Monday, August 15, 2005

The AP - Sheehan's PR firm...

It would be an understatement to say that Cindy Sheehan, mother of a serviceman killed in Iraq, has gotten a lot of coverage in the past couple of weeks. The media, gathered in Crawford, Texas, at the site of President Bush's ranch, has devoted much of its time and energy to coverage of her "vigil," as she demands to meet with the President. The Associated Press has averaged almost 4 stories per day over the past 12 days on Sheehan and her mission.

But, in addition to being a bereaved mother, Cindy Sheehan appears to also be a committed left-wing peace activist. One who has already met once with the President a year ago at Fort Lewis in Washington State. One who thinks that George Bush is a terrorist, that Israel should get out of Palestine, that we need to act now to prevent climate change and that the truth as to why we went to war, "the real answer...it was to make his buddies rich...it was about oil."


But has any of that gotten covered? I decided to look at the AP releases for the past couple of weeks, since the President arrived in Texas. There have been 45 AP articles that mentioned Cindy Sheehan. 5 of them mentioned that she had already met with the President. None of them, not one, mentioned Michael Moore, her description of the US as promoting imperialism, her description of the President as running the "biggest terrorist outfit in the world," her belief that the war was for oil, her belief that Dick Cheney was profiteering, her demand that Isreal leave Palestine, or anything else that might lead a sentient being to think that this is something more than a grieving mother. In other words, the AP is acting, not as a news organization, but as a public relations firm for Cindy Sheehan.



The following table shows the links to various searches on the AP newsfeed as hosted by Yahoo News, and the number of articles returned for each search term.


AP Coverage of Cindy Sheehan in the last two weeks
Search TermsHits

Cindy Sheehan45

Cindy Sheehan Fort Lewis5

Cindy Sheehan Palestine0

Cindy Sheehan Oil0

Cindy Sheehan Halliburton0

Cindy Sheehan "Michael Moore"0

Cindy Sheehan Separated Husband Patrick0

Cindy Sheehan Imperialism0

Cindy Sheehan Ford0

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