Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) keeps doing newsworthy things, despite receiving basically no attention from the corporate TV news media. Despite Crockett’s busy week of calling for violence against Republican Senator Ted Cruz (TX), referring to wheelchair-bound Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) as “Governor Hot Wheels,” and allegedly assaulting a reporter, the Congresswoman has not been the subject of even a single report on any of the broadcast networks’ (ABC, CBS and NBC) flagship morning or evening news shows.
MRC analysts looked at all coverage on the big three broadcast networks’ major morning (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and NBC’s Today) and evening (ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News) news shows from Monday, March 24 through the morning of Friday, March 28. Across those 27 shows, Crockett’s multiple scandals did not receive even a single report.
On March 26, Crockett allegedly assaulted independent reporter Charles Downs, attempting to snatch his phone camera away from him in a video shown here. Downs has since said he filed a police report about the incident.
One might assume that these networks, which purport to employ journalists, might be the slightest bit interested in a member of the press being roughed up by a member of Congress. But despite that, the broadcast networks have not even indicated that they are aware the incident took place, let alone running a news segment about it.
And as NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck reported earlier this week, Crockett’s threatening remarks about Cruz also went unreported. That trend held throughout the rest of the week, and the story has not yet been discussed on any of the three networks.
The “Governor Hot Wheels” incident was the only one of the three scandals that the networks even came close to covering.
On Wednesday, CBS Mornings ran an “Eye Opener” — basically a teaser — that mentioned her comments about Abbott, even including the now-infamous clip of her using the pejorative, “Governor Hot Wheels.” Despite the teaser, no such segment aired. Outside of the Eye Opener, CBS has not mentioned Crockett since then.
On ABC, the only time Crockett was brought up all week was on The View, during a segment in which co-host Sunny Hostin suggested that perhaps Crockett had just made a “mistake”: “I did not know that Governor Abbott was a paraplegic, I had no idea.”
Just for the sake of thoroughness, it should be mentioned that NBC’s streaming service did touch on the “Hot Wheels” story in two separate reports: one in the 7:00 p.m. ET hour on Wednesday, and one during the 12:00 p.m. ET hour the following day. These reports demonstrate that NBC was perfectly aware of Crockett’s comments, but deliberately chose not to discuss them on any of their flagship news shows.
Just two weeks ago, a CNN poll asked respondents about which Democratic leader “best reflects the core values of the Democratic party.” On that question, Rep. Crockett tied with President Obama for fifth place.
Considering Crockett’s relative prominence, at least among Democratic poll respondents, it’s particularly alarming that ABC, CBS, and NBC have abdicated any responsibility for keeping Americans informed about her recent torrent of scandalous behavior.
