MSNBC's Alito hearing coverage skewed right well into the night; NBC's Today picked up trend the next morning
SUMMARY: On January 9, MSNBC's prime-time coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. featured several Republicans but no Democratic or progressive guests. For the entire day, the channel featured discussion with only two guests critical of Alito. On January 10, NBCis Today followed suit, featuring only a Republican guest in its report on the hearing.
Following MSNBC's live coverage of the first afternoon of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s nomination hearing on January 9 -- during which the channel featured interviews with former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, former Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) but no Democratic or progressive guests -- its prime-time coverage featured Buchanan once again, along with former Attorney General John Ashcroft, current RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, and former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson. For the entire day, the network included discussions with only two guests critical of Alito -- author and former Supreme Court clerk Edward Lazarus, who appeared with Buchanan on The Abrams Report, and Air America Radio host Rachel Maddow, who appeared on The Situation with Tucker Carlson during the 11 p.m. hour. On January 10, NBC's Today featured a single guest -- former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) -- in its report on the hearing.
Media Matters for America previously reviewed MSNBC's live coverage of opening statements in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing from noon to 4 p.m. ET January 9 and found that the roster of guests and commentators interviewed about Alito skewed right. The trend continued throughout the evening (all times ET):
- At 4 p.m., on The Abrams Report, host Dan Abrams featured Ashcroft in a lengthy interview that began with a discussion of the hearing.
- MSNBC chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell served as substitute host for Hardball with Chris Matthews at 5 p.m. (re-broadcast at 7 p.m.); she interviewed Olson at the beginning of the program and Mehlman near the end.
- Abrams returned at 6 p.m. and hosted a panel discussion on the hearing that included Buchanan, NBC News Capitol Hill producer Mike Viqueira, and Lazarus, author of Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court (Crown, 1998). Lazarus, a former Supreme Court clerk, has written in support of reproductive choice.
- Finally, at 11 p.m., The Situation with Tucker Carlson hosted Maddow.
The trend continued the next morning, when NBC's Today led off with a report on the hearing by NBC News chief justice correspondent Pete Williams, who recapped the previous day's opening statements. Following Williams's report, Today host Matt Lauer interviewed Thompson, who served as an adviser to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. during his confirmation process last year.
It was not until the 1 p.m. ET hour on the second day of the hearing that MSNBC featured a guest affiliated with the Democratic Party, when O'Donnell interviewed former Howard Dean presidential campaign manager and political consultant Joe Trippi -- along with Buchanan yet again -- during the Judiciary Committee's afternoon break after the first 3 1/2 hours of questioning.
What a joke! How could anyone possibly claim the media has a liberal bias when NBC lines up opinion makers like these?
Bernie Goldberg was running around for a while talking about how "liberal media bias" manifests itself in the coverage of social issues. Yet here we have a SCOTUS nominee who could potentially overturn Roe, and NBC skews right.
Any of the trolls here care to give a similarly liberal list of commentators on another network? Good luck...
its about time it skewed toward the center
I didn't realize it was a centrist position to support this nomination with no opposition.
I've been watching these hearings closely and I can't believe how off-base the coverage has been from all the networks. Since when do reporters openly praise a nominees political skills in evading direct questions in front of the entire nation? Alito has been back-peddling on many of the controversial decisions he has made on the 3rd Circuit, plus he keeps dodging his own 1985 statements on the constitution not protecting a women's right to an abortion. Why is he trying to distance himself from his own previously stated positions? And why are the networks not hammering this point home every chance they get???
The media serves power. Scalito is a dream candidate for business. Therefore media will dutifully carry water for their corporate masters. Did anyone really think the media beleives their function is to inform? They know their function is to SERVE POWER
... this is a regular occurence, allowing right wingers on unopposed. usually they get softball questions from katie or matt that allow them to bash the democrats and praise bush. there is no news anymore. it's propaganda put out by these so-called "news programs" that are owned by giant corporations whose goal is lower their own taxes by keeping the republicans in power
It sounds like they're aiming for the same level of "Fair and Balanced" coverage...
During the Alito hearing the term "Unitary Executive" was mentioned and it prompted me to research the term. The Bush administration contends this theory (and it is a theory) is what gives the President absolute power and the ability to disregard laws enacted by Congress and to operate without any judical oversight. I urge everyone to visit this link and absorb the underlying doctrine of the Bush administration.
[link to www.users.muohio.edu]
Samuel Alito in a 2001 appearance before the conservative Federalist Society, he said he continued to believe in the idea of the "unitary executive." That concept holds that the Constitution gives the president all federal executive power, and means Congress likely could not grant agency heads powers outside the president's reach.
What is going on with The Today Show?
The Softball Show !!
Let's face it, NBC, is run by GE which is controlled by a group up ultra-conservative right wingers. That goes back to before the time of Jack Welch. The GE executives, along with the rest of the mega telecommunications giants, have torn down the wall between the news division and the political agenda of the corporations. The days of independent news division are gone. Gloves are off. Hell with the balanced and fair. It's not even about profits. It's about pushing an agenda. They get the pundits on the news shows that will support their agenda. There aren't going to be many, if any, pundits allowed on who don't support the agenda. Fair and balanced to the GE executives is letting their token liberal, Keith Olberman, have 20 minutes of serious news before they force him to divert his coverage into a bunch of nonsense and trivia. They then send Rita Cosby off to Aruba to search for missing white women. They bookend these diversions with the right wing drumbeating of Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, and Tucker Carlson and repeat them late into the night.
I caught the beginnings of this on Tuesday . . . I went to a fitness center and did the treadmill for 30 minutes; there were two TV monitors - the left had the Alito hearings on FOX, the right side one on CNN . . .
Both were live, and even though I couldn't hear either with my discman playing, FOX had the closed-captioning . . .
Since they were broadcasting live simultaneously, it was easy to see the difference in coverage: CNN's banner under the hearings coverage simply read, "Alito Confirmantion Hearings." CNN's "crawl" at the bottom of the screen had other top news items of the day besides the hearings.
Fox's crawl, on the other hand, talked almost exclusively about the nomination and repeated ad nauseum blurbs about Bush's hope the hearings are "dignified," and supporters' praise for Alito {that is, when they weren't repeating blurbs about Bush's commitment to "total victory" in Iraq} . . . Plus, when Sen. Charles Grassley {R-IA} had his turn at questioning, from the closed-caption it looked like he spent most of his alloted time praising Alito's "legal ablity," "intellect," and "integrity" . . . and if all that wasn't enough, the camera kept going back to a shot of a cardboard display that showed the ABA's evaluation and recommendation of Alito . . .
"Fair and Balanced." "Liberal media bias." Puh-LEEZE . . .
The Dems are asking questions and accused of being mean to poor Alito. The Reps. are praising him as the greatest judge they have ever had the pleasure of nominating. They have already decided. The fix was in. Media does not look report it.