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.
World News
By Matthew Balan | October 9, 2015 | 10:31 PM EDT
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.
By Curtis Houck | October 7, 2015 | 11:12 PM EDT
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.
By Curtis Houck | October 7, 2015 | 9:00 PM EDT
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.
By Curtis Houck | October 6, 2015 | 8:31 PM EDT
On Tuesday, ABC’s World News Tonight filed its lone 2016 election report on GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson in attempt to slam him for his response to a question on FNC’s Fox & Friends about how he’d deal with facing a mass shooter and his desire to arm trained schoolteachers to protect their students. With the on-screen headline entitled “Carson controversy,” anchor David Muir hyped that there was a “new headline tonight involving Dr. Ben Carson and what he said about guns.”
By Rich Noyes | October 6, 2015 | 9:30 AM EDT
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.
By Curtis Houck | October 5, 2015 | 8:58 PM EDT
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.”
By Rich Noyes | October 1, 2015 | 2:57 PM EDT
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.
By Curtis Houck | September 30, 2015 | 9:49 PM EDT
On Wednesday night, the CBS Evening News punted on the latest batch of Hillary Clinton’s State Department e-mails released hours earlier while their competitors at ABC and NBC did cover them, but only through the veil of defending Clinton against Speaker of the House candidate Kevin McCarthy’s comments on the Benghazi Committee that NBC’s Andrea Mitchell touted as “an unlikely political lifeline.”
Networks Hype ‘Spirited,’ ‘Unfazed’ Planned Parenthood President in Coverage of ‘Five-Hour Interrogation’
By Curtis Houck | September 29, 2015 | 9:58 PM EDT Hours after Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards testified Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee concerning the videos that have embroiled the abortion provider in scandal over the selling of aborted baby parts, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC rushed to the defense of the “unfazed” and “spirited” Richards as she “endured a five-hour interrogation” by the GOP.
By Curtis Houck | September 29, 2015 | 1:16 AM EDT
On Monday evening, the major broadcast networks showed no interest in covering the revelation from the State Department that a safe installed at the office of Hillary Clinton’s attorney was insufficient to protect the classified material contained in e-mails from her private e-mail server in yet another development ahead of the latest e-mail batch’s release on Wednesday.
By Curtis Houck | September 28, 2015 | 10:52 PM EDT
While the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC all covered on Monday night the developments at the United Nations (U.N.) and the meeting between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News failed to go the distance and report that Obama’s disastrous rebel training initiative in Syria had been suspended. In contrast, the CBS Evening News not only covered the announcement from the Pentagon but led the newscast with the story.