World News Tonight

Tuesday's evening news broadcasts and Wednesday's morning shows allowed a scant four and a half minutes of coverage to the conviction of powerful Democrat Charlie Rangel over ethics charges. In comparison, these same programs devoted 121 minutes to exhaustively examining every aspect of the announcement that Prince William is getting married, a disparity of 30 to one. NBC's Today featured the…

 On Friday evening, ABC’s World News and the NBC Nightly News both informed viewers that Cindy McCain - wife of Senator John McCain - supports repealing the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy on gays in the military. NBC’s Chuck Todd merely mentioned her disagreement with her husband on the issue while noting that Senator McCain "is the guy holding up" any change in the law. But ABC went further in…

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…

The Democrats’ strategy to salvage the 2010 campaign was to distract voters from their record over the past two years and paint their opponents as wacky extremists. Win or lose, the Democrats got a lot of help from their friends in the supposedly objective “news” media. MRC analysts reviewed the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from September 1 through October 25. Key findings:   ■ Only…

The largest tax hikes in history are imminent and it is still unclear whether Congress and President Obama will come to an agreement before January 1. The networks should have seen those tax hikes coming a mile away, but the Business & Media Institute found the primary theme of their tax cut stories was Obama as  the hero, cutting taxes for the middle-class, not as a tax increaser. This…

Among Wednesday’s broadcast network evening newscasts, ABC’s World News uniquely informed viewers of revelations that former President Bill Clinton lost the nuclear codes required for the commander in chief to set in motion any use of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Noting that similar accusations had been made seven years ago in the book of retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Patterson – who…

Airing rare stories on a U.S. Senate debate, ABC, CBS and NBC all ran full reports Thursday night on the only race they repeatedly find newsworthy, one in which the Republican is behind by double-digits, as ABC and CBS exploited the Delaware debate to regurgitate ridicule for Sarah Palin. “[Christine] O'Donnell's toughest moment came when she was asked to name a recent Supreme Court decision…

While network correspondents complain about the unfairness of independent advertising, they might ponder the unfairness of their habitual tendency to omit or downplay bad news for Team Obama, especially in the crucial last weeks of a campaign. Consider some of the latest stories that would have drawn much more attention and media hostility if the shoe was on the Republican foot:

“On this first Monday in October, the Supreme Court opened its new term today,” an excited Diane Sawyer announced Monday night, trumpeting how it's “making history for America's mothers, sisters and daughters.” ABC reporter Terry Moran was even more thrilled, marveling that “the most remarkable thing in that courtroom today, on this historic day, was how unremarkable it was.” Despite the…

There’s little pretense of media fairness as the 2010 elections approach. Last Thursday, ABC’s World News ran as “news” a video produced by the Obama White House. Diane Sawyer excitedly touted how “we got to listen in on a phone call today,” as viewers saw a brief clip of President Obama talking to a cancer patient who thanked him for the government takeover of health care.Then on Monday, NBC…

Acting as if President Barack Obama is uniquely burdened by the responsibility of protecting the nation from a terrorist attack or overseeing a war, Diane Sawyer and Bob Woodward marveled at how he’s taken on the job despite the terrible world George W. Bush left for him, in awe of his recognition that terrorists setting off a nuclear device in U.S. city would be a “game changer” and how he…

On Wednesday’s World News on ABC, anchor Diane Sawyer briefly reported on a court ruling in Florida which struck down a state law banning the adoption of children by homosexual couples. Ignoring the issue of whether an activist court should make such a ruling, Sawyer seemed to frame the story from a sympathetic point of view for would-be same-sex parents in Florida as she referred to the ruling…

All three broadcast evening newscasts on Thursday covered the formal unveiling of the Republican ‘Pledge to America,’ a campaign document calling for the repeal of ObamaCare, no tax hikes and balanced budgets. CBS’s Nancy Cordes cast it as pro-Tea Party, “littered with references to the Constitution and promises to reduce the federal debt,” and Tea Party members as “grateful” for its policy…