On Tuesday night, ABC and CBS refused to acknowledge a pair of points in its respective stories concerning news that additional U.S. special forces will be stationed inside Iraq to fight ISIS and will engage in combat roles. Along with not mentioning that the move represented the latest example of backpedaling by President Obama on a pledge to not put U.S. troops on the ground, the two networks skipped the admission by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that ISIS is not “contained” in a rebuke to the President’s recent claims.
David Martin
By Curtis Houck | September 28, 2015 | 10:52 PM EDT
While the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC all covered on Monday night the developments at the United Nations (U.N.) and the meeting between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News failed to go the distance and report that Obama’s disastrous rebel training initiative in Syria had been suspended. In contrast, the CBS Evening News not only covered the announcement from the Pentagon but led the newscast with the story.
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 15, 2015 | 2:04 PM EDT
The “Big Three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks have hailed the “historic” deal with Iran which was a described as a “major victory” for President Obama. The media, however, have a poor record when it comes to U.S. negotiations with rogue nations seeking nuclear weapons. In 1994, President Bill Clinton agreed to a deal with North Korea, an agreement which the networks at the time hailed as a sign that “the Cold War is really over.”
By Curtis Houck | June 10, 2015 | 9:14 PM EDT
Following news on Wednesday that the Obama administration will send 450 additional U.S. troops back to Iraq to help train the Iraqi military against ISIS, ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News chose to exclude any criticism of the Obama administration’s ISIS policy while NBC Nightly News made multiple critical points about the administration as Richard Engel declared: “It’s hard to see how a few hundred non-combat troops are going to make much of a difference.”
By Rich Noyes | June 9, 2015 | 9:11 AM EDT
In May, as ISIS terrorists captured the cities of Ramadi and Palmyra, and with FBI warnings of hundreds of radicalized sympathizers here in the U.S., ABC, CBS and NBC devoted a combined 84.5 evening news minutes to ISIS. Despite the dour news, viewers heard virtually no criticism of President Obama’s handling of the terror group — just 43 seconds in a pair of NBC Nightly News stories, or less than one percent of the coverage.
By Curtis Houck | May 21, 2015 | 11:28 PM EDT
As the Islamic terrorist group ISIS seized Ramadi earlier this week and now the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, the major broadcast networks have largely declined to even mention any criticism of President Obama and his so-called policy in dealing with ISIS and Thursday night was no exception as ABC and CBS declined to raise that point of view. While it was brief, NBC Nightly News did make time for criticism of the administration in a segment by chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel: "Military officials say the current U.S. strategy just isn't working."
By Jeffrey Meyer | March 26, 2015 | 10:39 AM EDT
Following an announcement that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl would be formally charged with desertion and endangering his fellow soldiers, on Thursday morning, ABC and CBS continued to omit the fact that at least one member of Bergdahl’s military unit died while searching for him in Afghanistan. In addition, the “big three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks once again ignored a June 2014 clip of National Security Advisor Susan Rice praising Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl as “serving with honor and distinction.”
By Curtis Houck | March 25, 2015 | 9:39 PM EDT
In their coverage of desertion charges filed against U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the major broadcast networks on Wednesday night failed to mention that National Security Advisor Susan Rice had praised Bergdahl for serving “with honor and distinction.” Standing in sharp contrast to this glaring omission by the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC, the clip of Rice’s claim on the June 1, 2014 broadcast of ABC’s This Week was shown on CNN and FNC newscasts.
By Matthew Balan | November 12, 2014 | 9:30 PM EST
ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening newscasts on Wednesday glossed over the radical left-wing ideology of the Turkish protesters who assaulted three U.S. sailors in Istanbul earlier in the day. ABC's Martha Raddatz reported that the "the attackers [are] members of an ultra-nationalist group called the Turkish Youth Union, angry at what it calls 'American imperialism.'" NBC's Brian Williams underlined that "these were apparently the actions of a fringe group."
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.
Statements By Dempsey Open Possibility of Troops In Iraq; Nets Rush to Reiterate Obama's Promise None Will Go
By Curtis Houck | September 17, 2014 | 12:55 AM EDT On Tuesday night, the major broadcast networks worked to quickly remind viewers that President Barack Obama has promised that no United States combat troops will be on the ground in the Middle East to fight the Islamic terrorist group ISIS despite congressional testimony by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, on Tuesday that U.S. troops returning to Iraq could still be a possibility.
ABC, CBS, and NBC each offered reports on Dempsey’s statements and included ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir asking ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl to “keep us honest” on the question of “[b]oots on the ground in Iraq” and lamented: “That's not what the President said last week.”
By Scott Whitlock | August 12, 2014 | 12:35 PM EDT
Only CBS This Morning on Tuesday bothered to cover the heartbreaking video of Iraqi refugees rushing a helicopter in a desperate attempt to escape the violence of the terrorist group ISIS. NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America ignored the gripping video.
CBS reporter David Martin narrated the CNN-supplied footage: "Iraqi Army helicopters fly in at 100 feet in broad daylight to push pallets of food and water out the door. When one found a piece of ground level enough to land on, it was immediately rushed by men, women and children, desperate to escape the Sinjar Mountains." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]