'An Associated Press analysis of Barack Obama's widely praised (across the political spectrum) speech last Thursday drew much criticism from liberals and media critics last week for its dour tone. Would the AP offer the same kind of muted response to Sarah Palin's big address on Wednesday night? Not exactly. The article by Tom Raum and Liz Sidoti opened: "Sarah Palin delivered. An embattled vice presidential candidate, a novice on the national stage, the head of a family suffering its 'ups and downs,' the first-term Alaska governor rocked the GOP convention with a star-turning performance."' [E&P]

When copy editors are working an article but don't yet have all the words, sometimes they fill in areas they need to come back to with markers like "TK." Some high school yearbook staffs, on the other hand, will use the placeholder "black girl" for a female student's name. Last night, the Associated Press was putting together its piece on the upcoming vice presidential names that Obama and McCain would release — but it never got around to removing its placeholder. This is how the article went out on the wire before most, but not all, outlets corrected it: "His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent." Okay, fine. Typo. Whatever.

Ron Fournier, the Associated Press' new Washington D.C. bureau chief who hopes to rewrite the rules of reporting, is a known Karl Rove lover. But his obvious political leanings were not, insists John McCain's camp, the reason they tried, though failed, to solicit him to help run the campaign — it was just because Fournier — whose new job responsibilities include calling the election's winner this November — was so adept at the political process. A political process that, at the time, involved him running the now defunct pundit site HotSoup.com, which he co-founded with Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. Again, just a happy coincidence.

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Under Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier, the Associated Press is moving away from traditional journalism (read: reverse pyramids, equal voices to all sides) and implementing a "less bullshit" strategy: "In the stories the new boss is encouraging, first-person writing and emotive language are okay. So is scrapping the stonefaced approach to journalism that accepts politicians’ statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers."

The argument could be made — an, on this website, we might have even made it — that moving in this direction is a good idea, because it outs politicians and other snakes for their true agendas without having to play nicey-nice because of journalism's rules.

Then there's the other side of things:

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