MRC's Worst of the Week: Media Ramp Up Anti-Tea Party Venom

September 23rd, 2010 11:15 AM
Six weeks before what could be a doomsday election for Democrats, the liberal media are taking every opportunity to belittle and discredit the Tea Party movement that’s fueling voter energy this year.Media liberals with zero affection for the Republican establishment are suddenly acting like concerned parents. Ex-Clintonista George Stephanopoulos worried on ABC’s Good Morning America: “Is it a…

Big 3 Nets' Evening News Audience Fails to Break 20 Million in Mid-Sep

September 21st, 2010 2:19 PM
They're out of excuses. Summer's over. It's after Labor Day. The kids are back in school. People are back into their routines. The trouble for the Big 3 broadcast networks is that those routines don't include watching their early-evening newscasts. Beyond that, last week was a pivotal week in Campaign 2010, with key primaries in New York, Delaware, New Hampshire, and several other states. As…

CBS Befuddled by How Tea Party Candidates Have Survived Despite Their

September 21st, 2010 12:52 AM
ABC, CBS and NBC all ran full stories Monday night on how an old video clip showed Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell talking about how, as a high-schooler, she had “dabbled into witchcraft.” CBS, however, used O’Donnell to pivot to marveling at how other Tea Party-affiliated Senate candidates remain viable despite what CBS considers exotic views.  “Christine O'Donnell's…

CBS’s Stahl to Jimmy Carter: ‘You Blame Teddy’ for Killing Unive

September 18th, 2010 3:53 PM
Saturday’s The Early Show on CBS showed a preview clip of correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewing former President Jimmy Carter for 60 Minutes in which Carter blamed former Senator Ted Kennedy for derailing his universal health care plan in the 1970s. Stahl referred to former Senator Kennedy as "Teddy" as she asked Carter if he held Kennedy responsible. Stahl: "And you blame Teddy for the failure…

CBS Dishonestly Touts 'Non-Partisan Watchdog' Group's Quest for a 'Cri

September 17th, 2010 9:11 PM
“There are calls for a criminal investigation of another rising GOP star,” Katie Couric teased at the top of the CBS Evening News, after citing Sarah Palin's speaking appearance in Iowa, as she elevated a publicity gimmick from a left-wing organization staffed by veterans of Democratic congressional offices. Though O'Donnell “took the spotlight today at a conservative summit in Washington,”…

CBS's Smith: Tea Party and Palin Could Bring GOP to 'Edge of the Abyss

September 17th, 2010 12:28 PM
Appearing on Friday's CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer continued to compare the rise of the tea party and possible candidacy of Sarah Palin in 2012 to the 1964 campaign of Barry Goldwater. In response, co-host Harry Smith remarked that Palin could take Republicans "to the edge of the abyss, as it were." On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, Schieffer argued: "...it is very much like…

Citing Wins by 'Fringe Candidates,' Couric Regurgitates Concern Modera

September 16th, 2010 8:49 PM
Following a story on how “big primary victories by fringe candidates open a rift in the GOP,” in which Jeff Greenfield warned “moderate Republicans worry that if the Tea Party movement drives the GOP too far to the right, it could jeopardize their prospects in November and in 2012,” CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric fretted: “Does this mean moderate Republicans are becoming an endangered…

CBS Slams O'Donnell as 'Ultra-Conservative' and Sees Repeat of 1964, T

September 15th, 2010 10:35 PM
The night after a Tea Party candidate in Delaware stunned the GOP establishment, the CBS Evening News blamed voter “anger,” tried to marginalize Christine O'Donnell as an “ultra-conservative,” relayed the contention of establishment Republicans that Tea Party wins will lead to a re-run of the GOP's 1964 debacle, and highlighted how more Americans blame George W. Bush over President Barack Obama…

MRC Study: ABC, CBS and NBC Tilt Ground Zero Mosque Debate by Smearing

September 15th, 2010 10:35 AM
By a wide margin — 66 percent to 29 percent, according to the most recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll — the public is opposed to building that proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Towers. This is not a lightly-held opinion: more than half (53%) told ABC news they are “strongly opposed” to building it near Ground Zero, vs. only 14 percent who…

CBS: U.S. Muslims 'Feel Like Strangers in Their Own Country

September 10th, 2010 5:14 PM
Filling in for anchor Katie Couric on Thursday's CBS Evening News, Early Show co-host Harry Smith introduced a report on opposition to building mosques in some areas of the country: "...they feel like strangers in their own country, Muslims shocked by the growing opposition to new mosques....building a mosque has suddenly become a hot-button issue in many communities."Smith expounded on the cause…

Bozell: Jay Leno Knows More About What's News than the 'News' Networks

September 10th, 2010 1:37 PM
The ABC, CBS and NBC evening new shows have yet to notice Fidel Castro's astonishing admission that Cuban Communism does not work. But non-journalist Jay Leno brought the news to his Tonight Show audience on Thursday, joshing:  "Most Cubans heard this announcement on a 1954 RCA Deluxe console TV -- beautiful black-and-white, all mahogany...." (Video at right)The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg…

Qur'an Burning Threat Leads Network News to Discover Wisdom of Palin a

September 9th, 2010 12:51 AM
“Anti-Muslim bigotry is a problem, but it is only exacerbated by the media's tendency to exaggerate and sensationalize it,” the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto observed Wednesday in looking at the media’s focus on the threat, to burn Qur’ans, by one widely condemned Florida pastor with barely a few dozen followers. On Wednesday night, for the second night in a row, two of the three broadcast…

Profile in Bias: Four Years of Katie Couric's Liberal Spin as 'CBS Eve

September 7th, 2010 11:00 AM
Tuesday marks the four-year anniversary of Katie Couric's assumption of the anchor chair for the CBS Evening News on Tuesday, September 5, 2006. To commemorate the occasion, the Media Research Center has assembled Perking Up for Liberal Spin, a profile in bias of Couric's top forty biased quotes from her four years at CBS.      Marking her one-year anniversary, a September 2007 MRC Media Reality…

Nets See 'Mixed Picture,' 'Mixed Bag' and 'Silver Lining' in Rising Un

September 3rd, 2010 8:49 PM
The Labor Department announced the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a point, to 9.6 percent in August so, as the AP noted, it “has exceeded 9 percent for 16 straight months,” while the economy lost 54,000 jobs. Yet, without avoiding the dire numbers, ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find a “mixed picture,” “mixed bag” or even a “silver lining” for President Obama and Democrats two months before…