CBS and NBC Champion Gore's 'Green Gauntlet' to End Fossil Fuels

July 17th, 2008 11:08 PM
The media love affair with Al Gore continues. Thursday night, after Gore delivered a speech calling for the end of “carbon-based fuels” within ten years, CBS anchor Katie Couric asserted that “as many as 10 million families could have their electricity shut off this year because they simply can't pay their bills,” but, she assured viewers, “Al Gore says there is a green answer.” Reporter Nancy…

Network Anchors Join Obama World Tour, Little Coverage for McCain Trav

July 17th, 2008 11:50 AM
While Thursday’s New York Times reported that the anchors from all three network newscasts will be joining Barack Obama on his trip to Iraq, they showed no such interest in following John McCain during his visit to Iraq in March. During the week of March 16, McCain’s trip received only four full-length stories during the combined ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news program coverage. Three of those…

Network News Anchors to Travel to Iraq With Obama

July 17th, 2008 9:39 AM
If the reports are true, Barack Obama has gone from Democrat presidential candidate to an out and out media star.According to the New York Times, when the junior senator from Illinois goes to Iraq in the coming weeks, all three network broadcast news anchors will go there to interview him. This goes in stark contrast to what happened when John McCain visited Iraq last March. I guess it's good to…

Embarrassing: Obama Accidentally Shoots Down NBC’s Puffery of His

July 11th, 2008 6:44 PM
NBC News may actually be more pro-Obama than Barack Obama himself. Back in March, a celebratory NBC Nightly News story about Obama’s childhood in Indonesia described the future candidate as “mastering the Indonesian language.” But Obama — who this week has voiced displeasure that many Americans do not speak a foreign language — admitted on Friday: “I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s…

Bipartisan Support for New FISA, Nets See 'Controversy' & 'Spying

July 9th, 2008 9:02 PM
Overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the Senate and House agreed to a new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) the President will happily sign, with the Senate -- including 21 Democrats -- voting for it Wednesday by 69 to 29, yet NBC and ABC painted it as “controversial” based on how the bill blocks lawsuits against telecommunications companies which cooperated with the President after…

MSM Yawn at Stunning 9 Percent Approval Rating for Congress

July 9th, 2008 1:07 PM
If Speaker Newt Gingrich's Republican majority had faced a 9 percent approval rating at any point in the 1996 presidential election year, the media would have not let anyone forget it. So given that and the media's frequently reminding Americans of President Bush's low approval numbers, why are the broadcast media ignoring the latest Rasmussen poll on the approval rating for Congress under the…

ABC Sees 'Impressive Gains in Iraq' While CBS Finds Bad Hospitals

July 8th, 2008 9:22 PM
As was pattern earlier this year and last, ABC's World News is much more willing -- than its CBS and NBC competitors -- to acknowledge good news in the Iraq war. On Tuesday night, ABC's Martha Raddatz cited “some really impressive gains” as she reported the plummeting number of attacks in Baghdad, falling from 1,278 in June of 2007 to 112 last month. The night before, only anchor Charlie Gibson…

Bozell Column: Jesse Helms and Mangled Manners

July 8th, 2008 5:11 PM

NBC Lauds Japanese G8 Summit for Green Initiatives

July 7th, 2008 1:59 PM
With world leaders meeting in Japan for the G8 Summit, conventional wisdom would suggest high commodity prices - which are having a detrimental effect on world economy - would be the focus. But that wasn't so on the July 6 broadcast of "NBC Nightly News." Instead of reporting on what are seemingly more pressing issues, the segment about the summit highlighted "green" efforts from the host…

NBC: Metzenbaum a 'Populist,' But Jesse Helms an 'Ultra-Rightist

July 5th, 2008 6:13 AM
When far-left former Democratic Senator Howard Metzenbaum passed away in March, the NBC Nightly News didn't identify his party or apply any ideological label as fill-in anchor Ann Curry hailed his life as “the classic American success story” of a man who “always fought for the little guy, taking on the oil and insurance industries” while he “stuck to his populist principles.” But on Friday…

NBC Warns $300-400 Oil If Israel Attacks Iran

July 2nd, 2008 3:30 PM
The consequences of a military attack on Iran to thwart its nuclear intentions could have a global economic impact, according to NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Engel warned on the July 1 "NBC Nightly News" an attack by Israel could send oil prices soaring - sending gas prices into territories never imagined. "I asked an oil analyst that very question," Engel said. "He…

'Nightly News': Is General Motors Going Out of Business

June 27th, 2008 12:37 PM
General Motors has been in business since 1897, but there are fears now propagated in the media that the longtime American icon faces an uncertain future. Brian Williams raised the possibility of General Motors (NYSE:GM) going out of business on the June 26 "NBC Nightly News" to Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money." "[J]im, I know you talk about this, think about this everyday for a living…

Bad Economy Kills Pet Dogs, Cats, Pigs, Goats...and People Too

June 25th, 2008 9:37 PM
Going to extraordinary lengths to pull at the heartstrings of viewers, Wednesday's NBC Nightly News focused on, in the words of anchor Brian Williams, “the innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis” -- that would be dogs, pigs, goats and horses. Meanwhile, ABC discovered people are more likely to get murdered at work in these “hard economic times,” though they really haven't been. At the end of…

Only ABC Airs Full Story on Good Iraq News, NBC Can't Resist Caveat

June 23rd, 2008 9:12 PM

The Pentagon on Monday released a quarterly report showing dramatic reductions in violence in Iraq compared to a year earlier, but only ABC aired a full story Monday evening while NBC gave it short-shrift as anchor Brian Williams cited the reduction in violence “by as much as 80 percent” since “before the so-called troop surge.” He then added a caveat about how the report “also warns the…