Introducing what amounted to a White House press release on Saturday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt opened the broadcast by parroting President Obama's praise for attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch: "Historic choice. The woman who's taken down mobsters and terrorists now tapped to be the country's next attorney general."
Kristen Dahlgren
By Scott Whitlock | February 10, 2014 | 12:21 PM EST
AOL executive Tim Armstrong last week publicly worried about how ObamaCare is impacting his company, but only CBS highlighted this complaint. NBC, instead, focused solely on his "outrageous" comments about how seriously ill babies have impacted AOL's 401k plan. ObamaCare went unmentioned.
In a CNBC interview on Friday, Armstrong explained why the company would cut retirement benefits: "As a CEO and as a management team, we have to decide: Do we pass the $7.1 million of Obamacare cost to our employees? Or do we try to eat as much of that as possible and cut benefits?" On Monday's CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose wondered, "Are a lot of CEOs concerned about the cost of Obamacare? " Pollster Frank Lutz appeared and retorted, "Almost every one I deal with." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
By Scott Whitlock | July 8, 2013 | 12:28 PM EDT
The journalists at Good Morning America on Monday offered an assist to liberal politicians trying to avoid being associated with the scandal-plagued former Governor of New York. While announcing Eliot Spitzer's return to public life, news reader Paula Faris avoided any mention of the fact that Spitzer is a Democrat. As she noted his bid to be New York City's comptroller, Faris simply referred to the "disgraced former governor of New York."
Over on NBC's Today, correspondent Kristen Dahlgren hyped Spitzer as "the next comeback kid." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Comparing the ex-governor to Anthony Weiner, Dahlgren enthused, "2013 may go down as the year of the second chance." Despite connecting the two New York Democrats, Dahlgren also skipped any ideological label. It wasn't until the 8am hour that co-host Natalie Morales alerted, "The Democrat stepped down in 2008 over a prostitution scandal."
By Scott Whitlock | November 21, 2011 | 5:06 PM EST
The three network morning shows, which have been mostly ignoring crimes at the Occupy Wall Street protests, hyped the "ugly" and "disturbing" "outrage" of students at the University of California, Davis campus being sprayed with pepper. Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos interviewed the school's chancellor and repeatedly berated her about resigning.
On NBC's Today, Ann Curry warned, "And also this morning, some disturbing video. Take a look at this, two police officers have been placed on administrative leave for using pepper spray on seated protesters at an Occupy demonstration on the campus of a California university." The Today show, as well as GMA made sure to push the protest as "peaceful," but only GMA pointed out that the students had encircled the police.