Appearing on NBC's Today on Monday, New Yorker magazine editor and former Washington Post Moscow correspondent David Remnick fretted that the United States lacked the moral authority to oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine: "The United States also does not have the leverage it wants in historical terms. Invading countries is something the United States knows about from really raw experience. And Russia knows that and asserts that day in and day out on Russian television all the time. That's a cost, too." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Moments earlier, co-host Savannah Guthrie excused the Obama administration's poor handling of the situation: "So what is the White House supposed to do? I mean, on Friday we see the President coming out saying to Putin, 'There will be high costs if you invade.' The very next day, he invades. What leverage do we have?" Remnick replied: "Economic leverage, diplomatic leverage, but I don't think in any way the United States or Europe has any interest in making this military, making it a military clash between the United States and Russia, because we know how horrible and bloody that could get."
NBC
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Tea Party movement, and on Sunday, CBS and NBC did their best to squash its momentum, with CBS’s Face the Nation snubbing the event altogether.
Meet the Press moderator David Gregory hyped how on its anniversary Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had “a message for his party, basically you know be careful how you’re conducting yourself.”
For the first time since her infamous 2012 interview, National Security Advisor Susan Rice appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday February 23 to discuss a variety of foreign policy issues, most noticeably Benghazi.
Throughout the interview, which focused primarily on the recent violent protests in Ukraine, host David Gregory provided Rice with a variety of softball questions on Benghazi, and allowed her to push White House talking points without any significant pushback.
What was the best way for NBC to begin that network's coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia? Have sports anchor Bob Costas host a brief profile on Vladmir Putin in which the Russian president is hailed as a global statesman superior to U.S. president Barack Obama. '
During a video portion of the profile, Costas said that Putin is an accomplished peacemaker, crediting him with preventing an American airstrike on Syria and coaxing the Iranian government to the nuclear negotiating table.
Anyone in the news business will tell you that a side benefit is the diverse number of people one gets to meet.
Jay Leno, who leaves "The Tonight Show" on Feb 6 after a 22-year run (retire is not the right word in his case), is one such person.
Less than 24-hours after former Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) was indicted on 14 charges including conspiracy and fraud, all three network morning shows immediately identified McDonnell as a Republican. While McDonnell’s potential crimes are serious, the media failed to uphold the same party ID standard when it involved a scandal plagued Democratic governor.
NBC led their January 22 coverage of the McDonnell scandal with Today host Savannah Guthrie introducing the segment by saying, “And now to that bombshell indictment of the former governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, a one-time rising star in the Republican Party.” ABC provided an on-screen graphic identifying McDonnell as a Republican and CBS This Morning’s Nancy Cordes said that “McDonnell was once considered a possible presidential contender for the GOP.”
A Russian research vessel has been stuck in thick ice in the Antarctic since Christmas morning, and predictably the big three networks are enjoying the novelty of such an event. However, despite the obvious news story, ABC, CBS and NBC have all missed one great irony in their reporting.
On Monday December 30, all three networks covered the story, but only CBS even used the words “climate change” when discussing the trapped ship. All three failed to point out the irony that this event is an embarrassment for those pushing the liberal “climate change” narrative.
Sawed off limbs, gouged out eyes, slashed throats, decapitation, disembowelment, cannibalism, human corpses used as fertilizer, graphic rape and blood splattering stabbings – just another day’s work for TV’s new favorite characters.
Serial killers are a hot trend on TV these days. You can even watch your favorite serial killer hero doing all the above, 5 out of 7 days of the week – and then go out and emulate him. Currently there are 20 shows revolving around serial killers, seven of which premiered in the beginning of 2013.
Touting the Boy Scouts' "landmark" and "historic" decision to allow openly-gay members, CBS, ABC, and NBC gave supporters of the decision three times as many quotes as their opponents got on Friday morning's news stories.
The networks gave 10 soundbites to supporters of the new Scouts policy and only three to its opponents. Supporters included President Obama, gay scout Pascal Tessier, and former den leader Jennifer Tyrell.
Both NBCNews.com and CBS Boston recently touted study linking even 1.5 drinks a day, or less to certain types of cancer. That study has been criticized for “questionable assumptions,” but neither story pointed that out.
NBC’s JoNel Aleccia wrote that “booze can be blamed for nearly 20,000 deaths a year -- and it’s not just the heavy drinkers.” Aleccia was touting a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, which drew a number of conclusions about drinking and cancer.
NBC quoted the study’s director, Dr. Timothy Naimi, referred to alcohol as a “leading cause of death.” He also dismissed claims that small amounts of alcohol could improve heart health and cholesterol levels, claiming that these things could just as easily be coincidental. He disaparaged such studies saying, “And we’ve always been in search of snake oil.”
It turns out that the Romney campaign was right to claim that Fiat, who owns Chrysler, would be making Jeeps in China instead of America, even though the media disparaged that case at the time with PolitiFact going so far as to declare the ad "Lie of the Year." According to PolitiFact, the campaign falsely implied the jobs would be outsourced, among other claims.
As Reuters reported yesterday, "Fiat (FIA.MI) and its U.S. unit Chrysler expect to roll out at least 100,000 Jeeps in China when production starts in 2014 as they seek to catch up with rivals in the world's biggest car market."
We have yet another addition to the pro-gay, anti-Christian genre so popular on TV these days. Apparently NBC is looking to cash in on the falsehood that “abnormal is the new normal” with a series focused on a gay couple’s quest to have a child via a surrogate mother.
In “The New Normal,” Bryan and David, a gay couple in a committed partnership, turn to surrogacy because they “can’t have a child the traditional way.” (When did biology become tradition? Ironic, how liberals ostentatiously worship at the altar of science, until science gets in the way of their gratification. Then it’s just a “tradition.”)