Tony Harris

CNN's Cohen Defends ObamaCare: Elderly 'Group...Who Needs to Worry the Least'
By Matthew Balan | August 10, 2009 | 3:14 PM EDT

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent | NewsBusters.org[Update, 3:30 pm Eastern: See below.]

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen tried to assuage the elderly over their concerns with ObamaCare on Monday’s Newsroom: “If there’s one group of people who needs to worry the least about health care reform, it’s probably the elderly... [they] already have Medicare.” This claim by Cohen ignores planned cuts to Medicare benefits announced by President Obama himself back in January.

Anchor Tony Harris brought on Cohen to answer viewer questions during the first minutes of the 11 am Eastern hour. One viewer named Jake asked if he would lose his Medicare under the Obama proposal. She replied, “If there’s one group of people who needs to worry the least about health care reform, it’s probably the elderly, and the reason for that is that the elderly already have Medicare. They already have government-sponsored health insurance. Reform is about helping people who are under the age of 65. So, he really doesn’t have to worry about his Medicare.”

CNN's Harris Calls Police Union Presser 'Incendiary'
By Mike Sargent | July 24, 2009 | 4:41 PM EDT

<img src="http://media.eyeblast.org/newsbusters/static/2009/07/2009-07-24-CNN-News... vspace="3" width="240" align="right" border="0" height="180" hspace="3" />CNN daytime anchor Tony Harris has a bit of a different perspective on the Henry Louis Gates arrest.<br /><br />Around 12:31 PM, after the Massachusetts Municipal Police Coalition held a press conference defending Sgt. Crowley’s conduct in the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Harris spoke to the CNN reporter on the scene, Don Lemon.  Having been informed that one of the reasons the union decided to hold the press conference was a sinking morale among officers after President Obama’s remarks on the matter, Harris said:

CNN on Specter Switch: GOP 'Far to the Right;' Democrats in 'Center'
By Matthew Balan | April 28, 2009 | 6:33 PM EDT
Bill Schneider from 4/28/2009 CNN Newsroom | NewsBsters.orgDuring the first hour and a half following Senator Arlen Specter’s announcement that he was switching from the Republican Party to the Democratic, CNN pushed the “big message” behind the defection, that “the Republican Party has moved so far to the right, that it is making itself uncompetitive in significant parts of the country, like the Northeast,” as the network’s senior political analyst Bill Schneider (shown at right) put it. He continued that the “Democrats, under President Obama, are really moving to claim the center of American politics.” Anchor Kyra Phillips even used the “center” label as an apparent synonym for Democrat.

Phillips’ fellow anchor Tony Harris turned to Schneider three times over the course of fifteen minutes during the 12 pm Eastern hour of the Newsroom program on CNN. During the first appearance 22 minutes into the hour, Harris asked the senior political analyst, “Could we see more of these defections and switches?” Schneider answered, “Tony, this has been going on for years. Republicans in the Northeast have been defeated....They’ve been losing general elections. The Republican Party -- there’s a big message here, which is that the Republican Party has moved so far to the right, that it is making itself uncompetitive in significant parts of the country, like the Northeast. This is really a cannon shot at them, saying this party is no longer competitive in lots of the country.”
CNN Bemoans Americans' Hostility to Islam, Obama Needs to 'Educate'
By Matthew Balan | April 7, 2009 | 6:13 PM EDT
April 2009 CNN Poll Graphic | NewsBusters.orgCNN latched onto two separate poll results on Monday that indicated that about half of Americans view the Islamic world negatively or don’t trust Muslim allies as much as other allies, and indicated that President Obama and others in authority need to be “educators” for the public about Islam. The network brought up the polls’ results on seven different occasions during their programming that day.

During the 8 am Eastern hour of American Morning, chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour first brought up a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll which found that 55 percent of Americans “concede that they lack a good basic understanding of Islam” and that 48 percent “hold an unfavorable opinion of Islam.” After she read these results, substitute anchor Carol Costello responded, “I think the difference is that many Americans see Islam as an ideology instead of a religion, and maybe, President Obama has to kind of -- kind of put a definition on it from the American standpoint in Turkey.”

Later, near the end of the noon hour of the Newsroom program, Amanpour appeared again, this time with anchor Tony Harris. He asked the correspondent to “talk us through some recent polling in The Washington Post that suggests that the president is going to have to play the role of educator-in-chief when it comes to explaining Islam to many in America, even as he works for better relations with the Islamic world.” Amanpour first answered that President Obama was “trying to smooth...over and correct” the “terrible rupture” between the U.S. and the Islamic world over the past eight years.
CNN'S Harris: It's 'Great News' That the Stimulus Nears Approval
By Mike Bates | February 12, 2009 | 12:16 PM EST
Many folks realize that the Obama stimulus plan is little more than a list of long-held liberal dreams tossed together in hopes a scared American public will demand its immediate approval.  Over at CNN, they've bought into the politics of fear and are openly cheering for the bill making its way through Congress.  On yesterday's CNN Newsroom anchor Tony Harris spoke with CNN senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash about it:
HARRIS: Let's make a deal. Negotiators say they could agree on a final version of the massive stimulus bill as early as today.

Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash is on phone from Capitol Hill.

Dana, really, by today? Is that possible?

DANA BASH, CNN NEWS SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPODNENT: Their cautiously optimistic. I think we should stress the word cautious. I'm sitting in the hall of the capitol down the hall from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office. And there is a huge meeting going on, it's even going on for 24 hours. The White House has said the budget director said many some of the key centrist Senators who really hold a lot of power between the House and Senate on the president's stimulus package.
CNN Guest on Embryo Destruction: 'Religious Right' Also Opposed Anesthesia and Cornea Transplants
By Matthew Balan | January 23, 2009 | 6:49 PM EST
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent; & Dr. Thomas Okarma, CEO of Geron Corporation | NewsBusters.orgDuring a segment on Friday’s Newsroom program, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen heralded the FDA’s approval of the first human clinical trial involving embryo-destroying stem cell research. Cohen then gave a soft interview of the president and CEO of the company involved in the trial, who made the bizarre claim that new medical breakthroughs, including corneal transplants and anesthesia for women in childbirth, were supposedly “always met with concerns from the Religious Right” in the past. Cohen did not follow-up to this statement by the CEO.

The segment, which began 17 minutes into the 11 am Eastern hour of the CNN program, began with anchor Tony Harris trumpeting how the FDA’s approval of the embryonic stem cell clinical trial represented “major milestone in this field of research.” He then asked Cohen to “explain to us how significant a day this is.” The correspondent gushed in reply, “This is a big day, and I will tell you, I interviewed Christopher Reeve many times about stem cells, and I think he would probably be smiling if he were here to see this day.” She did not bring up the moral objections to embryo destruction in her explanation of the breaking news item which followed, just that “some say that some of this research has been overblown, and a it’s not quite as promising as many people say.”
The Passion of the Obama?! 'CNN Newsroom' Showcases Obama Iconography
By Ken Shepherd | January 7, 2009 | 5:26 PM EST

Shortly before noon today, CNN anchor Tony Harris turned to producer Tyson Wheatley for a look at the latest from CNN's "iReport" desk. Wheatley proceeded to show Harris and the viewers at home some of the art work done by CNN's "iReporters," including one item that evoked an image from a promotional poster for 2004's Mel Gibson film, "The Passion of the Christ." [audio excerpt here]

Here's the CNN.com transcript, you can view the video embed at the right (h/t fellow NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein):

CNN’s Jessica Yellin Does a 180 on Obama's 'Transparency'
By Matthew Balan | December 11, 2008 | 10:18 PM EST
CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin reversed course concerning her take on President-Elect Barack Obama’s “transparency” on the issue of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and the appointment of his successor in the U.S. Senate. During a segment on Wednesday’s Situation Room, Yellin criticized the outgoing Illinois senator for “not starting off on the foot he promised he’d start off on, which is more transparency and more candor than we’ve seen before.” Just under 17 hour later, minutes after Obama stated that he was “absolutely certain” that no one in his camp was involved in the governor’s alleged scheme to sell his senate seat, the CNN correspondent praised the president-elect: “I should also highlight...that he’s also set down a marker for transparency. He promised a transparent government...and he has revealed now much more than we usually hear in these kind of investigations scandals from a politician.”
CNN Gives One-Sided Boost to Hate Crimes Legislation
By Colleen Raezler | October 13, 2008 | 4:32 PM EDT

CNN promoted hate crimes legislation last Friday morning when it aired a video of singer Cyndi Lauper speaking about her hero, homosexual activist Cathy Nelson during the 11:00 hour of its Newsroom.

Using the hook of CNN's "Heroes" special scheduled to air Thanksgiving night, anchor Tony Harris introduced the video with "We've also asked some familiar faces to share the spotlight and introduce us to their heroes. Today, Grammy award winner Cyndi Lauper tells us about a human rights activist fighting for all Americans."

Of course, Lauper's hero is most concerned with one specific group of Americans: homosexuals.

The video featured Lauper saying such things as "hate crimes send terror through a community" and "you can die just because of who you are."  Nelson added, "Lesbian and gay; bisexual and transgender equality is really the civil rights issue of this generation" and "what drives me is fighting for fairness and equality." 

CNN: Supreme Court ‘Kills’ DC Handgun Ban, Slants Toward Gun Victim
By Matthew Balan | June 26, 2008 | 1:36 PM EDT

In anticipation of the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of DC handgun ban on Thursday, CNN’s "Newsroom" program ran a report on both the sides of the gun case, in which the pro-gun control advocate was given twice the amount of air time as the gun rights advocate. The report, by CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena, ran twice within 20 minutes; first, at the top of the 10 am hour of "Newsroom," minutes before the decision was released, and then immediately after the news of the decision broke.

In addition to this, when the 5-4 decision upholding the lower court’s finding that the ban was unconstitutional, the "Newsroom" program initially ran a graphic that read, "Supreme Ct. Kills Handgun Ban: Overrules DC Law." The graphic ran for just under a minute until being replaced by another that read, "Supreme Ct. Overrules Gun Ban: Overrules DC Law Forbidding Handguns."

Just over an hour after the Supreme Court’s ruling came down, near the bottom half of the 11 am Eastern hour of "Newsroom," CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, when asked about the local impact of the decision, snarked that "the communities that care about safety and communities that don't want the bad effects of guns will try to rewrite their regulations in line with what they think the Court decided."

Tommy Lee and Ludacris: CNN’s New ‘Green’ Authorities
By Matthew Balan | May 15, 2008 | 4:10 PM EDT

NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterJust when you thought the "green" hype couldn’t get any worse, Thursday’s "Newsroom" program on CNN introduced the world to the latest celebrities to jump on the "environmentally-friendly" bandwagon: rocker Tommy Lee of Motley Crue, rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, and Johnny Colt, the bassist for the pop group Train. Co-host Tony Harris interviewed the three for seven minutes during the 11 am Eastern hour of the CNN program so the new trio could promote their upcoming "reality" series, "Battleground Earth" on Discovery Network’s new "green" channel. This brings up the inevitable question, will the Church of Scientology sue for copyright infringement for the show’s title being so close to L. Ron Hubbard’s pulp sci-fi novel "Battlefield Earth"?

Harris, as might be expected, didn’t ask the three any hard-hitting questions, though the celebrities did seem like they were stumped by some of the softballs the CNN host lobbed at them. For example, Harris asked the celebrities about the presidential election and their favorite candidates. Of course, two of them endorsed Obama.

David Gergen on CNN: The Media Needs to ‘Move On’ From Rev. Wright Issue
By Matthew Balan | April 28, 2008 | 1:21 PM EDT

Later in the segment on CNN’s "Newsroom" between Tony Harris, David Gergen, and Roland Martin after the Reverend Jeremiah Wright speech at the National Press Club (which Mark Finkelstein blogged about earlier), Gergen suggested that "it’s time for him [Rev. Wright] to get off the stage, and frankly, for the media, I suggest, to move on." He also twice characterized the whole affair as a "sideshow" [audio available here].

Shortly after a commercial break which came in the middle of the discussion, Gergen, in response to a question from "Newsroom" co-host Tony Harris, said of Rev. Wright, "Every time he appears, he just gives legitimacy and a hunger by those who oppose Barack Obama to re-run those tapes, to keep him at the center of controversy, to let this overhang and define Barack Obama, when it has, you know -- it has very, very little to do -- it's a very marginal piece of who Barack Obama is and what he stands for."

Gergen then talked about how the Rev. Wright issue was a distraction, and how the preacher should have handled himself after the controversy broke, all the while heaping praise on him, and at the end, making his "move on" suggestion.