On Wednesday night, the CBS Evening News punted on the latest batch of Hillary Clinton’s State Department e-mails released hours earlier while their competitors at ABC and NBC did cover them, but only through the veil of defending Clinton against Speaker of the House candidate Kevin McCarthy’s comments on the Benghazi Committee that NBC’s Andrea Mitchell touted as “an unlikely political lifeline.”
Cecilia Vega
By Matthew Balan | September 11, 2015 | 9:59 PM EDT
ABC, CBS, and NBC's Friday evening newscasts all barely mentioned former Texas Governor Rick Perry suspending his second bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Altogether, ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News set aside 54 seconds to Perry's announcement. By contrast, the Big Three news programs devoted 6 minutes and 11 seconds to Vice President Joe Biden's Thursday appearance on CBS's Late Show. NBC's Peter Alexander touted how Biden was still "riding a wave of emotion" after his son Beau's death in May 2015.
By Curtis Houck | September 3, 2015 | 9:53 PM EDT
The CBS Evening News bid farewell on Thursday to Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal as the newscast, unlike ABC and NBC, dodged news that longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills testified before the House Select Committee on Benghazi plus word late Wednesday night that a former staffer who helped set up her private e-mail server would invoke his Fifth Amendment by not testifying before Congress.
By Kyle Drennen | August 28, 2015 | 11:54 AM EDT
After Thursday’s network morning shows chose to ignore a finding in the latest Quinnipiac poll that voters most associate the word “liar” with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, ABC’s World News Tonight that evening and Friday’s NBC Today finally mentioned the survey. CBS continued to avoid the topic.
By Curtis Houck | August 27, 2015 | 11:07 PM EDT
While it may be a shock that the major broadcast networks on Thursday night reported that Hillary Clinton compared Republicans to “terrorists” on women’s health, it was far from a surprise that ABC and NBC openly cheered her for “coming out swinging” “on the offensive” with some “tough talk.” In addition, ABC, CBS, and NBC all refused to denounce Clinton’s comparison even though they chastised the use of the term “anchor baby” by Donald Trump and Jeb Bush.
By Jeffrey Meyer | August 4, 2015 | 10:36 AM EDT
On Tuesday, the “Big Three” network morning shows all went to bat for comedian Amy Schumer and helped promote her call for greater gun control in the wake of a shooting at a Louisiana movie theater during a showing of her movie Trainwreck. Today co-host Savannah Guthrie praised Schumer’s “emotional plea in the wake of that deadly theater shooting in Louisiana...This is a very public call for tighter gun control laws.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 26, 2015 | 2:15 PM EDT
On Sunday, reporters on ABC’s Good Morning America and This Week repeatedly complained that the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail while at the State Department “won’t go away.” On GMA, Cecilia Vega whined the story “just won’t go away.” On This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison: “These questions about the e-mails don't go away. How much are you worried that this is hurting her campaign?”
By Rich Noyes | July 13, 2015 | 8:52 AM EDT
Journalists seize upon one week's good news for President Obama to proclaim he's "clearly" a "transformational President" who has engineered "a massive progressive shift to the left." And ABC champions the "Bernie-mentum" of socialist Bernie Sanders's far-left candidacy, cheering how his campaign events seem "more like rock concerts," while the boomlet for Donald Trump is merely evidence that "xenophobic language sells" among GOP primary voters.
By Scott Whitlock | July 7, 2015 | 11:25 AM EDT
Is this 2008 all over again? ABC on Tuesday insisted that Bernie Sanders's campaign rallies are like "rock concerts" and that "Bernie-mentum" is sweeping the country. During Barack Obama's first campaign, the network routinely hyped the "rock star" candidate. Cecila Vega insisted that "Bernie Sanders has [Hillary] worried... She may be the Democratic front-runner, but this morning Clinton is feeling the burn." According to the reporter, the socialist senator enjoyed a "massive turnout at a campaign rally overnight in Maine, that at times felt more like a rock concert."
By Scott Whitlock | June 15, 2015 | 12:21 PM EDT
Talk about a softball. On Sunday's Good Morning America, co-host Dan Harris asked George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton operative, if class warfare was a "winning strategy" for Hillary Clinton. Unsurprisingly, the man who secretly donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation answered in the affirmative. Regarding Saturday's campaign launch, Harris mused, "Hillary Clinton has not wanted to be seen as a class warrior. But in this speech, she really went for it... Is this a winning strategy for her?"
By Connor Williams | May 28, 2015 | 3:25 PM EDT
In a surprising segment, ABC’s 20/20 highlighted several cases of freeloading by people looking to fraudulently claim disability. While the program did not get to the heart of the matter – just how easy it is to claim disability and the skyrocketing cost of the program – noting a major flaw in an expensive government program is rare for a liberal network like ABC.
By Curtis Houck | May 21, 2015 | 9:07 PM EDT
On Thursday, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley and NBC Nightly News showed no interest in informing their viewers that the State Department will soon be releasing the first batch of e-mails that Hillary Clinton turned over following the uncovering of her private e-mail server. While CBS and NBC punted on this revelation, ABC’s World News Tonight covered Clinton’s e-mails and surprisingly offered a full report on them.