TV Networks Gush Over Chief Justice Roberts: 'The Man of the Hour' Who

June 28th, 2012 9:09 PM
Chief Justice John Roberts may have angered conservatives with his decisive vote in favor of ObamaCare today, but he was, in CBS anchor Scott Pelley’s words, the “man of the hour” on all three network evening newscasts Thursday night. ABC’s Terry Moran complimented Roberts’ lurch to the left, saying it “did give heart to many Court watchers,” who were worried the Court “was at risk of becoming…

CBS's Pelley Notes History of Presidents Invoking Executive Privilege

June 21st, 2012 2:24 AM
On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, after a report in which it was noted that the Obama administration has invoked executive privilege over the investigation into the Fast and Furious scandal, anchor Scott Pelley related the history of other Presidents taking similar measures. After tying in George Washington, Pelley ended up informing viewers that Bill Clinton had used similar tactics 14 times…

CBS's Pelley Covers First Day of Sandusky Trial; Ignored Edwards Trial

June 12th, 2012 6:33 PM
The weekday edition of CBS Evening News with anchor Scott Pelley bizarrely paid no attention to the campaign finance trial of 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards until the jury declared a mistrial on all but one count on May 31, 2012. By contrast, the evening news program devoted a full report to the first day of the trial of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry…

CBS's Morning and Evening Shows Hype Vatican's 'Inquisition' of Dissen

May 31st, 2012 5:23 PM
CBS made little effort to hide that it was siding with liberal dissenters inside the Catholic Church on Wednesday's CBS Evening News and Thursday's CBS This Morning. Scott Pelley hyped that there was a Vatican "crackdown on America's 57,000 nuns." Gayle King touted how "some Catholics compare it to the dark days of the Inquisition, a crackdown on a prominent organization of nuns accused of…

Big Three Evening Newscasts At or Near All-Time 25-54 Demographic Lows

May 22nd, 2012 11:43 PM
At Media Bistro earlier today, the news about the combined average total audience for the Big Three TV networks' evening news was grim enough, coming in at a combined 20.15 million (NBC, 7.52 million; ABC, 7.14 million; CBS, 5.49 million). But the news about the audience in the key 25-54 demographic was, from what I can tell, either an all-time low or darned close to it. I couldn't find an…

Alone Among Network Broadcasts, CBS Evening News Ignores John Edwards

May 17th, 2012 1:17 PM
Over the past few weeks, the John Edwards corruption trial has been all over the news, and for good reason: Edwards was one of the most visible and charismatic figures in the national Democratic Party for several years. The former trial attorney served as a senator from North Carolina from 1999 to 2005, and in 2004 and 2008 ran for president of the United States. In 2004, Edwards was his party'…

NBC's Williams Praises CBS's Pelley For Being In 'Dan Rather School of

May 16th, 2012 3:55 PM
Appearing on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams heaped his idea of high praise onto CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley: "Scott grew up firmly in the Dan Rather school of journalism, which is a great tradition." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Despite that laughable reference to the disgraced former CBS News anchor…

Media Breezes By Politically Embarrassing Occupy May Day Protests

May 3rd, 2012 5:21 PM
When the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement first arrived on the scene back in October of 2011 the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks greeted, what they viewed as the left’s answer to the Tea Party, with a whopping 33 full stories in just the first 11 days of coverage and a total of 81 stories in that month. However, when that movement proved to be an embarrassment to the left and…

Looming Threat of Social Security Implosion Results in Just 72 Seconds

April 24th, 2012 1:03 PM
Over a combined total of nine and a half hours of programming, CBS, NBC and ABC allowed a mere 72 seconds of coverage to the news, Monday, that Social Security will go bankrupt three years earlier than previously expected. ABC's World News and NBC's Nightly News skipped the subject entirely. The same networks that offered copious amounts of stories to a vague threat of future global warming…

NBC, CBS Finally Discover Ugly Attack on Ann Romney, Highlight GOP 'Ge

April 13th, 2012 12:49 PM
NBC and CBS's evening and morning shows on Thursday and Friday finally discovered the ugly comments made by a Democratic operative against Ann Romney. After skipping the story Thursday morning, CBS Evening News reporters did their best to minimize it. Correspondent Nancy Cordes insisted that Hillary Rosen, who knocked Mrs. Romney for "never working," made sure to stress that the woman "is not…

Not Even CBS News Buys It: Scott Pelley Scoffs at Obama Adopting Reaga

April 12th, 2012 3:37 AM
CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley was barely able to contain his laughter Wednesday night after playing a clip of President Obama invoking Ronald Reagan on behalf of his “Buffett Rule” tax hike quest. Nearly breaking into a laugh, a baffled Pelley wondered to CBS News political analyst John Dickerson: “So a vote for President Obama is a vote for Ronald Reagan?!” Dickerson snickered too. (…

Evening Newscasts Saw Viewership Decline With Daylight Saving Time's A

March 25th, 2012 11:50 AM
During the week of March 12, after the arrival of Daylight Saving Time, the audience for the evenings newscasts at the Big Three networks dropped precipitously compared to the previous week (by 7.7%) and the same week last year (by 9.0%). Perhaps the year-over-year metric is an unfair comparison, because during the same week in 2011 the Japanese tsunami drew in ordinarily uninterested viewers…

CBS Plays Up Voter Suppression Charge in Pennsylvania; Ignores Voter F

March 16th, 2012 7:07 PM
On Thursday's CBS Evening News, Elaine Quijano touted a charge from Pennsylvania Democrats that the new voter I.D. law there "targets poor and elderly voters." Quijano also spotlighted that, according to unnamed "Pennsylvania court officials," there were no cases of "voters convicted of fraud in the last five years." However, in late 2010, the AP reported on a credible allegation of voter fraud…

Obama Administration Pulls Funding, But CBS Scolds Texas for Daring to

March 16th, 2012 10:00 AM
Obama administration officials in the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday they would pull all of Medicaid’s funding for Texas’ Women’s Health Program because the state decided to no longer pass those funds along to abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood. Instead of holding the Obama officials accountable for putting the interests of a favored liberal group ahead…