United States Presidential Election. <10>

In covering the 2008 election, Pickler again came under scrutiny for her coverage of the Democratic candidates, particularly Barack Obama. A March 27, 2007 article written by Pickler entitled "Is Obama All Style and Little Substance?" was attacked for its claim that Obama had "delivered no policy speeches and provided few details about how he would lead the country" in his campaign up to that point.<11> The liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America countered by pointing out that Obama had given numerous policy speeches on Iraq<12>, Israel<13>, health care<14>, and other topics.<15> In February 2008, Pickler again came under criticism after she wrote an article in which she detailed Republican charges that Barack Obama is unpatriotic. Her only source was Roger Stone, a notorious Republican consultant<16>

[LiberalEsto]

2. Pickles is a corporate stooge

I left journalism in the late 1990s when it became obvious that right wingers were infiltrating all levels of journalism to put their own slant on coverage. Republican editors began weeding out liberal reporters on the flimsiest of pretexts.

[zbdent]

10. and the RWers probably skew the old "survey" that Repukes cite as their source

for "liberal media" ... a RWer is less likely to admit that they are RW, which would blow their claim that it's overwhelmingly left ... a lefty would probably be more honest about where their preferences would be in an election ...

[fasttense]

3. Well, after tasting poverty she decided become the uber wealth's mouth piece.

Talk about being a traitor to her class.

[Eurobabe]

4. Pickler has been a thorn in the Dems side since she

started covering politics. She was well known for her shallow and blatant anti-Dem slants back in 2003. I remember her hit pieces on Wesley Clark.

[Supersedeas]

5. and Fox News connection to filthy journalism--who would've guessed?

[Frances]

6. Done.

Thanks for the link.

[Mezzo]

7. Who is this Eric Pfeiffer guy?

I seem to remember a recent plagiarism thing with someone of the same name. And no, I don't mean little, "great minds think alike" plagiarism ala Deval Patrick, I mean caught really, really plagiarizing.

I'll try to go through my bookmarks.

[babylonsister]

9. A reporter for CQ Politics? Why are you totally ignoring the

story? If you don't believe him, go to FDL's link, or Pickler's article. It's all there.

[navarth]

8. altogether too many assholes coming out of Michigan.

We hereby disown this ass clown.

[Peace Patriot]

11. AP is the worst of the worst on Chavez, Venezuela and the South American Left!

I swear, they just re-type faxes from the Bush/CIA. Totally unreliable - lies, disinformation, fascist "framing" of titles, subtitles, blacks holes the size of the galaxy where context should be, unattributed opinions, bad sentence structure, the lot. Unbelievably smelly. It's as if Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove had taken over a news service.

So it doesn't surprise me in the least to see this fascist propaganda disease erupt with pustules at AP on yet another subject matter.

(Did you know that all Diebold & brethren's "official," "trade secret" code-tallied election results from across the nation went through one AP reporter's laptop to your TV screen on 12/2/04. I remember reading that, in the weeks after the election, and thinking, "Hm-m-m.")

[Missy Vixen]

12. A kick for Jane!

Another kick for firedoglake.com, which is a must-read, every day.

Julie