No wonder Dan Abrams left MSNBC . . . The former legal analyst at the "Lean Forward" network, now at ABC, expressed an opinion this morning that would surely be unwelcome at his former shop.
Guest-hosting on Good Morning America, Abrams opined that as a legal matter "I don't see how a jury convicts" George Zimmerman of murder or manslaughter. Abrams sees too much reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case to warrant a guilty verdict. View the video after the jump.
Bianna Golodryga
By Mark Finkelstein | July 6, 2013 | 8:10 AM EDT
By Scott Whitlock | April 29, 2013 | 4:38 PM EDT
The journalists at Good Morning America gushed over Barack Obama's performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday. On Sunday and Monday's program, the reporters enthused over the "hilarious" "comedian-in-chief" who was "on fire."
On Monday's program, former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos fawned over a mock video that Obama participated in: "He did this film, a take-off on Lincoln, where he plays Daniel Day Lewis playing Obama...which was hilarious." Correspondent Lara Spencer hyped, "[Obama] was on fire." Jon Karl lauded, "He's always been pretty good at this. I think he's gotten better."
By Scott Whitlock | April 5, 2013 | 11:56 AM EDT
Oops. Good Morning America on Friday preemptively announced "expected" job creation for the month of March totaling 190,000. In reality, 88,000 jobs were created. The ABC morning show was only off by 102,000 jobs. At 7:10am, about 75 minutes before the release of the actual numbers, reporter Linzie Janis insited, "The government's jobs report is out this morning. It's expected to show that 190,000 jobs were created last month." The accompanying graphic included the number and a tiny asterisk, presumably representing the tentative nature of the numbers. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
This is a monthly practice on the ABC morning show. The anchors will announce the hypothetical, possible results and then cover the real result later in the day on the network. Janis allowed that the new report might not be great. She added, "Why the slowdown? Well, those $85 billion in government spending cuts." Just a month ago, however, GMA's Bianna Golodryga lamented the fact that investors were shrugging off the sequester.
By Scott Whitlock | April 1, 2013 | 12:22 PM EDT
The reporters and hosts of Good Morning America really want you to know something: Don Young is a Republican. The ABC morning show on Saturday featured 11 mentions of the Congressman's party affiliation in a span of just two minutes. Young referred to "wetbacks" in an interview last week. An ABC graphic blared, "Congressman uses racist term."
Co-host Bianna Golodryga insisted that "this comment has created quite the headache for Republicans." Reporter Jeff Zeleny lectured, "The Republican Party's effort to rebuild and rebrand its image is colliding this morning with the party's old guard." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] To make sure everyone was clear on what party Young belonged to, the journalist added, "Republican advisers tell ABC News that they worry that the racial slur from Congressman Young comes at precisely the wrong time, just as the Republicans are trying to expand their appeal to Latino voters." In contrast, when Joe Biden smeared Indian Americans as mostly working at 7-11, ABC ignored the story.
Video: Noyes, Varney Discuss Media's Hype of Sequester, Befuddlement That Public Not Outraged Over Its Implementation
By Ken Shepherd | March 7, 2013 | 12:42 PM EST In the fortnight leading up to the sequester, the broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC wrung their hands about "all the catastrophes that would happen if these cuts went through," NewsBusters senior editor Rich Noyes noted on the March 7 edition of Fox Business Network's Varney & Co. Since, then, however, "they've spent no time asking how is the White House going to decide where these cuts are, how is the administration going to parcel out these cuts?"
In short, "[t]hey're not doing their watchdog function at all," the Media Research Center's research director told FBN's Stuart Varney. What's more, for the most part, the same networks lack any skepticism about how the administration might be targeting their cuts in such as way as to deliberately inflict pain, when it's completely in the power of the Obama White House to structure cutbacks in a way that minimizes its impact on the taxpaying American (watch the full segment below the page break):
By Scott Whitlock | March 5, 2013 | 12:17 PM EST
After hyping a "fiscal emergency" that could "vaporize" America, the journalists at Good Morning America seemed slightly puzzled that daily life has continued. GMA anchor George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday talked to reporter Bianna Golodryga and marveled, "...Investors seem to be shrugging off any economic impact from the stalemate in Washington, those across the board spending cuts."
Golodryga lamented the lack of panic, complaining, "Yeah, isn't that kind of sad? It was basically anticipated that we were going to have these spending cuts." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Isn't that kind of sad? Golodryga admitted, "You're not seeing a huge effect on the economy. Economists are saying that we could have some sort of impact. It could slow growth but not really bring us into another recession." Just last week, on the same program, news reader Josh Elliott opened the show by panicking: "Jobs vaporizing, flights delayed, even criminals walking free."
By Noel Sheppard | February 17, 2013 | 8:05 PM EST
Talk about your phony controversies.
On ABC's Good Morning America Sunday, they actually did a segment addressing whether or not some of the pictures taken during the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue photo shoots were - wait for it! - racist (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Brent Bozell | August 14, 2012 | 11:02 PM EDT
Mitt Romney made a smart executive decision selecting Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate. Ryan’s genial personality, serious policy wonkery, and political courage have dazzled conservatives and won respect even in a few liberal circles. Romney scores points for political courage as well. He knew liberal politicians and journalists would talk in punishing terms about Ryan’s budget ideas.
They did not disappoint. It took only minutes for the onslaught to begin. At the same time liberal media outlets acknowledge the country now faces two opposing visions of government, why is only the Romney-Ryan vision “polarizing” and “extreme”?
By Rich Noyes | August 11, 2012 | 11:26 AM EDT
Previewing the choice of Paul Ryan as the GOP vice presidential candidate, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows all used Democratic framing to describe the House GOP budget plan that Ryan championed as a plan to, as CBS’s Bob Schieffer put it, “cut more than $5 trillion over the next ten years.” ABC’s Bianna Golodryga passed along the demagogic rhetoric of liberals: “Democrats, meantime, contest that it will destroy Medicare and Social Security.”
But Ryan’s plan would actually increase federal spending over the next ten years, from about $3.6 trillion this year to just under $4.9 trillion in 2022. The $5 trillion in “cuts” are merely reductions from the much-higher spending anticipated by President Obama’s budget. (See tables starting on page 88.)
By Brad Wilmouth | August 4, 2012 | 9:38 AM EDT
On Saturday's Good Morning America on ABC, co-host Bianna Golodryga seemed to admire Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for making an unsubstantiated charge that Mitt Romney had not paid taxes in 10 years, as she ended a short discussion of the smear by gushing: "Harry Reid, always one to speak his mind," inspiring a chuckle from correspondent David Kerley.
By Scott Whitlock | July 23, 2012 | 12:48 PM EDT
Good Morning America Sunday co-host Bianna Golodryga played up calls by liberal Mayor Michael Bloomberg for more gun control in the wake of Friday's mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. This occurred even as George Stephanopoulos conceded that no new gun control legislation would be passed.
Golodryga touted, "One person who is very outspoken about it, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that no other developed country in the world has this issue that we do." Stephanopoulos parroted, "That's exactly right." This segment occurred just two days after Stephanopoulos and Brian Ross smeared the Tea Party as possibly being connected to the mass killing.
By Brad Wilmouth | June 18, 2012 | 7:54 AM EDT
On Sunday's Good Morning America, anchors Dan Harris and Bianna Golodryga defended Bristol Palin as they plugged a report on a man suing Bristol for including in her reality show a clip of herself confronting him as he berated her mother, Sarah Palin.
After playing a clip of the exchange which took place in a bar, Harris observed: