On Wednesday night, NBC Nightly News neglected to inform its viewers of a new report concerning the scandal-ridden Department of Veterans Affairs and the $142 million it paid out in bonuses to employees (including some who were facing discipline and/or recently fired). Compiled by the House Veterans Affairs Committee, the report stated that some of those who received bonuses still got them despite the fact that “several of them were under investigation or accused of mismanagement.”
Robert McDonald
By Curtis Houck | February 24, 2015 | 1:06 AM EST
In an interview with The Huffington Post published on Monday night, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald admitted to falsely claiming in a segment on January 30's CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley on January 30 that he had served in U.S. Army Special Forces during his service from mid-1970s to 1980.
McDonald retracted what he had told a homeless veteran in Los Angeles by saying, in part, that “I have no excuse,” “I was not in special forces,” and had “no intent in any way to describe my record any different than it is.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 29, 2014 | 9:57 PM EDT
On July 29, the Senate confirmed Robert McDonald by a vote of 97-0 to be the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs but that evening only the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley covered the story whereas ABC and NBC were nowhere to be found.
Fill-in host James Brown introduced the report on the V.A. by explaining how “the first job for the former CEO of Procter & Gamble will be cleaning up the scandal at the V.A. A new internal audit obtained by CBS News shows it was even bigger than we knew.” [See video below.]
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 23, 2014 | 12:21 PM EDT
On Tuesday, July 22, Robert McDonald, President Obama’s nominee to take over as Secretary for the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs, appeared before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, yet his testimony received a minuscule 24 seconds on ABC, CBS, and NBC.
In fact, the only “big three” coverage of McDonald’s testimony came on Tuesday morning, before the actual hearing occurred, courtesy of NBC’s Today. None of the network newscasts covered the actual nomination proceedings on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.