1. NBC Skips More Upbeat Iraq Judgment ABC and CBS Find Newsworthy NBC Nightly News on Monday ignored a development both ABC and CBS found newsworthy, that after eight days in Iraq, two Brookings Institution scholars who describe themselves as "harshly" critical of Bush's Iraq policy, determined the situation in Iraq is better than they assumed and so the "surge" should continue into next year. Instead of reporting the fresh assessment from Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, NBC anchor Brian Williams, citing "a draft U.S. report," aired a full story on how "there are disturbing new details about corruption at... continue reading
1. Nets Barely Notice Surge in GDP as They Focus on Dow Plunge The ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts on Friday all devoted full stories to the fall in the stock market, touted as "the worst two-day point drop for the Dow in five years," but barely had time for a sentence about the 3.4 percent second quarter jump in the GDP, the biggest in over a year. In fact, neither ABC nor NBC cited the specific 3.4 percent rise in the Gross Domestic Product, the measure which the AP on Friday described as the "best barometer of the... continue reading
1. NBC Profiles Army Sergeant Fulfilling 'Dream' of Serving in Iraq Thursday's NBC Nightly News combined the usual with the unusual for an evening newscast story: A breast cancer survivor story which would appeal to woman and a look at an Army Sergeant who has now fulfilled her 'dream' of getting to serve in Iraq, hardly a view expressed very often on network news. Anchor Brian Williams introduced the profile: "Tonight we have a story of a woman who is serving her country and serving as an example, in her bravery, to the rest of us." Checking in on the... continue reading
1. Housing Prices Up, Yet CBS Cites Comparison to Great Depression On a day when the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported a rise in the price of homes so the average median price is above where it was a year ago, Wednesday's CBS Evening News featured a soundbite claiming "home price depreciation" unprecedented since the Great Depression. "The housing market is going deeper in the dumper," anchor Katie Couric rhymed, as "America's Realtors reported today that used homes were selling in June at the slowest pace in four and a half years." She acknowledged "a bright note for homeowners,"... continue reading
1. CNN's You Tube Debate Delivers Questions from the Left During Monday night's CNN/You Tube Democratic presidential debate, the candidates were hit with questions from the left over the right by nearly a 3-to-1 margin: 17 liberal questions posed in You Tube clips versus six conservative clips. With CNN's You Tube forum with Republican presidential candidates set for September 17, CNN has eight weeks to ensure an equal approach of of pushing each party from the direction of its base, so Republicans should be pressed from the right by about 3-to-1 over from the left. But if most of the... continue reading
1. Spike Movie's Iraq War Vet Earns Applause for Denouncing the War The first part of Spike TV's mini-series, The Kill Point, on Sunday night featured a scene in which an Iraq war veteran bank robber holding hostages earned applause from a crowd outside the bank when he denounced the war. Walking outside the bank to meet the police negotiator, "Mr. Wolf" played by John Leguizamo, a former Marine Corps Sergeant who served a year in Leavenworth for disobeying an order that apparently led to the deaths of other Marines, removed his shirt and pants to show scars from his... continue reading
1. 14,000 Dow; ABC: 'There's a Good Deal of Worrisome Economic News' Repeating the downbeat spin employed when the Dow Jones Industrials passed 13,000 in late April and ABC's reporter warned "we're actually overdue for a correction," less than three months later when the Dow closed over 14,000, ABC's World News put the news into a "yes, but" framework. Fill-anchor Elizabeth Vargas on Thursday night led with the record high close, but fretted that "there's a good deal of worrisome economic news these days -- from sky-high gas prices to America's gaping trade deficit" and "yet," she marveled, "the market... continue reading
1. CBS Frames Vote Around Most Want Timetable; Skip 8% Want No Money The CBS Evening News led Wednesday night by framing the failed Senate vote, on setting a timetable to start withdrawing troops from Iraq within 120 days, as evidence of how out of step the Senators are with the American public, while just as Katie Couric did in February, CBS ignored how a piddling 8 percent favor the left-wing activist position of blocking all funding. Citing the measure which earned 52 votes, eight short of the necessary 60 to move the bill forward, Couric related that even after... continue reading
1. CNN: Bush Uses 'Smoke & Mirrors' to Get 'Pavlovian' Iraq Support Appearing from Baghdad on Tuesday's Situation Room to discuss the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), CNN correspondent Michael Ware strayed from reporting into opinion-making as he rued "the smoke and mirrors from the administration" trying to make Iraq about al Qaeda to invoke a "Pavlovian response from the American public." He also mocked General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the segment aired near the top of the 5pm EDT hour, and re-run during the 7pm EDT hour of The Situation Room, anchor Wolf... continue reading
1. ABC Features 'Great Candor' from 'Bitter' Soldiers in Iraq ABC's World News on Monday night featured video of what was described as "great candor" from "bitter" soldiers in Iraq, one of whom demanded: "I challenge the President or whoever has us here for 15 months to ride alongside me." Fill-in anchor David Muir explained how "photographer Sean Smith of the British newspaper The Guardian was recently embedded with the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division in Baghdad. Tonight, what he returned with: American soldiers speaking with great candor about what they face there every day." Unsaid by Muir, that The... continue reading