PBS

On the final installment of PBS’s Inside Washington Friday, host Gordon Peterson asked his panelists who they thought would be elected president in 2016. Rather surprisingly, the Washington Post’s Colby King said, “Paul Ryan because the Democratic nominee will never be able to replicate what Barack Obama has done, never bring out that base” (video follows with commentary):

Sadly, an era came to an end Friday when after 25 years on the air, PBS broadcast the final installment of the marvelous Inside Washington. To honor the event, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer deliciously told host Gordon Peterson, “[A]ll those times that I savagely attacked you for bias and twisting the news, I stand by every single one of them” (video follows with transcript and…

Appearing on Charlie Rose’s eponymous PBS program Wednesday night, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times divulged some of his true feelings about President Obama. From the comfort of Rose’s famous black-backgrounded studio, the veteran journalist revealed the one thing that disappointed him most about the president. Was it the botched rollout of ObamaCare? No, in fact, Friedman is an…

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer clearly was unhappy with the liberal topics being discussed on PBS’s Inside Washington Friday. At one point, he looked into the camera after mentioning the new deadline changes to ObamaCare announced this week and said, “You won’t hear about this on this show, so try Fox” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. However, PBS’s Judy Woodruff wishes the Obama administration could get another crack at the rollout of ObamaCare. While moderating an ObamaCare discussion on Tuesday’s PBS NewsHour, Woodruff posed this question to Ron Bonjean, a former Republican spokesman: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

In his first major publication, Pope Francis last week came down on capitalism and income inequality to the predictable applause of the mainstream media. This led syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer to joke on PBS’s Inside Washington Friday, “The Pope is a Democrat. He ought to run for the presidency” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the weeks leading up to the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, media members across the fruited plain have largely gushed and fawned over the former president's legacy and grandeur. New York Times columnist David Brooks offered a rather unique take on PBS's News Hour Friday saying that Kennedy's utopian vision of what a president can do, along with his subsequent…

Last week, NewsBusters reported that PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff failed to ask about the “Fast & Furious” Mexican gun-running scandal during an interview with B. Todd Jones, the new head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. But on Monday’s NewsHour, Woodruff played a previously unannounced Part Two of her taped interview with Jones, and this time she asked a…

On PBS’s Inside Washington Friday, the perilously liberal Mark Shields said of ObamaCare, “You can forget 2016 if this thing craters and crashes, the Republicans could run a laundry ticket in 2016 and win.” Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer marvelously responded, “I’m going to recommend to my colleagues on the right that we do exactly that. 2016 we’re going to run a laundry ticket and…

Filmmaker Oliver Stone made some truly offensive comments on PBS’s Tavis Smiley show Wednesday. “I don't know why these Republican white people...They're strange to me," he said. "It’s almost as if we’re an apartheid state and they’re still fighting for the rights of whites in South Africa” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Tuesday’s PBS NewsHour, anchor Gwen Ifill interviewed former Vice President Dick Cheney about his notorious heart troubles as documented in his new book, Heart: An American Medical Odyssey. Apparently unwilling to let a good conversation about healthcare go to waste, Ifill spent the latter half of the interview trying to use Cheney’s experience as an infomercial for why America needs…

“If there’s anything like 76 million healthcare plans voided, not only is ObamaCare dead, there’s going to be guillotines set up at Farragut Square.” So said syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan on PBS’s McLaughlin Group Friday.

New York Times columnist David Brooks always knows he's sitting on a liberal Democrat set at the PBS NewsHour. PBS viewers don't want a real conservative that makes conservative arguments. Only insults are welcome. So in praising Chris Christie on Friday's show, he said the 2012 GOP presidential debates were "Looney Tunes." He was dead serious. But when the subject turned to liberal Democrats…

Over the years, we’ve written a lot about long, slow ratings collapse of broadcast news. But ABC, CBS, and NBC aren’t the only ones experiencing this decline. As reported by David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun, the ratings for PBS NewsHour show are almost in a freefall, even compared to their commercial competitors. By its own count, NewsHour had 2.5 million viewers in 2005. This year the show…