Broadcast Television

MSNBC's Wagner Devotes Segment to Hawking New 'Cronkite' Book; Fails t
May 31st, 2012 4:47 PM
Liberal historian and biographer Douglas Brinkley is out with a new book about the late Walter Cronkite and in its pages lie plenty of revelations that damage the late anchor's objective journalist "halo," according to media critic Howard Kurtz, who reviewed the book for the Daily Beast. Among other things, Brinkley wrote about how the allegedly Cronkite bugged a committee room at the 1952…

A Tale of Two Planned Parenthood Controversies: Wall-to-Wall Komen vs
May 31st, 2012 2:09 PM
When cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure prepared to withdraw less than a million dollars of funding per year from Planned Parenthood, the three broadcast networks went ballistic, devoting a host of stories to the “explosion of anger” against Komen. But when videos allegedly showing Planned Parenthood’s complicity in sex-selection abortions were released by a pro-life group, the major…

Surprise! Broadcast Networks Ignore Abortion Investigation
May 31st, 2012 9:10 AM
There is nothing more predictable than networks burying negative news about Planned Parenthood.
Pro-life organization Live Action recently came out with a disturbing video showing a Planned Parenthood staffer in Texas assisting a Live Action actor to obtain a sex-selection abortion. That practice is where a fetus is aborted if the child is discovered to be of a certain gender (usually…

Media's Blackout Working: MRCTV Street Interviewer Finds Just One Pers
May 25th, 2012 12:28 PM
The broadcast media's blackout on news of the Catholic Church's lawsuit against the Obama administration continues apace, while the news media covers much more important events like who won American Idol.
So it's no wonder that MRCTV's Dan Joseph found only one person yesterday who knew about the lawsuit. Watch the video in the embed below the page break.

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…
Hollywood: Driving the Homosexual Agenda for 40 Years
May 10th, 2012 3:00 PM
Hollywood celebrities exuberantly celebrated President Obama’s recent declaration of support for gay marriage. But Hollywood did not have to come out of the closet and support homosexuality – it has long used its influence to purposely swing public opinion in favor of homosexuality.
For several decades, Hollywood has shown its overt support for homosexuality. Brokeback Mountain was…

How Original: Behar Makes Fat Joke About Christie
May 1st, 2012 11:29 AM
On the April 30 edition of ABC’s The View, co-host Barbara Walters started a discussion about the preceding Saturday's White House Correspondent’s Association (WHCA) dinner. However, as usual, liberal comedian Joy Behar had to throw in a few cheap shots at a Republican.
During their discussion, most of the panel discussed the night's memorable jokes, including one made by comedian Jimmy…

AP, UPI Finally Note NBC's Firing of Producer Over Zimmerman 911 Call
April 7th, 2012 2:36 PM
Breitbart.com has noted that it took about 17 hours before the dam broke, but now the Associated Press and United Press International both have stories on NBC's decision to fire a Miami-based producer over the editing of George Zimmerman's 911 call.
The AP story, which has a time stamp of 12:03 p.m. at the Wall Street Journal, plays it pretty straight (posted in full because of it relative…

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…

Did AP and Rugaber, Obsessed With Managing Economic Expectations, Spin
March 9th, 2012 6:48 PM
Yesterday was sort of "Pick on Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press Day." So when I came across a particularly reprehensible report he filed last night whining about the difficulty the economy may face in meeting heightened expectations -- with yet another reference to the wire service's obsession with its relevance to President Obama's approval ratings and reelection -- I let it go.…

Berkeley Man Murdered After Police 'Pre-Occupied' With Occupy Movement
February 21st, 2012 11:46 PM
A man in Berkeley has died as the result of a violent crime. A contributing factor to his death was a failure by the police to respond to a 911 called which was deemed a "non-emergency." The police were in a posture of only responding to "emergency" calls because "were preparing for an Occupy protest headed to UC Berkeley from Oakland."
It will be interesting to see if this gets covered by…
Obama Contradicts Holder and Others on Iran's in-U.S. Terror Capabilit
February 7th, 2012 9:26 PM
In his pre-Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer on Sunday, President Obama was asked the following question about Iran in light of the heightening tensions over its nuclear program and the possibility of an Israeli air strike: "(In repsonse) Do you fear that they will wage attacks within the United States on American soil?" Obama responded as follows: "We don't see any evidence that they have…

Brent Bozell to Media: Tell the Truth About Obama's Assault on Religio
February 6th, 2012 1:54 PM
Editor's Note: What follows is a letter that NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell sent to the presidents of the news divisions of ABC, CBS, and NBC as well as to CNN president Jim Walton. It has also been carbon copied to 10 leaders representing various Catholic and Protestant faith organizations.
The broadcast and cable television networks need to report the…

Read This, Brian Williams and NBC: Deadly, Record-Breaking Cold Winter
February 4th, 2012 9:39 PM
On Wednesday, Kyle Drennen at NewsBusters noted how NBC news anchor Brian Williams, chief environmental correspondent Anne Thompson, and old reliable global warming proponent Dr. Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research took advantage of this year's mild winter in the lower 48 U.S. states as an excuse to argue that "our warming world is shifting the odds against a…