World News Tonight

Back in 1992, ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings told viewers his network would skip coverage of “routine” campaign events, unless they actually contributed new information that viewers could use. In an effort to keep ABC from being used as a propaganda arm for politicians, Jennings declared “there will be less attention to staged appearances and sound bites designed exclusively for…

You have to wonder what Diane Sawyer and her team at ABC’s “World News” are thinking. Is the Huffington Post the best they could do when it comes to reaching out to Americans for their ideas on the economy? In a Sept. 23 post on the Huffington Post, “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer explains to readers that she and her team in search of “innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around…

“Star power: Three megawatt political giants hit the campaign trail,” Diane Sawyer touted at the top of Tuesday’s World News, focusing on “First Lady Michelle Obama now joining former President Bill Clinton and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the power hitters on the campaign trail.” Yet, ABC advanced the hope Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton offer Democratic election prospects, while…

They're out of excuses. Summer's over. It's after Labor Day. The kids are back in school. People are back into their routines. The trouble for the Big 3 broadcast networks is that those routines don't include watching their early-evening newscasts. Beyond that, last week was a pivotal week in Campaign 2010, with key primaries in New York, Delaware, New Hampshire, and several other states. As…

ABC, CBS and NBC all ran full stories Monday night on how an old video clip showed Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell talking about how, as a high-schooler, she had “dabbled into witchcraft.” CBS, however, used O’Donnell to pivot to marveling at how other Tea Party-affiliated Senate candidates remain viable despite what CBS considers exotic views.  “Christine O'Donnell's…

ABC’s World News whored itself out Thursday night to a hapless effort by the White House to prove its “stimulus” spending created a lot of jobs. “Still ahead on World News,” an easily impressed Diane Sawyer hyped, “We have the list! That White House stimulus, the top success stories. An exclusive report.” Jon Karl proceeded to highlight “the greatest hits of the stimulus program,” including a…

By a wide margin — 66 percent to 29 percent, according to the most recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll — the public is opposed to building that proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Towers. This is not a lightly-held opinion: more than half (53%) told ABC news they are “strongly opposed” to building it near Ground Zero, vs. only 14 percent who…

The ABC, CBS and NBC evening new shows have yet to notice Fidel Castro's astonishing admission that Cuban Communism does not work. But non-journalist Jay Leno brought the news to his Tonight Show audience on Thursday, joshing:  "Most Cubans heard this announcement on a 1954 RCA Deluxe console TV -- beautiful black-and-white, all mahogany...." (Video at right)The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg…

Iman Feisal Abdul Rauf chose ABC's Christiane Amanpour to spend “several hours” with on Thursday in New York City, and just as she did back on the August 22 This Week when she featured Rauf's wife and an ally, she again served as his public relations agent, forwarding his claims without challenge. After passing along his denial of any deal to move his project, Amanpour gushingly relayed…

“Anti-Muslim bigotry is a problem, but it is only exacerbated by the media's tendency to exaggerate and sensationalize it,” the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto observed Wednesday in looking at the media’s focus on the threat, to burn Qur’ans, by one widely condemned Florida pastor with barely a few dozen followers. On Wednesday night, for the second night in a row, two of the three broadcast…

If your income tax rate stays the same next year, would you consider that a “tax cut”? ABC anchor Diane Sawyer sure seems to think so. Adopting the Obama/Democratic spin as fact, that maintaining the same income tax rates in place since 2003 constitutes a “tax cut,” even though taxpayers would pay the same amount on the same income, she led Wednesday's ABC World News: It will be the big battle to…

ABC’s Diane Sawyer gave Arianna Huffington a rare gift on Tuesday night: An entire World News segment devoted to promoting the left-winger’s new book, Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream, and her Huffington Post site. Though a matching ABCNews.com posting described Huffington as a “liberal commentator,” no iteration of liberal…

It’s happened again! Collecting quotes for the Labor Day edition of MRC’s bi-weekly Notable Quotables, I found more outrageous liberal eruptions than could fit into the normal newsletter. So, just for NewsBusters readers, here are 12 worthy quotes that just couldn’t squeeze into the regular issue (although hopefully a couple of these gems will find their way into our upcoming September 20 edition…

The Labor Department announced the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a point, to 9.6 percent in August so, as the AP noted, it “has exceeded 9 percent for 16 straight months,” while the economy lost 54,000 jobs. Yet, without avoiding the dire numbers, ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find a “mixed picture,” “mixed bag” or even a “silver lining” for President Obama and Democrats two months before…