Lois Lerner

Six More IRS Employees Have Missing Emails; Networks Ignore In Favor of OJ Anniversary, Canine Etiquette
By Ken Shepherd | June 17, 2014 | 9:00 PM EDT

Six more IRS employees have curiously had their emails go missing, two Republican congressmen investigating the tax-collecting agency for its improper targeting of conservative non-profits informed the press today. This follows on the heel's of the revelation Friday afternoon regarding Lois Lerner's emails to the White House, the Treasury Department, and other persons outside the IRS.

But none of the Big Three network evening newscasts even mentioned the development tonight, even as they had time for stories on the 20th anniversary of the OJ Simpson freeway chase (NBC), a rare postage stamp up for auction (CBS), and how dogs have and enforce a sort of social etiquette when they play with each other (ABC). [MP3 audio here; video montage follows page break]

ABC, NBC Continue to Ignore IRS Claim That It Lost 2 Years of Lois Lerner Emails
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 16, 2014 | 7:52 PM EDT

Last Friday, the Internal Revenue Service announced that it had lost approximately two years of emails from former employee Lois Lerner. 

Despite the damning new revelations in the IRS scandal, ABC and NBC have failed to cover the story as of Monday June 16, and only CBS This Morning reported on the emails on Monday but their evening news program ignoring the IRS alongside ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer and NBC Nightly News.

Sharyl Attkisson Asks Questions That CBS Isn't Asking About the Suddenly Missing IRS E-mails
By P.J. Gladnick | June 16, 2014 | 12:56 PM EDT

Apparently CBS News believes in the Easter Bunny.

Brad Wilmouth reported this morning that CNN's John King made this comment about the Lois Lerner emails that the IRS now claims are supposedly lost: ""Do you believe in the Easter Bunny? Do you believe in Santa Claus? Do you believe that Lois Lerner's emails just suddenly went poof?" Well, CBS News seems to be in Easter Bunny belief mode based on their narrow online report Friday, IRS lost Lois Lerner's emails in tea party probe, which carefully avoids any curiosity as how such emails are now supposedly irretrievable. In fact their own former reporter Sharyl Attkisson is now asking on her website the questions that CBS should but so far hasn't been asking:

Only CBS Covers IRS Losing Two Years of Lois Lerner Emails
By Kyle Drennen | June 16, 2014 | 12:20 PM EDT

On Monday, only CBS This Morning reported Friday's stunning revelation that the IRS somehow lost two years worth of emails from Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the agency scandal in which conservative groups were unfairly targeted. At the top of the morning show, co-host Norah O'Donnell wondered: "How did the IRS lose emails in the scandal targeting conservatives after the government spent millions to back up data?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Introducing the later report, fellow co-host Charlie Rose noted: "The Washington Times says congressional Republicans are blasting the IRS for losing some of Lois Lerner's emails.... the controversy that started last year is erupting again." Correspondent Nancy Cordes reported: "Republican lawmakers, as you can imagine, are furious. They say the IRS has been promising to get them these emails for a year, and now suddenly says that Lois Lerner's computer crashed way back in 2011."

CNN's King: Missing IRS Email 'Makes Me Suspicious,' 'Do You Believe in the Easter Bunny?'
By Brad Wilmouth | June 16, 2014 | 8:54 AM EDT

During New Day's regular "Inside Politics" segment on Monday, CNN's John King declared that it "makes me suspicious" as he informed viewers of revelations that some of former IRS official Lois Lerner's emails not only went missing, but that it took over a year for the White House to inform Congress.

After beginning the segment by rhetorically asking, "Do you believe in the Easter Bunny? Do you believe in Santa Claus? Do you believe that Lois Lerner's emails just suddenly went poof?" King recalled the details, including a quote from House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp complaining about it taking so long for the White House to inform him of the emails. King then commented:

IRS Claims to Have Lost Over Two Years of Lois Lerner's Emails, Will Networks Report?
By Geoffrey Dickens | June 13, 2014 | 4:06 PM EDT

Apparently two years of Lois Lerner’s emails have been lost, according to the IRS. The disappearance of the emails caused House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp to blast: “The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries. There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General.”

The question has to be asked: will the suspicious nature of this latest revelation be enough to get the Big Three networks to get back to covering the IRS-Tea Party scandal?

Lois Lerner Sent Confidential Taxpayer Info to FBI Right Before 2010 Midterms, Networks Ignore
By Geoffrey Dickens | June 11, 2014 | 4:41 PM EDT

On Monday, the House Oversight Committee investigating the IRS targeting scandal released new e-mails that showed Lois Lerner sent a database of tax exempt organizations to the FBI right before the 2010 midterm elections.

So what was the reaction of anchors and reporters at the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC ) networks to the release of federally protected confidential taxpayer information? A big fat yawn. So far no one at the Big Three evening or morning shows have reported on this most recent development in the IRS-Tea Party targeting scandal. 

Brent Bozell to Megyn Kelly: Network IRS Coverage Looks More Like a Coverup
By NB Staff | May 10, 2014 | 11:21 PM EDT

On Friday night’s The Kelly File, Megyn Kelly explained there were important new developments in the IRS-targeting scandal, from Lois Lerner being cited by the House for contempt of Congress to demands for a special prosecutor.

Kelly brought on MRC president Brent Bozell to ask: How much time has it received from the networks? Fifteen seconds,” Brent reported in an interview taped Thursday. “Wow,” Kelly replied. “Maybe they were covering more important things.” (Video, transcript below)

NY Times Reporter Suggests 'Defensive' GOP Playing Politics on Lois Lerner, 'Politicizing a Tragedy' in Benghazi
By Clay Waters | May 8, 2014 | 3:54 PM EDT

The New York Times is desperately trying to reduce Republican complaints of the IRS persecution of Tea Party groups and the White House cover-up of the massacre of Americans in Benghazi to cynical GOP campaign ploys trotted out in an election year.

The paper's strategy is exemplified in Thursday's story by Jeremy Peters, "House Vote on Former I.R.S. Official Signals Element of G.O.P. Election Strategy." The House voted 231-178 to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt for refusing to testify before Congress, and requested a special prosecutor to investigate the agency’s targeting of Tea Party groups. But you would have a tough time figuring that out from Peters's shallow, partisan, politically obsessed reporting, light on details but heavy on suggestions of unfair GOP politics. Peters couldn't even finish his lead sentence without referring to how Republicans hoped to employ the IRS issue, as well as Benghazi and Obama-care, to their advantage in the mid-term elections.

Contemptible: AP Story Again Keeps Lois Lerner's Name Out of Headline, Opening Grafs
By Tom Blumer | May 8, 2014 | 2:07 PM EDT

Once again, as it did a month ago in two separate stories, the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, left the name of Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who ran its section on tax-exempt organizations, out of its headline and opening paragraph. This time, for good measure, AP reporter Stephen Ohlemacher didn't reveal Lerner's name until Paragraph 3.

Before getting to Ohlemacher's journalistic malpractice, let's take a look at the how the Politico handled the same story of Congress holding Ms. Lerner in contempt yesterday, and at one example of how the AP itself covered the story of another controversial figure's anticipated congressional appearance in the 1980s.

Nets Spend 27 Minutes on Climate Change, Just 15 Seconds on Lois Lerner Contempt Vote
By Geoffrey Dickens | May 8, 2014 | 12:19 PM EDT

Not even a full vote by the House of Representatives to hold Lois Lerner in contempt can shake the networks out of their slumber in covering the IRS scandal. On Wednesday the House voted 231-178 (all Republicans voted yes with six Democrats) to hold Lerner in contempt for refusing to testify about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups. Total coverage by ABC, CBS and NBC? Just a 15-second brief on Thursday’s edition of ABC’s Good Morning America.

However the Big Three networks did find the 110x more time this week to tout the “dire” and “alarming” findings from the White House climate change report.

The Burying of a Scandal: TV News Hides the Facts on the IRS’s Targeting of Conservatives
By Rich Noyes | May 7, 2014 | 11:14 AM EDT

Summary: After a partisan report last June absurdly suggested that progressive groups were just as likely to be scrutinized as conservative ones, ABC, CBS and NBC essentially abandoned their coverage of the IRS targeting scandal which broke one year ago this week. After producing 136 stories on their morning and evening news show during the first seven weeks of the scandal, broadcast news coverage dried up, with just 14 more reports over the next 10 months, as the Big Three ignored numerous damning developments in the case.

[Full report after the jump.]