Tag Archives: nightly-news

Does It Even Matter To You If NBC Anchor Brian Williams Lied About Iraq? [Poll]

Do you even care if NBC ‘Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams stretched the truth over his helicopter coming under enemy fire in Iraq in 2003 or if he saw a body floating by during Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Answer our poll.

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Does It Even Matter To You If NBC Anchor Brian Williams Lied About Iraq? [Poll]

NBC’s Williams Hits Bowles and Simpson from the Left, Deficit Cutting an ‘Assault’ on Middle Class and Poor

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Wednesday evening hit presidential deficit commission co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles from the left, the New York Times left. Without ever raising conservative criticism of proposals to raise taxes, Williams charged: It seems to me there's two arguments. There's what you're trying to accomplish and then there's how you're trying to accomplish, and there are, as you know, critics of what you're trying to do.

NBC’s Brian Williams Gives Jimmy Carter a Platform to Denounce Fox News: ‘No Regard for the Truth’

In selecting which excerpts, from his sit-down with former President Jimmy Carter, to showcase on Monday’s NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams began with the not so humble boast from Carter that “I feel that my role as a former President is probably superior to that of other Presidents, primarily because of the activism and the injection of the Carter Center into international affairs,” but also decided to highlight Carter’s blast at Fox News for “totally distorting everything possible concerning the facts” and having “no regard for the truth.” Williams cued up Carter, who is making the rounds of friendly media to promote his new book, White House Diary: “How do you think it came to be that such high numbers of people believe that this American-born Christian President is either foreign born or a Muslim or both?” Carter answered: I think the number one factor is Fox News. It’s totally distorting everything possible concerning the facts. And I think their constant hammering away at these false premises about our incumbent President has a major impact on the consciousness of America. A lot of well-meaning people, including many of those in the Tea Party movement, believe what is said in this constant hammering away by Glenn Beck and by others who have no regards for the truth. Video of full 31-minute interview on MSNBC.com . Earlier: From Sunday night : “CBS Begins Media’s Rehabilitation of ‘Fantastic’ Jimmy Carter, ‘Cursed’ Presidency Actually More Successful Than Reagan’s” From Monday morning : “On Today: Jimmy Carter Defends Record, Hopes Tea Party Fades in 2012”

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NBC’s Brian Williams Gives Jimmy Carter a Platform to Denounce Fox News: ‘No Regard for the Truth’

NBC’s Todd: Liberal Victory Means ‘Hope’ But Conservative Wins Will Demonstrate ‘Fear’

NBC’s Chuck Todd couched it in terms of how “both parties” are peddling “fear” in this year’s election season — but his formulation Tuesday night of how 2008 was “the hope election” while this one will be “the fear election” – offered a likely preview of how the MSM will try to discredit voter repudiation of liberal Democratic Obama allies when they hardly cast in a negative light the 2008 voter rejection of a third Republican term. Todd concluded a short NBC Nightly News story: I had one observer tell me, if 2008 was the “hope election,” 2010 may be known as the “fear election,” as both Republicans and Democrats are playing on the fears of voters about the future of the economy to try to win votes in November. NBC’s chief White House correspondent, and former political director, presented a brief look at “finger-pointing” from House Republican Leader John Boehner who urged President Obama to force his economic team to resign, followed by Vice President Joe Biden’s retort about how Republicans had turned a surplus into a deficit. Flashback . When Republicans won back the House and Senate in 1994, the late Peter Jennings reflected the media’s denigration of it as a “temper tantrum” by “angry voters.” ABC World News Tonight anchor Jennings in his daily ABC Radio commentary from November 14, 1994: Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It’s clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It’s the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week…. Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old. From the Tuesday, August 24 NBC Nightly News, transcript provided by the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth: BRIAN WILLIAMS: Pessimism about the economy boiled over in public in the political arena today, with top Republicans and Democrats trading accusations over whose fault it is. Our chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd with us from our Washington newsroom. Chuck, I’ll say it with sarcasm: This is what people love about Washington, isn’t it? CHUCK TODD: Yeah, that’s right. It is finger-pointing time. Look, John Boehner – he’s the House Republican Leader – and he gave a big speech on what he would do if he were Speaker of the House, should Republicans get control of the House in November. And here’s what he had to say about the President’s economic team. JOHN BOEHNER, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: President Obama should ask for and accept the resignations of the remaining members of his economic team starting with Secretary Geithner and Larry Summers, the head of the National Economic Council. TODD: Well, Vice President Biden served as the surrogate for the Obama administration, and here’s what he said in response to Boehner’s call. VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: They took a $237 billion operating surplus inherited from the Clinton administration, and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit. And in the process, quadrupled the national debt, all before we literally turned on the lights in the West Wing. TODD: Now, it doesn’t take a polling expert to tell you the economy is the number one issue for pretty much every American out there. I had one observer tell me, if 2008 was the “hope election,” 2010 may be known as the “fear election,” as both Republicans and Democrats are playing on the fears of voters about the future of the economy to try to win votes in November, Brian.

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NBC’s Todd: Liberal Victory Means ‘Hope’ But Conservative Wins Will Demonstrate ‘Fear’

Evening News Watch: NBC Trick May Have Enabled Big 3 Nets to Avoid Going Below Combined 19 Million Last Week

Last week, Matt Robare at NewsBusters noted the fact that the Big 3 networks’ combined year-over-year audience fell by a bit more than 1 million during the second quarter. Last week’s showing appears to be to a slight pickup over the previous week, but it may have been much worse. Here, per Media Bistro, is how the the week of June 28 as reported by Nielsen compared to the week of June 21, the last reporting week of the aforementioned dismal quarter: June 21 — NBC – 7,190,000; ABC – 6,740,000; CBS – 5,230,000; Total – 19,160,000. June 28 — NBC – 7,800,000; ABC – 6,740,000; CBS – 4,970,000; Total – 19,510,000. So how did NBC attract over 600,000 additional viewers during the week of June 28, increasing its audience by over 8%? The answer, according to Media Bistro’s Kevin Allocca, is that the network probably didn’t: On Thursday and Friday, “NBC Nightly News” was coded as “Nitely News” in the Nielsen ratings (similar to last summer) and the newscast was therefore excluded from the average over those two lower-rated days heading into the holiday weekend while Brian Williams was out. ABC and CBS averages are based on all five days. Clever, eh? In his coverage of last year’s NBC similar trick during the week of June 29 — a week where the reported combined audience was 20,180,000 — Media Bistro’s Chris Ariens observed that “The practice, however, is within Nielsen’s guidelines.” Some “guidelines.” That’s like a baseball team getting away with excluding its worst two innings, or an NBA team unilaterally deciding that the second half didn’t count. Given that one of its competitors lost ground week to week while the other just stayed even, it’s reasonable to believe that NBC’s June 28 full-week performance was no better than June 21. If so, the total audience at the Big Three networks really fell below 19 million. Oh, how the formerly mighty in the statism-compliant establishment media have fallen, and continue to fall. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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Evening News Watch: NBC Trick May Have Enabled Big 3 Nets to Avoid Going Below Combined 19 Million Last Week

ABC, NBC and CBS Ignore Report That Government Experts Opposed Drilling Moratorium

All three network news shows on Tuesday skipped a report that a group of experts consulted by the Obama administration opposed the government’s plan to halt deepwater oil drilling for six months. Only Special Report With Bret Baier covered the story. FNC reporter James Rosen noted a federal judge’s decision to overturn the plan: “The judge also rebuked the Obama administration for filing a quote ‘misleading misrepresentation’ in the case by suggesting an expert panel supported the moratorium when a majority of its members do not.” ABC’s World News, CBS’s Evening News and NBC’s Nightly News (as well as Good Morning America, Early Show and Today) all highlighted the judge’s ruling, but none of them mentioned the opposition from eight out of the 15 members on the panel. CNSNews.com’s Edwin Mora explained: The eight experts outlined their objections in a June 8 letter to Louisiana Sens. Mary Landrieu (D) and David Vitter (R) and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). “A group of those named in the Secretary of Interior’s Report, ‘Increased Safety Measures for Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf,’ dated May 27, 2010 are concerned that our names are connected with the moratorium as proposed in the executive summary of that report,” the experts said in their letter.

Rosie O’Donnell Wants BP’s Assets Seized: ‘We Broke the Freakin’ Womb of Mother Earth’

On her satellite radio show on Monday, Rosie O’Donnell accused BP of “willful homicide, willful mass murder” and demanded BP be nationalized immediately: “I say seize their assets. Right now. Seize their assets today. Take over the [company]. I don’t care [how]. Issue an executive order…Call it socialism, call it communism, call it anything you want. Let’s watch Rush Limbaugh explode on TV…Seize the assets. Take over BP.” From there, she ripped on piggish Americans in general: “We’re all culpable in America. We all fill up our gas-guzzler cars. We all don’t have solar power on our window[s]. We have been sold the drugs by the dealer, which is our own government, of oil, and we’ve been shootin’ up and we’re addicted to it…It’s making all of us sick, just as if we were shootin’ heroin…This time, we’ve screwed with Mother Earth. We broke the freakin’ womb of Mother Earth…We split it open, and she’s hemorrhaging.” O’Donnell’s executive producer Janette Barber offered a solution: “Let’s pay $20 a gallon rather than kill thousands of innocent people, ’cause that’s what we’re talking about.”    Radio Equalizer caught an earlier “Red Rosie” update when O’Donnell favored a government takeover of BP, a chat with Broadway actor Euan Morton:  MORTON: This is a ridiculous idea, ’cause we don’t live in a utopian, what’s the word, communist society, but wouldn’t you just love to have the federal government and I know people talk about big government and all the rest of it, it’s just nonsense, I’d love to have the federal government take over the oil companies, use the money to give our children free education, and then in the future we can educate our children to start doing things like solar power, wind power– O’DONNELL: Exactly.  MORTON: I don’t know why it’s not being done, it’s plainly obvious. It’s screaing out for someone. This is a Biblical age we are living in. The problems are massive. Volcanoes stopping flights. These are huge problems that we’re now facing. Rather than having it pour into the ocean for 41 days, another two months to drill another well to top it off, we have to have a way of making the kind of sea change that we need to make in the self-proclaimed leader of the free world– O’DONNELL: James Carville said the best thing. He said Obama needs to come down here and tell BP, “I’m your daddy, I am takin’ it over,” but they haven’t been able to do it. [Image from circushour.com]

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Rosie O’Donnell Wants BP’s Assets Seized: ‘We Broke the Freakin’ Womb of Mother Earth’

Obama’s Knowing ‘Whose Ass to Kick’ Pledge Continues to Delight TV Network Journalists

More than 24 hours after NBC’s Matt Lauer prompted him to say it in an interview, the morning programs all showcased it – and even after day-long playback on the cable channels – CBS and NBC on Tuesday night delighted in again highlighting President Barack Obama’s boast that he’s gathering information on the oil leak “so I know whose ass to kick.” Katie Couric put the soundbite, from a competitor, at the top of the CBS Evening News: “In a TV interview aired today, the President said if BP’s CEO worked for him, he’d be fired. And Mr. Obama defended his handling of the disaster.” NBC Nightly News provided a re-run. A day after anchor Brian Williams trumpeted as “just into us” the bite illustrating how Obama “showed some anger on the topic of his handling of this spill so far,” reporter Anne Thompson touted: “Criticized for not conveying his anger over the nation’s greatest environmental disaster, President Obama fired back during an exclusive interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer.” Earlier, from Geoff Dickens: “ NBC’s Lauer Prompted Obama’s Use of the ‘A’ Word ” From the start of the Tuesday, June 8 CBS Evening News: KATIE COURIC: Good evening, everyone. The President is heading back to the gulf coast, his fourth trip there since the oil rig exploded seven weeks ago today. It will be a two-day visit to once again see for himself what’s going on in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Meanwhile, here’s what we’re seeing tonight– fire on the water as BP burns off some of the leaking oil. And this video just released shows the power of the gushing crude before the well was capped. Government scientists confirmed today that plumes of oil are spreading far below the surface of the gulf and far away from that leaking well. In a TV interview aired today, the President said if BP’s CEO worked for him, he’d be fired. And Mr. Obama defended his handling of the disaster. PRESIDENT OBAMA: I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick. From the NBC Nightly News: ANNE THOMPSON: …Criticized for not conveying his anger over the nation’s greatest environmental disaster, President Obama fired back during an exclusive interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer. OBAMA: A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there standing in the rain, talking about what a potential crisis this could be. And I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick. THOMPSON: The President expressed particular displeasure with BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, who said last week he wanted his life back. OBAMA: He wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements.

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Obama’s Knowing ‘Whose Ass to Kick’ Pledge Continues to Delight TV Network Journalists