As Americans headed home from their holiday vacations, some had the misfortune of having pro-Palestinian demonstrators block their way to the airport and delay their flights, but as 2024 began only NBC gave the briefest of mentions of the radicals and their tactics.
On the Monday edition of Nightly News, guest host Tom Llamas welcomed Emilie Ikeda to discuss, “Back here in the U.S. Now to the rush to return home this New Year's Day after a record-breaking holiday travel season. Emilie Ikeda's at Newark Airport just as millions are on the move across the country. Emilie, how's it looking out there tonight?”
Ikeda would report that “more than 115 million Americans traveled for the holiday according to AAA and now many are returning home. Including today, one of the busiest days expected for airports. There have been only a handful of cancellations but more than 2,100 flights have been delayed. In the New York City area authorities warned pro-Palestinian protests would lead to more delays.”
She would repeat that on Tuesday’s installment of Today, “Elsewhere in New York, traffic backed up yesterday around JFK and LaGuardia airports by pro-Palestinian protests on one of the busiest air travel days of the year.”
While NBC only managed two measly sentences that didn’t even mention the extremeness of the traffic blockers’ cause or tactics that definitely would have been mentioned if the activists were not on the far-left and declined to remind viewers that they have blocked traffic at other airports such as LAX and Chicago O’Hare, by simply mentioning them it managed to do better than ABC’s World News Tonight and Good Morning America and CBS’s Evening News and CBS Mornings.
Here are transcripts for the January 1 and 2 shows:
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt
1/1/2024
6:34 PM ET
TOM LLAMAS: Back here in the U.S. Now to the rush to return home this New Year's Day after a record-breaking holiday travel season. Emilie Ikeda's at Newark Airport just as millions are on the move across the country. Emilie, how's it looking out there tonight?
EMILIE IKEDA: Well, Tom, you think about it, more than 115 million Americans traveled for the holiday according to AAA and now many are returning home. Including today, one of the busiest days expected for airports. There have been only a handful of cancellations but more than 2,100 flights have been delayed. In the New York City area authorities warned pro-Palestinian protests would lead to more delays.
***
NBC Today
1/2/2023
8:16 AM ET
IKEDA: Elsewhere in New York, traffic backed up yesterday around JFK and LaGuardia airports by pro-Palestinian protests on one of the busiest air travel days of the year.
