In an interview with left-wing website Vox.com released on Monday, President Obama downplayed the threat from radical Islamic terrorism and blamed the media for supposedly hyping the danger: "If it bleeds, it leads, right? You show crime stories and you show fires, because that's what folks watch, and it's all about ratings. And, you know, the problems of terrorism and dysfunction and chaos, along with plane crashes and a few other things, that's the equivalent when it comes to covering international affairs."
Ed Henry
By Curtis Houck | February 5, 2015 | 10:51 PM EST
Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Barack Obama took the step of comparing terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists to Christianity being the justification for the Crusades, slavery, and Jim Crow laws in America. The “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC all ignored the President’s critique of Christianity during the Thursday evening newscasts with only ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir even mentioning that the event. Obama’s comments were a focus in the roundtable on FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier
By Curtis Houck | January 7, 2015 | 9:33 PM EST
On Wednesday night, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the contradicting statements made by President Obama in condemning the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris as an attack on free speech, but stating in a 2012 speech at the United Nations that “the future does not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.”
When it came to discussing the terrorist attack in France on Wednesday, the President struck a different tone from 2012 when it came to the freedom of speech and expression: “Our universal belief in freedom of expression is something that can't be silenced because of the senseless violence of the few.”
By Tim Graham | December 26, 2014 | 2:42 PM EST
Liberals were overjoyed that President Obama only called on females in his year-ending news conference on December 19. Vanity Fair headlined its story “Obama’s All-Women Press Conference Deals Glancing Blow to Patriarchy.”
Simon Maloy at Salon turned into another opportunity for Fox-bashing and male-loathing:
By NB Staff | December 10, 2014 | 5:11 PM EST
Fox News Channel White House correspondent Ed Henry posed some tough questions to White House press secretary Josh Earnest regarding President Obama's hypocrisy on enhanced interrogation techniques.
By Curtis Houck | October 9, 2014 | 10:04 PM EDT
According to a report in The Washington Post, senior White House officials knew that an individual with the White House advance team had a prostitute spend the night with him as part of the 2012 Colombian prostitution scandal despite the White House previously denying any involvement during the official investigation.
After failing to cover the story on their morning newscasts, ABC and NBC continued that blackout into their Thursday evening newscasts as well. The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley ignored the story as well, despite the network having aired a full report on Thursday’s CBS This Morning.
PBS Promotes Obama's Claim Country Has Improved ‘By Every Economic Measure’; Lou Dobbs Proves Otherwise
By Curtis Houck | October 2, 2014 | 10:43 PM EDT Following President Obama’s speech on the economy on Thursday, the PBS NewsHour offered a 48-second news brief on the subject, in which co-anchor Gwen Ifill offered no opposing viewpoint to the President’s claim in his speech that “by every measure, the country is better off than when he took office.”
The show then played a soundbite of the President, in which he lamented that “millions of Americans don't yet feel enough of the benefits of a growing economy where it matters most, and that’s in their own lives and these truths aren't incompatible. Our broader economy, in the aggregate, has come a long way, but the gains of recovery are not yet broadly shared.”
By Curtis Houck | September 24, 2014 | 8:59 PM EDT
During his speech to the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly on Wednesday, President Barack Obama made a striking, unusual and ridiculous comparison between the reign of terror taking place in the Middle East at the hands of the brutal Islamic terrorist group ISIS and the unrest that took place in Ferguson, Missouri last month after the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
As far as the any of the major broadcast networks bringing up this absurd comparison on their evening newcasts, neither ABC, CBS, or NBC gave that portion of the President’s speech any attention or allowed it to see the light of day.
By Jackie Seal | June 20, 2014 | 4:59 PM EDT
Soon-to-be White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest took to the podium of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room for his last outing as deputy press secretary. He will move into the White House Press Secretary role next week as Jay Carney officially vacates the job.
If we learned anything from his “test run” today, it’s that Earnest has learned the art of White House spin from his boss. When questioned about the IRS e-mail scandal, Earnest repeatedly touted “Republican conspiracy theories” as the ruling force behind any and all questions involving the scandal.
By Scott Whitlock | January 7, 2014 | 11:35 AM EST
The journalists at Good Morning America on Tuesday offered a gushing, excited look at Michelle Obama's "extended vacation" in Hawaii, offering no questions or skepticism about what the trip will cost taxpayers. Entertainment reporter Lara Spencer enthused, "This morning, there are reports that Mrs. Obama is spending the rest of her stay with her good friend Oprah Winfrey at her estate on the island of Maui. Winfrey will also be celebrating a milestone birthday." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Spencer hyped the First Lady's impending birthday, touting, "Word is there won't be a formal dinner but there will be plenty of dancing. She does love to dance and we wish her a very happy birthday." On Monday, Fox News reporter Ed Henry quizzed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: "The First Lady stayed behind and the White House said that was an early birthday present from the President. Does that mean he's paying for the flight back or taxpayers?"
By Tim Graham | October 12, 2013 | 8:56 AM EDT
Talk about your government shutdown. Conservatives would have enjoyed watching liberal TV reporters sputter if President Bush had completely skipped the first row of reporters and picked only friendly reporters, even writers for conservative blog sites. But the media elites would have thrown a major tantrum about censorship -- including Jay Carney in his tenure at Time magazine.
Put the shoe on the other foot, and the liberal media is pretty quiet. President Obama failed to call on TV reporters at his Wednesday press conference, even though he came to The Huffington Post for a shoe-shine question. Then Tommy Christopher at Mediaite pointed out White House press briefer Jay Carney aggressively ignored Ed Henry of Fox News twice at Friday’s briefing, so he walked out:
By Brent Bozell | September 10, 2013 | 11:22 PM EDT
When we last checked in on Barack Obama discussing Benghazi on the network news, he was reassuring Brian Williams on the October 25 “Rock Center” that “We’re going to do a full investigation.” It’s a year later and it’s still “we are going to.” Last fall, Williams and Obama posed as curious for answers on how this disaster happened. Neither of them has demonstrated any noticeable curiosity since.
A new Media Research Center study of Benghazi coverage in 2013 on ABC, CBS, and NBC shows there are two routine modes of operation: (a) praising Team Obama’s public relations and (b) silence.