The top four Spanish-language television news programs in the United States have so far ignored the release of damning emails from Lois Lerner, the former top IRS official who in newly released emails characterized conservatives as "a**holes" and "crazies."
Instead, Noticiero Univisión and Noticiero Telemundo devoted full reports to the water main that burst on the campus of UCLA, along with coverage of the introduction of legislation to curb sex crimes on university campuses.
U.S. domestic news coverage on CNN en Español’s En Directo USA was limited, meanwhile, by breaking developments related to the Argentine debt crisis, while Noticias Mundo Fox found time instead to run features on the centennial of World War I and underwater photography.
So far this year, Univisión and Telemundo coverage of the Obama administration’s ongoing IRS scandal has been virtually non-existent. In comparison, on the nation’s leading English-language networks, last night ABC’s World News was the only one not to cover the latest revelations related to the scandal.
Meanwhile, both NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News set aside about two minutes each of air time to Lerner's harsh words against conservatives in the United States. NBC anchor Brian Williams introduced correspondent Kelly O'Donnell's report by underlining that "the investigation into a partisan scandal at the I.R.S. has now just come to new life in a graphic way. E-mails were released today by a House committee investigating former I.R.S. official Lois Lerner, who is accused of targeting the Tea Party and other conservative political groups for special scrutiny. The e-mails attributed to her may say a lot about political motivations."
As O’Donnell reported, Lerner has been at the center of a year-old controversy – allegations the I.R.S. improperly targeted and delayed Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status. On CBS Evening News, substitute anchor James Brown teased correspondent Chip Reid's report by noting "Lois Lerner's e-mails – the former I.R.S. official calls Republicans 'crazies' and worse." Brown pointed out that "it turns out not all of Lois Lerner's e-mails were lost when her computer crashed. Lerner is the former I.R.S. official at the center of investigations over whether the agency targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny. E-mails she sent on her Blackberry surfaced today."
