Nets Hype George Clooney Engagement, Ignore Oregon Baby Incineration
ABC, CBS and NBC news should sit down and write George
Clooney thank you notes for the timing of his engagement rumor. Oh, the
networks weren’t ever going to report the
horrific news that an
The macabre story from
ABC beat out CBS and NBC by covering the rumored engagement for 10 minutes and 58 seconds. NBC followed with 6 minutes, 5 seconds while CBS came in last (4 minutes, 49 seconds).
Anchor David Muir covered the news first during April 26’s “World News with David Muir” by recognizing Clooney’s rumored engagement as “what’s trending on a Saturday.”
Continuing the engagement celebration on ABC the next day,
co-anchor Dan Harris described the “burning question out of
Of course, the women of ABC chimed in too. “If this is true, this will definitely be the wedding of the century,” co-anchor Bianna Golodryga hyped during the same segment. On April 28, anchor Lara Spencer translated the “breaking news” into “heartbreaking news.”
Joining the chorus, NBC’s “Today” co-anchor Erica Hill gushed on April 27, that “George Clooney is, gasp, engaged!” while CBS contributor Nancy O’Dell dubbed the engagement as the “shock heard round the world” (April 28’s “This Morning”).
All three networks compared the news to pigs flying, which might be more likely than those nets ever covering babies burned.
A few years ago, they devoted 20 times more air time to Charlie Sheen’s latest crackup than they did to the video scandal rocking tax-payer funded abortion mill Planned Parenthood. Last year, the networks had to be shamed into reporting on the Kermit Gosnell murder trial. Gosnell was convicted of delivering live babies and then severing their spines with a scissor. But when all those lurid details were emerging, a Rutgers basketball coach had committed the much greater crime of verbally abusing his players and (sit down if you’re not already) using gay slurs.
— Katie Yoder is Staff Writer, Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media at the Media Research Center. Follow Katie Yoder on Twitter.
