Of the three networks, only ABC on Thursday reported that Barack Obama has transferred five more detainees out of Guantanamo Bay. The network allowed a scant 16 seconds to the news, but CBS and NBC totally skipped it.
Amy Robach
By Scott Whitlock | January 9, 2015 | 12:30 PM EST
All three networks on Friday hyped Barack Obama's call for "free community college," but CBS, NBC and ABC offered very little in the way of skepticism about the cost or feasability of such a proposal.
By Matthew Balan | December 8, 2014 | 4:30 PM EST
On Monday, ABC and NBC's morning newscasts both touted the upcoming congressional report on the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation techniques as "explosive" and "damning." However, neither network pointed out that it was Democratic members on the Senate Intelligence Committee that commissioned the document. By contrast, CBS This Morning reported that "Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are set to release a controversial report on the CIA."
By Kyle Drennen | December 4, 2014 | 11:36 AM EST
While both ABC's Good Morning America and CBS This Morning on Thursday offered brief reports on seventeen states suing the Obama administration over the President's executive order granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants without congressional approval, NBC's Today completely skipped the legal challenge to the controversial action.
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 12, 2014 | 10:30 AM EST
Early Wednesday morning, Republican Dan Sullivan officially defeated incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) more than a week after Election Day. With the victory, the GOP now has 53 Senate seats and could pick up a 54th seat if Congressman Bill Cassidy (R-La.) defeats incumbent Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in December’s runoff election. Despite the GOP victory, NBC’s Today ignored the story altogether during its Wednesday morning broadcast but found time to talk about the world’s largest corn maze.
By Matthew Balan | October 16, 2014 | 3:45 PM EDT
As of Thursday morning, NBC's morning and evening newscasts have yet to cover the New York Times's front-page article on Wednesday about Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons stockpiles in Iraq, which were discovered by U.S. forces after the Iraq War. NBC was quick to cast doubt on the existence of these WMD's during the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion.
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 16, 2014 | 10:58 AM EDT
On Thursday morning, all three network morning shows hyped Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott’s refusal to appear on stage for a scheduled debate with his Democratic opponent, former Governor Charlie Crist, due to the appearance of an unapproved fan. Despite the “big three” enthusiastically covering the Republican governor’s “Fangate” episode, the networks have repeatedly refused to cover political controversies from Democrats running for office this year.
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 15, 2014 | 11:12 AM EDT
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll is out and it has some sobering news for Democrats with less than three weeks to go until the midterm election. The poll found that President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of just 40 percent and the Democratic Party’s popularity is at its weakest point in the last 30 years. Despite ABC News declaring that their own poll “has Democrats sweating,” ABC’s Good Morning America gave the story a mere 17 seconds on its Wednesday morning broadcast and buried it among a flurry of news briefs
By Matthew Balan | October 14, 2014 | 5:33 PM EDT
On Tuesday, the Big Three networks' morning newscasts carried water for the left-wing Human Rights Campaign by adopting their "seismic shift" label about the midterm report from the Catholic bishops' Extraordinary Synod on the Family. On Good Morning America, ABC's Amy Robach trumpeted that "the Catholic Church appears to be making a seismic shift towards gays and divorcees." Norah O'Donnell also used the "seismic" term on CBS This Morning.
By Curtis Houck | October 10, 2014 | 11:27 AM EDT
On Friday morning, ABC’s Good Morning America aired a news brief that described state voter identification laws struck down in Texas and Wisconsin as “restrictive” and passed on the opinion of the judge who put Texas’s law on hold as being “a poll tax designed to keep minorities from voting.”
During the 7:00 a.m. hour, newsreader Amy Robach offered the following news brief: "Back in this country, restrictive new voter ID laws are on hold in Wisconsin and Texas this morning, just weeks before Election Day. A federal judge overturned it the Texas Law, comparing it to a poll tax designed to keep minorities from voting and overnight, the Supreme Court delayed implementation of Wisconsin’s voter I.D. law."
By Tim Graham | September 15, 2014 | 8:17 AM EDT
When a Washington Post-ABC News poll ends up finding the "Best News for Republicans," the Post tries to find other findings to highlight in their headlines.
"Majority of Americans find Obama presidency a failure" wasn't going to be bolded on the front page. They went with "Support widens for air strikes" instead. ABC News, their polling partner, never found it.
By Scott Whitlock | August 29, 2014 | 12:07 PM EDT
Although all three networks covered Barack Obama's admission on Thursday that "we don't have a strategy" for responding to Islamic militants in Syria, ABC, CBS and NBC journalists were really animated by the President's tan suit. GMA news reader Amy Robach on Friday enthused, "Finally this morning, some presidential critics are saying, 'yes, we tan!'" [For a video montage, see below. MP3 audio here.]
Over on NBC's Today, Dylan Dreyer lectured Twitter on the superficiality of such a topic: "President Obama had a very important press conference. He was talking about all sorts of world issues. So of course social media was focused on those world issues, right? Of course not. They were focused on his tan suit." Dreyer mocked Twitter in the midst of NBC's obsessing about the suit.