Free Republic

A key to success in business is knowing your competition. CBS Evening News host Scott Pelley apparently doesn't subscribe to this doctrine, for in an interview with Deadline Hollywood published Saturday, Pelley claimed that Fox News only has 200,000 to 300,000 viewers: DEADLINE: So for you, other outlets especially the cable news networks do center on just one segment of the political spectrum in their reporting? PELLEY: Certainly. It’s no surprise. Fox is associated with the right and MSNBC is associated with the left and they’ve done that because it is a business model. It’s a strategy. They’ve decided to...

On Saturday, CBS News reported on the elections in Iran – by comparing the mullahs to the Tea Party. Reporter Elizabeth Palmer said, discussing the new president, Hassan Rahjani, “Well, he was seen as the most reform-minded of all the candidates who ran this time, that being said, they were all very conservative. In US terms it was as if all the candidates for the presidency came from the Tea Party.”

JOHN DICKERSON: ...Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, has this 90/10 rule that I keep being told about, which is spend 90 percent of your time on the things that are important to this White House, 10 percent on the scandals. That's wise for any White House. The problem is, if they miss the one scandal that's important – and I think the one they're most worried about is still these IRS allegations. That's what people in the public really seem to care the most about, and it's the one that can affect the other things the White...

Friday's CBS This Morning touted Oprah Winfrey's recent Harvard commencement speech, airing over a minute of half of footage from the former daytime TV host's address. The morning newscast spotlighted how Winfrey took the opportunity to promote two liberal pet causes: gun control and "a clear path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants. The show's three anchors all sang the billionaire's praises. Charlie Rose gushed over Winfrey's "remarkable speech". Norah O'Donnell trumpeted the TV star's "important message". Gayle King, who is Oprah's longtime friend, marveled over the address: "She did a great job yesterday." The three hosts didn't once mention King's...

The brother of a top Obama administration official is also the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for covering the administration’s scandals too aggressively. CBS News executives have reportedly expressed frustration with their own reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, who has steadily covered the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack in Libya since late last year. “Network sources” told Politico Wednesday that CBS executives feel Attkisson’s Benghazi coverage is bordering on advocacy, and Attkisson “can’t get some of her stories on the air.” Attkisson, who is in...

CBS Anchor: 'We Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over and Over Again' "Our house is on fire." Daniel Halper May 11, 2013 12:09 PM CBS anchor Scott Pelley said at a speech at Quinnipiac University that journalists "are getting big stories wrong, over and over again." "Our house is on fire," said Pelley. The video of Pelley's speech is courtesy of nowthisnews.com. "These have been a bad few months for journalism," he added. "We're getting the big stories wrong, over and over again." The CBS newsreader was quick to take at least partial blame. "Let me take the first arrow:...

The brother of a top Obama administration official is also the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for covering the administration’s scandals too aggressively. CBS News executives have reportedly expressed frustration with their own reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, who has steadily covered the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack in Libya since late last year. “Network sources” told Politico Wednesday that CBS executives feel Attkisson’s Benghazi coverage is bordering on advocacy, and Attkisson “can’t get some of her stories on the air.” Attkisson, who is in...

The popular CBS reality show "The Amazing Race” is under fire for featuring an episode set in Hanoi, Vietnam, where contestants go to a B-52 Memorial, which is the wreckage of an American bomber plane shot down during the Vietnam War, to find the next clue in their televised round-the-world journey. In the episode, the twisted metal of the downed plane is treated as any other prop, with a bright ‘Amazing Race’ ‘Double-U-Turn’ signed planted in front of it, signifying to contestants the next phase of their scavenger hunt. The show also had contestants learn a song that was performed...

uring CBS's special coverage of the papal election on Wednesday, correspondent Mark Phillips singled out two dissenters from Catholic tradition in the middle of crowd of hundreds of thousands in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, mere minutes after the white smoke went out of the Sistine Chapel's chimney, and before Pope Francis emerged onto the balcony over the piazza. The two activists, who wore pink "ordain women" pins, not only sought to change the Catholic Church's teachings on the all-male priesthood, but spotlighted "LGBT issues [and] reproductive health care" – a thinly-veiled reference to abortion and contraception – as...

On CBS’s Face The Nation this week, host Bob Schieffer asked Ben Affleck point blank, “Have you ever thought about running for public office?” Although he attempted to deflect the question by noting “the state of Massachusetts currently has two extraordinary Senators,” he ended up saying, “well, one never knows.” Schieffer noted there might be a vacancy for him soon, with Senator John Kerry being tapped to be President Obama‘s next Secretary of State. Affleck said, “I’m not one to get into conjecture,” but then said, “I like to be involved.”

CBS ran a puff piece Friday morning on President Obama's visit to hurricane-ravaged Staten Island, which stood in stark contrast to its hostile treatment of President Bush's visit to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. CBS played into the Obama PR strategy, simply noting that he "pledged the government's support" to Staten Island residents and "met with families who've lost everything." In addition, they aired his plea for the insurance companies to support the victims, afterward quoting residents who were upset with the insurance companies. Meanwhile, CBS had no such love for President Bush in 2005 when they reported victims...

Even Dan Rather, the poster child of media bias, admitted on Morning Joe today that it is likely going to be “a good day for Romney.” The Politico reported: Longtime television journalist Dan Rather said on Tuesday that reporters shouldn’t predict elections based on their gut — but added that his tells him Mitt Romney will have a good day. “Something in my gut tells me that it’s going to be a good day for Romney,” Rather said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Listen to President Obama and Mitt Romney on the campaign trail, and you could be forgiven for briefly thinking only one gender is allowed to vote. Both candidates regularly tailor their message to female voters: You can see it in the president's attacks on Romney's desire to cut Planned Parenthood funding and potentially appoint judges to overturn Roe v. Wade, and in Romney's claim that "this president has failed America's women" due to an uptick in female poverty. There's a reason for this: Women are widely perceived as more likely than men to be swing voters. In the battleground state...

Politics is a dirty business, but do the major media outlets need to be part of that 'dirty business', and do the major media outlets need to be more honest in their own selective editing? The admission of mistakes and just plain lies which President Obama made to 60 Minutes interviewer Steve Kroft somehow wound up on the cutting room floor during editing. That seems to indicate a functional bias of omission by CBS, as in the ongoing discussion at this DJ blog posted by sumdume. The 'sin' of omission in editing is seemingly the most difficult to deduce is...

re hours after Politico reported on Republican Congressman Eric Yoder's admitted skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee in Israel, CBS highlighted the story on its Monday morning newscast. By contrast, the network was slow to report on former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner's lewd photo scandal in 2011. On June 1 of that year, ABC and NBC's morning shows reported on the "underwear uproar," while CBS's Early Show punted on the story. The following day, CBS played up conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart's early role in spreading word of the New York liberal's indecent Twitter pic: "Supporters of Weiner note that it...

During an interview of Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose and Erica Hill bewailed the negative tone of the presidential campaign, hinting that it might turn off voters. However, the anchors let Axelrod rip Mitt Romney's recent foreign policy speech to the VFW without challenge, and failed to ask the adviser about the President's own speech to the organization. Rose set up Axelrod's tirade against Romney with a beyond softball question - on the GOP candidate's slam of Obama: "'Contemptible conduct'; 'a betrayal' -- where are we?" The veteran journalist hinted at his...

Charlie Rose omitted mentioning the continuing high unemployment rate as he interviewed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Tuesday's CBS This Morning. Rose also forwarded a criticism Geithner from the left, that the Cabinet official was "too friendly to the banks, because he knew them from his years at the New York Fed." The anchor also didn't challenge the Obama administration official's assertion that keeping all of the current tax rates would be a "deeply irresponsible thing to do fiscally and economically now. If you do it, it costs a trillion dollars over ten years - a trillion dollars over ten...

Back in 2007 and 2008, it was remarkable watching Barack Obama treated to one puffball interview after another, courtesy of Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes." Kroft compared him to Abe Lincoln and oozed about his "political poetry." But it's simply irresponsible, after three and a half years of President Obama wrecking the economy, that CBS -- now with anchor Charlie Rose -- is still in puffery mode. There's a certain level of contempt on the part of CBS. It could and should focus its attention on the plight of every family struggling with unemployment or a house that's underwater financially...

“‘Bullet Button’ Used To Get Around California Gun Laws,” CBS 5 San Francisco reported Tuesday. “CBS 5 went undercover to a recent gun show at the Cow Palace in Daly City and found ‘California legal’ assault rifles throughout,” they claim. It’s a non-story, really, as their undercover team found nothing illegal—they weren’t even looking for that—or that couldn’t have been obtained openly. The entire purpose of the “investigation” appears to be to gin up public frenzy about a legal device that allows for changing magazines on semi-automatic firearms that comply with California’s specific model and cosmetic features bans. “I've emailed...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Scott Pelley at this debate Saturday night was amazing to watch. This is the anchor of the CBS Evening News, and he thought he had Newt Gingrich twisted in circles over foreign policy. At one point, Pelley got this contorted, smug, all full-of-himself smile on his face while he could not have been more wrong about something. Newt slapped him down and put him in his place, but Pelley to this moment doesn't know that that's what happened! Newt put this guy in his place. Pelley still thinks that he won that little tete-a-tete. I'm convinced he...