Wednesday's CBS Evening News ignored House Speaker John Boehner's announcement that he will file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its use of executive orders. The evening newscast thus followed the example of CBS This Morning , which also omitted this development . ABC made its first on-air mention of the story on Wednesday's World News , with an 18-second news brief by anchor Diane Sawyer. On NBC Nightly News , host Brian Williams set aside 26 seconds of air time to Speaker Boehner's planned legal move. During his news brief, Williams falsely indicated that the Republican Party controls... continue reading
On Wednesday, a unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that police may not search the contents of an arrested individual's cell phone without first obtaining a warrant. While all three broadcast networks reported on the Riley v. California decision in their June 25 evening newscasts, only CBS's Janet Crawford directly referred to the "Obama administration" as having "argued cell phone searches were like a search of a suspect's wallet, briefcase, or coat, which don't require a warrant." ABC's Terry Moran skirted around a reference to the Obama administration, saying simply that "the government"... continue reading
On Wednesday, NBC’s Today was the only broadcast network morning news show to give coverage to House Speaker John Boehner’s lawsuit against President Obama. Today devoted 19 seconds to the story, while both ABC and CBS ignored it completely. During the 7:00 a.m. news brief, NBC national correspondent Peter Alexander reported that Boehner was considering a lawsuit against the President for “exceeding his constitutional authority when it comes to administering the laws that Congress passes.” [MP3 audio here ] “Boehner has often accused Obama of picking and choosing what portions of laws to enforce, sometimes by issuing executive orders,” Alexander... continue reading
On Wednesday's New Day on CNN, The Daily Beast's John Avlon and his wife, Margaret Hoover, gloated over the recent defeats of Tea Party-backed candidates in Republican primaries. Avlon strongly hinted that the grassroots conservatives movement was full of crazy people: " Don't call it the establishment. It's the sanity caucus ." Anchor Kate Bolduan wondered if former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's loss earlier in June was a "one-off." Hoover rattled off a list of prominent conservatives who apparently defeated in the wake of Mississippi Republican Senate candidate Chris McDaniel's defeat on Tuesday: [MP3 audio available here ; video... continue reading
On Tuesday night’s edition of his PBS show, Charlie Rose interviewed former Vice President Dick Cheney and pushed him to “give the president some credit for trying” to negotiate for a contingent of American troops to stay in Iraq after the status of forces agreement expired in 2011. Cheney reminded Rose that, in his mind, Iraq “was in pretty good shape” when he and then-President George W. Bush left office. From there, he said that there “was no follow-up” on the part of the Obama administration for a residual presence to give the Iraqi military “intelligence capabilities, some air assets,... continue reading
ABC News announced on Wednesday that journalist David Muir would be replacing Diane Sawyer as the anchor of World News in September. Muir has a history of fawning over "cool kid" Barack Obama and attacking conservatives. The Media Research Center has compiled a Profile in Bias of his worst examples of liberal bias. On April 9, 2009 , Muir, then the World News weekend anchor, thrilled over pictures of pictures of Obama at the G-20 summit. The journalist enthused to George Stephanopoulos: "...Heads of state are seemingly trying to get close to the head of the class, or the cool... continue reading
At the top of the 9 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday's NBC Today , weatherman Al Roker suggested in jest that his colleague David Gregory deserved to be punched in the face by former President Bill Clinton after the Meet the Press moderator asked Clinton in a recent interview about wife Hillary being "out of touch." Roker joked: "You know, I'd give anything if after David finished the question, Bill just kind of hauled off and popped him. Just see what happens." [ Listen to the audio ] Moments later, co-host Hoda Kotb rushed to the defense of the Clintons:... continue reading
Chuck Todd, NBC’s Political Director, Chief White House Correspondent, and host of The Daily Rundown on MSNBC did his best to deflect from the IRS scandal by wondering if “there are any actual real victims’ of the IRS targeting of conservative groups.” Appearing on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown on Wednesday morning, Todd insisted that “the question at hand is whether explicitly political organizations should be filing as tax exempt social welfare groups under the tax code” and suggested that such groups weren’t deserving of such tax exempt status at all. Todd began by arguing that the scandal surrounding the IRS... continue reading
On Tuesday, David Ferriero, the head archivist for the U.S. government, testified before Congress and insisted that the IRS had not followed the law requiring the agency to notify his office three years ago that Lois Lerner’s hard drive had crashed containing official records and emails. Despite these new details, only CBS has bothered to report on the latest in the IRS scandal with both ABC and NBC’s morning and evening news programs ignoring the story on June 24 and 25. On Wednesday, June 25, only CBS This Morning covered the IRS revelations whereas ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s... continue reading
Once again, Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director, Chief White House Correspondent and host of MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown , did his best to explain away a gaffe by a Democrat, this time Hillary Clinton’s claim that she and Bill were "dead broke" after leaving the White House. Appearing on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, Todd proclaimed that "Bill Clinton tried to do what he does best today, explain away a thorny political problem. This time, making the case his wife is not out of touch." NBC anchor Brian Williams introduced the report hyping how "Bill Clinton jumped to his... continue reading