BiasAlerts

While all three network morning shows covered the ongoing terrorist invasion of Iraq on Tuesday, only CBS This Morning made the connection between President Obama's foreign policy and the chaos in the country. In an interview with former U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, This Morning co-host Charlie Rose wondered: "Has the United States and the Obama administration failed to pay sufficient attention to Iraq since American troops left?" [ Listen to the audio ] Later on the broadcast, correspondent Jan Crawford talked to Iraq war veterans upset by seeing their hard-fought accomplishments being lost. Crawford explained: "When he campaigned... continue reading
On Monday, June 16, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams did his best to not only spin the recent surge in violence throughout Iraq as being George W. Bush’s fault but managed to completely contradict the reporting of NBC’s own journalists. Williams opened the broadcast by falsely declaring “As a group of heavily armed and highly motivated terrorists continues its way across Iraq, it's not yet clear if the U.S. will take any action in Iraq...The U.S. may have to work with Iran before this is all over as another Iraqi city has now fallen to this group called ISIS.”... continue reading
Last Friday , the Internal Revenue Service announced that it had lost approximately two years of emails from former employee Lois Lerner. Despite the damning new revelations in the IRS scandal, ABC and NBC have failed to cover the story as of Monday June 16, and only CBS This Morning reported on the emails on Monday but their evening news program ignoring the IRS alongside ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer and NBC Nightly News . As Kyle Drennen noted in an earlier BiasAlert , "Neither NBC's Today nor ABC's Good Morning America bothered to cover the shocking development. However,... continue reading
William Devane ( IMDb page ), who plays “President James Heller” on Fox’s prime time 24: Live Another Day, told USA Today that “obviously I’m a big fan of Obama, as a guy who’s smart and articulate” and, in his acting, “I say to myself, ‘what has got to be going on in the private side of this guy’s brain’ – the pressure, the racism that is thrown out — and he handles it with such dignity.’” Devane empathized with Barack Obama’s plight: “There’s gotta be a private side to him where he goes, ‘Why do I have this job?’”... continue reading
The journalists at ABC and NBC on Monday couldn't manage to cover the revelation that the IRS lost two years-worth of Lois Lerner's e-mails. Yet, reporters on all three networks mourned the loss of a parking garage connected to the four decade-old Watergate scandal. Sunday CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor pronounced, " The world's most famous parking garage will be destroyed. " [MP3 audio here .] Glor explained that the county board in Arlington, Virginia "voted this weekend to demolish the garage where Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward met secretly with his Watergate source Deep Throat, Mark Felt." However,... continue reading
On Thursday's The Lead on CNN, James Allen Fox used actual crime data to splash cold water on a liberal talking point claiming that mass shootings on the rise: "It's a horrific event when four, five, twelve people are gunned down... But let's not think that this is an epidemic ." Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, also pointed out that the now-expired "assault weapons" ban had little impact on the number of mass shootings. Anchor Jake Tapper wondered "what does society need to do" to prevent such events from happening. His guest actually contended that it would be... continue reading
On Monday, only CBS This Morning reported Friday's stunning revelation that the IRS somehow lost two years worth of emails from Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the agency scandal in which conservative groups were unfairly targeted. At the top of the morning show, co-host Norah O'Donnell wondered: "How did the IRS lose emails in the scandal targeting conservatives after the government spent millions to back up data?" [ Listen to the audio ] Introducing the later report, fellow co-host Charlie Rose noted: "The Washington Times says congressional Republicans are blasting the IRS for losing some of Lois... continue reading
Jane Pauley, who campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008 as she declared “I want to see the cool, steady hand of Barack Obama on that Bible on Inauguration Day,” on CBS’s Sunday Morning pleaded for Hillary Clinton to try to succeed him: “If not you, who? Who is the viable woman of either party who could win a primary nomination in 2016 if not you?” In the promotional segment for Clinton’s new book, Pauley complained “it takes two pages to cover the list of countries that have already had a woman leader,” citing “Bangladesh, Indonesia, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, the United... continue reading
CBS’s Bob Schieffer did his best to play up the supposed divide that exists within the Republican Party following the primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). During an interview on Sunday, June 15 with Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, the Face the Nation host wondered: “Goldwater lost the [1964] election in a historic landslide. How do you prevent that from happening?” The CBS host’s comments came after Priebus insisted that the future of the Republican Party was strong: We're heading in to mid-term Bob, we all know this. We can keep discussing the Republican... continue reading
Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) made his first television interview appearances on Sunday, June 15 following his primary defeat to his a Tea Party challenger David Brat. The defeat was unexpected by most in Washington and was one of the main topics of conversation across the Sunday shows. Cantor sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union on Sunday and was asked by the fill-in host: “Do you think there was anti-Semitism involved in your defeat?" The CNN reporter’s question came after hyping Cantor’s faith being potentially out of step with his district: You are a Jewish Republican,... continue reading