CBS’s Early Show on Friday completely ignored the grilling Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner received on Capitol Hill on Thursday and the calls for his resignation by members of Congress. ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today both covered the contentious exchanges.

ABC’s Good Morning America provided the most coverage. Correspondent Bianna Golodryga observed that "a handful of Republicans and one Democrat are calling for his resignation" based on the current economic situation. She then played video of Republican Michael Burgess deriding Geithner: "I don't think you should be fired. I thought you never should have been hired."

Another clip featured Republican Kevin Brady directly asking the Treasury Secretary: "For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?" But, even though the Early Show found time for generous coverage of Oprah Winfrey and the announcement that she’s retiring in two years, the news program skipped reporting on the calls for Geithner’s resignation by these Republicans. (House Democrat Peter DeFazio and Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell both have previously made similar announcements.)

At first glance it appeared that NBC's Meredith Vieira and David Gregory, on Friday's Today show, did a decent job of recounting all of the struggles the Obama administration is dealing with from unemployment to foreign policy, but ultimately the pair concluded, in every instance, they weren't actual problems, but merely problems of "perception." First up Vieira mentioned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner being criticized on Capitol Hill for 10.2 percent unemployment, something that Gregory wrote off as simply "a perception problem that the administration has to deal with." Then on Obama's recent trip overseas Vieira queried Gregory: "Speaking about perception problems, President Obama just returned from a eight-day trip overseas to Asia. Some critics are saying that it was a failure, more style and no substance. Is that a fair analysis?" To which Gregory responded the Obama team just needed to do a better job of "winning the perception battle."

The following is a transcript of the segment as it was aired on the November 20, Today show:

Members of the self-proclaimed fastest-growing union in North America have started fights at town hall meetings, share office space with ACORN and spent over $60 million to elect President Barack Obama.

The left-wing, 2.1 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its president, Andy Stern, spent much of 2009 campaigning for health care reform that would include a government-run insurance plan, and for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier to unionize. Critics of EFCA say it would result in worker intimidation (not something that would bother SEIU, if its recent history is any guide).

Well-connected, Stern was the most frequent White House visitor in the first six months of Obama's presidency.

But ABC, NBC and CBS haven't reported any of those things. In fact, a search of Nexis transcripts for all of 2009 only turned up one story mentioning either SEIU or Andy Stern. That was an Aug. 20 story from Jake Tapper of ABC which identified Stern as "a close ally of the President's and the leader of a major union."

NBC's Matt Lauer invited on Newsweek managing editor Dan Klaidman, on Wednesday's Today, to answer Sarah Palin's charge that the magazine's recent cover photo of her, in a jogging outfit, was "sexist," but Klaidman denied the accusation as he claimed: "Well, what it really represented was what the story was about, and that's what our mission is. I mean, look, since she's been on the national stage, there have been these questions about her gravitas, about her seriousness." The photo – which was a reprint of a Runners World cover – was, as Palin noted "taken out of context," and intended to diminish her as a political figure, something that even Lauer, to his credit, noticed as seen in the following exchange with Klaidman and his other guest, the Daily Beast's editor-in-chief Tina Brown: [audio available here]

MATT LAUER: But on this week, as she's launching this book that, that she wants to use to kind of establish herself and perhaps as a run for 2012, why that image? Why do you think that represented what she's all about at this point in time?

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly stated last night that "the left is now peddling Sarah Palin as a shallow demagogue who would lead us to tragic circumstances" during a "Talking Points" segment about the former Alaskan governor's continued assault from the left. He cited CMI's 2008 study, "How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon" as evidence.

O'Reilly stated:

A study last year by the Culture and Media Institute, a conservative group, examined network news coverage of Mrs. Palin from September 29th to October 12^th as she campaigned. It was 69 stories about the governor. 37 of them were negative, 30 neutral, just two, two positive. Twenty-one of the stories portrayed Sarah Palin as unintelligent or unqualified. Eight stories used clips from ‘Saturday Night Live' to ridicule her. ABC News was hardest on Mrs. Palin, closely followed by NBC.

For several years as uneducated sycophants in the media gushed and fawned over every utterance from former Vice President Al Gore, NewsBusters has informed readers of just how absurd the junk science he's peddling really is.

Last Thursday, NBC "Tonight Show" viewers got a perfect example of how the Nobel Laureate basically makes things up, and that his poor grades in college were quite an indicator of just how little he understands about science.

So egregious was his departure from reality that the following clip should be mandatory viewing for all his fans in the media who seem to be just as scientifically-challenged (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Hot Air):

NBC and CBS’s morning shows on Tuesday completely ignored the revelation that the Obama administration’s Recovery.gov website claims to have saved or created jobs in congressional districts that don’t exist. ABC’s Good Morning America devoted 21 seconds to the developing story.

On ABCNews.com, Jonathan Karl wrote, "In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending." There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona. On Monday night’s World News, the network did manage a full report by Karl. He elaborated, "And it lists $34 million spent in Arizona's 86th district. That district doesn't exist either. In fact, in virtually every state, the website lists millions of dollars spent and hundreds of jobs created in fictional congressional districts."

Leftists including those in the White House who presumptively and obsessively attack Fox News will not be pleased with this.

At Forbes (HT Hot Air Headlines), S. Robert Lichter of George Mason University's Center for Media and Public Affairs, asks the question, "Fox News: Fair And Balanced?" -- and answers in the affirmative. In the process, the GMU Professor of Communications also makes a number of interesting points about Fox's competitors, discusses the convergence of news and analysis, and provides useful historical context.

Using a methodology that would be difficult to refute, Lichter's work relating to campaign 2008 is in sync with what CMPA found in late 2007 (noted at the time at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) during the opening stages of the presidential campaign.

Here are key paragraphs from Lichter's commentary (bolds are mine):

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show, actually asked Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, if he and the network parted ways because he was "too conservative" and if CNN was okay with Dobbs' push for immigration reform when he was attacking George W. Bush but wasn't happy when Dobbs started slamming the Obama administration on the issue, as he queried the former CNN host, "You got much less kickback from CNN than when you started to speak out about the policies of Barack Obama. So, was this an issue that CNN wants to appear neutral but maintain a more liberal stance?" [MP3 audio available here]

For his part Dobbs claimed the home of the very liberal Rick Sanchez "made it very clear, they wanted the network to go middle of the road and to be very neutral."

The following is the full transcript of the entire segment as it was aired on the November 17, Today show:

On any other day, NBC "Nightly News" would be attacking coal for being a dirty pollutant and advocating reliance on other forms of energy.

But on Nov. 15, as it began the first of its "Our Planet" segments for green week, the network used coal power as part of the argument in favor of destroying manmade dams.

"This is what the dams harness: the power of the Elwha to generate electricity. Impressive, even vital 100 years ago. But today the dams are no longer needed. Now with coal, wind and solar power, repairing the dams is just too expensive," said chief environmental correspondent Anne Thompson.

Thompson has often attacked coal power on NBC. On Feb. 21, 2009 she offered viewers plenty of reasons why building a much needed coal plant in Nevada was a bad idea. She has also supported the idea of capping carbon emissions, which would increase the cost of coal power.

But in this segment, Thompson presented the destruction of hydroelectric dams as a positive thing, bringing rivers back "to their natural state" for the sake of fish.

If Hillary Clinton had been any less supportive of the Obama admin's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan, she might have had to quit her Secretary of State job . . .

Clinton damned the decision with faint praise during her Meet The Press appearance today.

Asked by moderator David Gregory where she stood on the matter, her response was the ultra-tepid: "I'm not going to second-guess any decision the Attorney General made." Translation: I'd love to second-guess it. I pretty much just did.  But I'm not about to end my Obama admin career by saying so outright. 

In its opening sketch last night, NBC's "Saturday Night Live" mocked Vice President Joe Biden and healthcare reform.

With the President out of the country for a week, Biden, played by Jason Sudeikis, has picked the lock on the Oval Office in order to get something big done while Obama is gone.

He opted not to solve what's going on in Afghanistan because it's "a mess - it can't be fixed...It's worse than Scranton."

As for fixing the economy, "We already did it...The stimulus is working."

With that in mind, Biden opted to reform healthcare by "[caving] in like crazy!...The President wants to pass a healthcare bill so bad that he will literally sign anything" (video embedded below the fold, h/t Story Balloon): 

Three years ago, NBC launched a holiday tradition of environmental awareness. In 2007, it kicked off its "Green Week" by turning off the lights during a Sunday sports broadcast (as if turning off studio lights for one minute could mitigate three hours of blazing stadium lights).

The rest of the week consisted of cringingly cheesy, greenwashed TV moments, like the cop on the crime drama Life buying a solar farm in his quest to find the person who framed him for murder.

Sadly, the line-up for this year's "Green Week," which launches Nov. 15, is just as cringe-worthy. Al Gore will appear again on "30 Rock," undoubtedly spewing dire warnings of the Earth's imminent doom. "The Biggest Loser" will coach its participants to buy organic food and bring their own mugs to coffee shops. Dwight Schrute from "The Office" will role play as a character named "Recyclops," and, in the comedy "Community," Greendale Community College will be renamed "Environ-Dale."

But that's not all.

The media gave President Obama credit during the campaign for promising not to raise taxes on the middle class. He was on the trail in New Hampshire when he made a "firm pledge" not to raise taxes on any family "making less than $250,000 a year."

Obama is doing his best to break that promise, but the network news media haven't bothered to report it. On Nov. 6 when he endorsed the tax increase-laden health care reform bill that the House of Representatives passed on Nov. 7, Obama violated his pledge.

While Obama had offered broad generalities supporting various health care reform bills under consideration in the House and Senate, the Nov. 6 statement was the first time he threw his weight fully behind one piece of legislation.

• Networks Decide Attack Wasn't Terror: 85 percent of the broadcast stories didn't mention the word "terror." ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news referenced terrorism connections to the Fort Hood attack just seven times in 48 reports.
• ABC, CBS, NBC Follow White House Line: Before Obama's Nov. 10 speech, 93 percent of the stories had ignored any terror connection. But after Obama hinted at what ABC called "Islamic extremist views," all three networks mentioned terrorism.
• Alleged Attacker's Muslim Faith Not Important Either: Slightly more than one-fourth (29 percent) of evening news reports mentioned that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a Muslim. Of those, half (7 out of 14) defended the religion or included experts to do so.

Last week, Fort Hood, Texas was the site of the worst mass shooting in history on a U.S. military base. At 2:34 p.m. local time on Nov. 5, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan - one of the military's own - reportedly attacked fellow soldiers, yelling, "Allah Akbar." He then allegedly fired more than 100 rounds into Fort Hood's crowded processing center, killing 13 and wounding 29. This heinous act stunned the nation and captivated the news media.

Women's magazines notoriously promote their ideal woman: thin, stylish, beautiful, sexually adventurous. And after seeing who Glamour named as its annual "Women of the Year," readers can now add "liberal" to the list of ideal qualities.

The women featured in Glamour's 2009 list represent a cross-section of accomplished women from different industries - business, politics, sports, entertainment, fashion and humanitarian efforts to name a few.

Cindi Leive, the magazine's editor-in-chief told NBC's Matt Lauer on Nov. 9, that the "common thread" between the women chosen was that "they're not just achieving for themselves, they're really expanding our understanding of what women can accomplish in this world, and that's a great message for young women."

CMI researchers however, found another "common thread" between a majority of the women - they are liberals in good standing, with a record of support for liberal politicians or causes.

Invited on Tuesday's Today show to promote her new book, Carrie Prejean defended the latest scrutiny surrounding her as the latest example of "liberal bias in the media," of "conservative women" being attacked. When confronted by Today co-anchor Meredith Vieira about her assertion she's been "Palinized," Prejean threw back "Do you think Sarah Palin has been attacked," to which Vieira dodged the liberal bias charge simply stating: "I think Sarah Palin has certainly been criticized, absolutely, by a lot people, as have many politicians." Prejean then slammed Vieira's NBC colleague Keith Olbermann:

CARRIE PREJEAN: And there is a double standard out there. There is an extreme double standard that conservative women are under attack for whatever it is. I mean if Sean Hannity went out there and said some of the things that Keith Olbermann has said about me, you know, if he said anything about Sonia Sotomayor or Michelle Obama, he would be off the air. Why is there this double standard? And that's the reason why I wrote this book. [audio available here]

The following is the relevant exchange from the November 10 Today show:

Only in the mind of a liberal media journalist would Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Bernie Sanders be considered ideological "polar opposites," but that’s what NBC's Chuck Todd, during a piece aired on the health care debate on Tuesday's Today show, declared.

CHUCK TODD: Meanwhile, the Senate's two Democratic independents, polar opposites ideologically, are split over the bill's government-run public option and both are threatening to scuttle the process if they don't get their way.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: If the public option plan is in there as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: It would be outrageous to me that when you have an overwhelming majority of Americans wanting a strong public option that we do not deliver that.

While the two may be split on a government-run option, that’s just one of the very rare times the two disagree as Lieberman's lifetime ACU rating is 15.96 and Sanders comes in at 6.44, hardly "polar opposites."

The following is the complete Todd piece, that featured mostly Democratic soundbites (only a brief excerpt of a GOP ad represented the Republican view) as it was aired on the November 10, Today show:

On the syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, over the weekend, conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin was mocked by Chris Matthews for playing to the "wingnuts" at a Capitol Hill rally. Before running a clip of Levin, MSNBC host broke down the new GOP coalition as "regular Republicans," "energized conservatives," and "the wingnuts!" and added: "Talk show host Mark Levin spoke to all of them!"

The following exchange was aired on the November 8 edition of the The Chris Matthews Show [MP3 audio clip here]:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Tuesday's election results gave Republicans a big boost. A year from now they hope their loose coalition will unite to beat a lot of Democrats. What's that coalition? Well it's regular Republicans, people that have been Republicans all their lives. It’s also energized conservatives. People philosophically opposed to what they see as a creeping big government. Third - it's people just upset about the economy and the loss of jobs. And fourth - it's the wingnuts! Talk show host Mark Levin spoke to all of them at that rally at the Capitol this week.

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, MSNBC hostess Rachel Maddow broke out the ten-foot-pole of disgust for losing Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. But back in September, she suggested Bob McDonnell’s thesis from "Pat Robertson’s Liberty University" would sink him: "Here’s where Republican electoral chances stop being separate from the wild-excesses of the conservative movement."

Oops. Actually, double oops, Miss Maddow: Robertson’s college is Regent University. Isn’t it amazing that her liberal fans always tout how she "does her homework"?

Here’s Maddow on Sunday:

I think that if, if Republicans could choose to have anything to extrapolate from the, from the Bob McDonnell race, it would be to have as an opponent Creigh Deeds. If they could pick anything that they wanted. I mean, Creigh Deeds was a, was a marketably ineffective Democratic candidate, essentially running away from the president, running from everything popular in the Democratic agenda and doing it in a stylistically poor way. So I'm sure he's a very nice guy; he was a very bad candidate.