17 hours after CNN first reported that the IRS targeted liberal groups as well as conservative groups, it finally offered the Republican side of the story, that Tea Party groups received even more scrutiny than "progressive" and "Occupy" groups.
Correspondent Dana Bash first broke the story during Monday's 5 p.m. ET hour of The Situation Room that according to a document dump, the IRS included groups with the terms "progressive" and "Occupy" along with Tea Party groups in its "Be On the Lookout" watch list. What Bash failed to note is that, according to one 2010 list, information on Tea Party groups was still instructed to be sent to higher authorities in Washington D.C. for further scrutiny.
Early Start
By Matt Hadro | June 25, 2013 | 1:27 PM EDT
By Matt Hadro | June 11, 2013 | 3:43 PM EDT
[UPDATED BELOW] For hours on Monday and Tuesday, CNN hyped a positive Hillary Clinton story while ignoring a negative Clinton story.
While both stories broke on Monday morning, CNN only touted one of them on Monday: Clinton joining Twitter. And the network spent almost 10 minutes discussing it on Tuesday morning. In contrast, it took until 11 a.m. on Tuesday for CNN to even mention serious accusations leveled against the State Department by its own Inspector General. Clinton was Secretary of State until only a few months ago.
By Matt Hadro | May 14, 2013 | 10:44 AM EDT
CNN gave more coverage to the Jodi Arias trial in one day than it did to the entire Kermit Gosnell trial over the span of eight weeks. NewsBusters already reported how the congressional hearings on the Benghazi attacks disappeared amidst CNN's incessant live coverage of tabloid crime stories.
When the verdict was reached in the Arias trial last Wednesday, CNN's coverage for the day totaled almost a whopping three hours. In contrast, the network gave just under 100 minutes to the Gosnell story in eight weeks since the trial began on March 18.
By Matt Hadro | April 5, 2013 | 7:12 PM EDT
Call it the tale of two gaffes. CNN only briefly covered President Obama's blunder that the gun used in the Sandy Hook shooting was an automatic weapon. Meanwhile, the network gave almost 40 minutes on Friday to outrage over Obama calling California's Attorney General "the best-looking attorney general in the country."
CNN's Jake Tapper was the only CNN anchor or reporter who caught Obama's "automatic" gun error. He reported it twice, once during his 4 p.m. ET show The Lead and later on while filling in for host Erin Burnett on OutFront. Automatic weapons are already strictly regulated and have been for decades; the gun used at Sandy Hook was a semi-automatic weapon.
By Matt Hadro | March 8, 2013 | 4:44 PM EST
CNN couldn't stop talking about former President Clinton's op-ed on Friday. Every hour between 5 a.m. and 3 p.m. ET, the network touted Clinton asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act that he signed as president, spending over a half hour of coverage on it.
Anchor Don Lemon reported the op-ed four times between 9 and 11 a.m. ET. Anchor Ashleigh Banfield ran two segments on it during the 11 a..m. ET hour. Lemon, openly-gay, voiced his support: "I mean, when you sit right down and just look at it, it's really all about civil and equal rights, human rights. We're a country that treats everybody equal, I mean everyone should be treated equally under the Constitution."
By Matt Hadro | March 7, 2013 | 11:47 AM EST
CNN gave over eight times more coverage to Beyonce lip synching the national anthem than it did to President Obama's falsehood on the sequester last Friday.
After the President claimed in last Friday's presser that Capitol Hill janitors and police would receive a pay cut because of the sequester, CNN correspondent Dana Bash fact-checked it and found it not to be the case. Her report aired twice that day and two more times over last weekend. She covered the matter for 45 seconds in each report, so CNN's coverage totaled three minutes.
By Matt Hadro | January 24, 2013 | 5:18 PM EST
On Thursday morning, CNN's John Berman hammered a Democratic congressman who said the cause of the Benghazi attacks doesn't make a difference at this point. In contrast, anchor Soledad O'Brien didn't ask about the controversy over that remark shouted first by Secretary Clinton.
"But, Congressman – don't the facts always make a difference and doesn't knowing the facts and knowing them quickly always help in evaluating the situation so it can be prevented in the future?" Berman pressed.
By Matt Hadro | January 18, 2013 | 6:21 PM EST
It turns out that the Romney campaign was right to claim that Fiat, who owns Chrysler, would be making Jeeps in China instead of America, even though the media disparaged that case at the time with PolitiFact going so far as to declare the ad "Lie of the Year." According to PolitiFact, the campaign falsely implied the jobs would be outsourced, among other claims.
As Reuters reported yesterday, "Fiat (FIA.MI) and its U.S. unit Chrysler expect to roll out at least 100,000 Jeeps in China when production starts in 2014 as they seek to catch up with rivals in the world's biggest car market."
By Matt Hadro | January 14, 2013 | 6:45 PM EST
One month after the Newtown shooting, CNN "commemorated" the atrocity by hosting a string of gun control activists and Democratic politicians pushing for stricter gun laws.
From the 5 a.m. through the 3 p.m. news hours, CNN hosted five guests who had participated in the "Demand a Plan" campaign put on by the anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In addition, two Democratic congressmen and one Democratic senator appeared on the network and pushed for more gun laws. Only one Republican made an appearance to argue to the contrary.
By Matt Hadro | January 4, 2013 | 7:20 PM EST
CNN reporter Ali Velshi thrashed Republicans and conservatives during last weekend's fiscal cliff negotiations. As Tim Graham of NewsBusters already reported, Velshi "clearly doesn't care about looking objective" and showed it when he opened fire on Grover Norquist last week and declared that taxes must go up on the wealthy.
In what became a tired liberal rant, Velshi pushed that argument over and over again last weekend, paddling House Republicans for not "compromising" with Democrats on tax hikes while barely wagging a finger at President Obama and the Democratic Senate. Below is the worst of Velshi from last weekend.
By Matt Hadro | November 19, 2012 | 9:01 AM EST
As NewsBusters' Tim Graham reported, CNN's Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist bragged that his is the only network "that hasn't picked sides in this election," and that viewers responded to CNN's credibility by making it the most-watched cable news channel on election night.
Of course, this begs the question of why viewers haven't turned to CNN on most other nights but regardless, Feist's claim of non-partisanship doesn't hold water. Indeed, CNN's own Howard Kurtz warned in July of a media double standard favoring President Obama that is apparent "to many people."
Below are some of the worst examples of CNN's liberal bias during this election cycle, beginning after Mitt Romney became the clear Republican challenger to President Obama on May 2, when candidate Newt Gingrich dropped out of the race.
By Matt Hadro | November 7, 2012 | 4:36 PM EST
Reacting to Democratic Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren's victory in Massachusetts, CNN's Ali Velshi gushed on Wednesday morning, "I have to say, regardless of party, good for her."
"She prevailed. She got crushed and now she's going to be a U.S. senator," he noted her prior setback, when she failed to become the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.