Norah O'Donnell
Amid all the media hand-wringing over President Trump’s contentious 60 Minutes interview, one common theme that emerged on Monday morning was all three broadcast networks fretting over his skepticism of man-made climate change. Anchors and correspondents were aghast that Trump could have any doubt in the wake of a recent “dire” United Nations report on the global climate.
On Monday’s network morning shows, the co-authors of The New Yorker’s questionable hit piece against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were surprisingly grilled by anchors on the NBC, ABC, and CBS broadcasts. Both Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow were peppered with challenging questions about the veracity of Deborah Ramirez’s sexual assault claims against Kavanaugh and even asked to defend their own journalistic standards.
On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, liberal activist Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative was given a mostly unchallenged forum to advocate for reducing the large number of criminals in jail -- which liberals are known for labeling as "mass incarceration" -- as the group failed to make any mention of the role that jailing criminals has played in reducing crime over the past several decades.
Welcome to the Bob Woodward filibuster. The veteran journalist appeared on CBS This Morning, Thursday, and was quizzed about the network’s evolving sex scandal. But rather than talk about this difficult subject, Woodward first responded, in an answer that lasted 1 minute and 40 seconds, by talking about his books and friends at the network. CBS’s former CEO (Les Moonves), the co-host of This Morning (Charlie Rose), and the executive producer of 60 Minutes (Jeff Fager) have all been forced out due to allegations of sex abuse, harassment or inappropriate treatment of women.
Twenty years after he recommended to Congress that President Clinton be impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice, Kenneth Starr has written a book about it. Surely, with the passage of time and many other books exploring the Lewinsky affair and the other Clinton scandals, Starr can be treated with dignity and respect. Back then, he faced ABC’s Diane Sawyer calling his Starr Report “demented pornography, pornography for Puritans.” Twenty years later, nothing has changed.
The journalists on CBS This Morning, Monday, eagerly grilled Ken Starr about his investigation of Bill Clinton in the ‘90s. Co-host Norah O’Donnell also pressed the former special counsel about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanuagh’s role in looking into the Clintons.
Almost ten months after bombshell accusations that ex-CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose allegedly sexually harassed and abused women, co-host Norah O’Donnell lamented how “hard” it was to have “my boss,” departing CEO Les Moonves, be accused of sexual assault. After a full report opened the show, O’Donnell began her personal remarks with self pity: “This is hard for everybody as CBS News.”
On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, as the regular team of hosts returned from the Labor Day holiday, the group caught up with NBC's Today show in fretting over a pastor at Aretha Franklin's funeral who delivered a conservative message, but they still did not mention the controversy around Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan being allowed to share a stage with former President Bill Clinton and other prominent Democrats. In fact, former Attorney General and possible presidential candidate Eric Holder even posed for a photograph with the ardently anti-Semitic religious figure.
During a softball interview with former Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, to promote his new memoir, the hosts of CBS This Morning invited the Democrat to speculate on President Trump being removed from office, denounce Republicans, and talk about the possibility of a 2020 presidential run. Not one tough question was put to him about his tenure in the Obama administration.
The journalists at CBS This Morning on Friday fawned over the woman who negotiated Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, the same person who worked for the Clinton State Department. Asking Wendy Sherman no tough questions, the hosts instead wondered how Sherman’s skills could be used in the everyday lives of Americans.
For some reason, CBS This Morning on Thursday decided to devote over six minutes of air time to the leaker of classified information. Live from prison, the show’s hosts interviewed Reality Winner via phone. Many of the questions were softballs, including this one from Norah O’Donnell: “It is the documents you leaked that really brought everyone's attention to the Russians trying to infiltrate and attack our state voting system which at the time was not common knowledge. What has it been like to see the Russia investigation unfold from behind bars?”
After the morning newscasts of ABC and CBS spent a total of 4 minutes and 44 seconds covering the criminal indictment of California Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter in the first 36 hours since the story broke, the number increased four-fold following another news cycle, with the total standing at 17 minutes and 13 seconds as of Friday morning.