ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening newscasts on Friday all failed to cover the Justice Department announcing that it would be ending its investigation into the IRS's targeting of conservative groups. The Big Three networks' news program did find time to air reporting on the top Google searches for Halloween costumes, the fewer number of turkeys available for upcoming Thanksgiving dinners, and the controversy over the first bear hunt in Florida in 20 years.
Lois Lerner
By Geoffrey Dickens | August 25, 2015 | 11:40 AM EDT
First it was a destroyed hard drive, then it was a busted BlackBerry and now we find out Lois Lerner used another personal e-mail account to conduct government business that utilized the alias “Toby Miles.” This IRS targeting scandal has more twists than an old episode of Law and Order, but it’s still not enticing the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) to go back to covering it.
By Geoffrey Dickens | July 29, 2015 | 11:10 AM EDT
The cover-up behind the IRS targeting scandal continues to unravel, despite President Barack Obama’s absurd protest to the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart last week that “the truth of the matter is there was not some big conspiracy.” This week’s revelations provided the perfect opportunity to catch Obama in a “gotcha” moment but so far ABC, CBS and NBC have reacted with total silence.
By Curtis Houck | June 26, 2015 | 1:04 AM EDT
On Thursday night, the major broadcast networks ignored a new development in the IRS scandal that the agency erased 422 backup tapes and in turn destroyed 24,000 e-mails of embattled former official Lois Lerner. With ABC, CBS, and NBC on the sidelines, the Fox News Channel’s Special Report offered a full report on Thursday’s House Oversight Committee hearing concerning the multi-year scandal. Bret Baier informed viewers that there was “new information about thousands more e-mails in the IRS targeting scandal destroyed during the investigation.”
By Curtis Houck | April 30, 2015 | 12:09 AM EDT
In the Wednesday edition of bias by omission, five of the English and Spanish network evening newscasts again refused to report on a troubling sign for the U.S. economy while all six omitted any mention of a new development in the IRS scandal. After completely ignoring the story all together Wednesday morning, the CBS Evening News stepped up to mention that the U.S. economy has screeched to a grinding halt with a measly 0.2 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of 2015.
By Scott Whitlock | April 29, 2015 | 11:46 AM EDT
Despite a combined eight hours of air time on Wednesday, all three network morning shows ignored the revelation that 6,400 "lost" e-mails from ex-IRS official Lois Lerner have been found. On cable, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer alerted viewers, reminding, "The IRS claimed the emails were lost when learner's computer crashed three years ago. They will now be examined by the Senate Finance Committee." Rather than focus on an attempt to cover-up government targeting of conservative groups, GMA devoted four minutes to this: "Stranded on a deserted Island: Four keys to staying alive."
By Geoffrey Dickens | April 2, 2015 | 3:06 PM EDT
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced it would not be seeking contempt charges against Lois Lerner for refusing to testify to Congress on the IRS targeting scandal. The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks, so far, have refused to report on this big development in the Obama IRS scandal that they apparently just don’t want to talk about any more.
By Matthew Balan | February 27, 2015 | 11:35 PM EST
On Friday evening, the Big Three networks continued their blackouts on the Thursday revelation that the Treasury Department's deputy inspector general, Timothy Camus, is conducting an "active investigation" into the "potential criminal activity" at the IRS over Lois Lerner's supposedly missing e-mails. Instead, ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News all devoted full segments to the viral photograph of a dress that appears to be either black and blue or gold and white.
By Curtis Houck | November 24, 2014 | 8:25 PM EST
On Friday afternoon, it became known that as many as 30,000 emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner that were thought to be lost had been recovered. When it came to reporting this story, however, English-language networks ABC and NBC plus Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision have punted on this story and offered no coverage through their Monday evening newscasts.
The only network to cover the story thus far was CBS, which devoted only a meager 26 seconds to it during its Saturday morning newscast, CBS This Morning: Saturday.
By Curtis Houck | September 6, 2014 | 10:48 AM EDT
The major broadcast networks continued their month-long plus streak of not covering the IRS scandal on Friday night and Saturday morning as ABC, CBS, and NBC all omitted from their evening and morning newscasts two major developments. The new details on the scandal involving the agency that targeted conservative groups include the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) informing congressional staffers that a possible 760 IRS computer servers exist that could contain lost e-mails from Lois Lerner.
By Curtis Houck | September 5, 2014 | 6:25 PM EDT
After Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday inquiring the whereabouts of a former Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney and one-time Lois Lerner employee and Judicial Watch released new IRS emails on Thursday revealing a “secret research project” on donors to non-profit political groups, two additional IRS bombshell broke on Friday. Upon these stories breaking today, the question is: Will the major broadcast networks cover these stories?
By Geoffrey Dickens | August 27, 2014 | 1:50 PM EDT
Unlike her colleagues at the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, on Tuesday night, actually dug into the finer points behind the big bombshells revealed in the IRS scandal this week.
Invited on Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs Tonight to discuss the revelations of a Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer confirming the existence of Lois Lerner’s “missing” e-mails and the IRS’s destruction of her Blackberry (stories the networks through Wednesday morning have yet to touch) Attkisson also did a great job of explaining the conflict of interest going on at the DOJ. (video after the jump)