Hunter Biden’s shocking guilty plea in a California courtroom on Thursday led to a more shocking network-news result. ABC, CBS, and NBC all led their evening newscasts with Hunter’s plea. Between them, the Big Three aired more than eight minutes of coverage.
Public broadcasting? Not so much. The PBS NewsHour gave it 54 seconds in a longer interview with NPR legal reporter Carrie Johnson with the online headline “Trump attorneys and prosecutors clash over key details of his election interference case.”
NPR’s All Things Considered listed their four-minute Ryan Lucas story online as story number 15. Fifteen. Their top story was a puffball by Asma Khalid titled “What Kamala Harris' foreign policy of might look like if she becomes president.”
Let’s review what did not appear in these stories on the pro-Harris networks:
No Republican soundbites or statements. Republicans would have had plenty to say. The Big Three all ran Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell proclaiming “Hunter decided to enter his plea to protect those he loves from unnecessary hurt and cruel humiliation. Hunter put his family first today.”
No mention of the suppression of Hunter Biden's laptop exposing the guilty activities from in the last weeks of the 2020 campaign. We saw dated Biden soundbites pledging he wouldn't pardon his son. We didn't see dated Biden soundbites ludicrously claiming “My son has done nothing wrong." He even said that last year to Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC.
Most ignored or soft-soaped Hunter's binging on crack cocaine and hookers with his untaxed millions. ABC and CBS couldn't explain where the "humiliation" came from in a trial. NBC mentioned "payments to women and luxury car purchases." NPR's Ryan Lucas said the trial was "expected to dredge up some very embarrassing details of a very dark period in Hunter's life when he was addicted to crack cocaine."
Most omitted the word “felonies.” They referred vaguely to Hunter pleading guilty to “federal tax charges.” ABC’s Pierre Thomas was the exception.
Most ignored any effects on the Kamala Harris campaign. On this, NPR's Ryan Lucas spun furiously. Anchor Ari Shapiro asked, "Does it still matter politically?" He claimed it's disappeared:
RYAN LUCAS: Well, they certainly do not matter to the same extent as they did back in, say, June, when Hunter was convicted of gun charges in Delaware. But these legal troubles of Hunter certainly were seen as a political liability for President Biden in the middle of what was a very tight 2024 presidential race. Republicans certainly have tried to use Hunter's personal problems to hamstring his father politically.
But, yeah, now that President Biden isn't running for reelection, the potential political impact of Hunter's conviction here -- well, his guilty plea here and his conviction in Delaware on gun charges has really kind of disappeared.
