While the ABC, NBC, and CBS morning shows on Tuesday all jumped on potential Republican 2016 contenders Chris Christie and Rand Paul being sympathetic toward parents skeptical of child vaccinations, all three broadcast networks ignored Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton holding the same positions in 2008.
Nancy Cordes
By Curtis Houck | January 29, 2015 | 2:12 AM EST
On Wednesday, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley was the lone network evening newscast to cover the confirmation hearings of Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch before the Senate Judiciary Committee and while that was the case, it was not without bias.
Even though CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes featured numerous soundbites from Senate Republicans questioning Lynch, she failed to include how Lynch stated her support for people being able to seek work in the United States, regardless of their legal status.
Networks Fret Conservatives Posed ‘a Thorny Obstacle’ to Boehner; Will Force Him to be ‘More Confrontational’
By Curtis Houck | January 6, 2015 | 10:29 PM EST On Tuesday night, each of the major broadcast networks devoted time to covering the swearing in of the 114th Congress and the race for House Speaker that saw John Boehner retain his post, but not without 25 conservatives voting in dissent against the incumbent Republican.
Overall, the networks lamented how the group presented “a thorny obstacle to Boehner's leadership” and, in turn, will force him to be “more confrontational with President Obama” instead of "working with the President on some issues, including tax reform and trade."
By Curtis Houck | December 19, 2014 | 11:16 AM EST
During the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley on Thursday, CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes reported on the continued response from members of Congress to the move by President Obama to normalize relations with Cuba, but chose to exclusively play up the split among those in the Republican Party on the issue.
Cordes first focused on the many Republicans against the President’s decision, with soundbites from Republican Senators Marco Rubio (Fla.) and John McCain (Ariz.) and Congresswoman Ilena Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), but then made a point of pointing out that not all Republicans feel the same way.
By Kyle Drennen | December 12, 2014 | 4:56 PM EST
On Friday, NBC's Today and CBS This Morning sympathized with left-wing Democrats upset by portions of a budget deal passed in the House Thursday night. On Today, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell declared: "Democrats had objected to a rollback of financial provisions that would help big Wall Street banks that take some high-risk investments with taxpayer ensured deposits. In the end, compromise, even ugly compromise, carried the night."
By Geoffrey Dickens | December 8, 2014 | 6:07 PM EST
The campaign's worst-kept secret was uncovered when the Kansas City Star, on Sunday, reported that Democrats had financially backed so-called independent candidate Greg Orman in his race to unseat Republican incumbent Senator Pat Roberts. The facade that Orman was an independent was kept up, throughout the campaign, by supposedly skeptical political reporters at ABC, CBS and NBC, even after Democratic candidate Chad Taylor had dropped out in early September.
By Curtis Houck | November 19, 2014 | 10:38 PM EST
On Wednesday night, CBS and NBC promoted the White House talking point that previous presidential actions on immigration gives President Barack Obama the proper legal authority to enact executive amnesty the evening before a primetime address to the nation on the topic.
At no point during the coverage on either network did their reporters mention that this justification is being used despite the President’s previous assertions that he did not have the proper legal means to carry out any sort of mass-reaching executive order on illegal immigration.
By Curtis Houck | November 19, 2014 | 12:11 AM EST
While all three major broadcast networks covered the failed vote in the U.S. Senate to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline on Tuesday night, ABC and NBC neglected to mention that political motivations were behind the vote to aid the reelection efforts of vulnerable Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana that will take place on December 6.
After previously being held up in the Senate for years, the vote was finally allowed early Tuesday night and fell one vote short of the 60 votes needed for passage as only 14 Democratic Senators joined with all 45 Republicans to approve the measure.
By Curtis Houck | November 15, 2014 | 6:06 PM EST
As of Saturday afternoon and a full eight days after the first video of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber surfaced, major broadcast networks ABC and NBC and the Los Angeles Times have persisted in keeping their audiences in the dark on this story.
Over the course of Friday evening and Saturday morning, news outlets that previously had ignored Gruber arrived on the scene included the Associated Press (AP), the print edition of The New York Times, and USA Today. The New York Times posted a second entry on one of its blog sites (known as The Upshot) and published its first print story on A12 of Saturday’s newspaper.
By Curtis Houck | November 11, 2014 | 8:59 PM EST
Following a story on campaign spending ahead of the midterm elections on October 30, CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes filed a similar report on Tuesday night’s CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley with the topic focusing specifically on the “dark money groups” that are not required to disclose their donors.
In setting up Cordes’s story, anchor Scott Pelley pivoted from a report on corruption and brutal crackdowns by the authoritarian Communist regime in China to saying that “[w]ell, government even in America is becoming murkier because of campaign finance laws that have become nearly a free-for-all.” When the report ended, he hailed it as “insight from Capitol Hill” from Cordes.
By Curtis Houck | November 6, 2014 | 9:18 PM EST
During Thursday’s CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, Nancy Cordes continued to disparage conservatives, as she referred to some of the newly elected House of Representatives members as being to Speaker John Boehner’s “far right flank” and joining returning Representatives who stifled “Boehner’s own attempts” to address illegal immigration (that President Obama will now act upon in an expected executive order).
Her choice of words regarding conservatives comes after she badgered Boehner at his weekly press conference earlier in the day, during which she asked him how he will “deal with” this “new crop of conservatives” that she portrayed as having said “among other things, that women need to submit to the authority of their husbands, that Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ” and “don’t think you’re conservative enough.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 6, 2014 | 2:16 PM EST
During his post-election news conference, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was repeatedly pressed by CBS News reporter Nancy Cordes about “a new crop of conservatives coming into the House” who she implied Boehner would have trouble managing. The CBS reporter asked Boehner “so the hell no caucus as you’ve put it is getting bigger and some of them don’t think you’re conservative enough. How do you deal with them differently than you did in the last Congress?”