All three network morning shows on Wednesday were in awe of President Obama tearing up during his White House gun control address on Tuesday. On NBC’s Today, co-host Matt Lauer used the “rare display of emotion” to tee-up a four-minute segment on “The Politics of Tears” and Obama being the “Latest in Long Line of Emotional Politicians.”
Pierre Thomas
By Curtis Houck | January 5, 2016 | 11:01 PM EST
Tuesday’s editions of ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News aired nowhere near the exhaustive coverage of President Obama’s executive actions on gun control that the CBS Evening News did, but they were not short on fawning language for Obama’s “rallying cry...after years of anger and frustration” in what ABC hyped as “[t]he showdown after the President breaks down.”
By Curtis Houck | January 4, 2016 | 9:15 PM EST
Moments after the White House revealed to reporters on Monday details of President Obama’s executive orders on gun control, the network evening newscasts could barely contain their approval for the President “picking a major fight with Republicans” as his “new gun checks” seek “to restrict gun sales.” CBS anchor Scott Pelley: "The President, frustrated by mass murders that seem to come every month, has decided in his last year to test the limits of his power."
By Scott Whitlock | December 2, 2015 | 5:31 PM EST
The journalists at ABC on Wednesday didn’t hesitate to exploit the shooting in California as an opportunity to promote gun control. As details were still unfolding in the San Bernardino shooting, George Stephanopoulos lamented, “[Obama] spoke after Sandy Hook. Always coming out to call for more measures to make it more difficult the people to access to the kind of weapons to pull off the mass shootings. It has been one of the great frustrations of his presidency.”
By Curtis Houck | August 17, 2015 | 11:00 PM EDT
In Monday evening’s edition of network bias by omission, CBS and NBC neglected to stories concerning a data breach of American taxpayers at the scandal-ridden IRS and the Obama administration finally giving approval for a major oil company to begin oil drilling in the Arctic off Alaska’s coast. Surprisingly, ABC’s World News Tonight picked up the pieces and provided their viewers with coverage of a full segment on the IRS breach and a brief on the future of drilling in the Arctic.
By Scott Whitlock | June 18, 2015 | 11:01 AM EDT
ABC on Thursday used the tragic shooting in South Carolina to speculate and connect other topics. Reporter Pierre Thomas offered, "Also, George, remember, the new attorney general, who is African-American, is a daughter of the south and the child of a Baptist minister." In a separate segment, correspondent Good Morning America's Paula Faris noted, "One trending topic is whether or not South Carolina will fly the Confederate flag on top of the state capitol at half-staff."
By Matthew Balan | May 28, 2015 | 3:54 PM EDT
The Big Three's morning newscasts on Wednesday and Thursday all covered the breach of an online IRS system by hackers that compromised the personal information of 100,000 taxpayers. However, none of the programs mentioned President Obama by name during their reporting, nor did they revisit any of the other problems or scandals involving the agency in recent years. CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News have yet to cover the IRS hacking, as of Wednesday evening.
Blackout: ‘Big Three’ Ignore AG Holder’s Claim That ‘Racial Animus’ Behind Dislike of Obama’s Policies
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 15, 2014 | 9:50 PM EDT Attorney General Eric Holder spoke with ABC’s Pierre Thomas over the weekend and made highly controversial comments in which he claimed that the lack of support for President Obama’s policies was a result of “racial animus.”
Despite the highly charged nature of Holder’s statement, none of the “big three” networks have yet to pick up on the story. During the interview, Holder insisted that "there's a certain level of vehemence, it seems to me, that's directed at me [and] directed at the president,” Holder said. “You know, people talking about taking their country back. … There's a certain racial component to this for some people.”
ABC Declares IRS Scandal an 'Important' 'Firestorm' But Touts White House as 'Scandal-Free' Until Recently
By Scott Whitlock | May 15, 2013 | 12:17 PM EDT ABC on Tuesday and Wednesday aggressively covered the growing IRS scandal involving the targeting of conservative groups, deeming it an "important" "firestorm." Yet, World News reporter Jon Karl also spun the Obama administration as a "White House that takes pride in being scandal-free." (Fast and Furious? Solyndra? Reverend Wright?) [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
To her credit, World News anchor Diane Sawyer opened the show by trumpeting: "We begin with a dramatic new turn in the firestorm surrounding the IRS. Last night, we asked if what they did was fair. Tonight, the FBI is asking, was it criminal?" Reporter Jon Karl did the work of putting the administration on record . He quizzed press secretary Jay Carney: "Can you say categorically that nobody at the White House and nobody on the President's political team had any knowledge or was involved in any way in the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS?" (Carney simply replied, "Yes.")
By Scott Whitlock | April 16, 2013 | 12:01 PM EDT
The journalists of Good Morning America on Tuesday pointed a speculative finger in the wake of the Boston bombing. An ABC graphic wondered, "Could this be homegrown terror?" In a segment full of guesses, reporter Pierre Thomas featured leftist Mark Potok, the man who labeled the Family Research Council (FRC) a "hate group."
Regarding the date that the explosion occurred on, Potok linked, "The real Patriots Day is April 19th. That is the date that counts for people on the extreme right in the United States." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Other than Potok, no other expert voices were featured in the segment. News anchor Josh Elliott backed up Potok's assertions, theorizing, "One big clue could be Monday's date, April 15th. The anniversaries of some of the most harrowing incidents in domestic terror are coming this week." Thomas then went on to highlight David Koresh and the Oklahoma City bombing. The justification? They also happened in April.
By Jeffrey Meyer | December 19, 2012 | 12:52 PM EST
For the third day in a row, ABC's Good Morning America used the horrific Newtown tragedy to push its gun control agenda. On Wednesday morning, both ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas and Pierre Thomas hyped that now is a "watershed moment" and a "tipping point" as stores halted sales of some guns and Democratic NRA member Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) considered changing his views on gun laws.
"Big-city mayors and one of the nation’s biggest police unions have called for a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity clips. And for some long-time allies of the gun lobby, this week was a tipping point," Thomas touted voices favoring gun control. [See video below page break. MP3 audio here.]
By Jeffrey Meyer | December 18, 2012 | 3:13 PM EST
On Tuesday's Good Morning America, anchor Elizabeth Vargas and reporter Pierre Thomas tag-teamed to push into overdrive their program's call for gun control legislation, giving their audience the idea that banning certain types of guns is the solution to preventing future mass murders like the Newtown, Conn., shooting last week. For the second day in a row, ABC’s Thomas pushed the gun control narrative amplified throughout the liberal media.
The segment began with anchor Vargas framing the topic in pro-gun restriction language, “we now turn to our ABC News ongoing commitment to the search for solutions to gun violence.” Vargas then turned to ABC’s Pierre Thomas who for the second straight day pushed for stricter gun control. This time, Thomas turned his focus to outside the NRA's Fairfax, Virginia headquarters Monday he described, “An angry crowd. Scores of activists protesting the gun lobby.” [See video below page break. MP3 audio here.]