NBC's Todd: Palin Will Attract 'Car-Wreck Watchers;' All Call Palin De
Sarah Palin's “bombshell” holiday announcement that she will resign as Governor of Alaska managed to trump Michael Jackson as the lead on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts Friday night as NBC's Chuck Todd predicted she will now make fundraising appearances for GOP candidates where she'll draw in “car-wreck watchers.” CBS reporter Nancy Cordes reflected the tone of the stories when she…
CBS Doesn't Mention Obama as Unemployment Hits 26-Year High
The unemployment rate in June jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983, as 467,000 jobs were lost, yet the CBS Evening News managed to air a story that didn't mention President Barack Obama or his “stimulus” bill while the NBC story only touched Obama's policies by running a soundbite of the President defending the lack of positive impact so far from his policies: “It took years for us to…
Nets Highlight Obama's Hug at Health Forum; CNN: 'Bold Display of Pres
Network reporters swooned over President Barack Obama hugging a woman, who has cancer and lacks insurance, at his Wednesday “town hall” on health care, as both CNN -- where Suzanne Malveaux heralded the hug as “a bold display of presidential concern” -- and NBC failed to point out how all the questions (just seven in total) were pre-selected or from members of pro-Obama groups. Instead, NBC's…
CBS's Logan Relays Concerns U.S. Troops Withdrawing Too Soon in Iraq
On Monday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Lara Logan relayed to viewers concerns that U.S. troops may be pulling back too quickly for the sake of security in some parts of Iraq. As Logan filed a report about the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Mosul, as part of the security arrangement supported by the Iraqi government, the CBS News correspondent reported that some Iraqi military officers would…
CBS Frames New Haven as 'Conservative' Justices vs 'Civil Rights Leade
In the midst of pretty balanced ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscast stories on the Ricci reverse discrimination case involving New Haven firefighters, who were victorious, one quibble: CBS's Wyatt Andrews framed the ruling as issued by the Supreme Court's “conservative” justices and opposed not by liberals but by “civil rights leaders,” as if the majority of justices who ruled against the racial…
Rather: Sotomayor Would Be 'Very Good' Supreme Court Justice
As Dan Rather sees it and decrees it, Sonia Sotomayor will make a fine Supreme Court justice. So the former CBS Evening News anchor told MSNBC's Carlos Watson this morning. The pair were discussing the impact of the high court's reversal today of Sotomayor's pro-affirmative action ruling in the New Haven firefighters case.In Rather's opinion, while Sotomayor would have preferred the Supreme Court…
Iran Fading From Media Attention
(Photo is of the martyred "Neda")In a passionate Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning ("Silence Has Consequences for Iran"), former Spanish Prime Minister José Aznar who, in case anyone cares, serves on the board of WSJ parent News Corp., says that "It would be a shame .... if our passivity gave carte blanche to a tyrannical regime to finish off the dissidents and persist with its revolutionary…
No Party Tag for Conyers' Wife; Just 20 Secs on 'Cap & Trade' Amidst
Noteworthy from Friday night's broadcast network evening newscasts which, a day after his death, spent 95 percent of their air time on Michael Jackson -- all but 1:03 of ABC's approximate 22 minutes was devoted to Jackson, all but 34 seconds of CBS and all but 1:22 of NBC, for 2:59, less than three minutes in total for all news beyond Jackson: ♦ Only ABC's World News reported how Monica Conyers,…
NBC, CBS, and ABC Highlight Sanford’s GOP Label; Downplayed Label Fo
In the wake of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s admission to having an affair, evening and morning newscasts on NBC, CBS, and ABC all immediately identified him as a Republican. In contrast, in March of last year, the networks rarely identified disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat in the wake of his affair with a prostitute. In a 2008 study of evening and morning network…
Couric Trots Out Tony Blair to Defend Obama on Iran
“President Obama's response to the government crackdown has been criticized by some Republicans as timid,” Katie Couric noted on Wednesday's CBS Evening News as she featured a retort: “Today, in an exclusive interview with CBS News, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came to his defense saying he believes the protestors understand the tough position the President is in.”Following a single…
Big 3 Nets' Evening News: It's Summertime, and the Viewers Are Leaving
Media Bistro broke it Tuesday morning, and gave us all of the details shortly after noon. The news: CBS and ABC's evening newscasts both came in with record low viewerships during the week of June 15.ABC's fall to less than 6.5 million total viewers is probably more of a surprise than CBS's plunge below 5 million. Is there a health care propaganda backlash? But the biggest news, as usual, is the…
CBS Confirms ObamaCare Would Oust People from Health Insurance and Doc
CBS, of all news outlets, is setting a high standard for ABC to meet Wednesday in its broadcasts from the White House. On Tuesday night, just a week after a “Reality Check” on how President Obama's claim that his government-expansion health care plan won't hike the deficit doesn't match reality, the CBS Evening News aired a story on how his plan would likely force many to lose their current…
'Evening News' Blames State Budget Woes on Economy, Ignores Growth of
It's basic economics - when the economy contracts and the flow of money slows, so do tax receipts to local governments, barring maneuvering by the government to impose higher taxes. And that has been a focus of news stories, most notably the state budget woes that have recently hit California. A June 22 "CBS Evening News" segment showed how, during this sluggish economy, the demand for state…
CBS Sees Both Sides Extreme in Iran, NBC Sees Mousavi as Moderate
On Thursday evening, the CBS Evening News and the NBC Nightly News presented opposite takes on whether Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi is really a moderate, or whether he is actually about as extreme and dangerous as current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. CBS’s Mark Phillips argued that Mousavi is merely more moderate in "tone" than Ahmadinejad while taking similar policy…
