News Hour

When it came to assessing Rupert Murdoch’s decision to cede more control of his empire to his sons James and Lachlan, PBS and NPR turned to David Folkenflik, who as NPR’s media reporter is a Murdoch obsessive and author of the book Murdoch’s World.  On Thursday’s PBS NewsHour, Folkenflik floated the idea that eventually Fox News would move to the center and be “a little more measured” in its…

For the third time in just under three weeks, the major broadcast networks ignored news related to the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the latest news coming on Wednesday that the agency has announced its goal to regulate aircraft emissions in a similar fashion that it does for automobiles and powerplants. FNC's Special Report and the PBS NewsHour, however, found…

On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, liberal political commentator Mark Shields proclaimed “one of the great frauds that Republicans have perpetrated over the past generation has been this idea of voter fraud, that people are showing up, 31 cases in 14 years...So, I think she’s absolutely right. It is our responsibility to make voting available to as many people as possible who want to vote.” 

One doesn't know what to do with the rubbish which follows beyond noting it and hoping that the ridicule which results will somehow and in some way have some kind of impact. Despite 6-1/2 years of horrid governance and dozens of acknowledged scandals, several of which a few of the credible remaining outposts of liberal thought have actually agreed are scandals, David Brooks, the New York Times's…

Apparently Tom Steyer knows his Bible better than he knows math. Or perhaps he just hasn't had a heart to heart with his accountant in several years.  Liberal climate change activist and political donor Tom Steyer likened himself to David, fighting against the "Goliath" of conservative political donors, in a May 26 interview with PBS NewsHour. He lamented, "when you look at the relatie dollars,…

In a Thursday column, PBS ombudsman Michael Getler took NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff to task for failing to disclose a 2010 donation to the Clinton Foundation: “It is always a bad idea for a journalist to give money to a political campaign or anything even remotely connected to the activities of a politician or party, or an organization that they might cover. You just shouldn’t do it.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on the Stephanopoulos scandal on Friday, and found another national TV anchor in the database. “Judy Woodruff, the co-anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour, gave $250 in 2010 to the foundation’s aid efforts for victims of the Haiti earthquake.” She was a senior correspondent then, before Jim Lehrer retired. Woodruff initially recalled the donation as being…

On Thursday night’s PBS NewsHour, they devoted two segments to the forthcoming Summit of the Americas and like Andrea Mitchell, PBS correspondent Margaret Warner felt it necessary to document how Latin American countries think Team Obama’s actions toward Venezuela “smacked of U.S. bullying” and even “imperialist meddling.” It might seem a bit perverse, but the government-funded channel was…

The PBS NewsHour hosted a panel discussion on Thursday night on the controversy over religious freedom in Indiana. To their credit, PBS brought on a Baptist minister, Tim Overton, to speak for Christians who are upset at the current liberal trend. But National Journal correspondent Ron Brownstein pushed hard on the politics -- on how Republicans are going to suffer as “we expand the circle…

Tim Russert used to say “If it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.” Of David Brooks, we might joke, “If it’s Friday, Brooks is bashing Ted Cruz.” On both NPR and PBS Friday, the purported conservative-leaning balance to public broadcasting’s natural socialist impulses insisted the problem was that Cruz was just too smart. On NPR’s All Things Considered, the headline for the week-in-politics segment…

On Friday, March 6, liberal columnist Mark Shields used his weekly appearance on PBS NewsHour to harshly criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress. Speaking to co-host Judy Woodruff, Shields proclaimed that Netanyahu “made a very impassioned, I would say, eloquent indictment, criticism of the president’s policy. The Republicans were rapturous. They were…

On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, New York Times columnists David Brooks and Mark Shields used their weekly appearance to trash the attendees of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) as representing the extreme far right of the Republican Party. 

Anyone who thinks the PBS NewsHour is a calm, rather nonpartisan forum on politics where no one does any trash-talking hasn’t seen Mark Shields on Fridays. On Friday, Shields trashed Jeb Bush as a bumbler, and then just insulted governors Scott Walker and Chris Christie as “total novices” on foreign policy, like he’s a standup comedian. But eight years ago, Shields said only "serious candidates…

When it came to the major broadcast networks covering the full congressional passage of the Keystone XL oil pipeline on their Wednesday night newscasts, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley chose to ignore the story completely and left their viewers in the dark on this issue. Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News made it the second topic covered on its…