On Tuesday night, ABC and CBS refused to acknowledge a pair of points in its respective stories concerning news that additional U.S. special forces will be stationed inside Iraq to fight ISIS and will engage in combat roles. Along with not mentioning that the move represented the latest example of backpedaling by President Obama on a pledge to not put U.S. troops on the ground, the two networks skipped the admission by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that ISIS is not “contained” in a rebuke to the President’s recent claims.
Scott Pelley
By Curtis Houck | November 30, 2015 | 9:56 PM EST
Seeking to boost President Barack Obama and backers of the Paris climate change summit, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted on Monday night over 15 minutes of airtime across six segments touting the summit, a Discovery Channel documentary on climate change, a hashtag campaign, and climate scientists in the Arctic Circle -- to name a few examples. CBS anchor Scott Pelley: "President Obama warned that the world is fast approaching the hour when it will be too late to save the planet from climate change."
By Curtis Houck | November 25, 2015 | 7:47 AM EST
Following in the footsteps of Monday’s CBS This Morning, the CBS Evening News featured on Tuesday a segment sounding the alarm on opposition to the U.S. accepting Syrian refugees with the comparison that those Syrians who have settled in the U.S. are facing “another brewing problem” in those opposed to their settlement (after having survived the horrors of the Assad regime).
By Curtis Houck | November 23, 2015 | 9:34 PM EST
Amidst all the news about gas prices and weather forecasts for this Thanksgiving week, Monday’s morning and evening newscasts on ABC and NBC found no time to mention that Washington Post reporter and U.S. citizen Jason Rezaian had been sentenced by Iran’s Revolutionary Court to an unspecified prison term after being detained in July 2014.
By Scott Whitlock | and By Rich Noyes | November 23, 2015 | 8:57 AM EST
This week, journalists echo the Obama line on Syrian refugees, blasting Republicans for their "ugly" "fear talk," even as FNC anchor Shepard Smith scolds the "collective freak-out....We cannot resort to the tactics of the barbarians." Meanwhile, ABC's Jon Karl confronts GOP candidate Ted Cruz: "You don't think it's un-American to say, only Christians, no Muslims?" And Scott Pelley scolds new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for saying Obama is untrustworthy on immigration: "That's not wiping the slate clean. That's blowing chalk dust in the President's face."
By Curtis Houck | November 19, 2015 | 9:13 PM EST
NBC Nightly News lashed out at conservatives and Republicans on Thursday for creating an “ugly” and “angry debate” with President Obama over whether to accept Syrian refugees while gushing how Hillary Clinton was “[g]oing against the tide” of a bipartisan majority of voters and members of the House in backing the President.
By Curtis Houck | November 19, 2015 | 7:42 AM EST
Anchoring the CBS Evening News for a third-straight night in Paris following Friday’s deadly Islamic terror attacks, Scott Pelley concluded Wednesday’s broadcast with an emotional commentary looking back at how parents so often struggle to discuss tragedies over the past two decades with their children while some are also crippled by grief of losing loved ones in the events themselves.
By Curtis Houck | November 17, 2015 | 8:52 PM EST
On Tuesday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no reason to inform their viewers of Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that he could recognize there having been a “rationale” and “particularized focus” for Islamic terrorists to carry out the January attacks in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo but not for the “indiscriminate” attacks that occurred in the very same city on Friday.
By Kyle Drennen | November 13, 2015 | 10:05 AM EST
In an interview with House Speaker Paul Ryan for 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley scolded the congressman for criticizing President Obama’s unconstitutional executive action on illegal immigration: “On your first day as speaker you said you were going to wipe the slate clean. And then in your very first news conference you said the President has, quote, ‘Proven himself untrustworthy on immigration.’ That’s not wiping the slate clean, that’s blowing chalk dust in the President's face.”
By Alatheia Larsen | November 11, 2015 | 3:37 PM EST
“Fight for $15,” the slogan trumpeted by activists campaigning to more than double the minimum wage, got another boost from CBS right before the Republican presidential debate aired on the Fox Business Network.
The protesters rallied in Milwaukee outside the GOP debate along with other activist groups like Black Lives Matter.
By Matthew Balan | November 7, 2015 | 11:11 AM EST
Friday's CBS Evening News previewed an upcoming 60 Minutes exposé on the "widespread failures in the system that grants top-secret security clearance to federal employees and contractors." Scott Pelley pointed at Bradley Manning as a prime example of "how top-secret clearances fall into dangerous hands." Pelley featured several clips from his interview of Manning's former supervisor in Iraq, who told her superior that "he cannot be trusted with a security clearance; we can't deploy him; and he's most likely a spy."
By Curtis Houck | November 5, 2015 | 9:23 PM EST
Thursday’s CBS Evening News led with the severe weather threatening those in the Midwest, but in addition to looking at the storm track and damage thus far, the storms were hyped as a consequence of global warming. Anchor Scott Pelley ruled in an opening tease that “[t]ornadoes in Texas” struck “on the same day that a new study blames climate change for a surge in severe storms and wildfires.”