CBS Features Hurricane Victim Who Blasts Bush Over Weak Response Compa
September 1st, 2005 7:45 PM
In the middle of a Thursday CBS Evening News story on the destruction in Slidell, Louisiana, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, reporter Mark Strassmann showcased a distraught man “with a message for the President” who blasted Bush for how he responded in Iraq while not doing so for Louisiana. Anthony Nata charged: "You can go into Iraq and come in with big helicopters and set stuff up…
Network Firestorm Tuesday Night Over Pat Robertson
August 23rd, 2005 10:36 PM
Despite Pat Robertson's waning role in national politics, the broadcast and cable networks on Tuesday evening jumped on his Monday suggestion that Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated now in order to avoid a costly war later. All three broadcast network evening newscasts featured full stories, with ABC's World News Tonight making it the lead. Anchor Charles Gibson…
Nets, AP Tout Sheehan’s Achievements, Yearn for Revived Anti-War Eff
August 19th, 2005 11:36 AM
Before and after Cindy Sheehan’s announcement Thursday that she was leaving Crawford to attend to her ill mother, the networks celebrated her supposed achievements and hoped they’d re-invigorate the anti-war movement. “Did just one grieving mother spark the beginnings of an anti-war movement? We'll give you the 'Inside Story,'" CBS anchor John Roberts promised before Wyatt Andrews trumpeted: "Her…
CBS Ignores Border Security; Lets Howard Dean Go Unchallenged
August 18th, 2005 1:23 PM
CBS News has not reported this week on Janet Napolitano and Bill Richardson---Democratic governors facing reelection in 2006 in Arizona and New Mexico, respectively-- declaring states of emergency stemming from US-Mexico border security issues. Neither The Early Show nor the CBS Evening News have touched the story. Yet on Sunday, the day after Richardson issued his state of emergency declaration…
Not Desperate Enough: CBS News Turns to Interns for Show Ideas
August 18th, 2005 1:33 AM
Just how desperate is CBS brass to extricate their “Evening News” program from its perpetual place in the cellar of TV ratings? Apparently not desperate enough, though they are getting closer.
In Wednesday’s New York Observer, we learn that Andrew Heyward, the CBS News president responsible for nearly ten years of failure, has turned to his interns for ideas on how to “revamp” the “Evening News…
Do They Care About Connecting the Dots -- Or Is It All About Bush Bash
August 16th, 2005 4:10 PM
I have been struck by the way the same network reporters who tripped all over themselves to suggest "Bush knew" about 9/11 in advance and could possibly have prevented the whole thing are practically mute on Congressman Curt Weldon's charge -- seconded by a U.S. military intelligence official -- that civilian law enforcement agencies felt they could not act when the military figured out that…
More False Claims of “Record High” Energy Prices, But NBC Concedes
August 12th, 2005 8:51 PM
On Friday night, reporting on the rise in the price of a barrel of oil to $66.87, CBS anchor Bob Schieffer inaccurately described that as a “record high,” ABC anchor Bob Woodruff erroneously referred to it as “another new high” and NBC's Brian Williams fallaciously declared: “Oil prices at an all-time record again today.” But NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, in a piece on what is causing the…
Schieffer on Sheehan: "I Wonder Why” Bush “Doesn't Meet with Her
August 11th, 2005 11:50 AM
The CBS Evening News on Wednesday devoted a second segment to promoting the vigil of Bush-hater Cindy Sheehan. Bill Plante noted the obvious as he provided more publicity: “She's gotten a lot of media attention by camping out on the road that leads to the President's ranch.” He pointed out that she “understands that it's very difficult for the White House to dismiss anyone in her position” and…
Pessimism on Iraq Constitution from CBS Evening News
August 10th, 2005 4:08 AM
The August 9 CBS Evening News drummed up pessimism over the Iraqi government's ability to move forward with drafting a constitution, warning that "Iraqis fear brighter days may not be ahead,' and that "Many Iraqis fear it could be the next thing to blow up here." There was even a shot at President Bush in the form of a clip of an Iraqi leader who complained about being pushed to meet a deadline "…
More Good Economic News to Upset the Pessimists at CBS News
August 5th, 2005 4:07 PM
Just 16 days ago, CBS reporter Trish Regan did a story for the Evening News premised on the idea that the “reality” of the U.S. economy is far gloomier than the positive comments from experts such as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. As MRC’s Brent Baker noted in the July 21 CyberAlert, Regan preferred to trust the offhand comments from people she met on the streets of New York City to…
John Roberts and the Naked News
July 22nd, 2005 2:15 AM
While I'm posting, for humor, an item I saw Monday night on the CBS Evening News -- a line Bob Schieffer couldn't have gotten away with. After a story on people who subscribe to satellite television in their SUVs (one of whom had become a couch potato in his car), substitute anchor John Roberts ended the show imagining out loud his version of the good life: "So let's see. Driving the car, talking…
