News Hour

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…

On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, New York Times columnist David Brooks and PBS commentator Mark Shields teamed up to praise President Obama’s controversial remarks about Christianity at the National Prayer Breakfast as well as to shame the GOP over two potential presidential candidates' recent vaccine gaffes. Speaking to co-host Judy Woodruff, Brooks slammed Senator Rand Paul and Governor Chris Christie…

The U.S. Senate took the step Thursday of approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline in a bipartisan fashion by a margin of 62-to-36, with nine Democrats joining 53 Republicans to pass it for the first time after failing to do so under the previous Congress.  When the major English and Spanish language networks aired their Thursday evening newscasts, however, the news of the bill’s passage was…

The State of the Union coverage on PBS last night had a slightly bizarre analysis as the speech ended. PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill jumped in over the applause and said Obama “talked about this being a breakthrough year for America and he seems to be taking on a victory lap.” Later, David Brooks said it was a "very liberal speech" and professed amazement that Obama pretended he hadn't been…

Media outlets and politicians often fall for junk science and misleading statistics. This happened recently with alcohol-related death statistics, which The Washington Post exposed as factually incorrect. Post reporter Glenn Kessler writes the newspaper's Fact Checker column. He debunked the claim that more than 1,800 college students die from "alcohol-related causes" or "alcohol poisoning" …

New York Times columnist David Brooks shows up every Friday on NPR and PBS to sound very moderate in the microphones, which usually means taking an immoderate swipe at conservatives. On both All Things Considered and the NewsHour on Friday, he slammed House conservatives by associating them with Fox News and their fans. On PBS, Brooks compared to the House vote to block funding for Obama’s…

On Monday, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley did their best to move on from the Obama administration’s decision to not have President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, or Attorney General Eric Holder attend the march against Islamic terrorism in Paris on Sunday that drew well over one million people.  All told, ABC ran…

On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, the Shields and Brooks week-in-review segment began with mutual sensitivity about the Ferguson situation – the word or concept of riots never quite emerged. But what was really surprising was liberal Mark Shields unloading on the Obama White House over the dumping of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, which anchor Judy Woodruff tried to soft-pedal as Hagel “steps down.”

After the 2012 campaign, liberal journalists swarmed around Republican Party chair Reince Priebus offering what was called an “autopsy” on every way Republicans failed, with a special emphasis on more outreach to minority voters. Democrats and their media enablers painted a picture of demographic doom for an aging white Republican base. Two years later, Republicans made dramatic gains among…

NPR and PBS have finally touched the Gruber brouhaha, but neither showed any enthusiasm for it. On Sunday morning’s Weekend Edition, anchor Rachel Martin and reporter Mara Liasson dismissed it in 59 seconds.  On the PBS NewsHour Monday, anchor Judy Woodruff brought in two liberal journalists to discuss Gruber, but first Woodruff asked six questions about how open enrollment was going. 

Pseudo-conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks -- appointed by both NPR and PBS to agree with liberals from the "Republican" side of the political divide on Friday-night "week in review" panels -- is back to bashing Ted Cruz, even though after the election, he admitted Republicans weren't too extreme to win all over the place. Brooks was bashing Obama with the worst cudgel he could…

As of Thursday morning, NBC's morning and evening newscasts have yet to cover the New York Times's front-page article on Wednesday about Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons stockpiles in Iraq, which were discovered by U.S. forces after the Iraq War. NBC was quick to cast doubt on the existence of these WMD's during the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion.

In a Tuesday night segment on Colorado’s Senate race on the PBS NewsHour, anchor Gwen Ifill spurred liberal Sen. Mark Udall to trash the left-leaning Denver Post for endorsing his Republican opponent Cory Gardner for being Johnny One-Note on abortion. Ifill said “Udall shrugs off the hometown rebuke.” He complained: “If the Denver Post doesn’t think women’s reproductive rights are important,…

PBS NewsHour seemed upset at Leon Panetta's apparently questionable loyalties to Democrats from the beginning of her interview segment on Thursday. She incorrectly stated that Panetta served as "President Reagan's chief of staff." She meant President Clinton. She scolded Panetta (and other Obama administration officials) for daring to write memoirs before Obama concludes his presidency,…