There’s an epidemic of abysmal job growth, gas shortages, government money everywhere and spiking inflation. But CBS appeared more upset that landlords were desperate to pay their bills in a recent broadcast.
CBS Evening News whined over the “epidemic of evictions” during its May 19 episode. The network ran a chyron for 154 seconds that propagandized how “Tenants Facing Eviction Place Last Hope In Court Hearings.” CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca’s segment on evictions repudiated how landlords “filed over 300,000 evictions during the pandemic,” despite a federal ban.
Villafranca specifically targeted evictions in Texas, and complained that the state has only doled out "just over" $112 million in “rental assistance” money, despite more than $1 billion in its coffers. Villafranca argued as if the taxpayer-funded “rental assistance” money grew on trees.
Villafranca and CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell did not mention the economic plight currently facing landlords struggling to make ends meet during the segment. For context, CNN ran a February story headlined, “Unpaid rent is piling up. Landlords can’t hold on forever.” CBS’s entire anti-landlord segment lasted 164 seconds.
Meanwhile, other liberal news outlets have outlined the extent of the troubles currently facing landlords that CBS chose to ignore. Bloomberg News reported in April that “mortgage, maintenance and tax bills are piling up, putting landlords in danger of losing their buildings or being forced to sell to wealthier investors hunting for distressed deals.”
The Washington Post ran a February story detailing a survey that found “D.C.'s small landlords are struggling under eviction moratoriums.”
Time magazine also released a story in February headlined, “Millions of Tenants Behind on Rent, Small Landlords Struggling, Eviction Moratoriums Expiring Soon: Inside the Next Housing Crisis.” [Emphasis added.]
NBC News Connecticut reported a story Dec. 30, 2020 headlined: “‘We've Taken a Beating': Landlords Still Struggling Through Pandemic.”
Apparently CBS Evening News wasn’t concerned with informing viewers about the overwhelming struggles landlords are facing. The network was too busy caricaturing landlords as heartless bourgeoisies.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact CBS Evening News at (212) 975-3247 and demand the network report fairly on the economic plight facing U.S. landlords.
