Since news broke a week ago that a black man went into a predominantly white church in Nashville, Tennessee, and shot several people, there has been an astonishing lack of interest from CNN's New Day morning show, as well as most of its weekday programs. The news network also ignored revelations reported on Friday that there is evidence that the attack was racially motivated.
But CNN's New Day show not only did not update viewers on the subject, but the daily three-hour show has only devoted a total of 11 seconds to the story in the entire last week, which came last Monday in a brief at 8:41 a.m. ET.
CNN initially showed some interest in the event and updated viewers repeatedly between 4:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 24, and 5;00 a.m. the following morning. The news network then seemed to lose interest as the New Day show -- which is typically obsessed with news about President Donald Trump -- only mentioned the church shooting once in three hours.
At 8:41 a.m. ET, substitute host John Berman informed viewers:
The suspected gunman who killed one parishioner and injured seven others at a Nashville, Tennessee, church is due in court Wednesday. Church goers say Emanuel Samson used to attend the parish. No word yet on a motive.
According to a Nexis search, the only other mention on CNN the story has gotten since then was last Monday afternoon when host Jake Tapper included a full three-minute report on his show The Lead.
Last Tuesday, even far-left News One Now host Roland Martin spent more time on it than CNN's New Day as he gave it more than a minute on his two-hour morning show.
By contrast, last Monday, the morning and evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC all devoted time to the story, and, on Friday, ABC's World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News followed up with news of a letter suggesting the attack was revenge for Dylan Roof's attack on a predominantly black church more than two years ago.
On Saturday morning, ABC's Good Morning America also updated viewers on the finding.
Below is a complete transcript of the report ABC's World News Tonight gave viewers on Friday, September 29:
JOHN BERMAN: The suspected gunman who killed one parishioner and injured seven others at a Nashville, Tennessee, church is due in court Wednesday. Church goers say Emanuel Samson used to attend the parish. No word yet on a motive.
DAVID MUIR: In other news tonight, the new developments in that deadly shooting in a Tennessee church. The gunman is in custody, and tonight what investigators now say they have discovered in his car. ABC's senior justice correspondent Pierre Thomas.
PIERRE THOMAS: Tonight, was that Tennessee church shooting racially motivated retaliation for another church massacre. Sources telling ABC News that police found a note in the car of the black man charged in the Burnette Chapel mass shooting, referencing the 2015 murderous rampage of white supremacist Dylann Roof at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof executed nine black parishioners in cold blood simply because of race.
Emanuel Samson is charged with walking into that Tennessee church and trying to murder members of the mixed-race congregation. ... When the shooting ended, a white woman had been fatally shot and six wounded. ... Tonight, the FBI is investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime. Sources tell ABC News the note found in Samson's car is one of the reasons why a civil rights investigation was launched so quickly.
