AP busted — Internal memo — Everything Britney is “Big Deal”

Well if you were wondering exactly who decides that every move Britney Spears makes is newsworthy, look no farther than the GOP-worshipping Associated Press.  

An AP internal memo reads as follows:

From: Baker, Frank S.

Sent: Tue 1/8/2008 11:58 AM

To: News – Southern California Editorial Staff

Subject: Britney

All:

Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal. That doesn’t mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we’ll write something, we must expedite it.

Thanks.

Frank

I have long despised the AP.  They have a history, since Bushco came into power, of doing the bidding of the neo-cons and the right-wing.

I’ve written several examples over at Dailykos:

One was titled The AP makes me sick.

Another was How the AP smears the Plame story

Both were recommended and received lots of comments.  In the first, I described how the AP came out with a story about how, according to them:

Why So Many Upset by Iraq Death Toll?

Where they actually had the unmitigated gall to say this:

But are Americans willing to hang in a tough fight anymore?

Some wonder if U.S. society, now populated by baby boomers who recall Vietnam and never knew the hardships of the Great Depression or World War II, has simply lost its stomach for great sacrifices.

And in the second one, this is how they described Valerie Plame’s appearance before Congress:

lame’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was a moment of political theater that dramatized Democrats’ drive to use their control of Congress to expose what they see as White House efforts to intimidate dissenters.

Can you believe that spin?   This is what they send out on the wires as “news”.  Could it be any more blatantly biased than that?

Keep in mind, too, that this is the company who started making available two versions of the same story, one “regular” and one “neo-con dark”:

“The concept is simple: On major spot stories we will provide you with two versions to choose between,” the AP said in an advisory to members. “One will be the traditional ‘straight lead’ that leads with the main facts of what took place. The other will be the ‘optional,’ an alternative approach that attempts to draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means.”

AP “TRADITIONAL” LEAD:

MOSUL, Iraq (AP)–A suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent jammed with Shiite mourners Thursday, splattering blood and body parts over rows of overturned white plastic chairs. The attack, which killed 47 and wounded more than 100, came as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad said they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government.

AP “OPTIONAL” LEAD:

MOSUL, Iraq (AP)–Yet again, almost as if scripted, a day of hope for a new, democratic Iraq turned into a day of tears as a bloody insurgent attack undercut a political step forward. On Thursday, just as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad were telling reporters that they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government, a suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent jammed with Shiite mourners in the northern city of Mosul.

And now this.  Britney Spears, 24/7.  Why?  Because the real news might piss people off.  It might make them angry, at, say, the AP.  It might make them REALLY angry at, say, the neo-con criminals who have their hands up the AP’s ass (and the rest of the “msm”).

I don’t know what we, or anybody, can do about this except to attempt to expose it every chance we get.  The AP really needs to be driven out of business, or just merge with Fucks News and quit being a wire service.

Edited many hours later to add the original link!  (man, you guys need to help a brother out with this stuff!)