Chuck Schumer: Ten Million Jobs Saved By Stimulus and TARP
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday claimed the President's stimulus plan combined with 2008's Troubled Assets Relief Program resulted in ten million jobs being saved.
Such was actually said on CBS's "Face the Nation" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Big 3 Nets' Evening News Election and Pre-Election Week Audiences Down
Along with the cheerful news that Fox News trounced its cable news competitors on Election Night (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), those longing for more fairness and balance in television news coverage can take some comfort in the fact that the Big Three Networks' evening news shows came in with audiences almost 20% lower during the week before and the week of the 2010 midterm elections compared…
CBS: 'Polarizing' Palin Speaks At 'Anti-Abortion Rights Rally
On Thursday's CBS Early Show, news reader Erica Hill used loaded liberal terms to describe a Texas pro-life event that Sarah Palin attended on Wednesday: "Palin shared the stage in an anti-abortion rights rally with Texas Governor Rick Perry."
Hill touted how despite making no announcement to make a 2012 presidential run, Palin "was looking an awful lot like a candidate," adding that the…
CBS's Dickerson: Obama Will Make GOP 'Own' Spending Cuts to 'Pay For
On Monday's CBS Early Show, political analyst John Dickerson discussed President Obama's strategy against Republicans in Congress, particularly on tax cuts: "[He] said there's got to be a way to pay for it, again trying to put pressure on Republicans to say if you want to spend $700 billion, you've got to find the cuts, make them own those cuts, which are painful and might be quite unpopular…
CBS 'Early Show' Touted Softest Part of Obama '60 Minutes' Interview
On Friday, CBS's Early Show previewed President Obama's upcoming 60 Minutes interview by showing a clip of the softest moment of the exchange and skipping over a series of more challenging questions from correspondent Steve Kroft.
While the preview featured Kroft sympathetically asking the President if he hadn't "sold his successes well enough," the 60 Minutes correspondent began the…
Sneak Peek: CBS's Kroft Sympathizes With Obama in Soft '60 Minutes' In
In a preview of President Obama's upcoming 60 Minutes interview on Friday's CBS Early Show, correspondent Steve Kroft is shown commiserating with the commander-in-chief over midterm election losses: "People have made the argument you lost control of the narrative, you've let other people define you, that you haven't sold your successes well enough."
Kroft was understanding as he lamented…
CBS's Smith: How Can Government 'Unleash the Economy And Not Spend Any
On Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith saw Republican goals to limit government spending as antithetical to improving the economy: "How do you unleash the economy and not spend any money, oh, by the way, because that's the other mandate, is don't increase the deficit and don't – don't – 'I don't want one more cent of tax on me.'"
Smith put the question to Time magazine Washington…
Brian Williams Bizarrely Fixates on Portrait of Bill Clinton During Ob
Nightly News host Brian Williams on Wednesday oddly obsessed over a portrait of Bill Clinton that could barely be seen in the background as Barack Obama finished his first post-election press conference.
During live coverage, as Obama walked away from the podium, Williams apparently spotted the Clinton portrait and pontificated, "Interesting bit there at the end, with Bill Clinton literally…
CBS Affiliate Fires Two After Joe Miller Voicemail Controversy
Reporters from a CBS affiliate in Alaska recently left an accidental voicemail message for an aide to Senate candidate Joe Miller, in which producers are heard discussing the possibility of reporting on the appearance of a child molester at a Miller rally. Essentially, they could be heard conspiring to create or fabricate stories. The incident was so outrageous, it prompted Sarah Palin to…
From the MRC Archives: A Viewer's Guide to Election Night Spin
The actual voting results are just part of what makes for an Election Night in today’s mass media world. Perhaps as important — in some years, more important — are journalists’ first stab at interpreting the results, telling audiences what they voted for (and against).
If history is a reliable guide, listen for: smug journalists slamming “angry” or stupid voters; claims that there’s no…
CBS's Smith to Ann Coulter: What If Tea Partiers Bring Government 'To
On Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith continued to fret over government gridlock in the wake Republican electoral gains, asking Ann Coulter: "...big Republican wave just rolls in there. There'll be a routine vote, for instance, to increase the debt ceiling and the tea party guys are going to say, 'over my dead body.' And the government comes to a screeching halt. Then what happens…
What Were the Media Predicting Back in
Sixteen years ago, the Republicans picked up 54 seats in the House of Representatives, taking control of that chamber for the first time since the 1950s. So how good were the media’s predictions back then? Trolling through the MRC’s archives, I came across these quotes from coverage just before the 1994 vote:
FNC’s O’Reilly Factor Picks Up MRC Study Documenting Slanted Campa
On Monday’s O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly and former CBS News correspondent Bernie Goldberg talked about MRC’s study of the broadcast networks’ Campaign 2010 coverage, which has only talked about conservatives and Tea Party Republicans as “extremist” or “fringe,” not liberals or congressional Democrats.
Goldberg argued that the problem is that “too many liberal journalists they don’t…
CBS: Stewart/Colbert Rally 'Touched Anti-Anger Nerve,' Called for 'Les
On Saturday's CBS Early Show, correspondent Wyatt Andrews previewed the Washington DC 'Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear,' organized by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: "Almost all of the folks we found said they hope it's about the moderates of America....Stewart seems to have touched what you might call the anti-anger nerve."
Andrews went on to chide conservative figures for…
