Curses on the Associated Press. I mean it. We at WORLD pay them a LOT of money, and in these last days of the election we get embarrassingly one-sided so-called journalism. Did I say it’s embarrassing?

On some of the AP stories we’ve linked to from WORLD’s home page, there are boxes with further links to multimedia presentations created by AP, some of which can be highly educational. Today, however, there were links to Sarah Palin and Joe Biden background segments. The Biden presentation gives a timeline of his storied career, and a click takes you to veteran AP writer Ron Fournier’s analysis of Barack Obama’s VP pick.

Now to “Palin on the Campaign Trail.” Click that one and you find a slideshow titled “Republicans spent $150K to outfit the VP candidate and her family” with a bent-over Palin caught off-guard in her best Tammy Faye moment. Anyone who has seen Palin on the campaign trail is likely to tell you she is substance and style, in that order. And anyone remember that Hillary Clinton hit piece on the cost of her wardrobe, just for comparison’s sake? No, you won’t. There’s never been one on Hillary’s handmade suits.

Fast forward to coverage of today’s news. Be a media analyst with me for a minute and compare this report from AP of Palin’s Ohio speech on energy, with its hard-hitting critique starting in the fourth paragraph, to AP’s coverage of Joe Biden’s speech in Florida, in which he asserts that Obama will create 120,000 jobs in that state. Period. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s nothing in this story calling Biden’s assertions into question.

We hope WORLD won’t be long dependent on AP for great photos and broad-based reporting (Mickey’s working on that). Because too often its depth runs in only one direction.