Three weeks after CBS's 60 Minutes delivered a friendly sit-down with President Barack Obama in which Steve Kroft gently chided him for being too willing to compromise with Republicans, the show didn't even attempt a matching approach to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Instead, Lesley Stahl relayed a portrait painted by liberals ('He's working on humanizing his image, and presenting himself as more reasonable') as she blamed him for 'gridlock' and offered a caricature of Cantor as an 'inflexible' ideologue putting Tea Party politics ahead of passing Obama's beneficial policies. Stahl abandoned any pretense of journalistic objectivity, repeatedly pressing Cantor... continue reading
On Wednesday's Good Morning America , ABC staff could be heard laughing in the background when substitute news reader Dan Harris read the less vulgar part of HBO comedian Bill Maher's infamous tweet mocking Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow's religious beliefs. After informing viewers that there were calls for a boycott against Maher's HBO show over the "controversial tweet," Harris continued: The part of the tweet we can show you reads, quote, "Somewhere in Hell, Satan is Tebowing, saying to Hitler, 'Hey, Buffalo's killing them.'" Low-volume laughter could then be heard in the background. Below is a transcript of the... continue reading
On Thursday's The Early Show , CBS hosted a guest who implicated climate change as one of the factors contributing to many weather disasters in 2011, and he ended up warning of more droughts in the future. After asserting that 2011 was an unusually active year for natural disasters, Dr. M. Sanjayan of the Nature Conservancy included climate change in the list of influences: There's a perfect storm of events. We had a La Nina year, we had this thing called Arctic oscillation that drifted further South, but then we also have this underlying factor of climate change that makes... continue reading
The third runners-up quotes in the MRC's ' Best Notable Quotables of 2011: The Twenty-Fourth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting .' As announced in a CyberAlert Special, the awards issue was posted, with videos, on Monday, December 19, but following tradition, the last weekdays of the year MRC.org's BiasAlert and corresponding CyberAlert e-mail newsletter will run the winning quotes followed on succeeding days by the runners-up. Tuesday's BiasAlert/CyberAlert featured the winners, Wednesday's ran the first runners-up and Thursday's highlighted the second runners-up. The page linked above also has links for the text of the entire issue in MS... continue reading
It's no secret that the media have spent significant attention focusing on GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's history of marital problems and whether this facet of his past will undercut him with socially conservative Republican voters, but on Friday's Today show on NBC, correspondent Peter Alexander went so far as to refer to Gingrich's wife as his "third wife" in a story that otherwise had nothing to do with his marital history. Below is the relevant portion of Alexander's report from the Friday, December 30, Today show on NBC: PETER ALEXANDER: Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, whose support has recently plummeted in... continue reading
In lieu of President Obama's Hawaiian vacation, CNN highlighted the plight of a Hawaiian same-sex couple that will legally celebrate a civil union come January 1st, but desires federal marriage benefits that do not apply to same-sex couples. In a one-sided and sympathetic report, White House correspondent Brianna Keilar painted the picture of a President who could make a gain at the voting booth if he legalizes same-sex marriage. CNN analyst and National Journal's Ron Brownstein strongly hinted that Obama could be alienating some of his liberal base by sitting on the fence over the gay marriage issue. He made... continue reading
ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper apparently thinks the race is just about over for many campaigns before the Iowa caucus has even begun. On Thursday's Good Morning America, Tapper credited Mitt Romney's recent success in the polls with other campaigns "exploding" on the campaign trail. Tapper later repeated his former assertions, insisting that other candidates were "just self-immolating and careening off the highway" – harsh language for campaigns that have not even undergone the test of primary season. "[W]hile other candidates have been exploding as Iowa voters go down the road of the Iowa Caucus process, Mitt Romney... continue reading
On Thursday's World News on ABC, substitute anchor David Muir brought up the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll numbers from Monday which at that time showed President Obama with a 47 percent approval rating and a 45 percent disapproval rating. But, since Monday, the tracking poll numbers have turned further against Obama each day, with today's poll showing that the President's approval rating is back down to 41 percent with his disapproval up to 50 percent. As Muir referred to the Gallup survey as "one poll," he did not inform viewers that this same poll had trended away from Obama since... continue reading
As GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared as a guest on Thursday's Today show on NBC, substitute co-host Savannah Guthrie focused on the former Pennsylvania Senator's views on abortion and contraception, and whether he would be acceptable to "middle of the road voters." After her first question dealt with whether Santorum would just be the latest candidate to surge and then fade, the remaining three questions she asked focused on whether his social conservatism would appeal to mainstream voters. Below are all of the questions asked by Guthrie from the Thursday, December 29, Today show on NBC: SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Well,... continue reading
The second runners-up quotes in the MRC's ' Best Notable Quotables of 2011: The Twenty-Fourth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting .' As announced in a CyberAlert Special, the awards issue was posted, with videos, on Monday, December 19, but following tradition, the last weekdays of the year MRC.org's BiasAlert and corresponding CyberAlert e-mail newsletter will run the winning quotes followed on succeeding days by the runners-up. Tuesday's BiasAlert/CyberAlert featured the winners and Wednesday's ran the first runners-up. The page linked above also has links for the text of the entire issue in MS Word, OpenOffice Writer or WordPerfect... continue reading