Today

As the first anniversary of its grand declaration fast approaches, does NBC continue to believe that Iraq is in a state of civil war? Readers will recall that as we described here, Matt Lauer opened the Today show on November 27th, 2006 with these words:Good morning. Civil war. A bloody weekend of sectarian clashes in Iraq and no sign it's letting up.A bit later, Lauer portentously declared: For…

A Google alert this morning brought an article about a speech in which NBC's Lester Holt claimed that he and his MSM colleagues "are perfectly capable of putting [their] personal bias aside." Holt went to state that "the level of organized attacks against news organizations from the blogosphere and even from competitors in recent years is unprecedented and disturbing."Less than an hour later…

NBC’s Today called the Democratic debate a "Vegas slugfest" at the beginning of the Friday morning show, but the story that followed by NBC reporter and Hillary pal Andrea Mitchell made it look like a TKO for Hillary. "She proved she can take a punch," oozed Mitchell, and "she denied playing the gender card." Mitchell noted her husband did, but she made no attempt to rebut the falsehood that…

It’s a little odd when a reporter contradicts herself and discloses she doesn’t necessarily agree with what she’s reporting. But that’s what happened this morning when CNBC’s Maria Bartimoro appeared on the November 12 “Today” to report the chances of a recession. “Today” host Meredith Vieira asked Bartiromo if she thought the economy was heading into a recession after Bartiromo delivered a…

How overmatched were the two lukewarm-at-best Republicans that "Today" tossed in against two partisan Dems this morning? If NBC scheduled this unfair a fight for Sunday Night Football, Al Michaels would be calling the play-by-play between the New England Patriots and the proverbial Little Sisters of Mercy.The Today show's farce of a "voter panel" was invited to discuss politics and the state of…

Ann Curry affixes NBC News sticker to ceremonial South Pole during visit to Antarctica for NBC's "Green Week." November 8, 2007.

In the past six years, any time someone wrote a tell-all book about George W. Bush or a member of his administration, they were given the royal treatment by the press with lavish interviews offering them the perfect platform to market their work as well as their politically charged opinions. Consider for example all the attention given to Valerie Plame Wilson just recently when her book "Fair…

"Green Week" at "Today" came in with an Al Gore roar but went out with a travelogue whimper. What happened?View video [from MSNBC site] here. On Monday, "Today" kicked off Green Week with an Al Gore interview in which he proclaimed there was no room for dissenting voices on global warming. Over at MSNBC the same day, an NBC environmental "correspondent" urged viewers to vote for candidates with…

One day after calling New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo a communist, CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer appeared on the November 8 “Today” with another attack. “No, he's not doing his job,” Cramer said to host Meredith Vieira, in his usual animated, over-the-top manner. “This is New York State. This is not the federal government. He is making it so that the very institutions we need…

A Pew Research Center poll released late last month found that while four out of five American adults (81%) could name one of the Democratic presidential candidates, far fewer (just 59%) could recall any of the GOP candidates. Even among self-described Republican voters, Pew found “Clinton and Obama are much more visible than Giuliani or any other GOP presidential candidate.”One reason may be…

Shirley MacLaine appeared on the Wednesday "Today" show to promote her new book Sage-ing While Age-ing, and after host Matt Lauer finished talking to the actress about her belief in UFOs and reincarnation, he asked if there was anything she feared in life, the author responded: "Mad men who say they're at the head of democracies scare me." Now while MacLaine didn't mention George W. Bush by name…

Did Al Gore win his Nobel for "peace," or did it perhaps come in a new category: comedy? I ask in the wake of his rib-tickling routine on this morning's "Today." Al, that inveterate card, actually claimed that the MSM's coverage of global warming is . . . too balanced.View video here.

Talk about talking down the economy! No fewer than three times today, Matt Lauer invited Barack Obama to declare that the U.S. economy is headed into recession. At the end of a "Today" interview that focused largely on Hillary-related issues and Iran, Lauer turned to the economy and pressed Obama to predict the worst.View video here.