Broadcast Television

Obama Insider Raises Concern About His Isolation Behind Jarrett and Michelle; Expect the Press to Ignore
By Tom Blumer | July 14, 2014 | 4:33 PM EDT

In the early 1970s, the press obsessed about President Nixon's alleged "isolation," especially as the Watergate scandal, which in an objective lookback has to be seen as relative child's play compared to what we're seeing now, unfolded. Proof that Nixon's "isolation" had been a constant media theme in previous months is found in an NBC Nightly News report on May 10, 1973, when a White House staff reorganization was characterized by reporter Richard Valeriani as "Nixon moving to end President('s) isolation."

On Fox News's "The Five" on Friday, Democrat Bob Beckel relayed what he said was an anonymous comment by a person in a position to know about how cut off from external advice President Barack Obama is. It seems arguably creepier than any degree of isolation Nixon may have ever had, for reasons which I will explain below. Let's see what Beckel had to say following co-host Andrea Tantaros's comment that Obama has a "Stepford staff just sort of nodding at whatever he says," and Greg Gutfeld's assertion that Obama "doesn't have anybody in his circle" with the nerve or access to intervene (bolds are mine):

To Celebrate Independence Day, Good Morning America Features 'Talk Dirty' Rapper Derulo
By Mark Finkelstein | July 4, 2014 | 9:14 AM EDT

So how did Good Morning America open its Fourth of July show today?  Fighter-jet flyover?  Small-town Independence Day parade? Inspiring video of America's beauty from sea to shining sea?  Guess again.  GMA featured rapper Jason Derulo [I never heard of him either], jet skiing past the Statue of Liberty.

And which song did GMA place at the top of the list when it displayed a smartphone with Derulo's hits? Why, "Talk Dirty" [mistakenly entitled "Talking Dirty" by GMA].  A song so foul and misogynistic we couldn't possibly display the lyrics, but you can read them here if you like. View the video after the jump.

NewsBusted: The ABCs of VA Scandal Bias
By NB Staff | June 24, 2014 | 1:40 PM EDT

"ABC News gave the latest developments in the VA scandal just 14 seconds of coverage. Which is exactly 14 seconds more than the Obama administration spent trying to fix the problem."

To subscribe to NewsBusted via email, sign up here. To watch the Tuesday, June 24 edition, click play on the embed below the page break. To subscribe at YouTube, visit the NewsBusted channel here.

NBC/WSJ Poll Cooks Its Common Core Questions, Fabricates Claim of Strong Majority Support
By Tom Blumer | June 19, 2014 | 12:34 PM EDT

Yesterday's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll garnered a great deal of attention, primarily because of its findings about President Barack Obama, particularly the one showing showing that "54 percent – believe the term-limited president is no longer able to lead the country."

The poll also asked respondents a series of three questions on the Common Core standards which were clearly designed to elicit majority support for them and to then mislead the public into believing that the opposition is a noisy, anti-Obama minority which should be ignored. Stories covering the poll at both NBC and the Wall Street Journal indicated as much.

Nets Cover ’22 Jump St’ More Than Two Times That Devoted to American Teen Abducted by Islamists
By Matt Philbin | June 19, 2014 | 9:43 AM EDT

An American teenager, along with two Israeli teens, has been kidnapped in Israel. “[T]wo jihadist groups had posted claims of responsibility for kidnapping the teens,” according to The Washington Post. Israel is in an uproar as the government tries to find them.

But in America, the broadcast networks are breathlessly covering the new movie “22 Jump Street.” In fact, ABC, CBS and NBC have devoted more than 10 and a half minutes to the sophomoric slapstick movie comedy. That’s more than twice what they’ve given to the kidnapping.

David Gregory Grills Mitt Romney As If He's Just Become President
By Tom Blumer | June 16, 2014 | 5:45 PM EDT

The people at NBC who are agonizing over David Gregory's ongoing audience freefall at his Meet the Press perch need only look at the first half of his interview with 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to see why it's happening.

Gregory basically refused to acknowledge the existence of Romney's core argument, which is essentially that he wouldn't have done what President Obama did in withdrawing from Iraq so hastily and leaving things to run on auto-pilot. Instead, he insisted on sticking with a "Well, what would do now?" line of questioning, even though, as Romney indicated, he doesn't have access to intelligence briefings necessary to assert an informed opinion. When that didn't work, he tried to hold Romney to a stale 2007 quote from when conditions were obviously very different. The fact is that wouldn't be facing the present quandary if Obama hadn't acted directly against the (often privately expressed) desires of Iraqi leaders and U.S. intelligence officials to maintain at least a significant advisory presence there. Video and a transcript of the Iraq-related portion of the interview follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

ABC, NBC Reluctant to Name Nigerian Kidnappers as Muslim
By Matt Philbin | June 16, 2014 | 10:32 AM EDT

Well, ABC and NBC are acting to type, ever reluctant to call evil by its name when doing so is politically incorrect (and possibly dangerous).

Consider both networks’ reporting on the story of the school girls kidnapped last month in Nigeria, and a second, smaller group kidnapped last week. To date, NBC identified the kidnappers of hundreds of Christian girls as Islamist less than 33 percent of the time (12 mentions in 37 reports). ABC’s record is particularly shameful – just 22 percent (eight of 36 total reports) of stories mentioned that Boko Haram, the terrorist gang that abducted the girls, are radical Muslims.

Conan O’Brien Mocks Obama on George H.W. Bush’s Birthday: ‘Two Presidents In Free Fall Today’
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 13, 2014 | 8:28 AM EDT

June 12 was former President George H.W. Bush’s 90th birthday and comedian Conan O’Brien used the occasion to mock President Obama. 

Each year, H.W. Bush goes skydiving to celebrate his birthday and Conan joked “George HW Bush turned 90 and celebrated by skydiving. So, if you include Obama there were two presidents in free fall today.” [See video below.] 

Ga. Dem Senate Candidate Nunn Won't Tell NBC — or AP — How She Would Have Voted on Obamacare
By Tom Blumer | May 19, 2014 | 9:06 PM EDT

In a Monday evening report at the Associated Press, reporters Bill Barrow and Christina A. Cassidy did their best to try to minimize the impact of a politically disastrous dodge on the part of Georgia Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Nunn.

In a weekend interview with NBC, Nunn refused to say whether she would have voted for or against the Affordable Care Act in 2010, saying that "it’s impossible to look back retrospectively and say what would you have done if you were there." (And besides, she was working for a not-for-profit foundation at the time, so how could she know?) Additionally, Nunn got so rattled that she invented a new use for the word "architect" — as a verb: "I wished that we had more people who had tried to architect a bipartisan legislation." Clearly, the AP's Barrow and Cassidy were hoping for a real answer from Nunn. But they didn't get one. Not even close (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

The Media’s One-Side-Fits-All Approach to Net Neutrality
By Seton Motley | May 19, 2014 | 8:44 AM EDT

What at times is worse than the Jurassic Press not covering something?  The Jurassic Press covering something.

The all-encompassing government-Internet-power-grab that is Network Neutrality rarely gets outside-the-Tech-World media attention.  But Thursday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted in Democrat Party-line fashion to begin its process of imposing it.  This was a big enough deal that it garnered over-the-weekend Big Media coverage from ABC (with a Bloomberg assist) and PBS (with a Washington Post assist). 

NBC's Martha White: 39 Paragraphs on All-Time Record Number of Temps, Not a Word on Obamacare
By Tom Blumer | April 21, 2014 | 11:25 PM EDT

If there's a prize for most words spent in Obamacare avoidance, NBC News's Martha C. White is definitely in the running.

White managed to burn through almost 40 paragraphs and nearly 1,600 words in a report carried at CNBC on the all-time record number of workers employed by temporary help services. But she somehow managed to completely avoid mentioning Obamacare, which used to be known as the Affordable Care Act until President Obama and his Health and Human Services regulators made 40 changes to the law originally passed by Congress, some of which directly contradict the original law's language. The closest she came was noting that using temps "lets companies avoid the cost of providing benefits like health insurance" — which has always been the case, except that health insurance is and will continue to be a lot more expensive, giving companies even more incentive to avoid adding to their own payrolls. Excerpts follow the jump.

Networks Shield Government from Blame for 176 Deaths During Government Motors Ownership
By Sean Long | March 21, 2014 | 12:41 PM EDT

When lives are lost due to a faulty product the media point fingers all the way up to the top of the company. Just not when the government owns the company.

The broadcast networks have aired 42 reports on the GM safety recall of faulty ignitions; malfunctions that resulted in more than 300 deaths. But in the course of their reporting, ABC, CBS and NBC only once said something that could remind viewers that GM was, for a time, Government Motors. More than half of fatalities occurred during the period of federal ownership of GM.