While Monday’s editions of the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News refused to criticize the Obama administration on ISIS after the fall of Ramadi, the pair did devote time to hyping President Obama’s opening of an official Twitter account (to go along with his campaign account). In the case of the CBS Evening News, the story received both a tease and fawning news brief as anchor Scott Pelley gushed in the tease that “[n]o sitting president has done what this sitting president did today.”
Scott Pelley
By Curtis Houck | May 18, 2015 | 8:54 PM EDT
CBS and NBC continued their refusal on Monday evening to criticize the Obama administration’s handing of Iraq and so-called policy on ISIS as the Islamic terror group seized control of Ramadi over the weekend. While those two networks continued to spin for the White House, ABC bucked the trend from the network morning newscasts by providing a blunt critique of the Obama administration for “painting far too rosy a picture of how this war is going for far too long.”
By Curtis Houck | May 14, 2015 | 9:17 PM EDT
On Thursday night, the major English-language broadcast networks again covered possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s comments about the Iraq War and featured ABC and NBC omitting the fact that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq War when she was a U.S. Senator. Additionally, all three network evening newscasts continued to ignore how Hillary Clinton has yet to answer a question from the press in over three weeks and only 13 questions total since she launched her campaign on April 12.
By Curtis Houck | May 13, 2015 | 9:50 PM EDT
Despite now knowing that the Amtrak train that derailed outside of Philadelphia on Tuesday night was going more than double the speed limit, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC continued pushing the need for more infrastructure funding and an increase in Amtrak’s budget on their Wednesday evening newscasts. In addition, CBS and NBC failed to mention the fact that train engine in question was only a year old.
By Curtis Houck | May 11, 2015 | 9:58 PM EDT
Following in lockstep with their morning counterparts, Monday’s CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News continued to prominently tout First Lady Michelle Obama’s commencement address at Tuskegee University from two days prior. Hailing the speech as “candid reflections on life in the spotlight,” CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley gushed that Obama revealed “some remarkable insight” into what it’s been like to be the first African-American First Lady and that “it sounded a lot like a validictory.”
By Curtis Houck | May 6, 2015 | 12:15 AM EDT
After Tuesday’s CBS This Morning fretted about the “distractions” facing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, CBS and NBC continued parroting the Clinton campaign’s rhetoric on Tuesday night, touting the “counteroffensive” that was launched to thwart “the litany of distractions” ranging from the Clinton Foundation to Benghazi.
By Curtis Houck | May 5, 2015 | 9:36 PM EDT
When it came time to cover the news from Tuesday that Mike Huckabee had announced his entry into the 2016 Republican presidential field, ABC and NBC largely yawned at this story by devoting a combined 48 seconds of airtime to Huckabee on their Tuesday evening newscasts.
By Curtis Houck | May 5, 2015 | 1:20 AM EDT
In covering the failed terrorist attack at a Prophet Mohammad cartoon event in Texas, NBC neglected to describe the two gunmen on Monday evening as “Islamic extremists” or “terrorists,” while ABC, CBS, and NBC prominently touted the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) description of AFDI as an “anti-Muslim” or “anti-Islamic” “hate group.”
By Curtis Houck | May 4, 2015 | 9:56 PM EDT
Following the announcements from Republicans Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina that they will each be running for president, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC showed no interest in giving extensive time to either candidate during their Monday evening newscasts with a combined one minute and 10 seconds of news briefs devoted to the new 2016 candidates. Clocking in with the least amount of time was the CBS Evening News with a scant 20 seconds.
By Curtis Houck | April 30, 2015 | 9:23 PM EDT
On Thursday, the Clinton Foundation scandal blackout stretched into a full week since it was last covered on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and NBC Nightly News while the CBS Evening News covered twice in the same time span. Following a 20-second news brief on Monday, Thursday's CBS newscast devoted a full segment to some of the latest developments, including the fact that a Clinton charity never informed the State Department of its foreign donations for any of Clinton’s four years as Secretary of State.
By Curtis Houck | April 30, 2015 | 12:09 AM EDT
In the Wednesday edition of bias by omission, five of the English and Spanish network evening newscasts again refused to report on a troubling sign for the U.S. economy while all six omitted any mention of a new development in the IRS scandal. After completely ignoring the story all together Wednesday morning, the CBS Evening News stepped up to mention that the U.S. economy has screeched to a grinding halt with a measly 0.2 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of 2015.
By Curtis Houck | April 21, 2015 | 9:38 PM EDT
After nearly a month-long blackout, NBC finally acknowledged on Tuesday night the sex parties scandal that’s enveloped the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) following the announcement that DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart will retire next month. While NBC Nightly News ended the network’s 26-day-long silence, it only devoted 18 seconds to Leonhart’s decision to step aside and only glossed over mentioned the reasoning for her departure.