In an interview on Wednesday’s NBC Today, disgraced ex-CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather told co-host Matt Lauer that he still would have reported the fraudulent story that ended his broadcast network career: “What I wouldn't do differently is back off the story. The story was true. Because it was true, undeniable facts about how President Bush got into the air National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam, and the fact that after getting in he disappeared, those were facts and that was true.”
CBS Evening News
The “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC offered on Wednesday night more analysis of the first 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the night before that can only be summed up a complete lovefest for Hillary Clinton for having “command[ed] the stage” and “retaken control of the conversation” as she goes “on the offensive.” NBC trumpeted on screen: “New Momentum.”

On Tuesday night, CNN will host the first of six Democratic presidential debates, and one top official from the Democratic National Committee will not be allowed to attend yet the “Big Three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks have so far ignored the story on both their morning and evening broadcasts.
Following the media frenzy in July over the death of Zimbabwe’s Cecil the Lion, the coverage was decidedly different on Monday evening when ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News failed to inform their viewers of the fact that officials in the authoritarian country would not be pressing charges against American dentist Dr. Walter Palmer for shooting Cecil.
On Monday, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News prominently touted the claims by a fired staffer on the House Select Committee on Benghazi that the panel’s sole aim is to takedown former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a move that gives her “a potential lifeline” in “another blow” to the committee.

ABC, CBS, and NBC's Friday evening newscasts all spotlighted how "gun rights supporters, many of them openly armed" protested President Obama as he visited Roseburg, Oregon to comfort family members of the victims of the recent mass shooting there. CBS's John Blackstone played up how "the protesters gathered at the Roseburg airport carried both signs and guns – a potential nightmare for the Secret Service." NBC Nightly News featured footage of a Confederate flag flying from pickup truck of one of the protesters – something ABC and CBS didn't do.
The major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC all omitted from their Wednesday evening newscasts the latest noteworthy comment from Vice President Joe Biden that the Republican Party is “beating” up Hispanics but instead continued harping on Ben Carson’s response to how he’d react if he came face-to-face with a mass shooter.
Following Hillary Clinton’s latest flip-flop and move to the left in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CBS Evening News saw no interest in informing their viewers of this announcement after she strongly backed it while secretary of state in President Barack Obama’s first term. In contrast, both ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News surprisingly stepped up to the plate to cover this story with full stories along with the fact that both correspondents labeled Clinton’s decision a “flip-flop” from her time in the Obama administration.
According to the latest statistics from the MRC’s ongoing tracking of ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening news coverage of the campaign, frontrunner Hillary Clinton has garnered 80 percent of the Democratic airtime since January 1. Her closest announced rival, the socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has received just six percent of the airtime, or about 24 minutes vs. 337 minutes for Clinton. Unlike their treatment of the prominent Republican candidates, the networks have given both Vice President Joe Biden and Sanders nearly 100 percent positive coverage.
The “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC pulled out all the stops on Monday night to carry water for 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, proclaiming that she’s “on fire” with “new wind in her sails” as she “unveil[ed] a tough new stance on gun control” and came “out swinging today at the Benghazi Committee.”
Following President Barack Obama’s angry reaction Thursday night to the deadly community college shooting in Oregon and pleas to “politicize” mass shootings, the CBS Evening News did just that with a full story lamenting the lack of gun control by laying blame at the feet of the GOP-led Senate and the National Rifle Association (NRA) for their support of candidates in favor of gun rights.
Since the September 16 GOP debate, the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts have significantly ramped up their coverage of businesswoman Carly Fiorina, giving her more than 15 percent of the GOP candidates’ airtime over the past two weeks. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush attracted just three percent of TV news coverage; in the first six months of 2015, Bush dominated the coverage with 36 percent of all GOP airtime.
