Is the AP Reporting or Analyzing & is There a Difference Anymore?

If you click here, you can read an article by the Associated Press on the fired U.S. Attorneys that appeared in the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom written by Julie Hirshfeld Davis . The article seems to be reporting on the political implications of the scandal, but it contains the following language:

The escalating uproar over President Bush's firings of eight U.S. attorneys has handed Democrats a weapon they have long sought - evidence his administration improperly allowed politics to trump the law. There are a couple of problems: The evidence is largely circumstantial and the proof is missing.

Consider the highlighted part of the above quote. First of all, as any trial lawyer or judge will tell you, "circumstantial evidence" is evidence. It is not any less valuable than direct evidence, that is, evidence that a witness heard or saw firsthand. There are many people now serving just sentences in state and federal prisons because of circumstantial evidence. Second, she never explains what "proof" is missing or what "proof" she expects or what "proof" she would consider satisfactory.

Ms. Davis goes on to set forth both positions regarding whether the firing of the U.S. Attorneys was political in nature. Indeed she sets forth both positions in a pretty straight-forward manner. Why, then, does she throw in the language quoted above which has the effect of basically undercutting one side of the debate? Basically what she has done is to signal the reader her opinion without coming right out and saying it is her opinion.

There is nothing wrong with the Associated Press and/or Ms. Davis doing analysis on the firing of the U.S. Attorneys. There is nothing wrong with Ms. Davis having an opinion, BUT it should be called just that so that the reader will know what he or she is reading. To do otherwise is to do a disservice to the readers of her articles.

Not only is it a disservice to her readers but such writing encourages readers to believe that Ms. Davis and/or the AP has an agenda regarding the reporting of the fired U.S. Attorneys. The mainstream media is always telling us that it has no agenda with regard to supporting the Bush Administration, yet time and time again the mainstream media has passed on false information from the Bush Administration and refused to own up to their mistakes. (Click here for a review of such reporting and the Iraq War.)

Well, here is a thought for Ms. Davis and other mainstream media types: the circumstantial evidence that keeps accumulating that the mainstream media has a bias for the Bush Administration and its policies is pretty convincing and their denials, the direct evidence if you will, is becoming less and less convincing.