In the first network newscasts since Hillary Clinton officially announced her presidential campaign, on Sunday night ABC and NBC cheered Clinton’s announcement and gushed over her campaign video as well as the traffic it received on Twitter. In addition, the networks refused to label her a liberal. “The campaign kicked off with this video sent out on social media. Twitter lighting up the announcement. Check this out. Retweeted 3 million times the first hour, trending number one across the globe.”
Cecilia Vega
By Jeffrey Meyer | April 12, 2015 | 10:35 AM EDT
In previewing Hillary Clinton’s expected presidential announcement on Sunday, ABC’s Good Morning America turned to George Stephanopoulos, former White House Communications Director for Bill Clinton, to supposedly provide objective analysis of her soon-to-be candidacy.
By Jeffrey Meyer | March 29, 2015 | 11:15 AM EDT
On Saturday and Sunday, the “big three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks vigorously condemned a new Indiana law that would protect private businesses from government infringement on their religious freedom. Rather than provide balanced coverage of the Indiana bill, the networks eagerly trashed the legislation as opening “the door to discrimination against gays and lesbians.”
By Curtis Houck | February 7, 2015 | 9:06 PM EST
On Saturday afternoon, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams released a statement announcing that he will be removing himself from NBC’s evening newscast “for the next several days” following the news that Williams lied about being in a helicopter that was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) over Iraq in March 2003. Later that night, all three of the major broadcast networks devoted briefs to Williams’s leave of absence in what were the first network evening news reports about him since the story was broken by Stars and Stripes on Wednesday.
By Curtis Houck | December 11, 2014 | 11:20 PM EST
On Thursday night, CBS continued to make no mention of the news that the hacking attack on Sony Pictures has revealed emails between co-chairwoman Amy Pascal and film producer Scott Rudin mocking what they perceived to be President Barack Obama’s movie tastes.
The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley covered continued fallout from the attack, but only in the context of no press being allowed at the premiere of the Sony film The Interview, which is largely believed to be the reason that the movie studio was targeted for attack.
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 2, 2014 | 7:20 PM EST
On Sunday, both ABC and NBC did their best to play up a new United Nations report on climate change, proclaiming its findings to be “alarming.” On GMA, newsreader Ron Claiborne hyped how “scientists say that the Earth is locked now in a irreversible course of global warming due to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 11, 2014 | 10:51 AM EDT
On Tuesday morning a high school student in Oregon open fire in a high school killing another student before taking his own life. Following the tragedy, all three morning network news shows played up President Obama’s reaction and promoted his call for action.
While ABC, CBS, and NBC all promoted Obama’s statement, NBC’s Today was the most enthusiastic with Savannah Guthrie noting the president “had some pretty strong words” and hyping “pretty extraordinary moment” following the shooting. [See video below.]
By Jeffrey Meyer | March 2, 2014 | 12:25 PM EST
Governor Jan Brewer (R-Ariz.) just vetoed SB 1062, and ABC’s This Week hyped the “spirited nationwide debate” that surrounded the governor’s decision. The bill would have allowed private businesses to deny service to certain individuals, such as baking a wedding cake for a gay wedding, on religious grounds.
Despite the cases across the nation where private businesses have been sued over the issue, the media was overwhelmingly biased in their coverage of the bill, portraying SB 1062 as an anti-gay bill without ever giving the religious freedom argument consideration.
By Matt Hadro | February 14, 2014 | 9:53 PM EST
On Friday night’s World News, ABC’s Cecilia Vega gave a sympathetic portrayal of a polygamist family featured on TLC’s Sister Wives.
Although Vega gave voice to critics of the Brown family, she spent most of her report interviewing the family and allowing them to defend their way of living. “They maintain theirs is a healthy lifestyle,” Vega reported. She allowed the family to distance themselves from the abuse of children and women in other polygamist families. [video below the jump]
By Nathan Roush | June 6, 2013 | 4:41 PM EDT
In Tuesday night's episode of ABC's Nightline, host Cynthia McFadden introduced a story about a "normal" community of polygamist families that live in Centennial Park, Arizona. She also went on to plug for the new National Geographic show Polygamy, USA:
To some, having more than one wife might sound like heaven on earth. But just imagine the communication skills required the potential for jealousy. And all those family logistics well they might just seem overwhelming. No one knows exactly how many polygamous live in this country. Most live in secret. There's been a lot of news about the followers of Warren Jeffs and alleged forced marriages of underage girls. But tonight we meet a community with a twist the women choose their husbands, not the other way around.
By Matt Philbin | February 12, 2013 | 12:23 PM EST
As if more proof were needed that the broadcast networks don’t get religion, and really don’t get Catholicism, analysis of the evening news programs from Feb. 11 showed a how inadequate the assumptions of liberal secular journalists were in explaining the Church, its mission and its role in the lives of the faithful.
On the day of the surprise resignation of 85-yr-old Pope Benedict XVI, ABC, CBS and NBC all danced the “The Papal Reporting Two-Step”: dwell on the negatives of the recent past before wondering hopefully if the Church will now finally step out of the dark ages of orthodoxy. Of the three, however, ABC was far and away the worst. Video after the Break.
By Scott Whitlock | September 3, 2012 | 3:45 PM EDT
Of the three morning shows, only ABC's Good Morning America on Monday highlighted two drunken delegates at the Democratic National Convention, one of whom was forced to leave North Carolina. Fill-in host Lara Spencer touted the story, asserting that "things are already off to a shaky start."
Reporter Cecilia Vega explained, "Two California Democratic delegates partied into the wee hours of Sunday morning. In the lobby of their Charlotte hotel, one was so drunk he apparently passed out and was taken to the hospital." She added that the unidentified delegate was "belligerent" and threatened with arrest for impersonating a congressman. ABC reported the story in the 7am and 8am hour. CBS This Morning and NBC's Today, however, skipped it.