Move Along: Network Evening Newscasts Give Only 30 Seconds to Fast and Furious
Trying to quickly move past the Obama administration's Fast and
Furious
gun-walking scandal, Thursday's ABC and CBS evening newscasts dropped
the story completely while NBC's Nightly News only followed up with a scant 30 seconds of coverage.
That 30 seconds on NBC consisted of anchor Brian Williams noting,
"Fallout today in that fight between congressional Republicans and
Attorney General Eric Holder," and explaining: "Speaker John Boehner
signaled his backing for the action and hinted that the White House's
use of executive privilege might involve some sort of a coverup."
Williams
wrapped up the brief report by making sure to include administration
spin: "White House spokesman Jay Carney fired back, he said today, the
administration isn't covering up anything."
Thursday morning, ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today spent more time covering the east coast heat wave than to Fast and Furious.
On Wednesday, all three evening newscasts covered the scandal, but with
Williams dismissing a contempt vote over Holder's congressional
testimony as "more of our broken politics."
Here is a transcript of the full June 21 Nightly News mention:
7:08PM ET
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Fallout today in that fight between congressional
Republicans and Attorney General Eric Holder over a botched anti-gun
running operation known as Fast and Furious. One day after a House
committee recommended that Holder be held in contempt of Congress, the
Speaker John Boehner signaled his backing for the action and hinted that
the White House's use of executive privilege might involve some sort of
a coverup. White House spokesman Jay Carney fired back, he said today,
the administration isn't covering up anything.
-- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Kyle Drennen on Twitter.
