Friday's Good Morning America spent a scant 16 seconds on the newest development in the IRS scandal, the suspension of agency official Lois Lerner who oversaw the division responsible for processing tax-exempt status requests. Lerner headed the division while the IRS gave extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status.
As NewsBusters reported, Thursday's World News completely ignored Lerner's move. The MRC's Brent Bozell had predicted that the media would "move on" from the IRS scandal, which explains ABC's paucity of coverage on Thursday and Friday.
Correspondent Paula Faris reported Lerner's move in a news brief: "The woman in charge of the IRS division accused of targeting conservative groups is off the job this morning. Lois Lerner was suspended after invoking the Fifth Amendment, refusing to testify about the scandal on Capitol Hill. Her suspension came after she refused to resign." That was all of ABC's coverage on Friday.
Friday's show completely ignored another Obama administration controversy, the news that Attorney General Eric Holder approved the Justice Department's search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen. Holder's approval enabled the seizure of Rosen's personal e-mails. NewsBusters reported that while NBCNews.com broke the story, NBC ignored it as of Friday morning.
