Military disparity: CNN ran 11 segments on Blumenthal's service claims, none about Kirk's

Written by Terry Krepel

Published

The day after a report that Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal had made false claims about his military service, CNN devoted 11 segments to the story. By contrast, CNN ran no segments on Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk's admission that he had made a false claim about his military service in the two days after that story broke.

CNN: 11 segments on Blumenthal

Blumenthal segments ran throughout the day on CNN. On the evening of May 17, The New York Times published an article claiming that Blumenthal had, on a number of occasions, claimed or suggested that he had served in Vietnam during his military service when, in fact, he remained stateside. The next day, CNN ran numerous segments on the Blumenthal story. According to a Media Matters search of the Nexis database, segments on Blumenthal appeared during the following hours of CNN programming on May 18 (all times ET):

No CNN segments on Kirk

Kirk falsely claimed he received top Navy award. A Washington Post article first published on its website on May 29 and in its print edition on May 30 reported that Kirk acknowledged after the Post began examining his statements about his military service that he had falsely claimed in his official biography that “he received the U.S. Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year award for his service during NATO's conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s.” Kirk's bio has since been changed to read that his unit received an award from the National Military Intelligence Association, a professional group. According to a search of the Nexis database, CNN ran no segments about Kirk on May 30 or May 31.