Between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon, liberal TV networks and streaming platforms went to bat in some horribly misleading and embarrassing lengths for their comrades in bias PBS and NPR amid the expected Senate vote this week on the House rescission package to claw back $1 billion in funding for the far-left outlets.
If Monday’s daytime bias wasn’t enough, these new examples soared above. Along with insulting rural Americans, the new spin included tying the Texas Hill Country floods to the need for funding PBS and NPR, lying about Sesame Street still belonging to PBS, and casually linking Elmo’s hacked X account (and anti-Semitic rant) to the defunding battle.
Hallie Jackson’s eponymous NBC News NOW show was the first of at least four shows to run a voice-over report from NBC Capitol Hill correspondent Melanie Zanona that was quite simply bonkers.
Jackson set up with the seemingly separate events about Elmo and the Senate:
So to tonight’s Original now with in-depth reporting on a topic we’ve been watching. And tonight, it’s the unknown hacker who took over Elmo’s account this weekend. Yes, that Elmo posting a series of hateful and anti-Semitic things, which were deleted pretty quickly. All of it with public media already under the microscope this week now that the Senate is expected to vote on whether or not to claw back a big chunk of federal money.
“Sesame Street, scrambling to do damage control today after Elmo’s X got hacked this weekend. The account of America’s favorite furry red monster shocking its half a million plus followers with a string of posts not only making anti-Semitic and racist comments, but also a derogatory reference to President Trump in connection to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation,” she began.
She even went out of her way to shoehorn Elmo’s viral mental health post into the segment before teaming with a semi-light-hearted X post from Florida Democrat Congressman Jared Moskowitz to pivot to defunding.
Notice how Zedona even touted claims from NPR CEO Katherine Maher about “rural regions” needing NPR (which we’ll see repeated on another network) (click “expand”):
ZANONA: Needless to say, the posts not on brand for the muppet.
ELMO: It’s very important to respect everybody.
ZANAONA: Elmo going viral last year, inadvertently starting a mental health campaign when he tweeted, “how’s everybody doing?”
ELMO [on NBC’s Today, 02/01/24]: And Elmo’s glad that he got to talk to a lot of people.
ZANONA: Now, after the hack, Senator Mike Lee posting, “I’m forever scarred by ... @Elmo. Words I never expected to utter.” Democrat Representative Jared Moskowitz trying to turn attention to a different controversy facing public broadcasters, posting: “See what happens when you defund PBS.” The Senate is expected to vote this week on whether to take back $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds both NPR and PBS. Trump demanding Republicans defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or risk losing his endorsement. The executive order pushing for the cuts, said NPR and PBS provide “biased and partisan news coverage.” The heads of those organizations pushing back, with NPR’s chief executive also emphasizing that people relying on independent local stations, especially in rural regions, will feel the impact immediately.
SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Good afternoon.
ZANONA: Senate Minority Leader Schumer threatening a shutdown if Republicans “cave to the President’s demands.”
SCHUMER: It is not okay. Ask the Republicans why they are heading on this path.
“A path that’s marked with uncertainty for the future of public media and support for projects like Sesame Street,” she concluded, a bald-faced lie as it’s been a decade since PBS was the one and only home for Sesame Street.
Back live, Zanona shamelessly concocted a connection between the Texas Hill Country floods and the need to save NPR and PBS:
NBC News NOW loved it so much they repeated it in Jackson’s second hour.
Top Story with Tom Llamas followed and entertained Zanona’s narrative gymnastics. First, they covered Elmo’s X account (click “expand”):
LLAMAS: Elmo’s world now causing controversy. The X count for the beloved Sesame Street character posting a string of racist and anti-Semitic comments over the weekend, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the popular children’s show, confirming Elmo’s account had been hacked. NBC’s Melanie Zanona had been — has been following this for a while and joins me now. Melanie, thanks for joining Top Story tonight. I thought Elmo might be too young to be on X, but apparently not. He has an account. In all seriousness though, break down this for us. And also why this is so sad — right — for X?
ZANONA: Yeah, this all started on Sunday when Elmo’s account began posting this very hateful and racist content. It also posted some derogatory comments about President Donald Trump in connection to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Now, we should note that NBC News was not able to independently verify these posts before they were deleted. But Sesame Workshop, that’s the nonprofit behind Elmo and Sesame Street, did put out a statement confirming that the account was hacked, although it is still unclear at this point who was behind the hack. I want to read you part of their statement, they said: “Elmo’s account was compromised today by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including anti-Semitic and racist posts. We are working to restore full control of the account.” And since that statement, it does appear that they have been able to regain control and secure that account. The posts were deleted. His bio — Elmo’s bio — was restored, but this caused quite the nightmare on Sesame Street, a beloved muppet and character that really did, you know — he’s done these other things in the past, gone viral for starting a mental health conversation, saying: “Elmo, checking in, how are you doing?” So, just a very sad sort of situation to see play out here.
A brief diversion about X’s Grok later, Llamas cued Zanona up to double down on the offensive claim about Texans needing NPR and PBS to stay safe:
Zanona’s taped report ran again on Tuesday’s Morning News NOW and NBC News Daily. In the former, co-host Savannah Sellers cued it up by saying Elmo’s hacked posts “comes as public media — right — this is from PBS — is already under scrutiny in Washington, with the Senate vote expected this week on whether to slash its federal funding.”
CNN’s Inside Politics briefly touched on the rescissions package Tuesday, which consisted of some theatrics and eye roll-inducing thumb-nosing from host Dana Bash:
Moving over to CBS’s free streaming channel CBS News 24/7 (since it hasn’t come up on CBS Mornings or the CBS Evening News), congressional correspondent Nikole Killion cheered — without pushback — comments shoveled her way by Katherine Maher, the far-left NPR CEO (which NBC’s Zanona also seemed privy to):
Her partner-in-crime on the Hill for CBS, Caitlin Huey-Burns returned Tuesday to report on the rescissions package (after a day of peddling standard PBS and NPR talking points). This time, she spent much of her time talking about the foreign aid piece.
In the 10:00 a.m. Eastern hour, she touted the “little bit of concern up here about the cuts to public broadcasting” with “some Republican senators concerned about the impact that this could have on rural local broadcast stations.”
Huey-Burns delivered the big news in the noon Eastern hour, though, that Senator Mike Rounds (R-SC) — one we at the Media Research Center had been unsure of his intent — revealed he will vote yes after having “secured some grants for tribal radio stations in his state.”
Killion shared that same news two hours later with CBS San Francisco’s Reed Cowan, who preceded her with the tiresome talking point about Americans in rural areas being akin to frontiersmen with little access to the benefits of a 21st century life: “We know that NPR and PBS have made the argument that they are important, not only nationally but also in rural areas.”
To see the relevant transcripts, click here (for CBS News 24/7 on July 14), here (for NBC News NOW on July 14), here (for CNN), here (for CBS News 24/7 on July 15), and here (for NBC News NOW on July 15).
