CBS

For the past couple of weeks there has been a steady drip of bad news for ObamaCare, but you wouldn't know it if you only get your news from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks. From a Society of Actuaries report that determined premium costs will shoot up thanks to a thirty-three percent average increase in claims; to thirty-three Senate Democrats joining Republicans in voting to repeal an ObamaCare tax on medical devices; to a Quinnipiac University poll showing even two-thirds of self-identified Democrats saying the law will either hurt them or have no effect, the recent news has been bad for the President's chief legislative victory. However, not one of these trouble spots for ObamaCare has been mentioned on ABC, CBS or NBC's evening or morning show broadcasts.

The following setbacks for ObamaCare haven't received a single second of air time on the Big Three networks:

Sometimes the media will engage in selective amnesia, pretending to forget about a past occurrence because the memory of it would hurt the liberal narrative they are trying to advance. That was clearly the case on this Saturday’s CBS This Morning.

The network’s political director, John Dickerson, was on to discuss President Obama’s forthcoming budget proposal, which is expected to include some cuts to the growth rate of Social Security. Unsurprisingly, Dickerson spoke entirely from the president’s point of view, essentially relaying the White House message to congressional Republicans, the crux of which was: “[Obama]’s also trying to create some public pressure on Republicans, saying look, I've offered something on my end, now you have to offer something, which in this case means some agreement to some level of tax increases.” [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

Monday's CBS This Morning played up the domestic critics of Margaret Thatcher as they covered the breaking news of her death. Mark Phillips, reporting from London, spotlighted how Thatcher was once called "Plunder-woman" by a British union leader, and how she was "contentious here, famous for breaking the back of the very strong labor movement in Britain." Phillips also noted how the former prime minister was "a figure both reviled and revered."

During a retrospective on the "Iron Lady", correspondent Elizabeth Palmer ballyhooed how Thatcher's "trademark helmet hair, cut-glass accent, and bullying style became a staple of British satire".

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the Sunday political talk shows didn't seem very interested in the lousy jobs numbers that were released by the Labor Department last Friday.

By far the worst performance in this regard was turned in by CBS's Face the Nation which didn't utter one single word about the issue throughout the course of the entire one hour broadcast.

The Big Three networks' Friday morning newscasts all highlighted the "backlash" over President Obama's "best-looking attorney general in the country" compliment of California's Kamala Harris. But in addition to ignoring First Lady Michelle Obama's recent "single mother" gaffe, as of Saturday morning, ABC, CBS, and NBC have yet to report on the President's erroneous claim about the use of an automatic firearm at the Sandy Hook massacre.

The Democrat made the false statement at a Wednesday fundraiser in California. Mr. Obama asserted, "It is possible for us to create common-sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country...but also make sure that we don't have another 20 children...gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon – by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly."

ABC, CBS, and NBC's Friday morning shows all devoted air time to President Obama labeling California Attorney General Kamala Harris "the best-looking attorney general in the country" at a fundraiser on Thursday. Unsurprisingly, a panel on NBC's Today tried to explain away the remark. Willie Geist asserted, "I think he [Obama] was making a joke." CBS This Morning's Norah O'Donnell was tougher on the President: "Maybe, [it] was not the right thing to say."

However, the Big Three newscasts didn't report that Mrs. Obama also got caught in a verbal misstep on Thursday. ABCNews.com's Arlette Saenz devoted a Friday morning item to how Michelle Obama mistakenly referred to herself as a "single mother" during an interview with WCAX, a CBS affiliate in Vermont.

Actor and comedian Martin Short took a comedic swipe at the Huffington Post on the CBS Late Show Thursday.

After relaying inaccurate information about the shakeup at NBC's Tonight Show to host David Letterman, Martin said, "Huffington Post usually knows" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Abortion is about choice – the choice network journalists make not to tell viewers of the nightmarish side of the abortion industry. TV journalists decided legislation recently adopted in Arkansas and North Dakota must be referred to as the country’s “most restrictive abortion laws,” and ABC, CBS and NBC complied. Anchors and reporters repeatedly used pro-abortion language to describe a “tidal wave of new abortion restrictions.”

But journalists also kept silent about the news coming from the extremes of pro-abortion side. In Philadelphia, the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell is underway. Gosnell was charged with murdering one woman and eight babies born alive in the macabre, filthy clinic he ran for more than 30 years. And in Florida, a lobbyist for the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates told the state legislature that the fate of an infant born alive in a “botched abortion” “should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.” In other words, the baby, a living, breathing, child, should have no legal protection from infanticide.

On Thursday, Mollie Hemingway of the GetReligion blog pointed out CBS's "major mistake" on the March 31, 2013 edition of Sunday Morning. On the Easter Sunday broadcast, Martha Teichner confused two biblical figures with the same name when she stated that "only one of the Gospels places Mary at the crucifixion, alongside the so-called 'beloved disciple' – possibly John the Baptist." Actually, the prophet was beheaded many months before Jesus' arrest.

During her report, Teichner also spotlighted the Broadway adaptation of Irish author Colm Toibin's novella "The Testament of Mary," which perverts the biblical Mary of Nazareth into an angry woman bitter over her son Jesus' execution and openly disdainful of His followers. [audio available here; video below the jump]

All three networks on Wednesday and Thursday parroted the exact same talking points from the White House, touting Barack Obama for expressing "solidarity" with struggling workers by taking a five percent pay cut. The President made the move, which amounts to a minuscule $1700 a month, in the wake of sequestration. On Good Morning America, Josh Elliott trumpeted, "[Obama] says he wants to show solidarity with government workers who face a furlough because of budget cuts." [See a video montage below. MP3 audio here.]

Over on NBC's Today, Natalie Morales touted, "In an attempt at solidarity with federal workers feeling the sequester spending cuts, President Obama is giving himself a five percent pay cut on his $400,000-a-year salary." Offering a remarkably similar thought, World News anchor Diane Sawyer rounded up the amount to a year's total: " That's $20,000, to show solidarity with government employees who will be furloughed." In an impressed tone, the host praised, "The White House says Obama will personally write a check to the Treasury."

David Letterman had some fun Wednesday evening with the announcement that Jimmy Fallon will be replacing Jay Leno on NBC's Tonight Show.

The Late Show host began his opening monologue with a series of jokes about the issue including, "I happen to know Jay's got another job on a network that has greater viewership, higher ratings - Univision. He's going there."

New EPA regulations could increase the price of gas by nine cents or more when they take effect in the next four years, American Petroleum Institute (API) scientists say. However, ABC, CBS and NBC  news programs gave little credence to those concerns, and hyped EPA’s claims of “significant health benefits” instead.

ABC was the worst of the three. Diane Sawyer and Jim Avila on the March 29 “World News” spoke of alleged benefits of the new environmental regulations which would further reduce sulfur emissions. Meanwhile, “World News” not only failed to give equal time to opponents of the regulations, they portrayed them as greedy.

On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, Jan Crawford played up how voters supposedly find Vice President Joe Biden's "gaffes almost endearing", as she reported on the potential face-off between President Obama's running mate and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. Crawford played clips of Biden's most infamous gaffes, and later added that these verbal slip-ups "may not be so funny for the leader of the free world" [audio available here; video below the jump].

Back in August 2012, the CBS morning newscast actually did its best to spin the Vice President's "put y'all back in chains" slam of Mitt Romney, and adopted the Obama campaign's own talking points on the inflammatory line.

CBS again paid homage to Caroline Kennedy on Tuesday's CBS This Morning as they hyped her possible nomination to be the next ambassador of Japan. During her report, Jan Crawford featured liberal historian Robert Dallek, who gushed over the apparent worldwide reputation of the presidential daughter's family: "The Kennedys, generally, have an extraordinary, continuing hold on the public's imagination, both in this country and abroad."

Dallek later asserted that the U.S. might be "sending somebody as ambassador to Tokyo who is representative of the best in American culture." The correspondent also touted how Kennedy "would have an opportunity to test her political skills, but also, she would be able to put the Kennedy name back on an international stage" if President Obama named her to the key diplomatic post.

The mainstream media are in love with Pope Francis, but it's not because of his conservative theology. It's because they see him as a potentially liberal pioneer for the Catholic Church. On Saturday’s CBS This Morning, the network ran a story that cheered on the pope in his supposed struggle against more traditional voices within the church.

Vatican correspondent Allen Pizzey drew the battle lines at the top of his report and let his viewers know who is winning the fight: “Well, the Easter celebrations are highlighting a struggle between the new, simple ways of Pope Francis and the conservative old guard of the Catholic Church. So far, Francis is keeping one step ahead of his critics.” [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

The Big Three networks' morning and evening newscasts still haven't covered the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell as of Monday morning. ABC, CBS, and NBC have maintained their coverage blackout despite the graphic witness testimony and the in-your-face courtroom antics of Dr. Gosnell's defense attorney during the first two weeks of the proceedings. The Philadelphia physician is charged with murdering seven newborn children at his decrepit abortion facility.

This glaring omission by the broadcast networks would have continued, if Peggy Noonan hadn't provided the first mention of the murder trial on Sunday's Meet the Press on NBC. The Wall Street Journal columnist spotlighted the "haunting and disturbing story of this doctor", and pointed out how coverage has been "hard to find."

Two years ago today, I chronicled wire service reports which appeared shortly after John Hinckley's unsuccessful attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 reporting that schoolchildren in many parts of the country cheered when they heard that he had been shot.

At the time, I suggested that school teachers and administrators who were appalled at the reactions might have been protesting a bit too much. Today, I located a 2004 item at National Review by Stanley Kurtz about another group which was happy to hear about the assassination attempt. The left's hypocrisy about "civility" -- and for that matter, basic human decency -- clearly goes way, way back:

On Thursday, George Stephanopoulos touted how legalizing same-sex "marriage" would supposedly bring in additional revenue into the federal government's coffers. The former Clinton administration official claimed that "the Treasury would actually take in more money if gays and lesbians were allowed to get married and get federal benefits."

Stephanopoulos cited an eight-plus year old study from the Congressional Budget Office that found that redefining marriage to include homosexual couples "could bring in up to $1 billion a year – so, a net benefit for the Treasury from gay marriage."

Wednesday's CBS This Morning turned exclusively to David Boies, one of the main attorneys who argued against California's Proposition 8 at the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The morning newscast failed to bring on any of the prominent supporters of the voter-approved ban on same-sex "marriage" in the Golden State, and granted Boies over three and half minutes to promote his cause.

During the interview, Gayle King trumpeted how, supposedly, "many people were touched...by Justice [Anthony] Kennedy, who raised the welfare of the children in same-sex marriages."

ABC's Good Morning America on Wednesday again offered the most biased coverage on the gay marriage case before the Supreme Court. All three network morning shows skipped specific mention of the multiple thousands who marched for traditional marriage on Tuesday. ABC, however, used loaded terms such as "marriage equality" rather than gay marriage. Reporter Terry Moran gushed over the liberal position: "This is a social movement, a 21st century social movement that arrived with astonishing speed at this court, driven by activists, by Hollywood in part and by young people, especially on social media." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

In contrast, he portrayed a skeptical Supreme Court as old and out of touch: "The wave of increasing support for gay marriage in America, especially among the young, is crashing on the Supreme Court and the justices, average age 67, seem downright perplexed." Moran highlighted the case of Edie Windsor, an 83-year-old lesbian whose case is before the Supreme Court. He sympathetically related, "when Thea died in 2009, Edie got hit with almost $400,000 in federal estate taxes, a penalty she would not have had to pay if she were married to a man."

The gay marriage debate went to the Supreme Court on Tuesday and all three network evening news shows spun the argument in support of gay marriage.

While audio from the court gave ABC, CBS and NBC the ability to deliver balanced portrayals of the actual debate inside, each show put its own twist on the day’s events –against traditional marriage.

CBS “Evening News” was the most overt. Anchor Scott Pelley led into the report asking “how all this got started in California?” Reporter John Blackstone’s report was filled with images of gay couples and included at least 12 separate video or photo clips of gay weddings. That story dwelt heavily on how gays wanted things their way, profiling a lesbian couple that wants to get married, and quoting two other pro-gay voices. It included only one supporter of traditional marriage.

CBS Late Show host David Letterman asked NBC Night News anchor Brian Williams what some might consider a bizarre question Tuesday evening.

"Are there gay justices on the Supreme Court?" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

It must be getting tough for the folks at the CBS Late Show to find material.

On Monday, host David Letterman during his opening monologue actually stole a joke from Woody Allen that’s almost 50 years old (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CBS allowed former Democratic New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey to air a sympathetic note to himself about his homosexuality while downplaying the tawdry scandal that caused his political downfall, on Tuesday's CBS This Morning.

McGreevey's confession whitewashed his appointment of a male poet he later claimed he had an "affair" with to head the state's department of homeland security. When the poet, Golan Cipel, had accused him of sexual harassment, McGreevey announced that he was gay and stepped down from office.

With the Supreme Court set to hear a couple of monumental same-sex marriage cases this week, Saturday's CBS This Morning brought on two law professors to analyze the cases and the likely outcomes. They were not, however, impartial scholars; they were a pair of gay rights activists, Kenji Yoshino and Suzanne Goldberg.

Yoshino is a New York University legal scholar who specializes in constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, and law and literature. He is also an openly gay man who has written numerous commentaries, for various outlets, advocating LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage. But CBS introduced him only as a “specialist in constitutional law now working on a book on the Proposition 8 litigation in California.”
 

Monday's CBS This Morning brought on only liberals for a panel discussion about the recent success of The History Channel's new miniseries, The Bible. One panelist, Michael Hogan of the left-wing Huffington Post, erroneously asserted that "biblical films have been kind of out of favor since 1965, when 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' came out and was a huge flop. 'Last Temptation of Christ' was the last serious attempt."

Of course, the editor for the left-wing website completely overlooked Mel Gibson's 2004 blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ, which made over $600 million at the box office worldwide.

Radio hosts like Mark Levin and Web sites like Canada Free Press are mocking President Obama’s statement in a press conference yesterday with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, where he compared the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to U.S.-Canada relations. What? Levin called him a "moron" for the comparison.

But ABC, CBS, and NBC failed to notice. They acted like a press release service for Obama on their newscasts Thursday night and Friday morning, offering Obama 18 soundbites adding up to 215 seconds, often ending in applause. Only Chuck Todd on NBC Nightly News aired a soundbite from anyone other than Obama.

ABC continued ignoring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's move on Tuesday to drop a proposed federal ban on so-called assault weapons. Neither Wednesday's World News nor Thursday's Good Morning America covered the congressional development. This lack of coverage stands out in light of the network's hype of President Obama's supposedly "dramatic and emotional" lobbying effort for the ban during his State of the Union address.

NBC and CBS's Wednesday evening newscasts also ignored Senator Reid's deep-sixing of the gun control legislation. Their morning shows on Thursday devoted news briefs to Vice President Joe Biden and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "renewed call" for the assault weapons ban, but failed to explicitly mention the Nevada Democrat's role in dropping the bill.