Politics and the Media

[Strictly Street]

 

Published on Media Research Center (http://www.mrc.org)

 

Networks Spend 27 Minutes on Climate Change, Just 15 Seconds on Lois Lerner Contempt Vote

By

Geoffrey Dickens

May 8, 2014 - 12:32pm

Not even a full vote by the House of Representatives to hold  Lois Lerner in contempt can shake the broadcast networks out of their slumber in covering the IRS scandal. On Wednesday the House voted 231-178 (all Republicans voted yes with six Democrats) to hold Lerner in contempt for refusing to testify about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups. Total coverage by ABC, CBS and NBC? Just a 15 second brief on Thursday’s edition of ABC’s Good Morning America.

However the Big Three networks did find the 110x more time this week to tout the “dire” and “alarming” findings from the White House climate change report. In total ABC, CBS and NBC (from Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning) spent a whopping 27 minutes and 37 seconds on the Obama administration’s climate change scare-mongering.

ABC and NBC even sent their weather reporters to interview the president. ABC meteorologist Ginger Zee fretted: “Climate change is something that I think a lot of people don't put as a top priority. How do you change that?” NBC Today show weatherman pressed: “Why has it taken so long to get to this point where you’re sounding this urgency?”

But so far the following Amy Robach 15-second brief from the May 8 Good Morning America represents the total amount of coverage devoted to the Lerner contempt vote by the networks:

AMY ROBACH: And in Washington, six Democrats have joined Republicans in the House, voting to hold a former IRS official in contempt of Congress. Lois Lerner has pleaded the Fifth and refused to testify about the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. That case will now be sent to the Justice Department.

While the Lerner contempt vote didn’t capture much attention from the Thursday morning shows there were some topics the networks deemed much more important.

■ ABC’s Good Morning America spent 1 minute and 19 seconds on the singing nun sensation that “blew away” the judges on Italy’s version of The Voice.

■ NBC’s Today show didn’t find time to talk about the Lerner contempt vote but did bring on their chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd to talk about a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that finds there is a greater acceptance of tattoos. Total Today show tattoo time? 4 minutes, 30 seconds.

■ CBS This Morning spent 1 minute and 45 seconds on an interview with Michael Douglas’s on the state of his marriage with Catherine-Zeta Jones.

 

It should be noted that back on April 10 CBS This Morning did devote 1 minute and 30 seconds to the House Oversight Committee vote to hold Lerner in contempt.

 

— Geoffrey Dickens is Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter. [1]

Source URL: http://www.mrc.org/biasalerts/networks-spend-27-minutes-climate-change-just-15-seconds-lois-lerner-contempt-vote

 

 

Somehow it seems like a bigger story than the main stream media lets on. Wonder why?

 

 

 

Why don't we hear anything  about this on TV?

 

 

 

[magley64]

so the destruction of or planet's fragile ecosystem is a more important story than whether some woman required tea party super pacs to fill out extra paperwork?

Gotta be a conspiracy...

[Tpoppa]

After a cold winter is Global Warming now called Climate Change?  If we have a hot summer will it be Global Warming again?

[magley64]

After a cold winter is Global Warming now called Climate Change?  If we have a hot summer will it be Global Warming again?

[magley64]

LoL @ "fragile ecosystem". This planet will be here looooooong after we've been extinct. It's survived worse plagues than mankind.

 

I totally agree, the planet will have no problem sustaining life long after we're extinct, we're just making it less conducive to sustaining OUR lives in an increasingly rapid fashion...

[Tpoppa]

 

After a cold winter is Global Warming now called Climate Change?  If we have a hot summer will it be Global Warming again?

 

 

Ahhh, John Stewart.  The sole source of news for thousands of idiots everywhere.

 

Climate Change is all about saving the Polar Bears.  You know a subspecies of Grizzly Bear whose evolution was triggered in the first place by...um...Climate Change...wait, what?

[magley64]

What you're describing isn't "global warming". It's "shitting where you eat". The planet is in no danger.

 

The planet "as we know it" is in danger...OUR ecosystem is in danger... Yes the planet itself will continue to spin, but it won't be the planet earth we all know and love anymore.

 

it's like a giant oil spill in the family farm, the land is still there, it's just not useful as a farm for the foreseeable future.

 

Call it shitting where you eat if you like, but it's the only place we CAN eat...it's saying the same thing.

[Tpoppa]

Climate Change has naturally occurred many, many, many times long before mankind existed.  I think man's impact on climate is poorly understood and highly overestimated.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/cause-ice-age.html

Edited May 9, 2014 by Tpoppa

[magley64]

Climate Change has naturally occurred many, many, many times long before mankind existed.  I think man's impact on climate is poorly understood and highly overestimated.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/cause-ice-age.html

 

Have you taken any initiative to better understand it?

Have you dedicated your career to studying and understanding the impact?

 

Many scientists have... and their general consensus is heading in the direction of our carbon emissions having a very real and very considerable impact... Am i sure? no.. but i do tend to trust the pronouncements of scientists in their particular field of expertise.  

[Pokey]

Thought Winter was over?

[Tpoppa]

Have you taken any initiative to better understand it?

Have you dedicated your career to studying and understanding the impact?

 

Many scientists have... and their general consensus is heading in the direction of our carbon emissions having a very real and very considerable impact... Am i sure? no.. but i do tend to trust the pronouncements of scientists in their particular field of expertise.  

 

 

There is as much "evidence" on one side of the argument as the other. Reason? Speculation and lack of data over a long enough time period.

Keep fucking that chicken.

[magley64]

 

 

Show me which side has more scientists and more peer reviewed evidence...

That's the side I'm gonna trust for the time being.

[Tpoppa]

Show me which side has more scientists and more peer reviewed evidence...

That's the side I'm gonna trust for the time being.

I'll try.

 

In the mean time can you track down the sources of the funding for their research?

[Pokey]

Just follow who has the most money to lose or gain, that is typically where the bullshit starts and ends.

[Tpoppa]

Just follow who has the most money to lose or gain, that is typically where the bullshit starts and ends.

Agreed.

 

http://www.epa.gov/region9/climatechange/grants.html

[magley64]

I'll try.

 

In the mean time can you track down the sources of the funding for their research?

Our government funds a great deal of that research, regardless of the results.

[Connie14]

Factual scientific narrative will not impede the left's fear mongering tactics. Please don't confuse me with the facts that the majority of the earth's history there were no polar ice caps.

We should definitely stop the keystone pipeline. That will stop global warming.

[Tpoppa]

Our government funds a great deal of that research, regardless of the results.

OK.  So if I receive an EPA research grant for Clean Air/Climate Change...which has a clearly stated agenda.  If my findings are in conflict with that agenda, I wonder if my grant will be renewed.  Honestly, has anyone ever referred to the EPA as non biased? 

 

http://www.epa.gov/region9/climatechange/grants.html

Edited May 9, 2014 by Tpoppa

[Tpoppa]

Who here is old enough to remember "Acid Rain" in the '70s?  It was a huge deal, until it wasn't. 

[magley64]

Factual scientific narrative will not impede the left's fear mongering tactics. Please don't confuse me with the facts that the majority of the earth's history there were no polar ice caps.

We should definitely stop the keystone pipeline. That will stop global warming.

 

My opposition to the keystone pipeline has nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with major oil spills involving current, much smaller pipelines coupled with oil companies' inability to effectively clean up tar sands oil.

[Tpoppa]

[Strictly Street]

Amazing! Leave a thread alone for a couple of hours no telling where it will end up.

 

Edited May 10, 2014 by Strictly Street

[Strictly Street]

so the destruction of or planet's fragile ecosystem is a more important story than whether some woman required tea party super pacs to fill out extra paperwork?

Gotta be a conspiracy...

 

 

Actually that is the point. It _is_ a conspiracy. One that is now being uncovered.

 

The current administration has been caught suppressing the vote.  Which can be argued to have effected at least two major elections.

 

Congress is holding hearings on the IRS scandal that Obama claims didn't happen. He said there isn't a smidgen of corruption at the IRS. We now know there was a widespread effort on the part of the IRS to punish conservatives. We also know that Obama lies.

 

These are facts and cannot be argued with. Lois Lerner is under contempt of Congress for refusing to testify as to who gave the orders. Again a fact. The implication is that she clearly knew that she was breaking the law and is now trying to take the 5th and not rat out her superiors.

 

The media is complicit by not reporting or under reporting this scandal. The pictures I posted show the incestuous relationship that the media has with the White House.

 

Your comments show your hypocritical attitude on this subject. If this had happened under Bush you would have been screaming bloody murder. Because it is happening under Obama you say it didn't happen. No wonder you denigrate any news source other than a party approved one.

 

Squashing dissent is not the mark of a democratic or even a representative form of government. It is the hallmark of a dictatorship.

 

You claim voter ID laws are racist and will suppress the votes of minorities and the underprivileged. All the while real factual disenfranchisement of an entire voter segment is going on and you choose to ignore it. Again, this shows your hypocritical attitude.

 

Freedom is the distance between church and state? Not true if you worship the state.

Edited May 10, 2014 by Strictly Street

[Tonik]

so the destruction of or planet's fragile ecosystem is a more important story than whether some woman required tea party super pacs to fill out extra paperwork?

Gotta be a conspiracy...

There is no reason why both stories can't be covered. To suggest otherwise is completely dishonest. Something you have been doing a lot of lately. Very disappointed in you my friend.

[magley64]

There is no reason why both stories can't be covered. To suggest otherwise is completely dishonest. Something you have been doing a lot of lately. Very disappointed in you my friend.

Both stories were covered...