While the liberal broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) found time to continue to boost John Bolton’s new anti-Trump book (CBS), decry President Trump’s rallies, and promote the Democratic challenger of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (NBC) Tuesday night, they all turned a blind eye to a New York Times report detailing recent death threats and racial slurs being left on the office voicemail of Republican Senator Tim Scott (SC), who’s the only black Republican in the chamber.
On top of that, none of them reported on the outrage House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) generated when she told CBS that the Republican Party was “trying to get away with murder, actually, the murder of George Floyd.”
In a New York Times article published Tuesday, reporter Catie Edmondson detailed how “Mr. Scott shocked his colleagues when he spoke at Republicans’ weekly luncheon about death threats he and his aides had received in recent days…”
The Times acknowledged that Scott had shared two of the audio recordings with them:
The calls, filled with profanity and racist slurs, included one diatribe addressed to “Uncle Tim,” where the caller, after cruelly and profanely condemning Mr. Scott, his family and some of his Republican colleagues, told Mr. Scott to “take your one-way ticket straight to hell.”
“One caller discussed putting the senator ‘in his crosshairs,’ Mr. Scott said,” Edmondson added.
In his interview with The Times about the messages, the Senator blamed the media for how his police reform legislation was being portrayed. “It’s interesting that we are on the right side of the police reform conversation, yet we’re on the wrong side according to the people, based on the way that we are characterized in the national press,” he said.
And he was right. As NewsBusters pointed out last week, ABC and NBC skipped the official rollout of Scott’s Justice Act, while CBS downplayed it in a 22-second mention.
Just as they didn’t have time for him, the broadcast networks didn’t have time to report on outrage to Pelosi’s vile smears. CBS Evening News had time to promote Bolton’s book (which they failed to mention they benefited from since they and the book’s publisher were owned by the same company), but they refused to cover the comments made to their own West Coast correspondent, Steve Futterman.
Nancy Pelosi says with their police reform proposals, Senate Republicans are "trying to get away with murder, actually -- the murder of George Floyd."
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) June 23, 2020
Hear it in this @CBSNewsRadio interview with my colleague @sfutterman:https://t.co/DAsGYssPzD
Pelosi made her comment on CBS News Radio (here’s the link, at the 2:30 mark) after Futterman asked: “Is there any hope that two sides can reach some compromise [on police reform]? (…) Is there some way that the two sides can reach some compromise to at least get something passed?”
After Pelosi rambled on for a little bit, suggesting the GOP wasn’t serious about reforms, she capped off by declaring: “But so far, they were trying to get away with murder, actually, the murder of George Floyd.”
Futterman was unfazed by Pelosi’s incendiary, divisive, and blatantly false comment. He followed up by asking if she understood why people wanted to defund the police. There was no fact check about how the Republican Party had no hand in the killing of George Floyd.
