On Thursday morning, ABC and NBC refused to cover the latest scoop in the IRS scandal. Politico reported on Wednesday afternoon that former IRS official Lois Lerner cautioned her colleagues about what they write in emails in case any of them come under congressional investigation.
CBS This Morning did not do much better, as the news warranted only a 19 second mention during the 7:30 a.m. half hour when covering headlines from publications across the country. [MP3 audio here; Video below]
On Monday, all three broadcast network morning news shows gave mention to the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in Washington state with sales set to begin on Tuesday. In particular, CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today devoted entire segments to the drug and not only were both stories positive, a statement from the former President of Drug Watch International on Today was the only sort of opposing viewpoint provided.
The four-minute-and-eight-second piece by CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen was the latest in what truly has been a network oscillating back and forth between critical stories and puff pieces on pot. Without question, Monday’s report belonged in the latter. After mentioning that sales will begin Tuesday in Washington, Petersen went on to profile the writers of The Cannabis, a website run by The Denver Post that is “about all things pot.” [MP3 audio here; Video below]
CBS Evening News seems to have shifted from merely reporting the news to becoming an advocate. On Tuesday, June 17, fill-in host Jeff Glor introduced a segment on gun control that sounded more like anti-gun propaganda from Michael Bloomberg than an actual news report.
Glor began by hyping “Today, the man who reenergized the movement for stricter gun laws took his fight to the nation's capital. Last month, Richard Martinez lost his son, one of six student shots or stabbed to death near the University of California Santa Barbara.” [See video below.]
The journalists at ABC and NBC on Monday couldn't manage to cover the revelation that the IRS lost two years-worth of Lois Lerner's e-mails. Yet, reporters on all three networks mourned the loss of a parking garage connected to the four decade-old Watergate scandal. Sunday CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor pronounced, "The world's most famous parking garage will be destroyed." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Just how many "famous" parking garages are there?
Glor explained that the county board in Arlington, Virginia "voted this weekend to demolish the garage where Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward met secretly with his Watergate source Deep Throat, Mark Felt." However, he reassured viewers that a "historical marker will remain." The story was also covered on Sunday's World News, Monday's Today show and CBS This Morning.
Mellody Hobson, the woman President Obama once described as “one of my earliest supporters” appeared on CBS This Morning on Saturday April 5 to glorify the March jobs report which showed that the economy created just 192,000 jobs.
Co-host Anthony Mason described Hobson as a “CBS News contributor and analyst” before the Obama donor declared “The good news to me, it wasn't a disaster. It wasn't a huge fall-off. We've seen a steady uptick since December. And the other thing to keep in mind, the numbers have been revised up seven months in a row. So the February numbers were just revised up 20,000 jobs so we might still see that still happen next month.” [See video below.]
On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, Jan Crawford zeroed in how President Obama "has got another fight on his hands" over the Supreme Court case challenging the federal government's controversial ObamaCare abortifacients and contraceptive mandate, just as "his administration is trying to get that website up and running".
Crawford pointed out that this "legal battle in the Supreme Court could scale back some of what he was trying to accomplish with the law in the first place". She also underlined that "all this comes as many Americans are feeling forced into this law". [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
NBC hasn't covered the ongoing Bob Filner sexual harassment scandal an almost a week, despite a fifteenth woman – a 67-year-old great grandmother – coming forward on Thursday, accusing the former congressman of making lurid comments to her. The last time that NBC's morning and evening newscasts covered the Filner story was on August 10, 2013.
On Friday, ABC and CBS's morning newscasts aired news briefs on the latest development in the Filner controversy, but both failed to identify him as a Democrat. Mere seconds before reporting on the San Diego mayor, CBS This Morning pointed out the Democratic party affiliation of Filner's former congressional colleague, Jackie Speier, who blasted the Defense Department on their handling of sexual assaults in the military. [audio available here; video below the jump]
On Sunday's CBS Evening News, Anna Werner surprisingly acknowledged that ObamaCare may be a "tough sell" even among the left-leaning population of Oregon. Werner's report on a hokey multi-million dollar campaign trying to get young people to sign up for the West Coast state's health care marketplace came three days after CBS reported that the controversial law's approval rating is at an all-time low. [video below the jump]
While the correspondent featured two pro-ObamaCare talking heads, she also played soundbites from a 20-year-old who denounced the law: "As much as you can have an ad campaign that, sort of, inspires people, at the end of the day, the government is in Washington, DC, and has never met you."
On Sunday's CBS Evening News, John Blackstone spotlighted the sob story of fourth graders who are lobbying President Obama to allow the return of their former classmate, Rodrigo Guzman, who was deported with his family back to Mexico. Blackstone sympathized with the schoolchildren who "hope to visit Washington, to personally lobby for Rodrigo's return."
The correspondent trumpeted the children's cause: "The students' activism shouldn't be surprising, perhaps, in a class where they've been studying civil rights leaders." The only soundbites that Blackstone played during the report came from the fourth grade teacher and students at Guzman's former school in the leftist enclave of Berkeley, California [audio available here; video below the jump]
CBS used its Sunday evening and Monday morning newscasts to keep the spotlight on the question of a "possible cover-up" surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Jeff Glor led CBS Evening News with the scoop from earlier in the day on Face the Nation – that a "career U.S. diplomat is raising new questions" about the Obama administration's claim that the attack spontaneously erupted in response to an early protest in Egypt.
Monday's CBS This Morning also aired a report on this latest development on the September 11, 2012 attack. Meanwhile, ABC and NBC have yet to pick up on the veteran diplomat's allegations, despite the fact that he is set to testify publicly to Congress on the issue on Wednesday.
The NBC, ABC, and CBS morning shows on Monday all touted President Obama seemingly calling for more gun control during a Sunday night vigil for the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting. NBC's Today provided the most hype as correspondent Lester Holt proclaimed: "While he offered words of comfort, he also laid down a political gauntlet....sketching the outlines of what amounted to a policy statement on gun violence."
Holt acknowledged: "He did not utter the words 'gun control,' but his message could set the stage for such a debate." Speaking to co-host Savannah Guthrie later on the broadcast, Holt observed: "He didn't talk specifics, Savannah. But you got the sense that he was laying down a political gauntlet, saying perhaps it's time now to look at this issue of gun violence from all perspectives, political risks laid to the side." Guthrie replied: "Well, we'll see what happens when lawmakers get started in January with the new term."
All three morning shows on Wednesday touted White House talking points linking Mitt Romney to a Republican Senate candidate in Indiana who, while speaking about "the horrible situation of rape," called life a "gift from God." Only one program, CBS This Morning, seemed to notice how closely this story mirrored Democratic spin.
As though he was referencing a connection to a criminal, former Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos intoned, "Mitt Romney catching some flak for his ties to a GOP Senate candidate making controversial comments about abortion and rape in a Tuesday debate." Trying to make trouble, reporter David Muir asserted that the GOP campaign is "trying to distance itself from a Senate candidate that Romney endorsed, did a TV ad for." Muir needled, "The [Romney] campaign did not say whether it would ask [Richard] Mourdock to take down this ad." CBS's Norah O'Donnell speculated that the remark could cost Republicans a shot at "control of the Senate." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]