ABC

On Friday's CBS This Morning, Bill Plante refreshingly spotlighted how firearms are used to protect the lives of ordinary Americans. Plante noted how the National Rifle Association "Tweeted a story...about Melinda Herman, a Georgia woman who shot an intruder in self-defense as she waited with her two children in a closet....She fired at the man multiple times with a .38 caliber handgun."

The two other Big Three morning shows failed to mention this story during their coverage of the current gun control debate. ABC's GMA actually minimized the air time they devoted to the issue. News anchor Dan Harris gave just one news brief to the next meeting of Vice President Joe Biden's gun violence task force:

ABC and CBS on Thursday hit Barack Obama from the left, fretting about a lack of diversity for his second term cabinet picks. The two network morning shows ignored substantiative criticism about Treasury Secretary choice Jack Lew, but highlighted the cutesy story of his messy handwriting.

Correspondent Jon Karl chided, "Well, some critics are looking at that emerging second-term cabinet and wondering, where are the women?" He touted a New York Times article fretting about the "all-male look" of the new picks. Karl noted that "the President will have to replace Jack Lew as chief of staff. The top candidates are, you guessed it, men." Rather than worry about meeting a liberal quota, Karl could have noted Lew's total lack of experience in business.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appeared on all three network morning shows on Wednesday and was greeted in each interview by the host seizing on his harsh words for congressional Republicans over a delayed vote on Hurricane Sandy relief. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

On NBC's Today, co-host Matt Lauer proclaimed: "You're not happy, it seems, with the course of the Republican Party right now. You blasted some Republicans in Congress last week after their inaction over Hurricane Sandy. You said they showed 'callous indifference, selfishness, duplicity,' they were, 'practicing toxic politics.' Strong letter to follow. Those aren't the words of a guy who's happy with his party."

All three evening newscasts on Tuesday hyped a report that 2012 was the hottest on record for the United States. NBC actually mislead viewers into thinking the data relates to the entire planet and not just one country.  On ABC, Dan Harris blamed the study's results on Congress for failing to take "action" over global warming.

World News reporter Dan Harris lamented, "Many cities had record warmth, including Washington, D.C., where a lack of action on man made climate change is likely to mean 2012 is just a glimpse into an unpleasant future, according to many scientists."  [See video below. MP3 audio here.]  Yet, the New York Times conceded, "Even so, the last year’s record for the United States is not expected to translate into a global temperature record when figures are released in the coming weeks."

All three network evening newscasts on Monday found time to tout Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's return to work after hospitalization for a blood clot, "clearly enjoying a prank gift" from her staff and being greeted by a "standing ovation."

NBC's Nightly News devoted a full report to the development, with anchor Brian Williams declaring: "...we got our first official look at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton since she emerged from the hospital. It came in the form of some still photos of her first day back at work, a view of her carefully managed by her team after a tough couple of weeks."

ABC's Martha Raddatz on Monday continued touting Democratic talking points, sneering that conservatives who oppose Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense will have to "look" the Vietnam veteran "in the eye" and tell him he's not "tough enough."

Raddatz appeared during live coverage of the President's official announcement. The reporter parroted, "And I think the thing you have to remember is that Chuck Hagel is a Vietnam veteran, so whoever is opposing him now would have to look him in the eye and say, you're not tough enough to be the Secretary of Defense even though you served in Vietnam." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Exactly three years ago, on January 7, 2010, during a press conference regarding the 2009 attempted bombing of an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan declared to reporters: "I told the President today I let him down." That admission of responsibility for a major intelligence failure was completely absent from Monday's network morning show coverage of President Obama nominating Brennan to be CIA director.

While NBC, CBS, and ABC focused much of their attention on the President's nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense and the likely confirmation fight that would result, Brennan's nomination was only a brief side note.

Good Morning America's Martha Raddatz on Monday seemed perplexed as to why conservatives would oppose Chuck Hagel's nomination for Secretary of Defense. According to the journalist, one might think the former Republican senator is the "perfect choice," a man who "dared [to] speak out" against George W. Bush's troop surge in Iraq  -- the same surge that candidate Obama later admitted had "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."

Raddatz mentioned concern about Hagel's stance toward Israel, but didn't explain what his "controversial" votes were. Instead, she blurbed, "You might think that a Republican Vietnam veteran, former senator with all kinds of foreign policy experience would be the perfect choice to ease the rancor on Capitol Hill." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

George Will had an interesting take on the fiscal cliff agreement reached by Congress and the White House last week.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Will said, “I think people will look back on this deal as where liberalism passed an apogee and went into decline” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

George Will spoke an inconvenient truth about the media Sunday that should have everyone of its members sitting up and taking notice.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Will said, “The journalistic narrative about Washington today is 180 degrees wrong” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

World News anchor Diane Sawyer on Thursday highlighted the 20 newly sworn-in women in the U.S. Senate as a way to push a liberal, pro-abortion agenda. Mostly ignoring conservative females, Sawyer stuck to Democratic talking points, lamenting, "So, they say they're ready to tackle big issues like jobs, transportation, immigration, but it's their male counterparts who keep reopening Roe vs. Wade and contraception." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The ABC journalist then featured Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen lecturing that "government doesn't have a place in" dealing with abortion. In an extended rant, Democrat Elizabeth Warren scolded, "I mean, that's the problem is that there were amendments that were introduced to say that women wouldn't have access to health insurance coverage for birth control." During the segment, conservative Kelly Ayotte was only briefly featured (on an unrelated topic). Newly elected Republican Deb Fischer was mentioned, but got no screen time.

Over 13 months ago, the NBC, CBS and ABC newscasts touted Barack Obama as a tough talker who wouldn't back down on threatened spending cuts. Now, that he's backed down, the same networks have ignored the President's retreat. On November 21, 2011, Obama thundered, "My message to [Congress] is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off-ramps on this one." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

This allowed the then-presidential candidate to portray himself as a budget hawk taking a hard line on sequestration. Nightly News anchor Brian Williams introduced Obama's comments by describing the country as a "nation of addicts, spending addicts kicking the can down the road." According to Williams, the President "pushed back hard." Williams and other journalist didn't question the seriousness of Obama's pledge. On Wednesday, the President signed a deal to avert the fiscal cliff and kept those cuts from going into place.

ABC News, the same network which falsely linked the Tea Party to a mass killing in Colorado, on Wednesday ignored an alleged connection between Occupy Wall Street and a wealthy New York City couple apparently planning a terrorist spree. Instead, a Good Morning America journalist referred to the investigation as a "preppy terror case."

The New York Post on Monday reported that Morgan Gliedman and her boyfriend, Aaron Greene, have been arrested after a vast number of guns, bombs and the "Terrorist Encyclopedia" were found in their home. According to the Post, the two are "the privileged daughter of a prominent city doctor, and...a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist." Yet, GMA reporter John Muller simply described, "She is from a prominent family on New York's ritzy upper east side. He is a Harvard graduate."

As 2012 winds down, we're reliving some of the worst media bias of the year with our Best Notable Quotables of 2012. Yesterday, I recounted some of the nastiest barbs journalists threw at the GOP ticket; today, a look at some of the most egregious favors committed on behalf of Barack Obama's campaign.

While conservatives like Rick Santorum were often cast as radical or weird, journalists lovingly fawned over President Obama as if he was still the rock star of Campaign 2008. Sherri Shepherd, co-host of ABC's The View, won our "Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award," for obsequious Obama interviews, after a September 25 encounter in which Shepherd seemed intent on casting the President as the Romancer-in-Chief.

With four days until the "fiscal cliff," CBS This Morning peppered its report on the Congressional negotiations with four Democratic sound bites compared to just one from Republicans.

Chief White House correspondent Major Garrett quoted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) three times and simply relayed his smear of Rep. John Boehner's Speakership as a "dictatorship." Both ABC and NBC called out Reid's rhetoric, however.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Both NBC and CBS covered the outrage Thursday morning over a New York newspaper publishing the names and addresses of gun permit holders in two counties. ABC made no mention of the controversy, however.

"A suburban New York City newspaper is in the middle of a big controversy this morning after it put up online the names and addresses of everyone with a gun permit," reported CBS This Morning co-host Jeff Glor. "Call it a battle between the First and Second Amendments," said NBC News correspondent Katy Tur on the Today show.

ABC’s Barbara Walters' "interview" with the Obamas on Thursday's Nightline ran much more like a celebrity infomercial. Walters was her usual self, asking questions void of substance and fawning over every detail of the First Family.

With the fiscal cliff looming just weeks after the interview originally took place, Walters had no questions on any matter of political significance. She did find time to discuss the family's dog Bo, pressing Mrs. Obama, "Does he follow you around all day?" and "What is Bo getting for Christmas?"  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

The anti-gun Obama isn't so anti-gun when it comes to protecting his own family.

During a predictably gooey interview with Barbara Walters on ABC's Nightline Wednesday, the President joked about his daughter Malia dating boys saying, "I always talk about how one of the main incentives for running again was continuing secret service protection so there are men with guns around at all times" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC News repeatedly celebrated weatherman Sam Champion's gay "marriage" to Rubem Robierb from Friday through Monday. On Monday's "Good Morning America," entertainment reporter Lara Spencer relayed: "We have so many stories to tell you this morning, including the surprising story of this woman. She is accused of being, we're not making this up, too sexy for her job. Her boss said she was too distracting and was actually threatening his marriage. But that's where the outrage begins -- because she's the one who lost her job, not him."

Then she turned to Champion: "Yeah, it's controversial, indeed, but this isn't. We have such great news to share with everybody, the best news of all. Sam Champion, everybody, getting married over the weekend." No one in America opposes gay marriage, apparently.

ABC’s Good Morning America barely talked about the upcoming fiscal cliff on Wednesday but found time for another Obama-promoting fluff piece. Previewing Barbara Walters's upcoming interview with Mr. and Mrs. Obama on Wednesday evening’s Nightline, GMA picked a clip of Walters fawning over the couple's romance.

Walters touted "the most-shared photograph in the history of Twitter" of the President and his wife hugging. She later asked, "How do you keep the fire going?"  [See video below jump.  MP3 audio here.]

A few weeks ago, tennis player Caroline Wozniacki during an exhibition match did a comical impersonation of Serena Williams that some in the media immediately called racist.

On Wednesday, Williams told USA Today that she considers Wozniacki a friend and didn't agree with those that were offended by the gag:

Former This Week host Christiane Amanpour's reputation for biased reporting precedes her, despite her own denials. Despite this, ABC thought it fit to air a two-part special starting on Friday evening titled Back to the Beginning. The network's press release trumpeted, "Join...Christiane Amanpour on the ultimate road trip as she travels to the lands of the Bible....to investigate the roots of those stories that have created so much conflict, and at the same time so much of the healing she has seen across her career."

However, the last time the journalist put together a mini-series on religion, God's Warriors, for CNN in 2007, she gave Muslim "fundamentalists" in the U.S. sympathetic treatment, while showing "concern" for "right-wing" Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and discomfort towards the theology and practices of American evangelical Christians. Amanpour even equated one Christian youth group with the Taliban.

With 11 days until the United States goes over the fiscal cliff, ABC's Good Morning America focused squarely on Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Republicans for the failure to reach a negotiation with President Obama. 

On Thursday, newly-appointed Chief White House Correspondent Jon Karl began his first story hyping Boehner's "crushing" loss when his "Plan B" was aborted for lack of GOP votes:  [See video below jump.  MP3 audio here.]

For ABC's Good Morning America, favoring more guns on the streets is "controversial" but President Obama's plea for gun control is simply news.

"Those who argue that the best way to stop mass killings is to have more guns in the right hands at the right time, even in the classroom. It's a controversial debate," reported co-host George Stephanopoulos on Thursday. In contrast, ABC's Jake Tapper framed the Newtown shooting as a "tipping point" amidst Obama's push for more gun control.

News of the State Department report on the U.S. government’s failures surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, broke too late last night for the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts, but all three broadcast networks had full reports on their Wednesday morning shows.

Of the three, ABC’s Good Morning America was the most perfunctory, with a less-than 90 second report from correspondent Martha Raddatz that completely failed to mention the controversy over the Obama administration’s preposterous initial explanation that the attack was the result of a “spontaneous” demonstration over an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube.

But as detailed in the very first of the official report’s “Findings,” the determination that there was no “spontaneous” demonstration: “The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity.”

For many Americans, ABC, NBC and CBS are the major source of news on business and the economy. Unfortunately, this is like depending on the middle school student newspaper for information about important local school board deliberations.

Network reporters are either ill-prepared to discuss complex issues of economics, finance and business or choose to be advocates for viewpoints rather than objective reporters who strive for balance. Liberal preferences for government solutions and interventionism as well as hostility toward wealth and profit dominate network coverage.

For the third day in a row, ABC's Good Morning America used the horrific Newtown tragedy to push its gun control agenda.  On Wednesday morning, both ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas and Pierre Thomas hyped that now is a "watershed moment" and a "tipping point" as stores halted sales of some guns and Democratic NRA member Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) considered changing his views on gun laws.

"Big-city mayors and one of the nation’s biggest police unions have called for a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity clips. And for some long-time allies of the gun lobby, this week was a tipping point," Thomas touted voices favoring gun control.  [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]