Barry Petersen

CBS Puffs Legalized Pot in Colorado, Touts the Best Marijuana: 'Ghost Train Haze'
By Scott Whitlock | April 21, 2014 | 4:00 PM EDT

CBS This Morning journalist Barry Petersen on Monday offered a puff piece on legalized pot in Colorado, displaying no skepticism about health effects. Instead, he happily explained that "more than 60,000 gathered to party for 4/20. In marijuana lore, the day in April to celebrate all things pot." Petersen noted that the convention includes "an actual trophy for the best pot." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

He informed viewers that the award went to "a Denver-grown variety called Ghost Train Haze." The entire story contained zero mention of any downside to increased pot use, despite the just-released study concluding that even casual marijuana use may damage your brain. 

After Hyping Colorado's 'Marijuana Munchies,' CBS Belatedly Discovers 'Contaminated' Pot
By Scott Whitlock | February 19, 2014 | 12:13 PM EST

 

Weeks after the journalists at CBS This Morning hyped the "cannabis capitalism" taking hold in Colorado, the network has come to the belated realization that pot can be "contaminated." The state became the first in the nation to legalize marijuana, but as co-host Norah O'Donnell noted, "the supply can come with its own surprises." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Reporter Barry Petersen talked to a biologist who tests pot. After asking her what could be in the newly legalized drug, Gennifer Murray responded, "We have found molds, mildew, e-coli." She informed, "...What you can die from is contaminated cannabis."According to Murray, less than ten percent of legalized marijuana in the state is tested. Yet, on January 24, Petersen offered a light-hearted take on the drug sales, noting that "the pot tour ends at a sub shop where Acapulco gold is a sandwich and they're ready to help with those marijuana munchies."

The Media's Most Outrageous Olympic Outbursts: Saluting the Socialists
By Geoffrey Dickens | February 6, 2014 | 10:00 AM EST

Sports fans checking in on coverage of Team USA at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia might want to brace themselves for unexpected outbursts of liberal preaching from reporters covering the games. Over the years the MRC has documented lefty reporters and writers using the games to celebrate socialist policies, bash expressions of patriotism and even work in jabs against Republicans, like when Bryant Gumbel, in 2006, complained that the “paucity” of black athletes “makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”

In the spirit of the games, the most outrageous journalists are competing with each other in three events for the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. Today's competition: The “We Salute the Socialist Policies of the Host Nation Event.” Click the Read More button to see who takes home the gold! Will it be Matt Lauer? Harry Smith? Or a surprising dark horse?

CBS Touts 'Cannabis Capitalism' and 'Pot Tours' That Cure the 'Marijuana Munchies'
By Scott Whitlock | January 24, 2014 | 12:27 PM EST

 

The journalists at CBS This Morning on Friday appeared excited over the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, hyping the "cannabis capitalism" in the state and a new "pot tour" business that has sprouted up. Showing little skepticism, reporter Barry Petersen offered a light-hearted take: "Appropriately enough, the pot tour ends at a sub shop where Acapulco gold is a sandwich and they're ready to help with those marijuana munchies." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Petersen narrated, "Call it cannabis capitalism, the latest leaf to sprout from legalized marijuana. Michael Eymer's pot tours costs $240 bucks a person." The journalist offered a promotional look at the new industry: "Eymer has bookings and belief that he's in on one of Colorado's new growth industries. If I want to take the tour, how long am I going to have to wait to get aboard?"

CBS Mentions Colo. Shooter’s Anti-GOP Facebook Post, But Fails to Label Him 'Socialist'
By Paul Bremmer | December 16, 2013 | 5:12 PM EST

Of the three major broadcast networks’ Saturday morning shows, CBS This Morning: Saturday gave the most background information on Colorado high school shooter Karl Pierson. To their credit, CBS reported on one particular Facebook post that gives us a window into Pierson’s ideological leanings.

Correspondent Barry Petersen mentioned it at the top of the second hour of the show:

MSNBC's Hayes Impressed by Rand Paul Talking to Left on Illegal Drugs
By Brad Wilmouth | December 10, 2013 | 6:56 PM EST

On Monday's All In show, after going through a number of Rand Paul soundbites which he viewed as reflecting poorly on the Republican Senator, host Chris Hayes was impressed by Senator Paul taking a liberal point of view on the war on drugs.

Hayes talked up the possibility of the Kentucky Senator being a plus for the GOP with minority voters. Hayes:

CBS Spotlights Recall of Pro-Gun Control Politicos in Colorado; NBC Yawns
By Matthew Balan | September 11, 2013 | 6:05 PM EDT

Wednesday's CBS This Morning stood out as the only Big Three network morning show to devote a full report to Colorado voters recalling two pro-gun control state legislators. Barry Petersen highlighted how "those who oppose gun control have a lot to celebrate" with the recall, and how "those backing the two senators spent seven times more money – $3.2 million" than the gun rights supporters who spearheaded the campaign [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump].

By contrast, NBC's Today on Wednesday didn't devote a second of air time to the Colorado recall election. Instead, they set aside 36 seconds of reporting to Hillary Clinton receiving the Liberty Medal. ABC's Good Morning America also minimized their coverage, as they merely broadcasted a 16-second news brief on the story.

CBS Publicizes Catholic Dissenters' Platform Against Celibate Priesthood
By Matthew Balan | March 11, 2013 | 7:44 PM EDT

CBS's Barry Petersen slanted in favor of dissenters agitating for the repeal of the Catholic Church's centuries-old practice of celibacy for priests on the March 10, 2013 edition of Sunday Morning. Petersen hyped how "many American Catholics wonder how long celibacy will be a part of today's Church, or perhaps, how soon it may become a fading tradition."

The correspondent also failed to mention that Bill Wisniewski, one of his talking heads, is a board member for a dissenting group headed by Sister Christine Schenk, who was also featured during his report.

CBS Reporter Corrects Other CBS Reporters: Aurora Shooter’s Ammunition Purchase ‘Not that Unusual’
By Brent Baker | July 22, 2012 | 4:46 PM EDT

Correcting a common media refrain repeated moments earlier on CBS’s Face the Nation, CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen offered “to bring a little Western perspective to this issue of gun control,” pointing out that what Easterners (ie: journalists) see as an unusually large ammunition purchase of six thousand rounds is really not all that noteworthy:

In the West, you need guns to, literally, protect yourself sometimes against wild animals. The amount of ammunition that he bought, six thousand rounds, somebody said is really not that unusual if you are an avid target shooter. You would buy that much in a month. You’d go through it.

CBS Boosts Catholic Dissenters, Lets Them Bash 'Extremely Cruel' Church
By Matthew Balan | December 6, 2011 | 9:52 AM EST

CBS's Barry Petersen lined up three radicals who back feminist and other left-leaning ideologies inside the Catholic Church on the December 4 edition of the Sunday Morning program, letting only one bishop speak in support of the Church's teachings on abortion and the role of women. The correspondent omitted the dissenting beliefs of his guests, labeling one as merely an "outspoken critic of the Church."

Petersen led his report with the case of Sister Mary McBride, who incurred automatic excommunication in 2009 after she sanctioned the abortion of a eleven-week-old unborn child, as a member of the ethics committee of St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. After turning to St. Joseph's chief medical officer, who spoke in favor of the "respected nun," as the correspondent labeled Sister McBride, he played a clip from Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead, who argued that the excommunicated woman didn't show "an equal concern for the mother and for the child."

CBS Frets Over 'Dark Stain' of Bush CIA's 'Troubling' Activities in Libya
By Brad Wilmouth | September 4, 2011 | 12:09 PM EDT

On Saturday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Barry Petersen filed a report which highlighted Human Rights Watch's analysis of government records in Libya which document that, during the Bush administration, the CIA sent prisoners to Libya as part of its renditioning program. Anchor Russ Mitchell saw the papers as potentially "troubling" as he introduced the report:

CBS: China Gaining Prosperity ‘The Communist Way’
By Kyle Drennen | August 11, 2008 | 2:55 PM EDT

Julie Chen and Barry Petersen, CBS On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen introduced a segment on China hosting the Olympics: "Well, the Olympic games are more than a chance for the world's athletes to excel, they also give the host nation an opportunity to shine. For China and it's 1.3 billion people, the Beijing games are feeding a groundswell of pride." Chen then went to correspondent Barry Petersen who declared: "From designer clothes to new cars, China is getting rich. Democracies once bragged that theirs was the only way to economic success. China is doing it the communist way."

Petersen began his report by observing: "Well, China wants to throw a successful Olympics party and so far they're doing just fine. With plenty of enthusiasm spreading from Beijing pretty much around the world." Of course that ignored the heavy pollution in Beijing, constant protests, President Bush’s criticism of China’s human rights record, and the fatal stabbing of the father-in-law of a U.S. coach. Petersen went on to describe how: "Beijing has the welcome banners out to a half million visitors. More foreigners at one time than the country has seen since the Mongol invasion a thousand years ago." So Olympic visitors are like barbarian hordes?