NewsBusters Archive

The evening news broadcasts on NBC, ABC, and CBS on Wednesday all offered full reports on the compelling congressional testimony regarding the Benghazi terrorist attack, but only after all three programs led with coverage of the Cleveland abduction case.

NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News both at least informed viewers of the hearing during top-of-the-show teases, but ABC World News failed to make any mention of the hearing until a report nine minutes into the program (though anchor Diane Sawyer did find time to preview a story about tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams).

The revelations made during the May 8 Benghazi hearings "open up a new can of worms with even more serious questions," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued today.

"Five major bombshell revelations emerged that have, so far, only been given lip service by the three broadcast networks," the Media Research Center (MRC) founder noted. They are:

The New York Post reports ABC News producer Don Ennis walked into his Manhattan office on Friday in a "little black dress" and a brunette wig and “announced to colleagues that from now on, he would like to be known as Dawn.”

Naturally, at the Sam Champion Network, Ennis “brought a cake and glitter in to work on Friday. Co-workers left flowers on her desk, and ABC News President Ben Sherwood wrote her a note of support. Ennis is currently shopping a book deal.”

The network morning shows on Thursday went into tabloid overdrive for the Jodi Arias verdict and an abduction case in Ohio, offering a staggering 56 minutes of coverage. In contrast, NBC, CBS and ABC allowed just under seven minutes combined to hearings on the 2012 terrorist murder of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya. This is a disparity of eight-to-one.

Good Morning America proved to be the least interested in the national security issues raised by Benghazi. The morning show devoted 19 minutes to the Arias conviction and the kidnapping of three women in Ohio. Yet, whistleblower testimony in Washington D.C. warranted a mere 53 seconds. The four hour-long Today show on NBC spent 27 minutes on the two cases and a scant two and a half minutes on Libya. The most balanced network turned out to be CBS.

Thursday's New York Times led with the congressional hearings into the Obama administration's response to the terrorist attack on Benghazi, Libya on the anniversary of September 11 that left four Americans dead: "Envoy Testifies Libya Questions Led To Demotion," reported by the team of Scott Shane, Jeremy Peters, and Eric Schmitt. But the paper still treated it as a partisan game of gotcha in an online symposium titled "Serious Investigations, or Partisan Ploys?"

Predictions of the demise of Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio are a dime a dozen. That liberal wish has been a repeated incantation. But it’s more amusing when the demise talk comes from .... “Newsweek.”

Come again? Who’s yesterday’s news? John Avlon of the Daily Beast asserts Rush Limbaugh “Bleeds Millions From His Carriers as Toxic Talk Slumps.” Ahem, nobody’s bought Rush’s show for a dollar, like someone bought Newsweek. Avlon finds some guy whose newsletter has a Facebook page with nine Likes to insult Limbaugh’s audience as “all wearing Depends” – when he graduated college in 1968.

The Chicago Tribune’s Steve Johnson reports CNN has made a deal with liberal actor Robert Redford to produce a eight-episode reality show in 2014 called “Chicagoland.”

CNN and Redford aren’t filming in a red state or a hick town – it’s Obama’s adopted hometown: “One of the attractions to Chicago, CNN made clear, is the president being from here and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s high profile.” Jeff Zucker's CNN is just offering more liberal boosterism in a different wineskin. Johnson warned:

CBS's Sharyl Attkisson is apparently viewed by network executives as "wading dangerously close to advocacy" in her coverage of the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, as Politico's Dylan Byers asserted in a Wednesday item. Byers reported that "Attkisson can't get some of her stories on the air, and is thus left feeling marginalized and underutilized."

Attkisson's minute-long report about the House Oversight Committee's latest hearing on the attack on Wednesday's CBS This Morning was actually the first time since November 23, 2012 that the journalist reported about the story on air, according a search on Nexis.

Wednesday's congressional hearings on the September 11 terrorists attacks in Benghazi provided a stark contrast between Fox News and MSNBC. From the time the whistleblower testimony began at 11:36am through their conclusion after 5pm, Fox devoted 108 minutes to simply airing the hearing with no anchor commentary. MSNBC, in comparison didn't allow any live coverage. Instead, the cable network aired a scant five minutes and 20 seconds of taped snippets of testimony. [See a chart of coverage below.]

CNN came in second, allowing a mere 17 minutes of footage. After the 2pm hour, CNN lost all interest, instead the network's anchors eagerly promoted the coming verdict in the Jodi Arias murder trial. (FNC's reporting on the story after 2pm dropped off to five minutes of taped footage.) The hearings commenced at 11:36 and so did Fox's coverage. CNN waited until noon to break in and MSNBC came in last at 12:17 (with a taped piece and discussion only).