1. GDP Soars and Unemployment Drops; CBS: "Economy is Slowing Down" A week after ignoring the announcement of a roaring 5.3 percent GDP growth rate in the first quarter, and on the day unemployment fell a tenth of a point to 4.6 percent -- the lowest level since July of 2001 -- the CBS Evening News decided to lead Friday with how, as anchor Russ Mitchell put it: "There are new signs this evening that the economy is slowing down." Reporter Anthony Mason asserted that "rising interest rates and rising gas prices are beginning to put the brakes on the... continue reading
1. Schneider: "Clinton Felt Your Pain, George Bush Flew Over It" CNN's Bill Schneider sounded more like a spokesman for the Democratic Party than a seasoned political analyst during the 4pm EDT hour of Thursday's The Situation Room. Prompted by the mayoral inauguration in New Orleans, Schneider provided a report on the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the impact it will have on the 2006 mid-term elections. He opined over a picture of President Bush looking out the window of Air Force One: "The President's image of compassion was shaky to begin with, even though he calls himself... continue reading
1. CBS's Early Show Gives Unencumbered Forum to "Comeback Kid" Gore And CBS makes three. A week after the ABC and NBC morning shows trumpeted Al Gore's hysterical movie on global warming and championed another presidential run by him, he came aboard CBS's Early Show on Wednesday where Harry Smith provided another friendly forum. Smith celebrated: "Out of the shadows of yesterday's news, Al Gore has suddenly emerged as the comeback kid." Smith wondered: "Will Hillary Clinton soon have a former Vice President to contend with on the 2008 presidential campaign trail? That's a good question" and he pleaded with... continue reading
1. MSNBC's Unger Ludicrously Claims Gore a Victim of "Swift-Boating" Citing one comment from a meteorologist quoted on the ninth page (78th paragraph) of a Washington Post Magazine story, remarks by an unnamed "pundit" and an unidentified "Fox News analyst," as well as a gentle TV ad campaign with the hardly threatening tag line of "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life," fill-in MSNBC host Brian Unger ludicrously devoted a segment of Tuesday's Countdown to the "Swift-Boating of Al Gore." Unger gushed about how "Gore wants to do something admirable like save the planet" and then fretted:... continue reading
1. Hume and Douglass Scold ABC for Overplaying "Bad" Hastert Story On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume, a veteran of ABC News, chided his former employer: "ABC News came out with this [Hastert] story, worded the way it was. 'Included in the investigation,' 'in the mix of the investigation,' has an unmistakable implication, and that is the guy's under investigation. We have now had an absolutely unequivocal denial of that, not only from the Justice Department at one level, but....Paul McNulty, the U.S. Attorney, came out and denied that as well. This looks like a bad story. They led their... continue reading
1. ABC Notes Denials Yet Ross Stands By Hastert Bribery Probe Claim A night after ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas hyperbolically led "with a major development in a Washington bribery scandal" in "a story with potentially major political implications" and Brian Ross asserted that "federal officials tell us the congressional bribery investigation now includes the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert," which George Stephanopoulos called "potentially seismic," Ross acknowledged that the "Department of Justice issued two separate denials of our report," yet he stood by his story. Ross asserted on Thursday's World News Tonight: "As for the facts of our story... continue reading
1. NBC Brings Out Tom Brokaw to Tout Al Gore's "Compelling" Movie Network Gore Promotion, Part 1 of 3. NBC brought Tom Brokaw back onto the NBC Nightly News on Wednesday to trumpet Al Gore's "stylish and compelling movie" which "graphically describes the realities and consequences of global warming." Sitting at the anchor desk with Brian Williams, Brokaw gushed: "Brian, the Vice President's film tonight, which is called An Inconvenient Truth, is a stylish and compelling video version of an argument that he's been making for a long time, that global warming is real and it's getting worse." Brokaw presumed... continue reading
1. ABC Champions: "The Comeback Kid? Al Gore Takes on the World" With "The Comeback Kid? Al Gore Takes on the World," as the on-screen moniker, ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday championed Al Gore's comeback, through his hysterical global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, which ABC took quite seriously as Claire Shipman touted a potential Gore presidential run. Shipman enthused: "The guy that George Bush Senior derisively dubbed 'Ozone Man' may have hit his stride after five years in hibernation by promoting his longtime passion." Shipman trumpeted: "Here's Al being celebrated in Cannes, doing the celebrity thing at an... continue reading
1. Borger Spins Democrat's Corruption Into Bad News for Both Parties Gloria Borger concluded her Monday CBS Evening News story on the FBI's weekend confiscation of cash from a freezer in Louisiana Democratic Congressman William Jefferson's home by declaring a pox on both parties: "At a time when 77 percent of the American public believes that all members of Congress take bribes, Congressman Jefferson's troubles help no one in either party." Unlike ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas and NBC anchor Campbell Brown who noted Jefferson's party affiliation in their story introductions, CBS's Bob Schieffer managed to set up Borger's report without... continue reading
1. Top Journalists Denounce English as Official Language as "Silly" On the Sunday shows, three top journalists mocked and ridiculed the Thursday Senate vote to make English the official national language, and thus prevent demands for government agencies to provide official forms and processes in other languages. On ABC's This Week, Cokie Roberts dismissed it as "a very silly debate" and Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International, castigated the bill as "nonsense" and "nativist populism that is distasteful." In his end of show commentary on Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer also derided the vote as "silly." 2. MSNBC Sees GOP... continue reading