Today

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…

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…

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…

“In a nation that has entertained and appalled itself for years with hot talk on the radio and the campaign trail, the inflamed rhetoric of the '90s is suddenly an unindicted co-conspirator in the blast,” charged Time magazine Senior Writer Richard Lacayo in the May 8, 1995 edition of the news weekly, the first quote cited in a “Special Purveyors of Hate & Division Issue” published at the…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

Thanks to James Cameron's "Avatar," environmentalists have a whole new way to preach to audiences about their over consumption. Invited on Wednesday's Today show to showcase endangered species, Sea World and Busch Garden's animal ambassador Julie Scardina played on the guilt of viewers as she asked the Today cast if they had seen Avatar and warned them: "You know our world is as amazing and…

The broadcast networks couldn't ignore Holy Week, the pinnacle of the Christian calendar, so instead they used it this year to smear the Catholic Church as a harbor for abusive priests. ABC, CBS and NBC featured 26 stories during Holy Week about Pope Benedict's perceived role in the sex abuse scandal the Catholic Church is now facing. Only one story focused on the measures the church has…

Of the three network morning shows, only Good Morning America has highlighted conservative outrage over Barack Obama's decision to limit the situations in which the America can use nuclear weapons. CBS's Early Show has mostly ignored the development. On Wednesday's Today, reporter Mike Viqueira enthused, "...It was Prague about a year ago when the President made a speech outlining his vision for…

Talk about tossing a softball. NBC's Ann Curry, on Monday's Today, quoted the New York Times' Frank Rich, essentially comparing Barack Obama to Superman to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. After citing Rich claiming "Not since Clark Kent changed in a phone booth has there been an instant image makeover to match Barack Obama's, in the aftermath of his health care victory" Curry asked Maddow how Obama will…

When it comes to socially-conservative groups media outlets like to cover the scandals instead of the celebrations. That's exactly what NBC did to the Boy Scouts of America which had its 100th anniversary Jan. 25. NBC "Nightly News" completely ignored the anniversary, but did remember to cover Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day during that broadcast. But NBC will find time for scandal. On April 1, NBC'…

Out of the lengthy interview sessions Matt Lauer conducted with President Barack Obama which were played back over the first hour-and-half of Tuesday's Today show, Brian Williams decided to highlight on Nightly News only Obama's explanation for “why his family hasn't found a church to attend yet in their new adopted home of Washington, D.C.” Obama's reasoning satisfied Lauer, who quipped: “It's…