Bill Griffith

It was either an effort to avoid blaming individuals for ill-advised borrowing or an effort to vilify the banking system, but a segment on the April 20 "CBS Evening News" took a very one-sided view of credit-card lending. 

On a day bank stocks struggled and dragged the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) down nearly 300 points, "Evening News" scrutinized the current state of the banking system's credit-card lending. According to anchor Katie Couric, that sell-off of bank stocks occurred as a result of the realization the institutions would be forced to cover bad loans.

"Wall Street had been on a six-week winning streak, but today it suffered its worst drop in two months as investors rushed to sell bank stocks," Couric said. "[T]he sell-off came after Bank of America reported earnings of more than $2.8 billion last quarter, but that good news was offset by the word that the bank has set aside more than $13 billion to cover its losses from bad loans made in the past."

CNBC has been a hotbed for commentary - both left and right, from Rick Santelli's call for a tea party on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to the hiring of former Democratic Committee Chairman Howard Dean as a CNBC contributor.      

This time, one of the hosts on CNBC's March 26 "Power Lunch" dropped an expletive during President Barack Obama's online town hall meeting as the network broke away from their coverage (h/t Breitbart.tv):

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: One last point I want to make and I know I'm not suppose to talk this long ...

UNIDENTIFIED CNBC HOST: Bull****.