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Loud protests by Wisconsin public employee unions against a budget reform proposal from new Governor Scott Walker have drawn considerable national network news attention since Thursday, the day Democratic state senators fled the state in a last-ditch gambit to prevent the bill from becoming law. A story-by-story analysis by the Media Research Center shows the Wisconsin protests are a perfect…

NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, on Monday's Today show, lumped the Wisconsin and federal budget fights together and depicted the Republicans, in both cases, as being on the defensive. Starting in Wisconsin O'Donnell reported that over the weekend "Protesters backing union workers vented anger" but didn't mention the Tea Party had a counter-protest. Then O'Donnell, moving to the budget struggle on…

A buoyant Chris Matthews popped into the Today show studio, on Monday morning, to hype his MSNBC documentary on Bill Clinton's post-presidency and he didn't spare a platitude as he claimed that Clinton is "bigger than the host country president" wherever he goes, is as active as the "Energizer Bunny" and unapologetically offered: "It's right to do a good story about a good guy." To her credit…

The network morning shows on Thursday failed to find any controversy in union protests from Wisconsin, ignoring the signs comparing Scott Walker, the state's Republican governor, to the Taliban, the Nazis and Hitler. Fox News, on the other hand, highlighted the attacks on "Mullah Walker." Wisconsin radio talk show host Vicki McKenna appeared on Your World With Neil Cavuto to discuss the…

On Wednesday afternoon, CNN aired a misleading graphic about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's statements about a proposed license plate honoring a controversial Confederate general from the Civil War. The chyron, which ran during CNN Newsroom and The Situation Room, stated that the "Miss. Gov. won't denounce creation of KKK license plate." At first glance, one would imagine that the…

Of the three morning shows on Monday, only ABC's Good Morning America aggressively pushed the Obama administration on a lack of substantial cuts in the 2012 budget. NBC's Today and CBS's Early Show either downplayed the issue or didn't fully explain the President's new spending. ABC's Jake Tapper declared that Obama's plan "shows that the President will not take the lead in any aggressive…

Discussing the state of the Republican Party with political analyst John Dickerson on Saturday's CBS Evening News, anchor Russ Mitchell concluded: "...it has been a tough week for House Republicans." On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Meredith Vieira made an identical observation, declaring : "It has been a rough, rough week for the Republicans, to say the very least." Mitchell explained his…

Pivoting off the Chris Lee resignation story NBC's Meredith Vieira, on Friday's Today show, declared it was a "rough week for the Republicans" noting that "they've seen several of their bills defeated in the House." Vieira, who was joined by David Gregory, also questioned "How big of a setback is this for the party?" Gregory, for his part, did at least acknowledge the reason some of the bills…

NBC's Meredith Vieira, on Thursday's Today show, challenged former Minnesota Republican Governor and potential presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty for daring to call Barack Obama a fiscal "chicken" as she (citing his Democratic successor Mark Dayton) accused him of not being a fiscal conservative. After Vieira initially questioned if Pawlenty had the requisite "star quality" to run for…

All three evening newscasts on Wednesday and the morning shows on Thursday identified disgraced former Congressman Chris Lee as a Republican. On the February 10 Today, Kelly O'Donnell twice tagged the ex-representative, who resigned after shirtless photos of him surfaced online, as "conservative." The NBC reporter asserted, "The former Congressman is a former businessman, considered an up…

NBC's Matt Lauer seemed shocked that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, during his Super Bowl interview, actually asked Barack Obama about his opponents hating him, as the Today co-anchor, on Wednesday, in an exclusive interview with the First Lady questioned: "Do you think people hate your husband, even on the far right?" Michelle Obama initially deflected the question as she simply responded: "I'm sure…

CNBC's Jim Cramer appeared with Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show to pronounce that big business is warming to President Obama as he cheered: "This is a new president. The market is up 12 percent since he changed his ways. He doesn't say he's changed his ways, but boy business sure feels he has." Cramer even went on to predict the economy would be recovered by the 2012 election as Obama was…

While both CBS's Early Show and ABC's Good Morning America identified The Huffington Post as a liberal blog when discussing AOL purchasing the web site for $315 million, on NBC's Today, news reader Ann Curry simply described it as an "online news site" co-founded by "pundit" Arianna Huffington. On Good Morning America, news reader JuJu Chang referred to The Huffington Post as a "top-ten news…