The Burying of a Scandal: TV News Hides the Facts on the IRS’s Targe
Summary: After a partisan report last June absurdly suggested that progressive groups were just as likely to be scrutinized as conservative ones, ABC, CBS and NBC essentially abandoned their coverage of the IRS targeting scandal which broke one year ago this week. After producing 136 stories on their morning and evening news show during the first seven weeks of the scandal, broadcast news…
Larry King Rips CNN: 'How Many Times Can You Cover A Plane?' It's 'Emb
Appearing on Tuesday's NBC Today, former CNN talk show host Larry King ridiculed his former employer when asked if he would ever return to the cable channel: "The tough time I would have at CNN now, I think, would be doing this airplane story. Because I think I'd crack up laughing. I think I would have – you know, how many times can you cover a plane? Six weeks and all we know is it made a left…
Networks Eagerly Push White House Climate Change Agenda Ahead of Obama
On Tuesday, the NBC, ABC, and CBS morning shows all seized on a new climate change report being released by the White House ahead of a slate of interviews with President Obama conducted by network meteorologists. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] On NBC's Today, weatherman Al Roker stood in front of the White House holding up a draft copy of the report and proclaimed: "…
Networks Give 15 Times More Coverage to Correspondents' Dinner Than Be
On Monday, the three network morning shows provided 12 minutes 24 seconds to Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner but only CBS This Morning reported House Speaker John Boehner on Friday announcing a new investigation into Benghazi – a news brief that totaled a mere 47 seconds. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
This Morning co-host Charlie Rose noted: "…
NBC Promotes Democrat Clay Aiken Running for Congress: 'From Pop Singe
On Friday, NBC's Today kicked off its 2014 midterm election coverage by doing a fawning puff piece on former American Idol contestant Clay Aiken running for Congress in North Carolina as a Democrat. Co-host Willie Geist proclaimed: "A race that's getting a lot of attention. Clay Aiken is used to being at the mercy of the voters. He came in second on American Idol in 2003 and now he's running…
Networks Outraged Over Murderer's Execution; No Pity for Victims
Who’s the victim here: A man who beat, sodomized, shot and buried alive a 19-year-old girl or the deceased girl? What about her family?
To judge by ABC, NBC and CBS, the victim is Clayton Lockett, who brutally killed Stephanie Neiman, kidnapped three more people and committed multiple other crimes, because his execution was botched. The lethal injection drug cocktail administered by the…
Big Three Newscasts Out to Lunch on Jihadists' Mass Kidnapping of Nige
ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning and evening newscasts have yet to set aside any air time to a mass abduction of over 200 schoolgirls from a school in northern Nigeria on April 16, 2014. Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram raided the government-run institution and forced the students into vehicles. On Thursday, the girls' parents and their supporters led a demonstration to pressure the government…
ABC, NBC Ignore Shocking Economic Slowdown
With a head in the sand approach, the networks failed to report on the latest economic weakness revealed to happen during President Barack Obama’s tenure.
The Commerce Department announced on April 30, that the United States economy barely grew in the first quarter: by only 0.1 percent. That was a sharp decline from 2.6 percent growth rate for the fourth quarter of 2013.
NBC's 'Today' Gives 28 Seconds to Benghazi Emails, Touts White House
During a 28-second news brief on Thursday's NBC Today, anchor Natalie Morales seized on Obama administration spin downplaying newly-released emails suggesting a cover-up of Benghazi: "The White House is dismissing claims by Senator Lindsey Graham that a previously undisclosed talking points email is a smoking gun about the 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans....The White House…
NBC vs. WSJ Over Meaning Behind Latest NBC/WSJ Poll
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday April 30, Chuck Todd tried to spin the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows half of Americans disapprove of Obama as “Improvement” for the Democrat.
Despite Todd’s desperate attempts to put a rosy picture on Obama’s flailing poll numbers, his analysis differs greatly from the pundits at The Wall Street Journal. James Freeman,…
NBC, ABC Ignore Supreme Court Ruling Giving EPA Broad Power to Regulat
On Tuesday April 29, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-2 decision that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate air pollution from power plants that cross state lines yet NBC and ABC failed to cover the story.
Despite the unprecedented ruling by the court, only CBS bothered to cover it, with Scott Pelley giving it a mere 22 seconds on the CBS Evening News on Tuesday…
Nets Devote 146 Minutes to Racist NBA Owner, Skimp on Bad News for Oba
When network journalists decide a story is important, they make sure it dominates the airwaves. Over the course of three and a half days, ABC, CBS and NBC vigorously investigated a racist rant by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, offering 146 minutes and 39 seconds of coverage since Saturday night. CBS devoted the most, a whopping 52 minutes and 13 seconds.
NBC came in second with…
NBC Poll Finds Half of Americans Disapprove of Obama; Chuck Todd Sees
The latest NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll found that President Obama’s approval was up slightly from his all-time low of 41 percent in March and NBC did its best to spin the 44 percent approval as good news for President Obama.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday, April 30, NBC’s Chuck Todd spun how “The poll numbers are better, they're still not good, okay? There is slight…
Hours Before John Paul II's Canonization, Networks Hype Priest Sex Abu
ABC, CBS, and NBC spotlighted the issue of child sex abuse by priests on their Saturday morning and evening newscasts – twenty-four hours or less before the Catholic Church canonized Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. CBS and NBC both uncritically turned to the president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), but didn't mention her controversial affiliations with prominent anti…
