All three network morning shows on Monday promoted President Obama's attempts to deflect tough questions on a several administration scandals during a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Sunday. On NBC's Today, news reader Natalie Morales described how during the "sometimes contentious interview" the President "said he tries to focus not on the fumbles, but on the next plan." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
ABC's news reader Josh Elliott touted the same line on Good Morning America: "The President said he tries not to focus on the fumbles in his administration, but rather, on the next plan."
O'Reilly Factor
By Kyle Drennen | February 3, 2014 | 11:55 AM EST
By Kyle Drennen | February 3, 2014 | 10:59 AM EST
Not accustomed to being asked difficult questions about his failures in office, President Obama attacked Fox News host Bill O'Reilly during a pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday for daring to demand answers about the Benghazi terrorist attack and the IRS targeting conservative groups. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
O'Reilly pressed: "Your detractors believe that you did not tell the world it was a terror attack because your campaign didn't want that out. That's what they believe." Obama ranted in reply: "And they believe it because folks like you are telling them that." O'Reilly responded: "No, I'm not telling them that, I'm asking you whether you were told it was a terror attack."
By Jeffrey Meyer | February 2, 2014 | 6:44 PM EST
President Obama sat down with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly for his annual pre-Super Bowl interview and The O’Reilly Factor host called out the president’s own contradictions during their interview.
During the segment, which aired on Sunday afternoon, O’Reilly read a letter submitted to him that asked President Obama, “why do you feel it's necessary to fundamentally transform the nation that has afforded you so much opportunity?” [See video below.]
By NB Staff | January 13, 2014 | 4:20 PM EST
Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly on Friday marveled over the "amazing" disparity between how the networks deluged America with coverage on Chris Christie's traffic scandal versus how ABC, CBS and ABC covered Barack Obama's IRS controversy over the last six months. Commentator Bernard Goldberg also found the disparity "incredible." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Relying on an analysis by the Media Research Center, Goldberg explained, "In the last 24 hours, actually in less than 24 hours, ABC, NBC, and CBS News devoted 17 times more coverage, air time, 17 times more than they devoted are in the past six months to the IRS scandal." In fact, as of Friday morning, the number was up to 44-to-one.
By Brad Wilmouth | December 26, 2013 | 6:34 PM EST
On Monday's All In with Chris Hayes, host Hayes for a second time griped over Fox News giving attention to reports of primarily black teens playing a "knockout game" in which they target white victims for violence, suggesting that the game does not really exist.
As he awarded his choice for the "over-covered" and "under-covered" news stories for the year, Hayes began:
By Noel Sheppard | December 11, 2013 | 11:03 PM EST
As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, Bill O’Reilly once again exposed MSNBC’s Al Sharpton for deceptively editing a video to blatantly misrepresent what the Fox News host said.
On the O’Reilly Factor Wednesday, media analyst and political commentator Bernie Goldberg claimed MSNBC is afraid to fire Sharpton; Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz said he’d start by canning the producer (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | December 10, 2013 | 9:01 PM EST
Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday again exposed MSNBC’s Al Sharpton for deceptively editing a video, this time to make it appear the Factor host was disparaging Nelson Mandela within hours of his death.
“Sharpton uses the occasion of Nelson Mandela's death to dishonestly attack people he doesn't like,” said O’Reilly. “They don't come lower” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Brad Wilmouth | December 9, 2013 | 2:11 PM EST
On Friday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC's Karen Finney accused Republicans of practicing their own form of "apartheid" by "separating people and dividing people" as she and host Al Sharpton discussed comments some right-leaning public figures have made in the aftermath of Nelson Mandela's passing.
Referring to former Senator Rick Santorum comparing Mandela fighting against the oppresssion of apartheid to conservatives fighting against ObamaCare, Finney asserted: [See video below.]
By Noel Sheppard | December 1, 2013 | 4:01 PM EST
There haven’t been a lot of members of the media that have come out in support of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir's suggestion a few weeks ago that someone should defecate and urinate in former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s mouth.
Seemingly bucking that trend Sunday was the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank who appearing on Fox News's MediaBuzz actually compared those remarks to Bill O’Reilly joking three years ago about beheading him (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Brad Wilmouth | November 25, 2013 | 5:20 PM EST
Appearing as a guest on Thursday's The O'Reilly Factor on FNC to promote his book, Double Down: Game Change 2012, Time magazine's Mark Halperin recounted that the media did not "scrutinize" ObamaCare before its passage or during the 2012 presidential election, although he also placed some blame on Republicans for nominating former Governor Mitt Romney who was known for pushing a health care plan in Massachusetts.
After substitute host Laura Ingraham complained that concerns about ObamaCare "were routinely dismissed" in the media, Halperin responded:
By Noel Sheppard | November 20, 2013 | 6:24 PM EST
As first reported by NewsBusters, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir ended his program Friday giving arguably the most deplorable defamation of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin by anyone to date.
With no disciplinary action having been administered to Bashir by his superiors, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh asked on his show Wednesday, "Let's say Dr. Krauthammer or Ted O'Baxter [Bill O'Reilly] would suggest that somebody do to Obama what Bashir suggested happen to Sarah Palin. What do you think would have happened?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Bill Maher to Piers Morgan: MSNBC 'Very Rarely Wrong,' CNN Lagging For 'Play(ing) It Down the Middle'
By Tom Blumer | November 3, 2013 | 1:03 PM EST Bill Maher was a guest on Piers Morgan's CNN show on Tuesday night; the interview segment was replayed on Friday (thanks to NB's Noel Sheppard for that catch). Among other things, Maher confirmed that he is a member of the left's unreality-based community when he described MSNBC as "very rarely wrong" and Fox News's Bill O'Reilly as someone who "says something that is insanely off-base and not true" almost every night.
Maher also lamented what he sees as CNN's biggest problem: They're trying to "play it down the middle," and viewers don't want that.