CBS 'Early Show' Touted Levi Johnston When He Was Trashing the Palins
July 14th, 2010 6:03 PM
CBS’s Early Show was eager to host Levi Johnston when he was trashing the Palin family last year – 5 segments totaling more than 24 minutes of airtime. But since admitting that some of his attacks were untrue, the morning show has barely noticed, making only two brief mentions of Johnston's reversal and apology in a July 6 People Magazine interview. On Friday, fill-in co-host Erica Hill offered a…
CBS's Schieffer Interviews Eric Holder, Ignores Black Panther Case
July 12th, 2010 2:36 PM
While devoting all of Sunday's Face the Nation to an interview with Attorney General Eric Holder, CBS host Bob Schieffer failed to ask a single question about the Obama Justice Department dropping a voter intimidation case against the Black Panthers or allegations that the department has adopted a policy of ignoring such cases.Schieffer discussed a range of topics with Holder, from the federal…
Sean Penn Blames Media for Failures in Haiti Recovery
July 12th, 2010 11:55 AM
Appearing on Monday's CBS Early Show, actor Sean Penn described ongoing relief efforts in Haiti following January's earthquake and condemned the media for its lack of coverage of the disaster beyond the initial weeks: "I think that the media has played an enormous part in the failures that are still going on today and the recovery here and the relief operations."Those comments from Penn were…
NBC Offers Additional 35 Seconds to Story of Controversial Medicare Ap
July 9th, 2010 11:53 AM
NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams on Thursday became the first evening news broadcast to cover the recess appointment of Donald Berwick to run Medicare. Anchor Brian Williams asserted that "Republicans are angry, claiming it's antagonistic." He also observed, "Berwick has spoken about the need to ration medical care to control costs." NBC has offered the most reporting on Berwick: 20 seconds…
CBS Host Admits Levi Johnston Apology 'Highly Under-Reported
July 9th, 2010 11:32 AM
Update: CBS earlier declined comment on Johnston apology. On Friday's CBS Early Show, fill-in co-host Erica Hill confessed Levi Johnston's apology for making false statements about the Palin family was "highly under-reported." During the 'Early Wrap' segment, Hill told a panel of media pundits: "My favorite story of the week, which was highly under-reported...is that Levi Johnston came out and…
Evening News Watch: NBC Trick May Have Enabled Big 3 Nets to Avoid Goi
July 8th, 2010 12:48 PM
Last week, Matt Robare at NewsBusters noted the fact that the Big 3 networks' combined year-over-year audience fell by a bit more than 1 million during the second quarter. Last week's showing appears to be to a slight pickup over the previous week, but it may have been much worse. Here, per Media Bistro, is how the the week of June 28 as reported by Nielsen compared to the week of June 21, the…
Dems Inaccurately Claim GOP Blocked Berwick Nomination, Media Happy to
July 8th, 2010 12:34 PM
The GOP as the party of obstructionism: it's a tried and true media meme, but very often falls a tad short of the truth. Yet on occasion, even stubborn facts are not enough to dispel such accusations.Some in the media have taken President Obama's recess appointment of Donald Berwick to the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as an occasion to bash purportedly obstructionist…
Morning Shows Devote 52 Minutes to Lindsay Lohan, a Scant 20 Seconds t
July 8th, 2010 12:13 PM
Over the span of two days, the network morning shows have given just 20 seconds of coverage to the recess appointment of Donald Berwick, a pro-rationing doctor who will run Medicare. In contrast, Good Morning America, Today and Early Show devoted 52 minutes of coverage to every detail of Lindsay Lohan's sentencing. On Wednesday and Thursday's GMA, ABC hosts discussed Lohan for 14 minutes. CBS's…
ABC, NBC and CBS Mostly Ignore Obama's Recess Appointment of Pro-Healt
July 7th, 2010 11:49 AM
Barack Obama's decision to make a recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to run Medicare has been vastly ignored by the mainstream news media, despite the fact Berwick has made controversial statements favoring rationing of medical care. As CNSNews.com's Terry Jeffrey reported Dr. Berwick, at a talk celebrating the 60th birthday of Great Britain's National Health Service, told the audience to…
After Promoting Levi Johnston in '09, CBS Ignores His Admission of Fal
July 7th, 2010 11:45 AM
In an interview with People Magazine on Tuesday, Levi Johnston admitted: "I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true." On Wednesday, the CBS Early Show failed to make any mention of the admission, despite having provided a media platform for Johnston last year by conducting exclusive interviews with him.On the April 8, 2009 broadcast, co-host Maggie Rodriguez conducted…
Examiner's Byron York: The NASA-Muslim Outreach Story 'Has Not Made th
July 7th, 2010 9:31 AM
At the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog (HT Instapundit), Byron York documents the results of some Lexis Nexis searching: Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the New York Times: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the Washington Post: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on NBC Nightly News: 0. Total words about the NASA…
Local CBS Staff Join Hollywood Celebs in ‘The Dream Lives On’ Bost
July 6th, 2010 12:36 PM
Less than an hour before CBS’s Craig Ferguson-hosted 10 PM EDT “Boston Pops Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular” national broadcast on Sunday night, local anchors Jack Williams and Lisa Hughes from Boston’s CBS-owned television station, along with a couple of local actors, took to the stage to narrate the music-accompanied “The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers.” (Video:…
CBS Legal Correspondent: Senate Democrats Can Blame Themselves for Kag
July 5th, 2010 9:27 AM
There have been a lot of complaints from the left over the opposition Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan has faced from Senate Republicans in her battle to win confirmation. But Kagan proponents should have seen this day coming when Democrats in the Senate did the same things to try to slow the confirmations of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. On CBS's July 4 "Face the Nation,"…
Comedian Makes Courtney Love Abortion Jokes
July 3rd, 2010 8:57 AM
This week comedian Ragan Fox ventured into the abortion-for-laughs arena. Fox is a "gay poet and performance artist," according to Wikipedia, most well known for his Sirius Radio podcast, Fox and the City. CBS announced on June 30 that Fox will soon do a stint on its reality show, Big Brother 12. WiredUpdate.com described Fox's most recent podcast (Warning: PG-13): Today we are going to…