In the latest edifying episode of the NewsBusters Podcast, executive editor Tim Graham previews the 60 Minutes double-bill of Lesley Stahl interviewing President Trump and CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell interviewing Joe Biden. Tim notes that in our 2010 Special Report titled Syrupy Minutes, the CBS show is hailed for hardball interviews, but so many of its Democrat interviews are happy valentines full of softball questions.
On April 26, 2009, Stahl forwarded the White House spin that Biden had a talent for connecting with people: "With his ‘atta-boying,' hand-gripping, hot personality, versus Obama's cool cat...Call him ‘Schmoozer-in-Chief.'"
NewsBusters Senior Analyst Kyle Drennen discusses the latest breaking dismissals of the ongoing Hunter Biden story. On Wednesday morning, NBC ran 14 seconds of a Biden denial from a local TV interview with WISN in Milwaukee. The anchor asked a softball about Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson's report on Hunter Biden's foreign lobbying deals: "Is there any legitimacy to Senator Johnson's claims?"
Tim and Kyle note that if we followed the teachings of a Journalism 101 class, reporters would ask Joe and Hunter Biden to confirm or deny the contents of the laptop that spurred a series of stories in the New York Post. Instead, they've tried to dismiss it as some kind of Russian plot, which the intelligence community denied.
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