Jonathan Karl

In a surprising move Sunday, the folks at ABC invited a Tea Partier to participate in its Roundtable segment on "This Week." Rather than bringing on three liberals to battle lone conservative George Will while predictably presenting exclusively labor's side of the budget battle in Wisconsin, host Christiane Amanpour included freshman Congressman Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) to match wits with…

“The health care law may not be popular, but many of the provisions now in effect are,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl asserted in his Thursday night look at the House vote to repeal ObamaCare as he highlighted one beneficiary of it without a balancing opponent or list of detrimental provisions: “To Kris Cambra, whose four-year-old son has a heart condition, the law is a life changer, and repeal would be…

Almost immediately after the shooting in Tucson that killed six people and left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords severely wounded, the media establishment linked the attack with a debate about “civility,” suggesting an association between Jared Loughner’s rampage and the words and phrases used in national political debates. Many of these network news stories offered ambiguous…

Good Morning America's Jon Karl on Tuesday derided the incoming Republican Speaker of the House as "harshly partisan." The ABC correspondent joked that John Boehner can look "like the weeper of the House." In contrast, then-GMA co-host Diane Sawyer in 2007 lauded Speaker Nancy Pelosi's ascension, praising, "But her fellow politicians say she's galvanized steel with a smile." While Karl…

On Monday's Good Morning America, ABC's George Stephanopoulos took a skeptical tone during an interview of liberal Senator Chuck Schumer concerning a new report from Senator Tom Coburn, which pointed out the 100 most wasteful federal government projects of 2010: "He [Coburn] says there are hundreds of billions of dollars of waste. Do you buy that?" Stephanopoulos turned to Senator Schumer…

Thursday's network newscasts and Friday's morning shows all ignored the report that an unidentified Democratic House member muttered, "F**k the President" during a closed door meeting on a compromise over taxes. Yet, many journalists professed outrage when Congressman Joe Wilson yelled "You lie" at President Obama in 2009. ABC's The Note website on Thursday afternoon explained, "An…

Good Morning America's Jon Karl on Thursday offered misleading, sloppy reporting on a congressional tax deal, bizarrely suggesting that the proposal "slashes" the estate tax. In a follow-up piece, news anchor Juju Chang asserted that many Democrats "are still opposed, especially to the estate tax cut." In reality, the so-called death tax is currently at zero. Under the deal, it will increase…

Framing the debate through a liberal prism hostile to continuing the current income tax rates, ABC and CBS worried Thursday night about the “cost” of not raising taxes, as if all money belongs to the government, as both expounded on how not ending the Bush rates will fuel massive deficits. “If all the Bush tax cuts end for the top two percent of earners, $700 billion will be added to government…

Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell appeared on Thursday's Good Morning America and attacked the media's reaction to her comments about the First Amendment, pointing out that journalists ignored a gaffe by her opponent, Chris Coons. Her complaints apparently got results: The network played the Democrat's blunder. Asked by reporter Jon Karl about her (correct) assertion that the…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally appeared in a debate on October 14 in Las Vegas with his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle. The appearance might come as a surprise to consumers of the national media. While Angle has been pounded relentlessly by national media outlets as being both dangerously radical and ridiculous, Reid has been left alone, and untouched. But what about Harry? He’…

Viewers who watched the three morning shows on Friday were greeted with a less than enthusiastic review of Harry Reid's debate performance on Thursday. On ABC's Good Morning America, Jon Karl announced, "Reid often rambled." On CBS's Early Show, Ben Tracy called the event "a debate that, at times, found Harry Reid exasperated." NBC's Today was the least critical, announcing only that Reid had "…

Airing rare stories on a U.S. Senate debate, ABC, CBS and NBC all ran full reports Thursday night on the only race they repeatedly find newsworthy, one in which the Republican is behind by double-digits, as ABC and CBS exploited the Delaware debate to regurgitate ridicule for Sarah Palin. “[Christine] O'Donnell's toughest moment came when she was asked to name a recent Supreme Court decision…

If Democrats are going to stem their losses, CBS’s Jeff Greenfield opined on Monday’s Evening News, they need to “convince the voters that this election is a choice” and “Republicans are just too extreme.” Greenfield’s probably right about this strategy being Democrats’ best hope — and his fellow reporters are already hard at work fulfilling their role in painting Republicans as “extreme.” On…

It’s a topsy-turvy, upside-down political world out there for people who thought Barack Obama would be cruising at a 70 percent approval rating while crushing the Republicans like bugs. In fact, the opposite has happened. The Senate Majority Leader is in grave danger of involuntary retirement. Everyone in Washington concedes Nancy Pelosi is unlikely to bang the gavel in January.So why in the…