Jane Pauley
The anti-government protests targeting government and religious leaders sweeping across Iran took a bloody turn Sunday as overnight reports surfaces of two protestors being killed at the hands of the corrupt government. Disgustingly, the deaths didn’t trigger much air on the three major American networks. ABC’s Good Morning America had a blackout of the deaths and protests all together while NBC only found 24 seconds for them. CBS finally discovered the protests, as they continued into their fourth day, dedicating a meager 16 seconds.
It’s already started: CBS’s Jane Pauley rolled out the red carpet for Hillary Clinton, in her first book tour stop promoting What Happened. The CBS Sunday Morning host treated the 2016 loser with kid gloves as she tenderly laid up softball after softball, feeling Hillary’s pain. Of course, this is the kind of book tour treatment Clinton has grown accustomed to, whether she was hawking a book as First Lady, first year Senator or presidential candidate.
With Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election memoir due to be released in the next couple of days, the two-time failed presidential candidate appeared on CBS News Sunday Morning for a sit-down interview with host Jane Pauley. And as would be expected from someone working for the company publishing Clinton’s book, there was almost no pressing from Pauley on what Clinton did wrong. But there was plenty of connecting with Clinton on the pain of the embarrassing defeat.
CNN’s Tom Kludt reported “the booking is a coup” – CBS Sunday Morning host Jane Pauley will get the first TV interview with Hillary Clinton since her defeat at Trump’s hands in 2016. Then Kludt noted CBS owns Hillary’s publisher Simon & Schuster, so there’s no “coup” there at all.
But the synergy is also strong between Hillary and Jane Pauley. In fact, 25 years ago today – on September 8, 1992 – Pauley uncorked one of the soggiest interviews ever with Mrs. Clinton, on Dateline NBC shortly after that year’s Republican convention. Pauley also begged Hillary to run for president in a 2014 Sunday Morning interview on CBS.
During CBS’s Sunday Morning, the network dedicated their “cover story,” which lasted over nine minutes, to railing against the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts. “With the proposed cuts in federal funding for the arts would hurt their program but not shut it down, but the same cannot be said for groups in other parts of the country,” whined host Jane Pauley while using the New York Youth Symphony as a political prop.
The journalists on ABC, CBS and NBC on Sunday couldn’t quite agree how to spin new Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez. Is he “moderate,” “establishment” or really progressive? Despite having what Mother Jones magazine called “stalwart progressive” credentials, Sunday Morning host Jane Pauley described, “Former Labor secretary Tom Perez is the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee... His election is seen as a win for the moderate wing of the party.”
The liberal comic strip Doonesbury is only current on Sundays these days. Every other day is reruns from the past, “Classic Doonesbury,” like there is such a thing. On the last Sunday before Christmas, Garry Trudeau is having fun as liberals typically do: he imagines Donald Trump hating all reporters except the submissive fanboy from Breitbart News....and the Breitbart guy is dressed in full Ku Klux Klan regalia.
Part Two of NewsBusters' Special Report: Hillary Clinton's Media Fan Club. When Hillary faced tough questions or scrutiny over her scandals, members of her media fan club cast her critics as motivated by sexism and antagonism to her feminist achievements.
ABC failed to cover on Wednesday’s World News Tonight the criminal indictment of Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah (Penn.) on charges related to alleged racketeering and conspiracy that resulted in the misuse of campaign funds and federal grant money for his personal gain. Surprisingly, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News covered the story and labeled Fattah as a Democrat in news briefs on the matter. In addition, NBC disclosed the fact that Fattah’s wife is a news anchor with the peacock network’s station in Philadelphia, NBC 10 (but neglected to note that she’s been placed on leave following Wednesday’s events).
“CBS News contributor Jane Pauley will fill in for Scott Pelley on tonight’s CBS Evening News,” TV Newser reported Wednesday afternoon.” Brian Flood noted “Pauley has previously filled in as a co-host on CBS This Morning, but this is her first time anchoring the Evening News.” In a 2008 interview with WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Indiana, about her campaigning for Barack Obama, she declared: “I want to see the cool, steady hand of Barack Obama on that Bible on Inauguration Day.”
The CBS This Morning anchors stayed true to their reputation of playing softball with liberal guests, while badgering conservative/traditional ones with their Wednesday interview of Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Norah O'Donnell raised the much-hyped midterm report from the bishops' synod underway at the Vatican, and wondered, "How groundbreaking is it for the Catholic Church to raise even that question about whether the Catholic Church should welcome gay people?"
On Tuesday, the Big Three networks' morning newscasts carried water for the left-wing Human Rights Campaign by adopting their "seismic shift" label about the midterm report from the Catholic bishops' Extraordinary Synod on the Family. On Good Morning America, ABC's Amy Robach trumpeted that "the Catholic Church appears to be making a seismic shift towards gays and divorcees." Norah O'Donnell also used the "seismic" term on CBS This Morning.