CNBC Reporter to Obama: Is Wall Street As 'Harmful' To Us as Big Tobac
CNBC's John Harwood, in an interview aired on Thursday's Today show, pressed Barack Obama about the need to regulate Wall Street as he questioned the President if Americans needed to view them in the same way they view Big Tobacco as "companies whose core activities are harmful to the country?" Obama declined to make the comparison to the tobacco companies, but went on to insist Wall Street…
MRC's Brent Bozell on 'Fox & Friends' to Discuss Networks' Meager Repo
Brent Bozell joined "Fox & Friends" on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day to discuss a new Business & Media Institute Special Report about the broadcast networks' distorted coverage of ClimateGate and other climate scandals. Bozell highlighted the way the networks have barely reported ClimateGate and the other climate science scandals that have eroded the credibility of the global…
Crashing the Tea Party: A Step-by-Step Media Guide on How to Discredit
Over the past year since its inception, the media have worked hard to discredit and denigrate the tea party movement. News organizations employed various strategies, from dismissing the protests as astroturf, to using derogatory nicknames for participants, and finally labeling it as a violent extremist fringe. In their futile attempt to get something to stick, the media have become increasingly…
Big Three Nets' Evening News Ratings Crater to Summer 2009 Levels Two
Two weeks ago (noted at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the combined audience for the Big Three Networks' Evening News shows for the week of March 29 fell to just below 20 million. That audience was about 5% less than what Matt Drudge in the summer of 2006 headlined as "TV's Lowest Week." The Big Three's combined audience crawled back above 20 million during the week of April 5. But Chris Ariens of…
NBC: Screw Your Neighbors -- Walking Away from Your Mortgage is 'Ethic
Surprise: NBC finally found a business it likes - even a business decision it likes: companies that help homeowners who decide to walk away from their mortgages. "New figures show foreclosures in the U.S. are up about 35-percent from a year ago," Matt Lauer kicked off an April 20 segment of "Today" that encouraged homeowners - even those financially comfortable - to simply walk away. "And a…
Today Ignores Pew Poll on Less Trusted Government, Publicizes Pew Resu
A new Pew poll that shows just 22 percent of respondents trust the government was actually covered by NBC Nightly News on Monday night but for some reason NBC's Today show didn't find that news interesting as they failed to report on the results. However, on Tuesday's Today, they did find a Pew poll they did like, their results on teen texting, as Today co-anchor Ann Curry relayed: "The study by…
Massa Saga 'Just Heating Up'? Don't Hold Your Breath for Media Obsessi
The "Eric Massa saga [is] just heating up," promises the headline for Jonathan Allen's April 19 Politico story about the latest development in the swift demise of the tickle-happy freshman Democrat:For nearly a year, the allegations of scandalous activity in former Rep. Eric Massa’s office were kept quiet — by the congressman, by male aides who accuse him of sexually harassing them and by other…
NBC's Mitchell Upset at Palin's Millions Now, Celebrated Bill Clinton
NBC's Andrea Mitchell, on Thursday's Today show, delivered a snarky piece about Sarah Palin "making millions on books" and "highly paid speeches"going as far to portray the former Republican Alaskan governor as a diva who demands a Lear jet and "bendable straws" for her water bottles at appearances. However Mitchell was singing a different tune back in 2001 when a former Democratic officeholder,…
Networks Fail to Discuss VAT Tax Since Volcker Call for Tax Increases
As procrastinators rush to beat the April 15 tax deadline and thousands rally at Tea Parties to oppose out of control government spending, politicians and the national news media are mulling the possibility of a new European-style national sales tax. On April 6, former Federal Reserve chairman and current White House economic adviser Paul Volcker revealed the Obama administration's possible…
NBC Becomes New Gay Advocate
If anyone at NBC News has a sense of irony, they hide it well. Ironic is about the best you can say about a supposedly reputable, unbiased news organization taking up with a magazine called The Advocate. But there was NBC last month, announcing with a straight face (pardon the pun) a new partnership with The Advocate, a gay-oriented magazine. According to Media Bistro, "The magazine's online…
CBS 'Early Show' Ignores Astronaut Criticism of Obama's Space Program
On Wednesday's CBS Early Show, fill-in news reader Betty Nguyen reported on President Obama's new plan to cut back America's space program, but failed to mention sharp criticism by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Eugene Cernan in a signed letter sent to the White House.Nguyen noted: "President Obama unveils a revamped plan for America's manned space program....reviving part of a plan…
MRC Special Report: How the Media Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Te
The Tea Party movement launched one year ago, in response to the unprecedented expansion of government by President Barack Obama and congressional liberals, a massive increase in spending that will create economy-crushing fiscal burdens for future generations of taxpayers.In that relatively brief period, the Tea Party has demonstrated it is a formidable political force. The pressure the movement…
SNL Mocks Obama, Healthcare Reform and Census With a Little Anti-Semit
NBC's "Saturday Night Live" last evening mocked President Obama, healthcare reform, and the census while strangely adding what some could find a tad anti-Semitic.Trying to explain why the census isn't "some Socialist plot to spy on the American people," Fred Armisen in what's becoming his signature role walked through the questions being asked of citizens this April.Following some largely…
Network Morning Shows Trumpet 'Historic,' 'Landmark' Nuke Treaty, Only
The network morning shows on Thursday trumpeted Barack Obama's nuclear weapons treaty with Russia as "historic" and "landmark," with only Good Morning America allowing that the reduction plan could be "controversial." However, ABC's George Stephanopoulos also enthused, "But, [Obama and Russia's President] are here first and foremost to make history..."Reporting live from Prague, Stephanopoulos…
