Associated Press Comes up With New Reason Why GOP Is 'Seizing' on Cuomo Scandal, and Pravda Would Be Proud

I’ve seen some really, really bad journalism in my time, but a report the Associated Press put out over the weekend just might take this year’s prize for the worst, and we’re not even three full months into 2021 yet.

The story was about how top New York Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, had called for embattled Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign over the numerous sexual harassment allegations that have been made over the last month by former Cuomo aides and reporters. One unnamed accuser has alleged sexual assault.

But after noting that Cuomo had lost the support of those two powerful Democratic Senators as well as that of “almost the entire 29-member New York congressional delegation and a majority of Democrats in the state legislature,” the AP pivoted to how Cuomo’s political woes were impacting Joe Bidens’s presidency. What they wrote would have made Pravda proud. Here’s how they framed it (bolded emphasis added):

The escalating political crisis has spawned an impeachment inquiry in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and threatens to cast a cloud over President Joe Biden’s early days in office. Republicans have seized on the scandal to try to distract from Biden’s success tackling the coronavirus pandemic and challenge his party’s well-established advantage with female voters.

Wait, what? In an article on how one of the nation’s most powerful governors had seen his support erode among top Democrats in his state, the Associated Press points out not why Democrats are pouncing and seizing on the allegations but why Republicans supposedly are — by making a ridiculously biased claim about how Republicans were using it to “distract from Biden’s successes” in managing the Wuhan virus pandemic as well as to “challenge” the left’s hold on female voters?

Not only was the claim that Biden has had “success” in managing the coronavirus highly questionable, but if such a claim is going to be made, why not point out that the successes he has had actually started under the Trump administration and that they carried over into this one?

And as far as the Democratic advantage with female voters, well, isn’t that exactly why Schumer and Gillibrand really called on him to resign? A worry that this scandal will be used against Democrats in upcoming elections, perhaps? Why not explore the reasons why Democrats are calling on Cuomo to resign in a piece about them calling on him to do so instead of putting any emphasis on why Republicans are criticizing Cuomo? Why not explore reasons why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have not called on Cuomo to resign at this point?

Because that’s what an objective news outlet would do, that’s why, and the Associated Press is not an objective news outlet.