Anthony Mason
Socialist Bernie Sanders, who has decried millionaires for years, is a millionaire That revelation was ignored by the flagship ABC and NBC morning shows, despite a combined four hours of air time on Wednesday. Only CBS This Morning noticed, offering a scant 49 seconds to the awkwardness of the very wealthy Sanders.
All three networks spent Thursday morning gushing in favor of New Zealand’s new gun ban, touting that it had “widespread, bipartisan support” with “very little opposition.” ABC, NBC and CBS also spent time shaming the U.S. for not adopting a similar buyback measure.
On CBS This Morning Saturday, the show devoted an entire three-minute report to two women in Texas who are resisting Trump administration efforts to build a wall on their property.
The journalists at CBS This Morning on Wednesday conducted a mostly softball interview with one of the most liberal Congressmen in the House. When Representative Jerry Nadler casually insisted that the Trump administration is “willing to have” “kids dying” at the border, the hosts didn’t object to this attack. Instead, Anthony Mason quizzed the Democrat on impeachment: “You are about to take over the Judiciary Committee and you've said that impeachment hearings are something that you only resort to in most extreme circumstances. In your view, what are those circumstances?”
On CBS This Morning: Saturday, the show's anchors cheered on NFL players, inspired by Colin Kaepernick, who spent time advocating liberal causes during this year's elections.
On Saturday morning, CBS and NBC both ran predictable reports arguing that human activity is causing global warming, which is causing hurricanes like Florence to be worse, while those who are skeptical are derided as "climate change deniers." By contrast, global warming skeptic Joe Bastardi appeared on both Friday's Fox News at Night and Thursday's Hannity show on FNC. He argued that, while it is true that climate has always undergone change, past hurricane seasons have actually been worse than those in recent decades, as he doubted that humans are making a significant impact on the climate.
As Fox and Friends Saturday commented on the absence of media attention to National of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin's funeral, the other networks ignored Farrakhan, but CBS and NBC did find time to highlight complaints about one of the pastors putting his arm around singer Ariana Grande on stage and making a joke about her name.
Even as NBC’s Today show recently reported that climate change would actually cause fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic during the 2018 season, on Saturday, CBS This Morning warned viewers that warming ocean temperatures could potentially lead to hurricanes in the Pacific hitting the coast of California.
On Monday, the liberal media breathed a collective sigh of relief over 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s announcement over the weekend that she plans to stay on the high court for at least another five years. The coverage demonstrated how even the thought of Donald Trump naming the liberal justice’s replacement strikes terror into the hearts of reporters.
Responding to a tweet from President Trump about his meeting with New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, the liberal newspaper released a lengthy statement Sunday afternoon in which Sulzberger explained that he confronted Trump over his “deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric” that he warned will cause journalists to be physically harmed.
During the 18 months of the Trump presidency, immigration has received more airtime on the three broadcast evening news shows than any other policy topic. The networks’ coverage has been relentlessly hostile to the administration (92% negative, just 8% positive), largely because these newscasts have framed nearly all of their coverage around the plight of those adversely affected by the administration’s enforcement agenda, and have virtually ignored law enforcement or anyone harmed by illegal immigration.
As the broadcast network morning newscasts on Saturday caught up with Fox and Friends in giving attention to the renewed probe into the Clinton Foundation by the FBI, CBS This Morning stood out in showcasing the most blatant bias against the investigation as Kathleen Kingsbury of the New York Times was given a forum to prejudge the probe as a "political vendetta." When asked for reaction from co-host Anthony Mason, NYT deputy editorial page editor Kingsbury immediately declared: "I think that -- given the fact that there doesn't seem to be new evidence on the table -- the only conclusion we can come to is that this is a political vendetta brought on by the White House."