Hoda Kotb
On the Thursday morning broadcasts, both ABC and NBC gave full reports on illegal immigrant children being separated from their families and detained at a holding center in Texas. Both networks gave sympathetic spin blaming the Trump administration's immigration policy for separating families, but NBC's take was so over-the-top that it compared the kids to animals locked up in cages and the detention center as worse than a prison.
On Tuesday, NBC’s Today show was the only network morning show to interview Colorado baker Jack Phillips, the Christian business owner at the center of Monday’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of his refusal to create a wedding cake for a gay couple, in violation of his religious convictions. While the broadcast deserves credit for giving Phillips and his attorney a platform to discuss the case, the hosts used the opportunity to interrogate their guests with slanted questions.
After news broke Thursday afternoon that the FBI Inspector General was recommending the Justice Department file criminal charges against the Bureau’s fired deputy director, Andrew McCabe, NBC Nightly News completely ignored the major development. On Friday, NBC’s Today show wasn’t much better, only managing nine seconds of coverage to the story, just a single sentence.
One week after the release of the movie Chappaquiddick, a film shining a light on Ted Kennedy causing a woman’s death, NBC’s Today show decided it was time to change the subject with a glowing profile of the late Democratic senator’s sibling, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Offering the usual gushing over the Kennedy clan being “America’s royal family,” the morning show allowed special correspondent Maria Shriver to report on her own mother.
At the top of Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Hoda Kotb sounded the alarm about a new film in the works: “Is Mel Gibson planning a sequel to his most controversial and successful movie ever?” Later in the show, fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie gave more details as she similarly warned: “What we’re learning about Mel Gibson’s plan for a sequel to his most controversial movie ever, The Passion of the Christ.”
In an interview with Hoda Kotb for Monday’s NBC Today, liberal talk show host and prominent Hillary Clinton booster Ellen DeGeneres laughably claimed “I’m not like a political person in any way.” Rather than challenge that absurd declaration, Kotb simply fawned: “Despite her stand against having President Trump on her show, Ellen doesn’t shy away from using her platform to comment on his policies.”
Time is everything, especially when it comes to understanding the media’s priorities. At the end of January, there were two marches the same weekend both claiming to stand for women. But the network coverage was anything but similar.
With the country potentially only hours away from Democrats shutting down the government over their demand for illegal immigrants to be protected from deportation, on Friday’s NBC Today, MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace argued that Republicans would receive “a disproportionate amount of blame.”
Following the firing of Matt Lauer over sexual harassment allegations, on Tuesday, NBC officially named Hoda Kotb as his permanent replacement on the Today show. While fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie and the rest of the morning show crew celebrated the announcement with a champagne toast, there’s good reason for conservative viewers to be concerned over the liberal bias Kotb has brought to the broadcast over the years.
The anchors and pundits on Friday’s NBC Today were beside themselves while decrying President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. The morning show panelists employed alarmist rhetoric to denounce Trump for stopping “history” and “blowing up” the deal.
In a report at the top of Monday’s NBC Today, Canadian reporter Genevieve Beauchemin of CTV News wasted no time trying to connect a mass shooting at a Quebec mosque to President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven Middle Eastern nations: “Investigators say the motive of the attack remains unknown. It comes just days after President Trump's controversial immigration ban sparked international outrage.”
On Tuesday, NBC’s Today featured a nearly two-minute long report on former Republican Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock being arraigned on corruption charges in federal court. However, the morning show completely ignored the 10-year prison sentence handed down against former Democratic Pennsylvania Congressman Chaka Fattah for racketeering.