On Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives successfully passed the Senate’s version of a bill to approve the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline that would stretch from the Canadian tar sands to oil refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. With that vote, the pipeline had secured full approval of Congress and will be sent to President Obama’s desk.
When it came to the major broadcast networks covering this story on their Wednesday night newscasts, however, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley chose to ignore the story completely and left their viewers in the dark on this issue.
Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News made it the second topic covered on its broadcast and while it was the first network evening news mention of Keystone since all three did on January 6 (according a recent Nexis search), the small news brief lasted for only 11 seconds.
Interim anchor Lester Holt read the following just after the show’s five-minute mark: “One more note from Washington late today, the House passed a bill that approves construction of the Keystone Pipeline. The Senate previously approved the bill which now goes to the President, who has threatened a veto.”
In addition to NBC, both PBS and the Fox News Channel (FNC) highlighted it on their evening newscasts. On the PBS NewsHour, co-host Judy Woodruff reported in a 19-second brief that the bill “heads to a certain veto at the hands of President Obama” who “wants the federal review process to play out.”
FNC’s Special Report also saw a 17-second mention of Keystone during the show’s 6:00 p.m. half-hour as host Bret Baier told viewers that a veto of the legislation “would be President Obama's first veto of this congressional session” and “[a]s of now, the Republicans do not have the votes in either chamber to override a veto.”
The inability of the network evening newscasts to cover the latest on the Keystone XL oil pipeline is far from new. When it was approved in the Senate for the first ever on January 29 with 62 Senators voting in the affirmative, not a single word was mentioned that night on any of the major networks.
Further, not a single word on it was uttered the following morning on any of the network morning newscasts, but was covered both on CNN’s New Day and MSNBC’s Morning Joe on cable.
According to the Media Research Center’s Geoffrey Dickens, the networks have shown next to no interest in Keystone over the last year. In fact, Dickens reported in a recent study that it has only received a total airtime of 11 minutes and 4 seconds from January 1, 2014 to January 19, 2015 on the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
The transcript of the brief that aired on NBC Nightly News on February 11 is transcribed below.
NBC Nightly News
February 11, 2015
7:05 p.m. EasternLESTER HOLT: One more note from Washington late today, the House passed a bill that approves construction of the Keystone Pipeline. The Senate previously approved the bill which now goes to the President, who has threatened a veto.
The relevant portion of the transcript from the PBS NewsHour on February 11 can be found below.
PBS NewsHour
February 11, 20157:11 p.m. Eastern
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Pipeline Vote]
JUDY WOODRUFF: The House gave final approval this afternoon to a bill approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline. It now heads to a certain veto at the hands of President Obama. He has said he wants the federal review process to play out. The pipeline would allow oil from Canada's tar sands to flow to Gulf Coast refineries.
The news brief from FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier on February 11 is below.
FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier
February 11, 20156:16 p.m. Eastern
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Keystone Pipeline; House Approves Senate Bill]
BRET BAIER: The House has passed the Senate version of legislation authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. It sets up what would be President Obama's first veto of this congressional session. As of now, the Republicans do not have the votes in either chamber to override a veto.
