Debates

On her Thursday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell fretted that Republican candidates would be not be properly “fact-checked” during the upcoming presidential debate, especially on the Planned Parenthood scandal: “...one of the issues is going to be whether there's going to be any fact checking by the moderators. Certainly we can all do it later after the fact. But the Planned Parenthood debate has…

On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, after showing several clips allegedly showing GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush to be "gaffe prone," anchor Carol Costello somehow thought it newsworthy to read and display on air some of the Twitter mockery of Bush and the other Republican candidates, including a suggestion that they are a group of clowns.

In a rare acknowledgment of media responsibility, on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer declared that it was up to the press to properly cover the first Republican presidential debate: “...that idea of substance versus sizzle, one-liners versus issues. That's on us tomorrow as well. We’ve got to make sure that we cover what they talk about, the issues as opposed to those one-liners.”

The 2016 presidential debate season officially begins Thursdy night. A look back at the last several GOP presidential primary battles finds that, even though these debates are supposed to be for the benefit of GOP primary voters, journalists — especially those working for liberal news outlets — will hit them with left-leaning questions aimed at fulfilling an anti-conservative media narrative.

On Monday’s NBC Today, 9 a.m. ET hour co-hosts Tamron Hall and Willie Geist mourned Jon Stewart’s final week anchoring The Daily Show. Hall proclaimed: “Oh my goodness, it is the end of an era. In a few days Jon Stewart will bid farewell to The Daily Show and all of us.” Hall was particularly worried about Stewart’s absence following Thursday’s first Republican presidential debate: “What the…

Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell issued the following statement calling for all Presidential candidates to skip the Univision/Washington Post (WaPo)-sponsored forum.

In 1968, ABC News tried to improve on its lowly third-rank status by bringing on some rock-em, sock-em commentary around the two party conventions  from two intellectual heavyweights: William F. Buckley Jr. On the right, and author Gore Vidal on the left. A new documentary – from the left, considering it carries a tag from Independent Lens, a leftist documentary series for PBS – explores the…

"People who think he's a joke and a fool need to be careful because by the end of the campaign, the joke may be on them." That's how Joe Scarborough summed up the surprisingly respectful analysis of Donald Trump's candidacy on today's Morning Joe.  Introducing the segment, Scarborough suggested that if Trump sticks to a Perot-like populist message, he could get 15% of the primary vote. When Joe…

In the wake of the furor over his gifts to the Clinton Foundation, George Stephanopoulos has taken himself out of the running to moderate a Republican presidential debate set to air on ABC next February. That development gave Salon’s Jim Newell a peg for his Friday argument that GOPers are off-base in their recent push for conservatives (or at least non-liberals) to moderate their party’s debates…

ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos, who helped President Bill Clinton juggle various scandals during the 1992 campaign and as White House communication director, has apologized for failing to disclose a total of $75,000 in donations to the controversial Clinton Foundation, even before grilling Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash. The New York Times ran a surprising front-page…

On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, Brian Stelter asserted that George Stephanopoulos is "one of the biggest stars on all of television," as he reported on the ABC anchor's $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation. Stelter later claimed that Stephanopoulos has "done a lot to earn people's respect and trust. He's one of the most well-respected anchors at ABC." During his report, the correspondent…

ABC's George Stephanopoulos acknowledged his tens of thousands of dollars of donations to the Clinton Foundation in a Thursday interview with Politico's Dylan Byers. Byers reported that "Stephanopoulos...said that, contrary to earlier reports, he has given a total of $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation." The Good Morning America anchor also announced that "he will not moderate the ABC News-…

Last week, NewsBusters brought you "Stumped," as April Ryan struggled to cite a single foreign policy success by her super-fave, President Obama. In the best Hollywood tradition, this morning we bring you a sequel--Stumped II: Syria! On today's Morning Joe, lugubrious lefty Eric Alterman of The Nation mag was stumped when Joe Scarborough asked him what the US should do about Syria. After humming…

During the Republican Governor's Association conference on Wednesday, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd spent more than half of an hour-long panel discussion grilling several GOP governors on illegal immigration and President Obama's upcoming executive order to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. The Republicans pushed back hard against the NBC host.