As NewsBusters has been reporting, CBS News has been one of the press outlets totally willing to expose the disaster that is the ObamaCare rollout.
On Monday, Sharyl Attkisson did a fabulous report on the CBS Evening News revealing that “four days before the launch the government took an unusual step: it granted itself a waiver to launch the website with a level of uncertainty deemed as a high security risk” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Besides facing a "credibility death spiral" on the issue of ObamaCare, as political director John Dickerson recently put it, Sharyl Attkisson pointed out on Tuesday's CBS Evening News that the very structure of the so-called reform could encounter a separate "death spiral" due to the "enrollment fiasco" surrounding HealthCare.gov.
Attkisson cited unnamed health care analysts, who predicted a doomsday scenario for President's Obama's supposed signature achievement: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
On Thursday's CBS This Morning, Sharyl Attkisson revealed a new debacle involving the smuggling of weapons into Mexico on the Obama administration's watch. Attkisson pointed out how "a grenade used in the murders of three Mexican police officers last week has been linked to an alleged arms trafficker that U.S. officials left on the street to operate long after they had evidence of his crimes."
The correspondent, whose reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal won CBS Evening News an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2012, also underlined that this blundered operation was "overseen by the same U.S. attorney and ATF office in Arizona that let suspects traffic thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels in the case 'Fast and Furious'". [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
CBS rekindled its love for pro-abortion politician Wendy Davis on Thursday's CBS Evening News, after the Democrat announced her candidacy in the Texas gubernatorial race. Norah O'Donnell trumpeted how "Davis was a little-known Democratic state senator in Texas. But her marathon defense of abortion rights drew national attention."
Manuel Bojorquez heralded how state legislator "stepped into the national spotlight with pink sneakers, during a 13-hour filibuster of new abortion restrictions here." However, Bojorquez was among the Big Three journalists who put that spotlight on Davis mere hours after she stalled the passage of pro-life legislation in the Lone Star State. At the time, he asserted that the filibuster turned the Democrat "a national political star". [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
The Big Three broadcast networks made their slanted priorities clear on their Thursday evening newscasts, as they fawned over Caroline Kennedy's Senate confirmation hearing earlier that day, but failed to cover the emotional congressional testimony of Pat Smith. Smith is the mother of Sean Smith, who died in the 2012 Islamist attack on the U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya.
ABC's Martha Raddatz was awestruck over JFK's daughter: "For one brief shining moment, senators from both sides of the aisle seemed to harken back to the so-called Camelot days." NBC's Harry Smith gushed that "history and legacy were more important this morning than party or partisanship. The daughter of a president said she wanted to fulfill her father's wish." [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
On Monday's CBS This Morning, Sharyl Attkisson pointed out the "potential conflict of interest" in the ongoing controversy over the Islamist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Attkisson detailed how congressional Republican are scrutinizing Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy's involvement in naming staff to the Accountability Review Board, even as it was investigating his role in the lead-up to the September 11, 2012 attack. [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
It was Attkisson's first report about Benghazi on CBS's morning and evening newscasts since the May 8, 2013 edition of CBS This Morning. Her report that day was the first time in over five months that the journalist reported about the story on the air.
As of Thursday morning, CBS's morning and evening newscasts have yet to mention a revelation made by their own investigative correspondent, Sharyl Attkisson, on Tuesday – that Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress "he will not honor the request to make Benghazi survivors available for questioning."
Wednesday's CBS Evening News aired a full report on the State Department's slow progress in upgrading security at U.S. diplomatic posts in the aftermath of the September 11, 2012 Islamist attack, but failed to mention Kerry's refusal. Margaret Brennan also let the Obama administration and Senator Robert Menendez hint that congressional Republicans were to blame for not appropriating the $2.2 billion needed for the security upgrades. [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
The Big Three network morning shows on Wednesday briefly noted the one-year anniversary of the Islamist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, but not one pointed out the latest development in the ongoing controversy over what happened. On Tuesday, CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reported on Twitter that Secretary of State John Kerry "tells [C]ongress he will not honor the request to make Benghazi survivors available for questioning."
Norah O'Donnell highlighted on Wednesday's CBS This Morning that "Republican Congressman Darrell Issa wants to interview survivors" and that "he's giving the State Department until Monday to meet his demand", but didn't mention Kerry's refusal. [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
Tuesday's CBS This Morning stood out as the only Big Three network morning newscast to cover the latest development in the controversy surrounding the September 11, 2012 Islamist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Gayle King gave a 26-second news brief to Secretary of State John Kerry clearing four mid-level diplomats to return to duty, after they were placed on leave by his predecessor, Hillary Clinton [audio available here; video below the jump].
Neither ABC's Good Morning America nor NBC's Today devoted any air time to Kerry's move. Instead, the two programs set aside full reports to Sunny, the new dog adopted by the Obama family.
On Wednesday at CBSnews.com, Sharyl Attkisson reported that "Three more weapons from Fast and Furious have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico."
A Google News search at 10 a.m. on ["Fast and Furious" guns] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets, past 7 days, sorted by date, with duplicates) returned 26 relevant items. Very few (to be noted later) are from establishment press outlets.
As NewsBusters previously reported, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson announced last Friday that her computers had been hacked into “by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012.”
On Monday, Attkisson told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that she thinks she knows who did it (video follows with transcript and commentary):
On Monday's CBS This Morning, Sharyl Attkisson slammed the unnamed hacker who broke into her computers : "It's a very serious and disturbing matter. I'm outraged that anyone would do such a thing." The correspondent revealed back in May 2013 an "unauthorized, external, unknown party" accessed both her personal and work computers on "multiple occasions in late 2012."
Attkisson detailed the "odd behavior of both my work and my personal computers", including how the machines "began turning themselves on, and then, back off again during the night." [audio available here; video below the jump]