CBS Evening News

Since Obama took office, there's been a leftward swing toward increased regulation. The news media have supported that tilt, generally failing to demand explanations for high profile failures of government regulators. From the financial crisis to the Gulf oil spill, a recent string of problems exposed serious failures of government regulators that are supposed to protect the public. But…

ABC, CBS and NBC all showcased a second grader's question to First Lady Michelle Obama, about her apparently illegal mother. The girl pleaded: “Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn't have papers,” but “my mom doesn't have papers.” ABC suggested it demonstrates the need for immigration “reform” as anchor Diane Sawyer proposed “a child's fear brings a new focus to the debate” since “the…

On Monday, President Obama signed into law the "Press Freedom Act," but refused to answer a question from CBS White House correspondent Chip Reid at the conclusion of the signing ceremony. While Reid described the ironic incident on the CBSNews.com Political Hotsheet blog, neither Monday's Evening News nor Tuesday's Early Show mentioned the President's dodge.  On the CBS blog, Reid described the…

At the end of Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer gushed over a recent trip to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and one exhibit in particular: "honoring Walter Cronkite....those moments in American history captured by TV...when Walter always seemed to be there....the little things we never saw, Walter's scripts, his pipe, and his office, just the way it was." Schieffer…

In a Friday article for Yahoo! News, reporter John Cook revealed FBI documents that detail allegations that former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite offered CBS News resources to transport fierce Vietnam critic and Democratic Maine Senator Edmund Muskie to a Florida anti-war rally in November of 1969. (h/t TVNewser)According to Cook, the FBI files describe how "Cronkite encouraged students…

The night after two major national polls confirmed overwhelming majorities support Arizona's impending immigration enforcement statute (59 percent per Pew and 64 percent per NBC/WSJ), CBS and ABC promoted the cause of activists in the minority. Both devoted full stories to the “uproar” and “emotional civil war” over the law and moves by a few liberal local government bodies to enact boycotts,…

As the MRC’s Tim Graham documented yesterday, ABC and NBC's morning and evening newscasts have so far refused to tag Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a “liberal,” with CBS’s Jan Crawford offering the sole ideological label of the nominee on Monday's Evening News: “Her career has put her solidly on the left.”In contrast, all three networks made a major deal out of the last person nominated by…

Five weeks ago (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the Big Three Networks' combined evening news audiences dropped to below 20 million -- an audience about 5% less than what Matt Drudge in the summer of 2006 headlined as “TV’s Lowest Week.” Three weeks ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), their combined audience came in at 19.61 million, down over 12% from the previous year. For the week of…

In an interview with Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith lamented President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court: "Liberals feel let down because she would be filling a seat left by John Paul Stevens, they don't feel like she's enough – has enough gravitas to fill his shoes." In his first question to Biden, Smith fretted: "Some people have…

In quite a contrast to the immediate tagging of the Bush and Obama Supreme Court nominees as “conservative” (and that includes Sonya Sotomayor), on Monday night ABC and NBC refrained from applying any ideological description to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan while CBS snuck in one. CBS's Jan Crawford declared “her career has put her solidly on the left,” but contended “she will have…

During live CBS News coverage on Monday of President Obama's nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer argued that the Senate confirmation process would be "nasty....Not because of Elena Kagan....she is eminently qualified" but because Republicans are "very wary of what the right part of their party is thinking about them." As evidence of…

A night after CBS's Bob Orr insisted botched terrorist bomber Faisal Shahzad's “motive also remains unclear” and fretted “he has not realized any American dream,” Orr on Thursday night asserted “investigators say financial pressures may have helped fuel his rage” because “he defaulted on both his mortgage and another $65,000 equity loan.” Orr highlighted Inside Edition video of Shahzad's…

Botched bomber Faisal Shahzad's failure to achieve the “American dream” may have been an important motive for his terrorist act, CBS's Bob Orr contended Wednesday night in a story in which he declared: “Shahzad's motive also remains unclear.” After noting how Shahzad “told interrogators he's upset with U.S. policies which he feels unfairly target Muslims and he's angry over Predator strikes that…

Liberal political pundits frequently remind Americans that words matter, which makes broadcast network reporters' coverage of Arizona's new crack down on illegal immigrants so appalling.   Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a law on April 23 that would make it a misdemeanor for immigrants to not carry documentation proving they are in the country legally. The bill gave state law enforcement the…