On Monday night and Tuesday morning, ABC ignored Hillary Clinton's growing e-mail scandal, despite three hours of potential airtime (on World News, Good Morning America and Nightline). Instead, GMA on Tuesday devoted eight and a half minutes to the 50th anniversary of the Sound of Music, not exactly the most important topic.
The program, hosted by former Bill Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos, also offered seven minutes of coverage to the reality show The Bachelor. ABC last reported the developing controversy on Monday morning's GMA. On that show, journalist Jon Karl related, "President Obama told CBS he didn't know about the e-mail arrangement until the story broke last week."
Since then, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has altered the talking points. The Washington Times reported:
President Obama communicated with Hillary Rodham Clinton via email but didn’t know the “details” of how his secretary of state was using a private, off-the-books email address, the White House said Monday.
“They did have the occasion to email one another. … He was not aware of the details of how that email address and how that server had been set up or how Secretary Clinton and her team were planning to comply with the Federal Records Act,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “The president did email with Secretary Clinton. I assume he recognized the email he was emailing back to.”
Yet, covering these new developments wasn't a priority for ABC. On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose mentioned the e-mail scandal, but only from the perspective of how it might influence Joe Biden's 2016 ambitions:
CHARLIE ROSE: The vice president's presidential ambitions could benefit from the controversy over Hillary Clinton's emails. A source close to Clinton tells CBS News she is considering breaking her silence on the issue. The former Secretary of State avoided the matter Monday at an event in New York.
Shifting to Biden and his contrast with Clinton, Major Garrett touted the Vice President's upside: "Biden does have strengths. The president's point man in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central America and South America. He also managed stimulus spending without controversy and cut deals with Republicans to avert a government shutdown and default."
On NBC's Today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell spun Clinton's wariness to talk about the e-mail scandal as a byproduct of past scandals: "She may be reluctant because of what happened in April 1994. Under pressure, she held a White House news conference about an Arkansas land deal, it led to more investigations."
