On Thursday, CNN’s Carol Costello offered an apology to the Palin family, via a statement sent to Politico and on her Twitter feed, but so far she has refused to do what even former MSNBC host Martin Bashir did, and offer an on-air apology. Mark Levin made fun of that.
CNN Newsroom
By Geoffrey Dickens | October 23, 2014 | 5:08 PM EDT
After being “roundly criticized” for laughing at audio of Bristol Palin’s account of being assaulted by a man and thrown to the ground, CNN’s Carol Costello issued an apology to the Palin family.
By Geoffrey Dickens | October 23, 2014 | 3:40 PM EDT
UPDATE: Costello apologizes. When video of Ray Rice punching and then dragging his fiancé around on the floor was released CNN’s Carol Costello justifiably called it “disturbing” and “insane.” But when Costello played the audio of a different woman recounting a similar horrifying experience of being assaulted and dragged around by a man, she told her audience: “Sit back and enjoy.” The difference? The woman in question happened to be the daughter of favorite liberal hate object and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
By Matthew Balan | October 22, 2014 | 3:38 PM EDT
Carol Costello could barely contain herself on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom, as she touted the recently-released audio of Bristol Palin giving her account of a fight involving her family to the police: "Okay. I'm just going to come right out and say it. This is quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we've ever come across – well, come across in a long time anyway."
By Matthew Balan | October 20, 2014 | 7:10 PM EDT
CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins acted as an activist for a liberal cause on Monday's CNN Newsroom as the network covered the debate over euthanasia: "I disagree with the 45 states that make it illegal. I think that we should have death with dignity laws." Robbins later played up that "this is happening behind closed doors, and that's why I think these laws are important – to bring it out of the shadows."
By Matthew Balan | October 6, 2014 | 5:29 PM EDT
Samuel Burke touted Amazon's new streaming TV series Transparent on Monday's CNN Newsroom as "groundbreaking," and underlined that it's "tackling a topic that TV has rarely touched." The main character in the series, "Moira," is an elderly father who begins to dress as a woman. Burke acclaimed that "this role of a 70-year-old trans-gender character might just give Netflix a run for its money."
By Matthew Balan | September 17, 2014 | 5:42 PM EDT
CNN and MSNBC viewers on Wednesday would have to switch channels if they wanted to watch the first hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. CNN aired a 15-second news brief at the top of the 10 am Eastern hour, mere minutes before the nearly three-hour meeting began, but didn't cover the proceedings live. MSNBC set aside 12 minutes worth of segments to the event, and sometimes showed split-screen video, but didn't provide the audio. By contrast, Fox News Channel provided nearly 41 minutes (40 minutes, 51 seconds) of live coverage of the congressional committee's hearing during the 10 am and 11 am Eastern hours.
By Matthew Balan | August 26, 2014 | 5:27 PM EDT
On Tuesday's CNN Newsroom, Carol Costello refreshingly complimented Burger King's planned merger with Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons as a "very smart business move" that will "save the company money." Costello turned to CNN correspondent Christine Romans, who spotlighted how "corporate taxes are lower in Canada than they are in the U.S.," and that "the stock is up because everyone on Wall Street...thinks this is going to lower the tax bill for Burger King."
The anchor also brought on Curtis Dubay of the conservative Heritage Foundation, who underlined that "our tax code makes it uncompetitive around the world. And so, they're doing something to get out from under that burden. They're doing what's right for their shareholders and their owners....What has to be done is the tax code has to be reformed. We have to have corporate tax reform." This prompted Costello to lament that Congress probably won't do anything to reform the tax code: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
By Laura Flint | August 12, 2014 | 4:45 PM EDT
On the August 11 edition of CNN Newsroom, Brooke Baldwin invited fellow CNN host Don Lemon and former NYPD detective Gil Alba on the show to discuss the latest reports of unrest in Ferguson, Mo., following the shooting of an unarmed African-American teen. While the policeman bluntly stated that “there should never be rioting,” Lemon seemed to excuse the behavior, arguing that “when people are put in dire situations, you don't know how they are going to react.”
Alba argued that “when you have the riots, it kind of ruins anybody's having -- you know, trying to help out with this.” The looting allows for a few opportunistic people to use discourse for their own personal gain, and to destroy “their own community” instead of confronting the real “relationship between the police and the community.” The CNN Newsroom anchor remained unmoved and adhered to his position. [See vidoe below. Click here for MP3 audio]
By Connor Williams | August 12, 2014 | 4:00 PM EDT
While it has been reported that the United States will provide the Kurdish army – commonly known as the Peshmerga – with small arms and ammunition, there have been repeated calls to more substantially arm the paramilitary force. On the August 12 edition of CNN Newsroom, host Carol Costello discussed the subject with Haras Rafiq, an outreach officer for the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank that challenges Islamic extremism.
Costello was skeptical that doing anything to assist the Kurds against ISIS in northern Iraq would help the cause. Rafiq argued that “heavy artillery” and “heavy ammunition,” along with possible training of Kurdish forces, would be necessary to repel ISIS. Costello doubted that these options would be effective: [MP3 audio here; video below]
By Connor Williams | August 7, 2014 | 5:15 PM EDT
While a nearly finished 72 hour cease-fire has at least temporarily stopped the war between Israel and Gaza, the media’s anti-Israel slant has been unrelenting. On the August 7 edition of CNN Newsroom, host Carol Costello welcomed radical pro-Palestine rabbi Michael Lerner to the program, and he placed all of the blame on Israel for the conflict.
Lerner did have the courage to label Hamas as a “terrible and oppressive force,” but throughout the segment he criticized Israel’s “oppressive” occupation and blockade of the Gaza strip. And when Costello asked the rabbi who “is more to blame for so many casualties and deaths in Gaza, is it Israel or Hamas,” his answer revealed a distinctly anti-Israel bias: [MP3 audio here; video below]
By Connor Williams | August 4, 2014 | 5:15 PM EDT
Complaints from the mainstream media over the disproportionate nature of the Israel-Hamas conflict have reached a fever pitch in recent weeks. The problem for them, it seems, is that not enough Israelis are dying in this conflict between a democratic state and a terrorist-run Islamist territory. Leave it to CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill to make the point a little bit more explicit.
In a discussion on the August 4 edition of CNN Newsroom, Hill critiqued Israel’s Iron Dome system, almost lamenting the fact that it has limited Israeli deaths, leading to the disproportionate outcome of the war liberals so often mention. He absurdly claimed: [MP3 audio here; video below]