"Never forget"? Sometimes one wonders if they even remember — or want to.
Both the New York and National versions of the New York Times print edition contain no mention of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks 14 years ago in New York and Washington which brought down the World Trade Center buildings, seriously damaged the Pentagon, and killed almost 3,000 people in four different locations: the two WTC buildings, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
ABC on Thursday again skipped the latest details on the widening Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal. Yet, CBS This Morning offered full coverage on the "trouble" the Democrat's campaign is facing. NBC's Today skimped on the "political problem" and the evolving FBI investigation.
ABC’s World News Tonight chose to ignore on Wednesday the latest on the Hillary Clinton e-mail server scandal to instead continue obsessing over video of a little boy being hit in the head with a football after missing a pass from Republican Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio (Fl.) in Iowa. After the networks spent 18 seconds on Tuesday night and two minutes and 43 seconds Wednesday morning on the video, anchor David Muir spent another 18 seconds promoting “one unscripted moment from the campaign trail” with the football from Rubio.
The “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC continued to cover on Wednesday night news that scandal-ridden Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton turned over her private e-mail server and numerous thumb drives to the FBI but largely brushed it off as “a headache” and “distraction” for Clinton in what has “been a tough summer.”
In a live interview with Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer lobbed a softball about the news that the Justice Department was considering launching a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal: “As you’ve heard, two inspectors general have called for a criminal investigation into her use of that private e-mail server for sensitive information. As someone who occupies the job and knows what information is handled by someone in your position, is this politics or is she in real trouble?”
Following the release on Tuesday of a second video by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) depicting a Planned Parenthood executive discussing the selling of body parts from aborted babies, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News teamed with the top Spanish-language networks to completely ignore the video. Stepping out from behind ABC and NBC and Spanish-language networks MundoFox, Telemundo, and Univision, the CBS Evening News offered a two-minute report on CMP’s second video.
On the heels of the decision by Monday’s NBC Nightly News to heavily inject politics into the murder of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle allegedly by an illegal immigrant, Friday’s CBS This Morning used the issue of sanctuary cities to somehow spin it as part of the immigration debate that’s “a tough issue for Republicans.” Correspondent Jan Crawford explained that sanctuary cities “have long been controversial” even though “[t]he thinking originally was they were a way to support immigrants, get them help if they got involved with minor offenses” but with Steinle’s murder “and immigration a contentious issue on the campaign, many politicians now are demanding change.”
On Friday, ABC's World News Tonight aired a completely one-sided report on the Supreme Court's ruling that legalized same-sex "marriage" in all 50 states. Terry Moran hyped how Justice Anthony Kennedy "wrote today's landmark opinion describing the stakes in this case in the loftiest terms." Moran failed to include any soundbites from social conservative opponents of the decision, and hyped how "Justice Scalia, in a rage, scorning Kennedy's poetic opinion as little more than a 'fortune cookie.'"
After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Barack Obama on Thursday, the journalists at NBC pounced to hail the "big victory" and assert just how relieved 2016 Republicans must be Peter Alexander touted, "So it is a big victory for the Obama administration. Basically, the Supreme Court has, for the second time, bailed out ObamaCare."
On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, Jan Crawford hyped the latest "dust-up between the musician and the politician," and underlined that "rare is the Republican candidate who isn't told to stop the music – even if...they paid licensing fees." She asked a GOP strategist, "Why is it it's always Republicans who are getting slammed by the musicians for using their songs?"
On Wednesday, CBS This Morning did its best to hype how Republican presidential candidates have faced backlash from musicians for using their music, but the network downplayed the liberal political views that dominate the music industry.
In a dramatically one-sided story for Friday’s CBS This Morning, correspondent Jan Crawford decried: “You know, these stories are heartbreaking. These veterans have sacrificed almost everything for our country and now they have these life-changing injuries that prevent them from having children naturally....The VA can't help because conservatives in Congress 23 years ago passed a law blocking it from paying the costs of IVF [in vitro fertilization] treatments for veterans.”