Amid the ongoing media coverage surrounding Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on illegal immigration, Thursday’s NBC Nightly News surprisingly went down to the U.S.-Mexico border to further understand on the situation. Following a news brief that mentioned a protest at the site of a Trump hotel being built in Washington D.C., anchor Lester Holt explained that even though some are “angered” by Trump’s remarks, they “are striking a cord” “for others” as they “believe he’s calling attention to a vital threat along our border.”
Lester Holt
On Tuesday night, ABC and NBC reported on the Professional Golf Association’s (PGA) decision to cut ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over his stance on illegal immigration and, predictably, the two networks deployed soundbites from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s CNN interview to bash Trump and the GOP as a whole. In addition, prompted by a Washington Post article, NBC Nightly News used a “worker” from the construction site of a Trump hotel in DC to suggest the candidate is hypocritical on the issue.
On Monday evening, both NBC Nightly News and ABC’s World News Tonight touted President Obama claiming success in the fight against ISIS while ignoring criticism of his strategy. On Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt proclaimed: “A warning today from President Obama, who emerged from a Pentagon briefing and called the fight against ISIS a quote, ‘generational struggle,’ saying it will take time to defeat this enemy.”
While it may have been surprising that all three broadcast networks covered on Monday evening the deadly violence in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, what wasn’t surprising was that they looked to blame guns for the violence and advanced the cause of more gun control (as opposed to gang violence or the need for better policing).
Monday’s network evening newscasts offered continuing coverage on the July 1 murder of a San Francisco woman allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant, but it was NBC Nightly News that shamelessly used the occasion to blast "the new Todd Akin" in Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for having “seized upon” the story to promote his stance on illegal immigration as the GOP is “desperate to win Latino voters.”
All three major broadcast networks covered on their Thursday evening newscasts the June 2015 jobs report, but it was ABC’s World News Tonight that neglected provide any further details and/or context beyond the unemployment rate and number of jobs added and omitted how hourly wages remained flat and the labor force participation rate sunk to its lowest level in 38 years. While CBS and NBC chronicled the numerous pitfalls to varying degrees, neither chose to look at why the numbers remained sluggish or assign blame for the state of the economy.
On the heels of President Barack Obama’s announcement on Wednesday that the United States and Cuba will soon open respective embassies in Havana and Washington, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC covered the story on their evening newscasts with ABC and NBC expressing particular enthusiasm at the move and little to no criticism of the President’s Cuba policy. In addition, the networks failed to label Cuba’s government as communist with ABC and NBC further declining to bring up the authoritarian nature of the Cuban government.
This week, reporters cheer the Supreme Court ruling which saved ObamaCare from its own sloppiness, with ABC's Terry Moran enthusing: "'ObamaCare 2, conservatives 0' is the score right now," while NBC's newly-elevated anchor Lester Holt trumpets how "so many families" say the government takeover of health care has been "quite literally a lifesaver." And, Rolling Stone smears the GOP as provoking violence against African Americans: "The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters [and] made violence a virtue."

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.'"
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in favor of President Obama in the ObamaCare subsidy case, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC were out in full force during their Thursday evening newscasts to cheer the “historic ruling” and labeled Chief Justice John Roberts as a “conservative” after having “saved” ObamaCare “from a devastating blow.” CBS anchor Scott Pelley assured viewers in an opening tease that “[m]illions of Americans will keep their health insurance as the Supreme Court today saves the President's signature law.”
Touting how “over ten million people have now signed up for health insurance under the ObamaCare law,” NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt on Thursday night trumpeted “the ObamaCare law now directly effecting so many families who say it’s been quite literally a lifesaver.” Chris Jansing delivered heartwarming anecdotes about people who have benefitted and only, at the very end of her report, did she squeeze in a brief mention of how some have been hurt.
While Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal became the 13th Republican on Wednesday to join the 2016 Republican presidential field, the top English and Spanish-language network evening newscasts all but dodged Jindal’s decision by providing a total of 54 seconds across English networks ABC, CBS, and NBC. As for the Spanish-language networks, MundoFox and Telemundo ignored Jindal’s announcement completely while Univision aired an 18-second news brief.
