MRC's Tim Graham Discusses Networks' Fading Coverage of IRS Scandal on Fox Business

June 1st, 2013 7:37 AM

MRC director of media analysis Tim Graham appeared on the Fox Business program Varney & Co. on Friday morning to discuss the fading network coverage of the IRS scandal, even though a new poll shows the American people find that to be the most serious Obama scandal.

Substitute host Charles Payne asked if the media were turning tough on Obama. “We already have disturbing signs that the networks are dropping off this,” Graham said, since IRS official Lois Lerner refused to testify and took the Fifth. (Video below)

Graham said we may have a “two-tiered system” of coverage like in President Clinton’s second term, where the “professionals” in print media and cable news cover the scandals, while the networks cover fluff like whether Beyonce is pregnant again.

"We have something like Mr. Shulman going to the White House more than 157 times now. That is not something the networks have covered. That is not a concept that they have ever expressed."

Monica Crowley added that Bob Schieffer announced the media have the power to determine the “shelf life” of a scandal.

Graham replied: "This is one of the ways the news media wields enormous power over our political culture, in what it defines as a scandal, and what it defines as a ‘so-called controversy,’ to use the terms they like to use. When the AP wrote a story the other day that even the AP scandal was an ‘alleged scandal,’ then you know these people are desperate to say it’s not a scandal."