Nets Tout Olympics 'Super-Fan' Obama's 'Swifter, Higher, Stronger' Eff
September 28th, 2009 8:21 PM
President Barack Obama's last-minute decision to fly Thursday to Copenhagen to pitch Chicago's bid for the 2016 summer Olympic games excited broadcast network journalists Monday night. “The Olympic motto is 'swifter, higher, stronger,'” fill-in CBS Evening News anchor Harry Smith reminded viewers before trumpeting: “Apparently, President Obama is taking that to heart. In a change of plans today,…
MSNBC Primetime Ignores Terror Plot Reported by Nets, CNN, FNC
September 28th, 2009 12:26 AM
If a regular fan of MSNBC primetime were to chime into a water cooler conversation with the words, "Terror plot? I haven't heard of any terror plot?" such an MSNBC devotee couldn't be blamed for not knowing about one of the big news stories of the past two weeks.While the arrest of terror suspect Najibullah Zazi -- who admitted to training with al-Qaeda in Pakistan and is believed to have been…
Obama 'Tells the World America's 'Go It Alone' Policy is Over,' Couric
September 23rd, 2009 8:43 PM
ABC, CBS and NBC all led Wednesday night with President Barack Obama's address at the United Nations, but Katie Couric was the most effusive in trumpeting how Obama marked the end of the Bush era as she teased the CBS Evening News: “Tonight, the President tells the world America's 'go it alone' policy is over.” Her glowing lead:Good evening, everyone. President Obama says we have reached a “…
Obama Disappoints NBC By 'Falling Short' on 'Climate Change,' Fret Exp
September 22nd, 2009 10:23 PM
A lover's quarrel emerged Tuesday night in the media's love affair with President Barack Obama. He disappointed NBC by failing, at the UN's “Summit on Climate Change,” to go far enough on global warming. “President Obama's being accused of falling short on the environment today with the whole world watching,” Brian Williams teased NBC Nightly News. Williams framed his lead story through the prism…
'Nightly News' Focuses on Greenland Melt, Ignores Antarctic Ice Expans
September 21st, 2009 2:27 PM
It's no secret General Electric (NYSE:GE) has a lot to gain from the regulation of greenhouse gases, so is it a coincidence NBC, a GE product, offered more anecdotal evidence that global warming is putting the planet in danger? "NBC Nightly News" provided yet another report on Sept. 20 agonizing about anthropogenic climate change melting ice in Greenland. "There are new concerns tonight about…
Obama Blitz Roundup: 'Meanness' on Right, Pelosi's Warning, Only ABC R
September 20th, 2009 5:57 PM
In the series of network interviews recorded Friday at the White House for airing on the ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC Sunday morning interview shows, all highlighted Jimmy Carter's charge that racism is fueling the anti-Obamacare protests – with CNN's John King and NBC's David Gregory following up with Nancy Pelosi's claim the heated rhetoric may incite violence – and CBS's Bob Schieffer asserted the “…
Obama's 'Extraordinary Media Blitz' Begins Friday Night with Focus on
September 18th, 2009 9:21 PM
Television network journalists on Friday night marveled at President Barack Obama's planned “media blitz” for health care reform even as they, the enablers, reveled in it as they made the very “blitz” and clips from the interviews (conducted Friday afternoon for airing on Sunday morning) their top story of the day. Based on those excerpts, the Sunday hosts were most interested in getting Obama's…
Down Steeply Since Late Jan., Big 3 Evening Newscasts Stuck at Low Sum
September 17th, 2009 5:16 PM
After a summer swoon, you would think that the evening newscasts of the Big 3 networks would start to recover a bit now that many Americans are back from vacations, kids are back in school, and fall routines are getting established or re-established. So far, you would be wrong. It's early, and there's still plenty of time this fall to recover, but during the time period after Labor Day, the…
NBC: 'Blunt' Carter 'Prompted Us to Reexamine Our Assumptions About Ra
September 16th, 2009 9:48 PM
An evening after trumpeting President Jimmy Carter's racism charge (“An overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man”), NBC led Wednesday night with the “fallout” as Andrea Mitchell proposed that though “many thought” the “racial divisions” were “healed by the election of the first African-American President…
CBS and NBC Finally Catch Up to ACORN Scandal; Express Sympathy for th
September 16th, 2009 12:48 PM
In the first story on CBS since the scandal broke last week, on Tuesday’s Evening News, anchor Katie Couric reported: "The grassroots community organization called ACORN helps low-income Americans find affordable housing and gets tens of millions of dollars in government funding. But as Cynthia Bowers reports, that may be coming to an end after a scandal caught on tape."After showing undercover…
ABC: Obama Critics 'Driven By Refusal to Accept Black President'; NBC
September 15th, 2009 9:27 PM
ABC and NBC on Tuesday night joined the effort to undermine the anti-Obama tea party participants by smearing them as racists as ABC framed a story around the proposition “some prominent Obama supporters are now saying” the opposition to Obama is “driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President,” while NBC anchor Brian Williams touted how “former President Carter spoke up and spoke out…
ABC’s Bill Weir Frets Over 9/12 Rally Rage and ‘Anger;' Worries Ab
September 14th, 2009 6:04 PM
Over the weekend, ABC provided hyperbolic, worried reporting on the 9/12 protest in Washington D.C. And while the other networks had mixed results, Good Morning America co-host Bill Weir opened the program on Saturday by fretting, "This morning, outrage. Protesters descend on Washington to rally against the President's health care plan. As civility gives way to shouting, what's fueling all this…
CBS Skips Killing of Pro-Life Activist; ABC Sees ‘Flip Side’ to Ki
September 12th, 2009 3:08 PM
Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News on Friday omitted any mention of the murder of pro-life activist Jim Pouillon in Michigan, despite having discussed the murder of abortionist George Tiller on the June 1, June 2 and June 9 newscasts (and then referencing the killing as a recent “hate crime” in a June 10 report on the shooting at Washington, D.C.’s Holocaust Museum).Both ABC’s World News and the NBC…