CBS Evening News

  Catching up on an item from last weekend, Friday’s World News on ABC, Saturday’s Good Morning America on ABC, Saturday’s CBS Evening News, and Saturday’s NBC Nightly News all highlighted California Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier’s defense of partial birth abortion as a procedure she had herself gone through as she berated New Jersey Republican Congressman Chris Smith for describing…

For roughly a week, a battle has been raging in Madison, Wis. Evening news programs on the three broadcast networks framed these as "citizen uprisings" over pay cuts and "eliminating unions' collective bargaining powers to negotiate wages and benefits." Reporters also portrayed this as a national union issue, but mostly failed to point out the national problem of pension underfunding…

Loud protests by Wisconsin public employee unions against a budget reform proposal from new Governor Scott Walker have drawn considerable national network news attention since Thursday, the day Democratic state senators fled the state in a last-ditch gambit to prevent the bill from becoming law. A story-by-story analysis by the Media Research Center shows the Wisconsin protests are a perfect…

CBS on Monday night tried to corroborate the case for the position on protesting Wisconsin state union workers, claiming without citing any source that they earn less than comparable private sector works, while FNC put the union workers in a less oppressed light, showing how “apparent doctors” were “handing out doctor’s notes for sick days. Our undercover producer got a medical excuse, no…

“On the broadcast tonight, the uprising at home,” teased NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, touting “another day of fury in Wisconsin. Workers angry about what they call a plan to balance the budget on their backs.” Williams set up his Friday newscast by equating the left-wing protests with those against Arab dictatorships: “From the Mideast to the American Midwest tonight, people are…

The same networks that assailed the allegedly extreme invective from the Tea Party have, thus far, not found anything interesting about signs implying that Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican governor, is a Nazi or a dictator in the style of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. On Thursday's newscasts and Friday's Today, Good Morning America and the Early Show, the extreme rhetoric of some of the signs…

Just a few years ago, double-digit unemployment seemed like a crazy idea. But when the economy began to stumble, it was fear of high unemployment and a promise to prevent it that the Obama administration used to usher in the $787 billion stimulus package. As The New York Times reported on Oct. 22, 2009, "The Obama administration's forecast at the start of the year, which predicted that…

The three nightly news broadcasts on Monday touted Barack Obama new spending as "investments," highlighted victims of White House cuts and ignored key facts about the President's 2012 budget. Evening News reporter Chip Reid used the preferred White House language, asserting, "But the President unveiled his budget at a technology school to highlight new investments, especially in education…

Discussing the state of the Republican Party with political analyst John Dickerson on Saturday's CBS Evening News, anchor Russ Mitchell concluded: "...it has been a tough week for House Republicans." On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Meredith Vieira made an identical observation, declaring : "It has been a rough, rough week for the Republicans, to say the very least." Mitchell explained his…

All three evening newscasts on Wednesday and the morning shows on Thursday identified disgraced former Congressman Chris Lee as a Republican. On the February 10 Today, Kelly O'Donnell twice tagged the ex-representative, who resigned after shirtless photos of him surfaced online, as "conservative." The NBC reporter asserted, "The former Congressman is a former businessman, considered an up…

On Tuesday's CBS Evening News, chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford reported on the video sting operation conducted by the pro-life group Live Action: "The videos are troubling....showing Planned Parenthood staffers all too eager to help reported teenage sex workers get abortions and contraception." ABC and NBC have been silent on the controversy since the video was released on February 1…

At the top of Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Erica Hill cheered President Obama's supposedly pro-business move of speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday: "Obama's olive branch. The President reaches out into hostile territory and meets with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urging the private sector to start hiring." Introducing the later report on the speech, co-host Chris Wragge…

 On Monday’s CBS Evening News, as anchor Katie Couric read a short item on AOL’s purchase of the left-wing Huffington Post Web site, she neglected to mention the ideological lean of the Web site as she merely called it "one of the leading news Web sites." NBC’s Brian Williams did tag the Web site as "liberal" as he also read a an item on the acquisition. Williams: "A big payday for Arianna…

As the centennial celebration of President Ronald Reagan's birth approaches, the Media Research Center has released its special report on media bias against the late commander in chief, Rewriting Ronald Reagan: How the Media Have Worked to Distort, Dismantle and Destroy His Legacy. NewsBusters has complied a video montage displaying some of the worst media attacks over the years.   View video…