Following President Obama’s comments at the G-7 summit on Monday about the United States still having “no complete strategy” for fighting ISIS, NBC Nightly News went to work in spinning for the President by touting his reasoning and neglecting to mention that he uttered similar remarks back on August 28, 2014. In contrast, ABC's World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News noted the similarity in Obama’s remarks on Monday and in August with multiple doses of criticism for the commander-in-chief.
David Muir
By Curtis Houck | June 4, 2015 | 8:52 PM EDT
Former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry announced a second presidential campaign on Thursday afternoon, but viewers on the Thursday evening network newscasts may have missed the news altogether if not careful since the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC gave Perry less than a minute and a half of combined airtime.
By Tim Graham | June 2, 2015 | 9:59 AM EDT
Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi reported Tuesday something that TV news junkies know: “ABC News” is beginning to sound tinny. It’s more like “ABC Fun to Know.” Farhi softened it to “It’s brighter, tighter and indeed quite a bit lighter than its evening rivals.” That’s code for “dumber.”
Farhi noted ABC has no full-time congressional correspondent for the evening news, and despite the title World News almost never leads with....world news. “During May, the broadcast led with domestic news almost every night of the week, despite a flood of developments in Syria, Iraq, Europe and elsewhere.”
By Joseph Rossell | June 1, 2015 | 10:48 AM EDT
Media coverage of food has become as tough to swallow as a piece of gristle. Cholesterol, food dyes, salt and more dominate headlines -- even though news stories often can’t decide if those things are good or bad for us. Now the Obama administration is moving to practically ban trans fat, an ingredient once promoted as a “health product.”
By Matthew Balan | May 29, 2015 | 8:56 PM EDT
On Friday's World News Tonight, ABC's David Muir avoided mentioning the critics as he reported on the Obama administration removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Instead, Muir spotlighted how "President Obama [told] us back in December his plans to restore diplomatic ties with the Cuban government," and that during a January 2015 visit to the island country, "the children of Cuba [told] us they want to visit America."
By Matthew Balan | May 28, 2015 | 3:54 PM EDT
The Big Three's morning newscasts on Wednesday and Thursday all covered the breach of an online IRS system by hackers that compromised the personal information of 100,000 taxpayers. However, none of the programs mentioned President Obama by name during their reporting, nor did they revisit any of the other problems or scandals involving the agency in recent years. CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News have yet to cover the IRS hacking, as of Wednesday evening.
By Curtis Houck | May 27, 2015 | 9:40 PM EDT
Following Rick Santorum’s announcement Wednesday that he will mount a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, CBS and NBC largely punted on news of a seventh Republican candidate entering the field with a combined 37 seconds of airtime on their Wednesday evening newscasts. Over on the Spanish-language networks, however, the coverage was even less as there was zero mention of Santorum’s announcement on the evening newscasts of MundoFox, Telemundo, and Univision.
By Curtis Houck | May 27, 2015 | 8:15 PM EDT
In Wednesday’s edition of the liberal media spinning for Hillary Clinton, ABC’s World News Tonight chose not to mention any of the recent developments regarding the various Clinton scandals but instead promote her prediction that, unlike previous presidents, her hair would not turn white if she’s elected president. Anchor David Muir eagerly touted how Hillary Clinton was “making headlines of her own tonight.”
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.
By Curtis Houck | May 20, 2015 | 8:23 PM EDT
On Wednesday, a federal grand jury indicted liberal activist and Florida postal worker Douglas Hughes on a total of six felony and misdemeanor charges in relation to his April 15 landing of gyropcopter on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol that, if convicted, could result in up to a nine-and-half-year prison sentence. When it came to the major broadcast networks covering this story on their Wednesday night newscasts, CBS and NBC neglected to devote even a second to this story.
By Curtis Houck | May 19, 2015 | 9:47 PM EDT
Following Hillary Clinton’s decision to take questions from the press for the first time in over three weeks, ABC, CBS and NBC all covered the story on their Tuesday evening newscasts and, once again, were all too happy to spin for her. They all mentioned a federal judge’s ruling that her e-mails should be released more quickly, but they ignored news that she had a second private e-mail address and that Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal advised her on Libya despite the fact that he was banned from working at the State Department. ABC's David Muir hailed how Clinton faced “tough new questions.”
By Curtis Houck | May 19, 2015 | 12:25 AM EDT
While Monday’s editions of the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News refused to criticize the Obama administration on ISIS after the fall of Ramadi, the pair did devote time to hyping President Obama’s opening of an official Twitter account (to go along with his campaign account). In the case of the CBS Evening News, the story received both a tease and fawning news brief as anchor Scott Pelley gushed in the tease that “[n]o sitting president has done what this sitting president did today.”