Starting Point

CNN is harping on the "partisan" connections of a group of military veterans criticizing President Obama, likening it to Swift Boat, yet it has helped further liberal partisan attacks in the past through its own biased coverage. "A new group of veterans, including former Navy SEALs, accuses President Obama of taking too much credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. The group says it's…

Was Soledad O'Brien borrowing from liberal Talking Points Memo again? She was caught red-handed doing so Monday night, and her challenge to Romney's budget on Wednesday's Starting Point seemed awfully similar to TPM's take on the matter. O'Brien not only echoed TPM's liberal criticisms of Romney's budget, but featured a Fox News clip that TPM quoted from the heart of its piece titled "Paul…

Instead of fact-checking President Obama's dishonest attack on Paul Ryan for blocking a farm bill, CNN simply reported it three times on Tuesday morning. Correspondent Brianna Keilar actually repeated the false attack in her own words. "[T]hey [the House] failed to pass a bill for drought relief, which as you know is huge right now because of all of the farmers, all of the cattle ranchers…

Less than twelve hours after getting caught reading from a liberal blog during a heated debate with a Romney adviser, CNN's Soledad O'Brien was back on the air Tuesday echoing Democrat talking points. In fact, things got so hot with former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu (R) on CNN's Starting Point that he ended up saying, "Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead when you do this" (…

What exactly is Soledad O'Brien arguing? On Monday's Starting Point she slapped away a factual statement that President Obama has cut Medicare funding by $700 billion as "debunked" and "very much political spin." "But I have to tell you as I'm sure you know, that 700 million dollar figure has been – billion dollar figure has been debunked by CNN and the Congressional Budget Office," O'Brien…

For a network claiming to be non-partisan, CNN was quite partisan on Thursday when it used a Democratic talking point to fact-check a claim made by many conservatives. Anchor Brooke Baldwin focused on a Romney campaign ad claiming, as many conservatives are, that the Obama administration is infringing on religious liberty with its contraception mandate. "One, this article is an opinion piece…

CNN relied on liberal analysis and Democratic talking points to dismantle a new Romney campaign claim about Obama gutting welfare reform. On Wednesday morning the network twice cited PolitiFact calling Romney's new ad "Pants on Fire" and quoted former President Clinton calling it false. As NewsBusters reported, the July HHS directive does away with work requirements for welfare recipients,…

After forcing gun control into headlines only hours after the July 20 Aurora massacre, CNN gave a voice to anti-gun advocates on Monday and Tuesday in the wake of Sunday's Wisconsin shooting. The network hosted three guests who pushed for gun control on-air, and correspondent Dan Lothian highlighted prominent gun control advocates like Mayor Bloomberg in his Tuesday morning report.

As NewsBusters previously reported, CNN's Starting Point Monday played Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young" after coming back from a commercial break that followed a segment about the tragic shootings at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. I just received the following statement from a CNN spokesperson:

CNN stoked fears that new voter ID laws might hearken back to the days of Jim Crow. Monday marked the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and CNN's Zoraida Sambolin used that to discuss whether the new laws might "suppress the minority vote." "Do you think that having an African-American president is actually reigniting some of these old prejudices?" she asked former Ambassador Andrew…

UPDATE AT END OF POST: CNN issues apology. Eight days after playing the song "Stupid Girls" before a story about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the scoring geniuses at CNN were at it again. After coming out of a break following a long segment about the Sikh temple shootings in Wisconsin, viewers of Monday's Starting Point were treated to Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young" (video…

Robert E. Murray, the founder and CEO of Murray Energy Corporation, told CNN's Soledad O'Brien Friday that the closure and subsequent layoffs at his company's mine near Brilliant, Ohio, were "entirely" due to the anti-coal policies of Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, the Starting Point host spent much of the eleven-minute segment defending the president she adores from this accusation (video…

Newsweek's print magazine has slid steeply toward irrelevance, but that didn't stop CNN from airing its latest hit piece on Romney's "wimp problem" on Monday. CNN devoted over 12 minutes of coverage on its morning shows to the attack disguised as a cover story and authored by a liberal journalist. Early Start anchor John Berman hyped the "pretty brutal" portrait of Romney and even ventured…

Once again CNN is cheerleading the fight for gay rights, this time within the Boy Scouts. An effusive Starting Point panel welcomed gay activist Zach Wahls on Wednesday and celebrated his cause of pushing the Boy Scouts towards acceptance of openly-gay scouts and leaders. Wahls is no stranger to CNN, as back in May he was lauded as a "very powerful" activist during a soft interview. On…