Nancy Cordes

CBS Blames Gas Prices for Swimming Pool Crisis in Louisville

By Jeff Poor | May 16, 2008 - 16:24 ET

Just when you thought every possible gas price angle had been explored by the media, they found another fresh angle - gas prices are forcing cutbacks within the Louisville, Ky. municipal government, including swimming pools that little girls will be deprived of.

"When we arrived in Louisville [Ky.], we headed straight for the Breslin Park pool," CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes said on the May 15 "Evening News." "Half the city's public pools will be padlocked this summer leaving these little girls high and dry."

Cordes's "CBS Evening News" story was a part of its "Eye on the Road" series - an effort to show how people are affected by gas prices throughout the country. For the series two reporters have been driving across the country in opposite directions, one in a Toyota Prius and the other in a Ford Fusion.

CBS Devotes 3% of Hillary Profile to Scandals, 42% in Obama Piece

By Brent Baker | February 29, 2008 - 22:50 ET

In a lengthy seven-a-half minute Friday CBS Evening News profile story, “For the Record: Hillary Clinton,” reporter Nancy Cordes devoted a measly 15 seconds, a piddling three percent of the story, to scandals connected to Clinton's actions. But the night before, in a “For the Record: Barack Obama” profile, reporter Dean Reynolds allocated 42 percent of his piece to Obama scandals: Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan's ties to him and his church as well as his connections to indicted developer Tony Rezko. Here's the totality of all viewers heard Friday night from Cordes about scandals blamed on Hillary Clinton during her life:

Hillary Clinton's role and relationships factored into nearly every scandal that rocked the Clinton White House. Whitewater, an investment deal gone bad with friends from Arkansas. Travelgate, where she allegedly participated in the firing of seven White House Travel Office employees.

Cordes then stressed her innocence as she led into a mention of Monica Lewinsky; “But multimillion-dollar investigations turned up either no wrongdoing on her part or not enough evidence to prosecute. And the only Clinton investigation that did stick had decidedly little to do with the First Lady." Cordes proceeded to segue into her Senate years: “She has called it the greatest adversity she ever faced. But instead of retreating from public life, she decided to run for office herself.”

CBS ‘Early Show’ Looks at ‘Bombshell Report’ on McCain

By Kyle Drennen | February 21, 2008 - 17:12 ET

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith teased upcoming coverage of accusations of John McCain having an affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman: "And Republican front-runner John McCain blasted on the front pages of The New York Times...not exactly the coverage you may be looking for if you're running for president." Later, Smith introduced the segment by exclaiming: "This bombshell report that Republican front-runner John McCain may have had a romantic relationship with a lobbyist who was a visitor to his office and traveled with him on a client's corporate jet."

In a following report by correspondent Nancy Cordes, the New York Times article was quoted:

According to The Times, the aides warned him "he was risking his campaign and career" because Iseman's firm had telecom clients with business before his Senate committee. They say quote, "McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Iseman."

CBS Evening News Connects George H.W. Bush to Trapped Miners

By Brent Baker | August 10, 2007 - 21:07 ET

Friday's CBS Evening News managed to link former President George H.W. Bush to the plight of the trapped miners in Utah as correspondent Nancy Cordes used archive video to show how Bush, when Vice President back in 1984, toured an Illinois mine with many safety violations that's owned by the same man who owns the Utah mine. Anchor Katie Couric introduced a story on how the mines owned by Bob Murray of Murray Energy have “been cited over and over for safety violations.” Cordes undermined Couric's implication by relaying how the “Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah has a better-than-average safety rate.” But, she added, over 1984 video of Bush wearing a hard hat as he rode in an underground truck, “the same cannot be said of this Illinois mine owned by the same man, Robert Murray, and toured by then-Vice President Bush senior in 1984. This mine has racked up $1.4 million in proposed fines so far this year.” Cordes noted how new mine safety laws are being phased in, but fretted that “new legislation being considered in Congress that calls for even tougher safety standards has been attacked by the industry.”