News Hour

PBS Promotes Obama's Claim Country Has Improved ‘By Every Economic Measure’; Lou Dobbs Proves Otherwise
By Curtis Houck | October 2, 2014 | 10:43 PM EDT

Following President Obama’s speech on the economy on Thursday, the PBS NewsHour offered a 48-second news brief on the subject, in which co-anchor Gwen Ifill offered no opposing viewpoint to the President’s claim in his speech that “by every measure, the country is better off than when he took office.”

The show then played a soundbite of the President, in which he lamented that “millions of Americans don't yet feel enough of the benefits of a growing economy where it matters most, and that’s in their own lives and these truths aren't incompatible. Our broader economy, in the aggregate, has come a long way, but the gains of recovery are not yet broadly shared.”

PBS Bemoans Philippines 'Diluting' Population Control Law to Protect Religious Liberty
By Matthew Balan | August 27, 2014 | 3:20 PM EDT

Mark Litke hyped the "population explosion – what some are calling a crisis" in the Philippines on Sunday's PBS NewsHour Weekend, and played up how poor "families in Asia's most Catholic country...have had little or no access to contraception or family planning advice." Litke confronted a retired Catholic archbishop on his Church's teaching against birth control: "If the people of the Philippines are in support of...contraception...why would the Church oppose any of that?"

The former ABC correspondent later lamented how the Supreme Court of the Philippines protected the religious liberties of Catholic institutions in the country as it upheld a "new reproductive health care law" that subsidizes birth control: [video below the jump]

On PBS, Geraldine Ferraro's Daughter Dismisses That Palin's 2008 Veep Nomination Meant Anything
By Tim Graham | July 17, 2014 | 11:05 PM EDT

On Thursday night's PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff interviewed Donna Zaccaro, who has made a new documentary about her mother, Geraldine Ferraro and her historic nomination for vice president in July of 1984. Like Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra, Zaccaro was a longtime producer for NBC News before becoming a filmmaker.

In a film clip, NPR’s Cokie Roberts gushes about the moment at the convention with Ferraro, “Standing up there all in white, looking like this tiny little figure, but looking beautiful and looking female.” Woodruff added she was there, too, and “I remember. It was a special moment for women in — no matter who you were, what party you were in.” But Zaccaro thought Sarah Palin’s nomination in 2008 wasn't a bipartisan moment. It meant nothing:

Liberal PBS Analyst Mark Shields Talks Trash: Boehner Lawsuit Is 'Bogus,' Darrell Issa Is 'Out of Control' on IRS
By Tim Graham | June 28, 2014 | 11:12 PM EDT

In the Friday PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff lamented the current impasse in Washington: "I don’t know what else to call it, war between congressional Republicans and the president."

She sounded shocked that Speaker John Boehner filed suit to protest the president's constant end-runs around Congress and legislating from the White House on Obamacare, immigration, and other issues. Shields called the suit "absolutely bogus" and compared it to impeaching Bill Clinton in 1998:

Hillary Clinton Tells Gwen Ifill Comparing Her Comments to Romney is ‘False Equivalency'
By Jackie Seal | June 26, 2014 | 11:48 AM EDT

Appearing on Wednesday evening’s PBS NewsHour to discuss her book with Gwen Ifill, Hillary Clinton was forced to again explain her comments regarding wealth. Ifill told Clinton that those kind of comments tend to “stick. Ask Romney.” The former Secretary of State shot back, “Well, that’s a false equivalency.”

Gwen Ifill mentioned to Clinton that her husband “was forced to defend you at his own conference.” Hillary thought it was “sweet” of her husband, but said she doesn’t “need anybody to defend my record.”

PBS/NPR 'Conservative' David Brooks: 'President Obama Was Right' on Bergdahl Swap
By Tim Graham | June 6, 2014 | 11:19 AM EDT

For most of this week, the front page of The New York Times has been trying to dig out Team Obama on the Bowe Bergdahl scandal. So it might be unsurprising that pseudo-conservative Times columnist David Brooks is echoing his "objective" colleagues in a Friday column simply titled "President Obama Was Right."

This isn't just a blatantly baked spin blossom for the Times. It might naturally spur Brooks to be asked to "complete the thought" about Obama being correct on his Friday "week in review" platforms on NPR's All Things Considered and the PBS NewsHour.

PBS Anchor: 'Why Does the White House Rub Salt Into the Wound' of Red-State Democrats With EPA Emissions Crackdown?
By Tim Graham | June 5, 2014 | 9:05 AM EDT

On Tuesday night’s PBS NewsHour, a panel of journalists were exploring how Democratic candidates for the Senate were going to struggle with Obama’s new crackdown on coal plants. PBS anchor Gwen Ifill even said, “why then does the White House rub salt into the wound on this issue? Why make it so hard for Democrats especially?”

Washington Post reporter Reid Wilson replied that Obama wants it for his legacy as his term winds down, and reminded Ifill that he said his time would be when the planet starts to heal: [See video below.]

PBS’s Ifill Fails to Ask Geithner About Admission That WH Asked Him to Lie on TV
By Paul Bremmer | May 23, 2014 | 12:10 PM EDT

On Thursday evening, former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared on the PBS NewsHour to discuss his new memoir. Not only did the taxpayer-subsidized anchor Gwen Ifill gently press Geithner from the left on policy matters, she failed to ask him about one of his most startling admissions – that Obama administration officials wanted him to lie during appearances on the Sunday morning TV talk shows.

It's not for a lack of air time either. Ifill gave a two-minute introduction, followed by a 10-minute interview, yet she never got around to this revelation from Geithner’s book Stress Test:

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). 

PBS Analyst Mark Shields: House Benghazi Hearings 'Will Be A Disaster'
By Tim Graham | May 13, 2014 | 7:18 AM EDT

PBS NewsHour analyst Mark Shields started with an admission on Benghazi on Friday night: “Has the White House been transparent? Absolutely not.”

But he lamented that the House special committee hearings “will be a disaster. It won’t be good for the country.” It’s only being done for the Tea Party and Fox News. Apparently, hearings are only productive and wonderful when run by liberal Democrats like Henry Waxman:

PBS Decries GOP Benghazi Fundraising, Had No Problem With Obama Fundraising Day After Deadly Attack
By Paul Bremmer | May 9, 2014 | 12:47 PM EDT

On Thursday’s NewsHour, PBS ran a full-length segment on the new special committee created by House Republicans to investigate the September 2012 Benghazi attacks. However, anchor Judy Woodruff and her guest, Robert Costa from The Washington Post -- formerly of the National Review --  pushed the idea that Republicans are exploiting the tragedy by fundraising off of it. The thing is, the network didn’t seem to care back in 2012 when President Obama gave a brief Rose Garden statement after the attacks and then dashed off to Las Vegas for a campaign fundraiser.

Woodruff brought up the issue of fundraising near the end of the interview:

Esquire’s Pierce Asks: Why Doesn’t NBA Punish Owners Who Oppose Gay Marriage?
By Paul Bremmer | April 30, 2014 | 1:33 PM EDT

Donald Sterling, the beleaguered owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, has been banned from the NBA for life. But for some in the media, the league's disciplinary action is something that should be pursued against socially conservative owners by virtue of their political beliefs.

Take Esquire political blogger Charlie Pierce, for example. Appearing as a guest on Tuesday’s PBS NewsHour, Pierce suggested that NBA commissioner Adam Silver should now consider taking action against the DeVos family, which owns the Orlando Magic, for the family’s opposition to gay marriage. Pierce pondered (emphasis mine):