CBS ‘Early Show’ Ignores Obama Reversal on Abuse Photos

While both ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today on Thursday covered President Obama’s decision to block the public release of photos depicting prisoner abuse under U.S. custody, CBS’s Early Show failed to make any mention of the dramatic reversal by the White House.

On Wednesday, CBS senior White House correspondent Bill Plante asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the President’s decision and he later reported the story on the CBS Evening News, explaining: "The ACLU, which sued for release of the pictures, said the President's decision flies in the face of his promise of transparent government." A clip of Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU was played: "So if you accept the administration's logic, you'd really have to give the government wholesale censorship power and that's not something that we can accept and it's not something that the courts have accepted." Plante concluded: "Candidate Obama pushed for full disclosure. President Obama has decided that there are times when transparency is a tough call." However, when Plante was on the Early Show on Thursday, to discuss speculation of the President’s Supreme Court pick, the topic never came up.

When the initial decision to release the photos was announced last month, the Early Show not only reported on it, but co-host Russ Mitchell even suggested the Bush administration was to blame for the abuse: "Soon we will see more pictures of U.S. personnel allegedly abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The photos, like these from Abu Ghraib, are being released next month, following a suit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The group says it is proof that prisoner abuse was widespread. And high-profile Bush administration officials are being linked to those interrogation techniques." Strange that Mitchell did not feel it necessary to report on Obama blocking the release of the photos and ACLU criticism of that decision.