NewsBusters Time Machine

Next week, televised impeachment hearings begin. Expect much liberal grandstanding and a continued effort by those in the media to remove Donald Trump. The hearings come after this week’s revelation that ABC secretly conspired to suppress a story potentially harmful to harmful to Hillary Clinton in 2016.  

If it seems like journalists have been excited about Beto O’Rourke for years, they have. The 2020 presidential candidate announced on Friday that he is dropping out after cratering, hovering at 2.1 percent nationally. This is despite fawning media coverage. A look back at his last campaign, a run for the U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz in 2018, finds puzzlement at lack of success. 

It was one year ago this October That Joe Scarborough boldly predicted Donald Trump would “cash out” and not run in 2020. Appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the Morning Joe host insisted that Trump won’t even run in 2020: “I don't think Donald Trump is going to run for reelection. He didn't want to be elected for president. He didn't think he was going to be elected.” 

It was one year ago this week that Elizabeth Warren released a disastrous video attempting to bolster her claims of being a Native American. It was poorly received and even liberal ABC, CBS and NBC dismissed the efforts. To recap, Warren in the fall of 2018 produced results of a DNA test she insisted proves her Native American heritage. On October 16, 2018, Good Morning America and CBS This…

Amidst the horrifying news that, according to Ronan Farrow’s new book Catch and Kill, then-NBC’s Today host Matt Lauer allegedly anally raped colleague Brooke Nevils in 2014, a look through the NewsBusters archives found Wednesday afternoon quite the ironic exchange in 2017 between Farrow and Lauer. On the October 11, 2017 edition of Today, Farrow discussed his piece for The New Yorker that blew…

It was just this time about a year ago that liberals in the media started to realize that Brett Kavanaugh would be confirmed to the Supreme Court. In fact, on October 5, 2018, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes realized, on-air, that such a thing would happen. MSNBC’s Ali Velshi broke into coverage to explain that Democrat Joe Manchin would vote yes: “We have breaking news now. Senator Joe Manchin, who did not…

In 1993, more than a decade before Dan Rather would fully disgrace himself as a partisan determined to take down George W. Bush, he fawned over then-First Lady Hillary Clinton’s efforts to nationalize health care. Twenty six years ago this week, on September 22, 1993, Dan Rather interviewed Clinton and fawned over all her hard work: "You know, as I hear you talk, as I have before on this subject…

CNN, the network that likes to brag about being all about “facts first,” doesn’t always have a great track record when it comes to reality. Fourteen years ago this week, on September 19, 2005, the network’s founder appeared on his own network to credulously insist that despotic dictator Kim Jong-il “didn't look" evil. Ted Turner proclaimed, “...He didn’t look too much different than most other…

It was 31 years ago this week that the Michael Dukakis for President campaign made a disastrous campaign appearance. It was so bad that it ended up in an ad for his opponent, George H.W. Bush. But, of course, that didn’t stop some in the media for rushing to the defense of the Democrat, crying foul on behalf of the liberal. Some things never change. 

For someone who was ultimately exposed as a liar, Brian Williams had no problems smearing conservatives as ignorant and gullible. Nine years ago this week, the now-disgraced NBC Nightly News anchor appeared on the Late Show With David Letterman to bash Tea Party conservatives. Teed up by Letterman as to why the Tea Party wants their “country back,” a smug Williams mocked, “It makes people feel…

This week, we go into the NewsBusters archive and find that journalists weren’t just content to fawn over Barack Obama, they needed to top each other with superlatives. So the Democratic president wasn’t just great, he was the best since Lincoln, a “national poet.” It was just three years ago this week, on July 27, 2016, that Andrea Mitchell gushed over Obama’s speech to the Democratic National…

In the Trump era, journalists and hosts like to think they are truth tellers and that “democracy dies in darkness.” So it’s always good to look back, from time to time, at the Obama years. 2020 Debate moderator Rachel Maddow may despise the current Republican president, but she but she couldn’t restrain the gush when it came to Barack Obama. Four years ago this week, on July 14, 2015, Maddow…

New York City underwater? Gas over $9 a gallon? A carton of milk costs almost $13? Remember when that happened on June 12,  2015? No? That was the wildly-inaccurate version of 2015 predicted by ABC News 11 years ago this week. Appearing on Good Morning America in 2008, Bob Woodruff hyped Earth 2100, a special that pushed apocalyptic predictions of the then-futuristic 2015.

How extreme is Bill Maher? The Real Time host gets really angry when anyone says something nice about Ronald Reagan. And it was six years ago yesterday that Maher melted down, trashing the “race-baiting” two term president as “the man most responsible for our decline.” What set Maher off? Other liberals saying that the current GOP is so extreme, it’s too conservative for even Reagan. On June 7,…