Hoda Kotb
On Tuesday, NBC’s Today show finally began taking the subject of media bias seriously – at least when it comes to British tabloid coverage of their favorite royal couple, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Lacking the slightest amount of self-awareness, hosts complained that the royals “weren’t covered fairly in the press” and subjected to a negative media “narrative” in the U.K.
On Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David – who portrays the socialist senator on Saturday Night Live – were both booked on NBC’s Today show. Taking advantage of the situation, the broadcast arranged a brief comedy skit between their two guests in which David proclaimed that Sanders becoming president would “be great for the country, terrible for me.”
Appearing exclusively on NBC’s Today show Wednesday morning, Time magazine editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal announced the liberal publication’s Person of the Year would be radical teenage climate crusader Greta Thunberg. The network hosts were predictably thrilled by the pick as they proclaimed that Thunberg “embodies student activism.”
After showing little journalistic interest in trying to find out the identity of the anonymous government whistleblower who sparked the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, on Monday, NBC’s Today show touted that the unknown bureaucrat was on the short list to be Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Half of the top ten list was comprised of prominent liberal figures.
On Thursday, the broadcast networks kept up their crusade to push Facebook into censoring political speech by celebrating Twitter’s move to ban all political ads from its social media platform. The reporters on NBC, ABC, and CBS weren’t alone in their joy, touting how “Democrats largely praised” the move as well.
The brother of a murder victim shocked a courtroom on Wednesday as he offered an overtly religious act of forgiveness, urging the killer to turn to Jesus Christ. But you wouldn’t know that from the network morning show coverage on Thursday. Today, Good Morning America and CBS This Morning skipped the appeal to faith, instead portraying it as more generalized forgiveness. Later in the day, View co-host Joy Behar rejected the call to grace and instead insisted, “I think to hold onto the rage gives you strength.”
Appearing on Monday’s Today show to promote a new movie, Alec Baldwin dismissed President Trump’s criticism of how the actor portrays him on Saturday Night Live. Baldwin claimed that he “can’t care” what Trump thinks and lamented the “dark history” that has supposedly occurred since the President took office.
In two separate mediums on Wednesday, openly gay actress Ellen Page and actor Tyler Perry did their best to respectively downplay and defend the alleged hate crime hoax concocted, rehearsed, and carried out by Empire star Jesse Smollett with two Nigerian bodybuilders who had been his drug suppliers.
On Wednesday morning, only NBC’s Today show mentioned lawyers for Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann filing a lawsuit against the Washington Post for the liberal newspaper’s defamatory coverage of him following false reports that Sandmann and his classmates were the instigators of a confrontation with a Native American activist at the Lincoln Memorial in January.
All three morning shows on Friday reacted with extreme alarm to the news that Donald Trump would declare a state of emergency on the southern border in order to fund a wall. CBS This Morning journalists sounded down right apocalyptic, warning that the republic was in danger. Co-host Bianna Golodryga opened the show this way: “We begin with President Trump who is poised to take action today that could test our 230-year-old system of checks and balances in government.”
While people in the mainstream media were delighted that Democrat “rising star” Beto O’Rourke held a “counter-rally” to President Trump’s visit to the border in El Paso, Texas, their coverage of Monday’s event was far from complete. Among the aspects of the rally that eluded the reporters’ attention were the people in the crowd who took great pleasure in slamming a large piñata that resembled Donald Trump and the Mexican flags carried by a number of participants.
On Friday, all three network morning shows eagerly touted the Supreme Court temporarily blocking a Louisiana law set to go into effect that would require abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges. The same hosts and correspondents that breathlessly hyped the “big story” completely ignored an extreme late-term abortion law being passed in New York State just two weeks ago.