NBC Nightly News

On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams announced: "Los Angeles is about to become the third big city in California to ban plastic grocery bags." He then framed the government overreach as a green crusade: "Environmental activists, as you know, have been pushing for this, to keep those bags out of the ocean and out of the natural world."

Following a report on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News about the dropping value of Facebook's initial public stock offering and possible investigations into what went wrong, anchor Brian Williams saw an opportunity to adopt the talking points of the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement: "Is this a case of the rich get richer, another advantage to the 1%...?"

Williams posed that question to New York Times reporter and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin, who enthusiastically added to the class warfare rhetoric: "Boy does it feel that way, Brian. This is that and probably a lot more. And it couldn't come at a worse time given the enormous distrust that the public has of Wall Street. And it goes to this sense of fairness. This is the ultimate 1% versus 99% all over again."

NBC anchor Brian Williams on Wednesday night ridiculed Mitt Romney’s quest to reduce the unemployment rate to six percent by 2016, a level enjoyed fewer than four years ago.

“Back when Newt Gingrich pledged $2.50 a gallon gasoline, if elected President, he was called out at the time for an unrealistic number. Today,” Williams charged without naming any source, “some of the same thing happened to Mitt Romney when he made a pledge on unemployment as part of his overall defense of his work at Bain Capital.”

At Media Bistro earlier today, the news about the combined average total audience for the Big Three TV networks' evening news was grim enough, coming in at a combined 20.15 million (NBC, 7.52 million; ABC, 7.14 million; CBS, 5.49 million).

But the news about the audience in the key 25-54 demographic was, from what I can tell, either an all-time low or darned close to it. I couldn't find an example of one that was lower in searches through previous overall audience low points covered in prior posts at NewsBusters and or my home blog. Last week and other weeks which were almost as low in the 25-54 deme follow the jump:

The evening news broadcasts all but spiked the largest legal action in history to defend our constitutionally protected religious freedom. The May 21 editions of ABC’s World News and NBC’s Nightly News refused to report the fact that 43 Catholic dioceses and organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Obama administration. CBS Evening News gave this historic news a mere 19 seconds of air time.

This is the worst bias by omission I have seen in the quarter century history of the Media Research Center. Every American knows about the Chinese communists withholding for 20 years the news that the US had landed on the moon, because it reflected poorly on the government. Our US media today are no different. They are now withholding news from the American people if it is harmful to the re-election of Barack Obama.

Sunday's CBS Evening News refreshingly spotlighted the continuing persecution of the Coptic Christians in Egypt, an ongoing story that the Big Three networks have largely ignored for months. Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer zeroed in on the uncertain future for the religious minority as the country gears for a rare election: "[Egypt's] Christians are deeply worried....Two of the frontrunners in the race with a realistic chance of winning are deeply devout Islamists."

The last time CBS reported on the anti-Christian violence in Egypt was a news brief on the October 9, 2011 edition of Evening News, according to a Nexis search. Since January 2011, ABC, NBC, and CBS's morning and evening newscasts have only mentioned the issue six times.

On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams decried a pitch to use President Obama's former radical left-wing pastor Jeremiah Wright in a campaign ad: "...there was an explosive headline this morning. The New York Times reporting that a Republican super-PAC was considering an expensive anti-Obama ad campaign that would have put the issue of race front and center in the campaign..."

Williams conveniently skipped over Wright's vicious anti-American rhetoric in several sermons, preferring to cast the story in racial terms. The only sound bite featured of Wright in the segment was brief and again described in racial terms, as correspondent Peter Alexander explained: "...the plan for a short film to publicize Wright's racially incendiary sermons, including this remark following 9/11." The sound bite that followed showed Wright ranting: "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Appearing on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams heaped his idea of high praise onto CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley: "Scott grew up firmly in the Dan Rather school of journalism, which is a great tradition." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Despite that laughable reference to the disgraced former CBS News anchor, who was fired for using forged National Guard memos to smear President George W. Bush in 2004, Williams was quite sincere in his supposed compliment to Pelley. Letterman wondered: "Is he [Pelley] the tradition of the great Dan Rather?" Williams replied: "Oh, a student and acolyte. And I say that as a big, big fan of Dan and a friend of Dan's for many years."

Pelley has certainly followed in Rather's liberal footsteps throughout his journalistic career at CBS.

On Monday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams attempted to conflate the JPMorgan $2 billion loss with Mitt Romney's business record as he declared: "The Obama campaign may have had this JPMorgan story in mind when it picked today to launch a new ad attacking Mitt Romney's former firm, the private equity giant, Bain Capital, as a middle class job killer."

Chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd followed by proclaiming that the Obama team was "...attacking Mitt Romney's time at Bain Capital for what, in some people believe, are rough ways that they went about buying up some companies, leveraging them...what the campaign believes...says about Mitt Romney's leadership on the economy, that he'll be ruthless in this."

Dutifully doing its part to find any excuse to expand government regulation, NBC News on Monday and Tuesday immediately touted Democratic efforts to exploit a $2 billion loss of private money for banker JPMorgan Chase to push for more government intervention in the banking industry.

On Monday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Anne Thompson used the news to pump up struggling Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren: "[She] worked to create a consumer watchdog group to oversee the banks after the 2008 crisis. She says what happened at JPMorgan shows there's still not enough oversight of the big banks." Thompson failed to mention Warren has been mired in a scandal surrounding her dubious claims of having Native American ancestry.

Leading off Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams enthusiastically touted the President's fundraising efforts: "President Obama cashing in the day after his gay marriage announcement." Moments later, Williams proclaimed: "Tonight, it is clear President Obama is hoping, at least, to capitalize on the history he made yesterday, becoming the first American president to come out in favor of same-sex marriage."

Williams fully embraced the cynicism of Obama's sudden flip-flop on the issue, noting how the President would be "appearing before a sympathetic audience tonight" of big-money campaign donors who "might not have been so sympathetic to the President before the gay marriage announcement."

At the end of a full report on Friday's NBC Today, based on a Washington Post hit piece that accused Mitt Romney of bullying of a gay high school classmate, correspondent Peter Alexander admitted the story may be false: "NBC News isn't naming the student who was allegedly bullied....Late last night, his sister told NBC News that his portrayal in the Washington Post story is 'factually incorrect'..."

Despite that important detail, the network morning show still decided to promote the accusations. At the top of the show, co-host Ann Curry teased: "Prep school bully? Mitt Romney responds to a report that as a teenager he led a bullying incident of a classmate who later came out as gay....Could an incident that happened nearly 50 years ago impact the presidential race?"

All together now - aaaawwww.

TVNewser reported moments ago that Brian Williams' prime time NBC show Rock Center, which just last week featured an exclusive with President Obama et al concerning Osama bin Laden's assassination, is being pulled for May sweeps and might not be renewed this fall:

Joining the rest of the media in mourning the primary defeat of Republican Indiana Senator Richard Lugar on Tuesday, on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams praised the "old-school moderate" who "was attacked for working to compromise with the White House" and lamented: "His defeat comes close to ending the era of centrist Republicans in the Senate."

Touting new recommendations from an Institute of Medicine panel on obesity on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, science correspondent Robert Bazell proclaimed to viewers: "...a sea change in how we perceive obesity. No longer a question of individual responsibility, but a need to change what's called an 'obesity-promoting environment.' Calling on corporations, government and individuals to act."

At the top of the broadcast, anchor Brian Williams sounded the alarm: "Weight of the nation. An American health crisis out of control, and tonight a reality check on what it might take to turn things around." Later teasing the upcoming story, he declared: "Getting past the question of will power, what's really to blame for a nation of exploding waistlines? Tonight, there is a surprising new answer."

CNN's Anderson Cooper twice nailed Democrats in the last week for falsely accusing Republicans of waging war on women's health, but the three major networks either ignored the story (ABC) or skimmed over the details without fact-checking the Democratic accusations (CBS, NBC).

Cooper aired a critical "Keeping Them Honest" report on April 27 and another one on Thursday May 3, refuting Democratic complaints that Republicans were unfairly targeting women's health through preventative care cuts. On the weekend of April 27-29, NBC and CBS covered the preventative care cuts but simply aired soundbites from both parties without investigating the validity of the Democratic accusations. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Thursday fretted about the "very tough spot" a Chinese dissident and human rights activist has put Hillary Clinton in. On Friday's Good Morning America, Josh Elliott kept the spotlight on Clinton, lamenting that the Secretary of State is "caught in the middle" of this ongoing diplomatic crisis.

Rather than start his report by focusing on Chen Guangcheng, the man who's life is in danger, Williams warned, "We begin tonight with a man who has changed his mind and by doing so put the U.S. and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a very tough spot in what is already a complicated relationship with China." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

When the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement first arrived on the scene back in October of 2011 the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks greeted, what they viewed as the left’s answer to the Tea Party, with a whopping 33 full stories in just the first 11 days of coverage and a total of 81 stories in that month. However, when that movement proved to be an embarrassment to the left and Democratic Party with its acts of violence, most recently on May Day, the Big Three breezed past the ugly actions of this leftist movement with just one full story.

From May 1 through the morning of May 3 ABC, CBS and NBC, in their morning and evening newscasts, devoted a total of just 4 minutes combined to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s day of disruption that included blocking traffic, vandalism and sending simulated anthrax letters to banks full of white powder.

Wednesday's nightly newscasts and Thursday's morning shows hyped "steamy," "romantic" journal entries from an ex-girlfriend of Barack Obama, but downplayed or ignored revelations that his autobiography created a "composite" relationship of multiple women.

On Thursday's Today, Natalie Morales gossiped like a school girl: "Steamy journal entries from a long-ago ex-girlfriend of President Obama are heating up the internet..." She revealed important details such as the fact that his apartment smelled like "running sweat" and "raisins." However, Morales skipped the fact that, as reported by Politico, "the 'New York girlfriend' was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago." [Video of Diane Sawyer's recap below. See audio here.]

Talking to NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams about President Obama's surprise trip to Afghanistan on Wednesday's Today, co-host Ann Curry hoped the move would quiet Republicans: "Meantime, by using the commander-in-chief mantel to make this visit, to extend an arm and hand to our troops, does he blunt any of the Republican criticism that he is...politicizing, essentially, a military victory?"

Curry was of course referring to the Obama campaign team using the anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden to attack Mitt Romney. In response to Curry's DNC-approved framing of the trip, Williams proclaimed: "Presidents do get to use the machinery of the presidency to make their points. Nine years ago last night we saw the carrier landing and 'Mission Accomplished'...that's something George W. Bush got to do. And the White House is framing this...the way they want it framed."

The same networks that huffed and whined about George W. Bush's secret trip to Iraq over Thanksgiving in 2003, calling it an "embarrassing" "presidential shell game," had no such harsh language for Barack Obama's clandestine visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday.

Jake Tapper on Wednesday deemed the visit simply a "surprise." On CBS This Morning, Scott Pelley proclaimed it "remarkable," insisting, "These things are always kept secret, in the Bush administration, in the Obama administration, until the President arrives safely."  Yet, on the November 30, 2003 CBS Evening News, Mark Knoller bitterly complained, "It was professionally embarrassing to be clueless...And from now on when I report that the president is at his ranch, neither you nor I will be sure of it."

Three years ago, then-CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric fawned over Barack Obama: “You’re so confident, Mr. President, and so focused. Is your confidence ever shaken?” On ABC’s World News, Diane Sawyer often softens her interviews with the President by tossing in questions about college basketball, asking, at the start of the U.S. military operation against Libya last year, “How much do you think Kentucky will win by?”

But of the three evening news anchors, by far the most admiring of Obama is NBC’s Brian Williams who has — no big surprise — been rewarded with exclusive access to the White House Situation Room for what promises to be a prime time Obama campaign infomercial (on Wednesday’s Rock Center) on how the brave President monitored the mission as Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden’s compound and killed the terrorist mastermind exactly one year ago. (Round-up of Williams' most fawning Obama moments, with video, below the jump).

Despite Wisconsin's unemployment rate being well below the national rate and steadily falling, on Saturday's NBC Nightly News correspondent Ron Allen selectively hyped job losses: "With the protesters serenading Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker and urging voters to recall him from office June 5th, the state's job losses add to the list of grievances. The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics says Wisconsin lost 23,900 jobs between March 2011 and March 2012."

That same Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed that Wisconsin's unemployment rate fell from 7.6% to 6.8% in that same time period. Ignoring that reality, Allen featured a sound bite from an unidentified woman who ranted: "No other state has lost jobs like this. Wisconsin alone moved sort of off the rails of the national recovery."

In a news brief on Monday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams managed to twist a positive development for Mitt Romney, the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, into a negative: "Giuliani, who had been out spreading the word for Newt Gingrich up until right now. And so for months he'd been saying bad things about Romney like this on Morning Joe."

In the sound bite that followed from the December 15, 2011 edition of the MSNBC morning program, Giuliani said of Romney: "I have never seen a guy...change his positions on so many things so fast on a dime." Williams used the past comments to make an indictment of campaign politics: "So the latest politician to change his position on a dime apparently, Rudolph Giuliani now endorsing Romney....Perhaps part of what makes so many Americans cynical about the process."

Over a combined total of nine and a half hours of programming, CBS, NBC and ABC allowed a mere 72 seconds of coverage to the news, Monday, that Social Security will go bankrupt three years earlier than previously expected. ABC's World News and NBC's Nightly News skipped the subject entirely.

The same networks that offered copious amounts of stories to a vague threat of future global warming disaster, found little interest in the coming problems of Social Security.  Scott Pelley briefly explained on Monday's Evening News: "Medicare will run out of money in 2024. Social Security retirement benefits run out in 2033. But Social Security disability benefits will be exhausted long before that, in 2016."

It's been several weeks since NBC disgraced itself by repeatedly airing doctored audio of George Zimmerman talking to a 9-1-1 dispatcher but the network has yet to apologize on the air, hoping instead that its paltry efforts of firing a lone producer and conducting an investigation into the matter but not releasing a report to the public would be sufficient.

Incredibly, it was a New York Times columnist, David Carr, who decided to confront the network on how that just isn't enough. NBC News president Steve Capus admitted his efforts have been insufficient but tried to spin away why his network hasn't bothered to tell viewers about its propagation of fraudulent journalism.

On Monday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Peter Alexander played up comments Mitt Romney made at a fund-raiser in Florida about cutting government programs as if the GOP presidential candidate's proposals were politically damaging, with the NBC correspondent asserting that Romney's remarks "out of the view of cameras have caused a stir." Alexander also suggested that the Romneys had been deceptive in their handling of Democratic strategist Hilary's Rosen's recent attack on Ann Romney as never having "worked a day in her life." (Video below)

Alexander began his report:

Reporting on Rick Santorum leaving the Republican presidential race on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Ron Mott proclaimed: "It was a campaign filled with highly-publicized gaffes....From calling President Obama out on education, to President Kennedy's famed speech on the separation of church and state....Just two of a number of comments he eventually walked back or was pushed to explain."

Mott also depicted Santorum as only appealing to a narrow group of voters: "Santorum's support was mostly rooted in a core of Republican strongholds, where his unapologetic push for social conservative values, something the GOP establishment largely sought to avoid, was enthusiastically embraced by evangelicals."

On Monday, both NBC's Nightly News and ABC's World News hyped a finding by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that, in the panicked words of NBC environmental correspondent Anne Thompson, "Extreme weather blew March 2012 into the record books....It saw almost three times the average number of reported tornadoes."

ABC weather editor Sam Champion noted how some enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather, but then ominously warned of a "potential downside" being "so much darker." He proclaimed: "Local governments are racing to meet these challenges head on. Los Angeles today hosting a meeting of top scientists and public heath officials to plan for what they're calling, 'extreme climate risks.'"