Nightline

Terry Moran, co-host of the liberal Nightline, will be leaving the show this summer, according to TV Newser. The program, which lost half its audience since being demoted to 12:35 at night, has downplayed and minimized Barack Obama recent scandals in favor of superficial, light-weight segments.

Moran has relegated much of his serious journalism to Twitter. On May 10, the reporter used the social media site to question the Obama administration's "Nixonian abuse of power" in the wake of the IRS scandal. On May 11, his program ignored the breaking story. By May 15, the show had allowed a scant 28 seconds to the topic. While Moran tweeted away on the IRS controversy and Benghazi, his show covered the latest on plastic surgery and other topics. On Monday night, Nightline featured a story on ten-year-old rapper Lil' Poopy.

On Wednesday night, the journalists at Nightline allowed a mere 31 seconds to the exploding scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives. This was after anchor Terry Moran introduced stories on O.J. Simpson's latest trial, one on determining your "Klout score" and the new reality TV show Ice Cold Cold. On Thursday night, the program focused on pop singer Demi Lovato's problems and clowns.

The disinterest Nightline is showing towards Barack Obama's scandals, including the IRS, the AP controversy and Benghazi, contrasts to how the show's journalists viewed scandal when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. On November 17, 1987, then-correspondent Jeff Greenfield lectured the media for not covering Iran-Contra enough. Speaking of a report on the controversy, Greenfield huffed, "It is, after all, not about a sex or drug scandal or dramatic crime. It is instead about how a great nation defends its vital interests while keeping faith with its highest values."  Obsessed only with crime? Sounds like a good critique of ABC and Nightline in 2013.

Where would a Nightline viewer go for important political news? It wouldn't be the late night ABC show. This week, the program has focused on topics such as Angelina Jolie's mastectomy and the latest plastic surgery operations. Co-anchor Terry Moran saves most of the hard news for his Twitter page.

Except for a mere 28 seconds that aired at 1:05am in the early morning hours of Tuesday, the program's hosts have ignored the growing scandal involving the IRS targeting conservative groups for audits and harassment. Yet, while Nightline focused on Prince Harry's visit to America, co-anchor Terry Moran tweeted: "It keeps getting worse: IRS office that targeted Tea Party also disclosed confidential docs from conservative groups."

On Friday morning, Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran took to Twitter to slam the Obama administration for news that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups in 2012 for reviews. Yet, the powerful journalist and his television program avoided the subject. (Bill Weir hosted on Friday.) Moran tweeted, "A truly Nixonian abuse of power by the Obama administration: IRS Apologizes for Targeting Conservative Groups."

He followed up with another tweet, explaining, "IRS targeted 'about 75' groups because they had the words 'tea party' or 'patriot' in their applications for tax-exempt." Yet, when given the opportunity to take his journalistic outrage beyond the internet, his show skipped it (at least so far).

This past April, celebrity Obama donors Beyonce Knowles and husband Jay-Z took a controversial trip to the communist country of Cuba. Knowles appeared on Monday's Good Morning America and Nightline, but ABC continued to offer no skepticism about the details of the visit. Instead, reporter Amy Robach discovered her inner-entertainment journalist, wondering, "What did you make of the controversy?"

That was the extent of Robach's questions on the topic. No mention of the fact that Knowles and her husband raised over $4 million for Obama in 2012, prior to being given special permission to make the trip.  (American tourists are barred from traveling there.) Robach simply summarized, "But the busy star took a break last month, traveling to Cuba with her husband Jay-Z for their fifth wedding anniversary, igniting a firestorm from lawmakers." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

ABC is nothing if not clear about its priorities. For a month and a half, the network has steadfastly refused to cover the multiple murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, devoting 109 minutes to other trials, along with important revelations about the original names of fictional characters. But when a little-known journeyman basketball player announces he’s gay, ABC’s elite news squad swings into action, lavishing resources and broadcast time on the story.

On Monday Anchor Diane Sawyer led “World News” breathlessly talking of “an act of personal courage.” “Jason Collins,” Sawyer said, “a powerhouse player in the NBA, a veteran of the court, today told the world he is gay.” Video after the break.

Did anyone notice anything missing during Diane Sawyer’s interview with President Bush last night?  She didn’t mention his surge in the polls, which was conducted by ABC News.  Yes, ABC decided to omit their poll in order to have Sawyer bait President Bush with left-leaning questions, like his views on gay marriage.  The American people are now giving the forty-third president a second look, and it seems to be driving liberals crazy.

On April 23, the Washington Post’s Fix blog reported that Bush’s approval ratings have hit a seven-year high.  They are equal to that of President Obama’s at 47%.

Nightline co-anchor Bill Weir on Tuesday belatedly celebrated Earth Day by touting a left-wing environmentalist who is pushing for new carbon taxes and opposing the construction of the Keystone oil pipeline. Weir failed to label Bill McKibben as a liberal. Instead, the journalist simply referred to him as an "organizer," an "agitator" and a "lobbyist."

Weir lectured his audience, "So, how does [McKibben] convince a nation of oiloholics to dry out? Well, he organizes and agitates and lobbies for a tax on carbon. He gets arrested for protesting that big new pipeline from Canada and tries to convince colleges to dump their oil company stock." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Unlike Weir, McKibben's own website has no problem with ideological labels. One post begins, "So you’re a progressive and you’ve been sitting on the sidelines of the Keystone XL fight. Sure, you’ve heard about the pipeline but you haven’t yet drawn your sword and taken up the struggle."

On April 18, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll that showed 51% of Americans feel that guns in the home make it safer, compared to 29% who think otherwise. More telling is that fact that 51% of white middle class women agree with the sentiment about firearms making homes safer.  Additionally, a Nexis search detailed that ABC News has yet to report this poll, and, with the exception of the Fix blog online, the Post's print edition avoided the “guns make a home safer” findings.

So, will there a correction to Jill Filipovic, Amanda Marcotte, and Co. for trying to smear the NRA as the “domestic abuse lobby? The article by New York Times’ Michael Luo that set off this meretricious commentary on guns looks like to have been a smear too far.  After all, it wasn’t “intense pressure” the gun lobby that killed Obama’s anti-gun agenda.  It was white middle-class women, who liked their Second Amendment rights to be left untouched by big government.

Journalists have been almost entirely silent on the gruesome trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. The networks have ignored the story. Into this vacuum came Terry Moran, the anchor of ABC's Nightline. On Friday, he provocatively tweeted, "Kermit Gosnell is probably the most successful serial killer in the history of the world." 

One assumes that his program from the previous night would have been all over this "serial killer," right? Moran offered a complete expose of the stomach-twisting horrors allegedly perpetrated by Gosnell? No. This is how the journalist opened the April 11 program: "Hot Moms Inc. From Gisele to Gwyneth. New celebrity moms are losing the baby weight faster than ever. But can anyone do it? Tonight, how their workout secrets are becoming a big business." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Clearly, Moran doesn't have time for Gosnell when there are "hot moms" to cover.

It's not often that media outlets ignore their own scoops, but that's what ABC is doing. The network has (thus far) relegated to its website the latest details on the decision by the Obama Defense Department to deny Purple Hearts to the victims of the Fort Hood massacre. The rest of the networks have also skipped this story. ABC "obtained" a Pentagon position paper on the subject, but still failed to give it network coverage.

It was ABC alone that highlighted the story back in February. On February 12, Brian Ross explained the impact of the decision to deny Purple Hearts: "...Former Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning, who still has bullets lodged in his body, says he has lost almost $70,000 in benefits otherwise available to those with combat-related injuries." So far, World News, Nightline and Good Morning America (as well as NBC and CBS) have failed to cover the newest details of the story. In fact, ABC has done nothing since February.

George Stephanopoulos, a former Democratic operative turned journalist, has scored an "exclusive" interview with Barack Obama. According to TV Newser, the taped conversation will appear on Tuesday's World News, Wednesday's Good Morning America and Nightline. If it's anything like Stephanopoulos's past interviews, it will contain a number of softball questions. [See a video montage below. MP3 audio here.]

On September 09, 2010, Stephanopoulos worried about how the job was impacting the President's family life: "You know, when you're going through these hard times, how much of it bleeds through to them? And how do you protect them from it?" He also highlighted a pastor in Florida who threatened to burn copies of the Koran. The anchor sympathized, "You're President of the United States. You have to deal with the fallout. And here's a pastor who's got 30 followers in his church. Does it make you feel helpless or angry?" In total, Stephanopoulos devoted 16 minutes to Obama.

Sometimes it’s hard to measure the distance between the supposedly establishment, respectable press and the seediest corners of hardcore pornography. On March 1, ABC’s "Nightline" celebrated a porn star named "James Deen" (real name: Bryan Sevilla). The apparent "news" hook is his role in a forthcoming movie with the evermore pathetic Lindsay Lohan.

ABC reporter Cecilia Vega sold Deen as a 27-year-old hazard to teenaged girls. They’re boasting he’s found a new frontier of porn consumers, "some of them so young we couldn't even interview them on camera. Their parents had no idea that secretly they have a crush on a porn star. It is a phenomenon that not even the man at the center of it fully understands, but it's one that he fully defends." Insert ooooh-ahhhh track here.

ABC's Nightline on Tuesday night uniquely highlighted the "betrayal" of Fort Hood victims by Barack Obama, exposing how the President "used" survivors as props for the 2010 State of the Union address. After 13 people were murdered by Nidal Hasan, the government labeled the shooting an example of "workplace violence" (instead of terrorism) and the Army decided not to award Purple Hearts to the victims. This has led to skyrocketing recovery costs for those who lived through the violence.

Talking to one of the heroes, Kimberly Munley, Ross explained, "A hero betrayed? Her courage saved lives during a massacre on a Texas Army base. So why is she now claiming President Obama and other victims?" He informed viewers that Munley believes "the President broke the promise made to her that all the victims and her families would be well-taken care of." ABC alone covered this angle of  the survivors' suffering. NBC and CBS have, thus far, skipped it. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Former Fort Hood police sergeant Kimberly Munley, one of two officers who helped stop Major Nidal Hasan's deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009, and who was a guest at President Obama's 2010 State of the Union address (something the Politico chose to remind everyone of just yesterday), now says, according to ABC News, that "Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of."

Excerpts from ABC's web story in anticipation of a Nightline report tonight follow the jump (bolds are mine):

ABC on Thursday and Friday either downplayed or outright ignored the "bruising day" Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel endured in Washington. Friday's Good Morning America skipped the topic entirely, thus avoiding the tough questions by Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Nightline, which now airs after midnight, didn't get to the story until 1:05am.

Thursday's World News did cover the contentious hearings, but Diane Sawyer minimized Hagel's poor performance, which even liberal writer Peter Beinart mocked as "making Biden look rhetorically sure-footed." Sawyer solemnly opened the show: "...One man entered the arena. Chuck Hagel, the purple heart recipient from the Vietnam War, the former senator nominated to be Secretary of Defense. His former colleagues met him with a fuselage of critical questions..." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

As if comparing Hillary Clinton to Thomas Jefferson wasn't hyperbolic enough, ABC's Cynthia McFadden on Wednesday practically begged the Secretary of State to run for president. The Nightline co-anchor lobbied Clinton, lecturing her about the "obligation" she has to "break through that glass ceiling." Yet, the reporter could only manage the most gentle probing into the issue of the terrorist attack in Libya.

McFadden pressed the Democrat to run in 2016, asking the question no less than four times. If it appeared, the journalist wondered, "that you might be the person who could actually break through that glass ceiling and become the first female president of this country, would you feel a certain obligation to seize that mantle?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Any answer other than yes seemed not good enough.

Over three programs and two days, ABC devoted 15 minutes to a fawning profile of Hillary Clinton. On Wednesday's Nightline, Cynthia McFadden even compared the outgoing Secretary of State to Thomas Jefferson, hinting that Clinton could follow his footsteps to the White House.

McFadden lauded, "There was a time not so very long ago when Hillary Clinton was seen as one of the most divisive figures in American politics." Noting Clinton's high approval rating, she announced this view was "changing." In an interview that, just coincidentally occurred in front of a statue of Jefferson, the reporter embarrassingly hyped, "As Jefferson looks over our shoulder, who I would only point out, was Secretary of State who went on to become president." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran lashed out at Rand Paul on Twitter, deriding the senator for daring to bluntly question Hillary Clinton over her role in the Benghazi scandal. Moran mocked, "Curious: What is Rand Paul's foreign policy background? Did he serve in the military? Did he study, live, do business or charity overseas?"

Of course, what qualifies Paul to question Clinton is that he's a United States senator and Moran isn't. Over the years, Moran, a journalist, has offered his liberal slant on numerous topics, including business and economics. In 2009, the reporter fawned over Michael Moore's left-wing film Capitalism: A Love Story, gushing, "[Moore is] an American populist in the grand tradition, a provocateur, a comic, a rhetorical bomb thrower." What qualifies Moran, who has never run a business, to seriously discuss a film about capitalism?

Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran on Tuesday could barely contain his excitement on Inauguration Day, extolling the "President with a purpose" and his "history-making call to action." Moran, who has a long history of fawning over Barack Obama, gushed, "He was weaving the new tapestry of America as he sees it."

Moran hyped the "new American progressivism unleashed." The journalist continued, "He is a president renewed in office by the votes of 65 million Americans. He is a president with a purpose." Regarding the aggressively liberal speech, Moran enthused, "More than half a million Americans stream into Washington to watch President Barack Obama take the oath of office once more and deliver a history-making call to action."

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.]

ABC News had to wait two weeks to get on air Barbara Walters’ interview with the Obamas -- and then the network’s evening newscast decided to focus on her asking Barack and Michelle Obama about their sex life.

“An ABC News exclusive,” fill-in World News anchor David Muir teased, “Barbara Walters at the White House, asking Michelle Obama if she’ll run for office next. And a personal question, too.” Viewers were then treated to a clip of Walters with the Obamas: “How do you keep the fire going?” The two laughed as Mrs. Obama giggled: “That’s a good question!”

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’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.]

You may recall when CBS fired Charlie Sheen early last year from the popular Two and a Half Men series for a string of "felony offenses involving moral turpitude." In the weeks and months that preceded this decision, an increasingly erratic Sheen received an inordinate amount of media attention for his drug-induced rants. To this day however, Sheen's bad boy persona is received warmly by the media, and he's been rewarded for it with ad spots for Fiat and DirecTV and even another show on the FX network that jokingly plays off his history of reckless hedonism.

By contrast, Sheen's former co-star, Angus T. Jones, the titular "half man" on the sitcom, has been castigated by the media for his recent religious conversion and subsequent YouTube testimonial in which he urged folks to avoid his popular TV series. Perhaps pressured by producers, Jones has since apologized for coming across as indifferent and unappreciative for the lucrative opportunity, but that hasn't stopped the media for characterizing Jones's video as another celebrity meltdown. [ video below the page break ]

Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran on Wednesday couldn't be bothered with spending much time on the scandal in Libya that left four Americans dead. Instead, he thrilled over the President's performance during a White House press conference. "An Obama smackdown," proclaimed the unabashed fan of the Democratic president. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Moran enthused, "The 44th President, today, was ready to rumble. You heard and saw it most emphatically when he leapt to the defense on Susan Rice." Moran explained that the United Nations ambassador is "under fire for claiming the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya was not a terrorist attack but a riot sparked by outrage over an anti-Muslim film." But the journalist quickly moved on to the battle between Senator John McCain and Obama. Declaring a winner, he cheered, "Today, an Obama smackdown."

A sneering Terry Moran on Wednesday night slammed an out-of-touch Republican Party in the wake of Barack Obama's reelection. According to Moran, Rush Limbaugh showed "contempt" for the President's voters and "slandered" them as "moochers." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

In contrast, Moran extolled Obama as "grayer and maybe wiser." He cheered, "But in the America of the 21st century, he gets something, he embodies something that more and more voters see as the country's destiny."

Reporter and Barack Obama acolyte Terry Moran on Monday attended the President's last rally as a candidate, wistfully recalling the "magic" of the Democrat's past campaigns. Moran reminisced, "Looking at Barack Obama today, on the last day of his last campaign, it is impossible not to think back to what seemed a hinge of history." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Perhaps speaking of himself, the Nightline co-anchor looked back: "The crowds were bigger, more rapturous, more hopeful. For so many people it was magic." After all, it was Moran who, in February of 2009, hyperbolically declared, "I like to say that, in some ways, Barack Obama is the first President since George Washington to be taking a step down into the Oval Office." He added that the politician went from a "visionary leader" to just the president.

Nightline correspondent Dan Harris on Thursday profiled an organization fighting voter fraud, suggesting that the non-partisan group might have a racial motive for targeting certain neighborhoods. Talking to True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrect, Harris offered this loaded question: "Is your goal really to end voter fraud or is your goal really to intimidate voters who disagree with you politically and scare them away from the polls?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Harris followed up, "You are not in any way directly targeting these communities?" Except for Engelbrect, everyone the correspondent talked to backed up this notion. Harris highlighted Teresa Sharp, a woman who had her right to vote challenged: "But Teresa and other Democrats say it's not about voter integrity but about voter suppression, specifically, trying to intimidate low-income people, minorities and students who might vote for President Obama."

Al Gore is concerned about Mother Nature. In a statement he released on his blog on Oct. 30 2012, he hyped the imminent doom of global warming. “Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come,” the Goricle stated. No big surprise that Gore would immediately link Sandy to global warming. After all, he’s gotten very rich claiming the sky is falling. Unfortunately, Gore wasn’t the only one.

Andrew Revkin, self-proclaimed global warming advocate, published an op-ed in The New York Times on Oct. 28, just as Sandy was starting to ravage the East Coast. Revkin’s piece appeared in his section Dot Earth, which, in a rare Times nod to reality, was moved from the news section to the opinion pages in 2010.