On the one-year anniversary of the riots and systematic failures of Democrat-run Baltimore in Democrat-run Maryland, only CBS Evening News managed to acknowledge that anything even happened. ABC World News Tonight’s only mention of Baltimore or Freddie Gray was a throwaway line in an April 22 obituary for the pop singer Prince, where correspondent Byron Pitts noted that “Prince was an artist and an activist, releasing songs in the aftermath of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.” End of sentence, end of topic, end of discussion. NBC failed to mention even that much.
As previously reported by Bias by the Minute, in 2016 the three networks spent 2 hours and 15 minutes on the death of Freddie Gray and the ensuing protests and riots. The CBS Evening News stories this month on this topic totaled 4 minutes, 45 seconds.
CBS Evening News ran a full story on April 27, where CBS News Justice Correspondent Jeff Pegues sat down with the former Baltimore Police Commissioner and discussed how the city handled the riots and the aftermath.
A few evenings earlier, on April 18, Pegues had another Baltimore-centric story, focusing on the efforts to revitalize the city. “Twenty percent of the people here are unemployed,” Pegues observed, “and a third live in poverty. This neighborhood is also where Freddie Gray lived. After his death, while in police custody, rioting and looting further destroyed it.” This story also included a quote from Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake saying that “When you see a vacant home, when you see numerous vacant homes in a row, what that suggests is neglect. What that suggests is neglect. What that suggests is a city that’s going in the wrong direction.” However, CBS Evening News failed to include any party labels in either story.
While ABC didn’t find time for this topic, they did find the time on April 13 to recognize another anniversary – the 75th year since the creation of the cereal Cheerios. Not to be outdone, NBC set aside time on April 26 to cover a study which claimed that 8 out of 10 dogs don't like being hugged.
