Moving On: ABC Spends Only 16 Seconds on IRS Official's Suspension
Friday's Good Morning America spent a scant 16 seconds on the
newest development in the IRS scandal, the suspension of agency official
Lois Lerner who oversaw the division responsible for processing
tax-exempt status requests. Lerner headed the division while the IRS
gave extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status.
As an earlier BiasAlert reported, Thursday's World News completely ignored Lerner's move. The MRC's Brent Bozell had predicted that the media would "move on" from the IRS scandal, which explains ABC's paucity of coverage on Thursday and Friday.
Good Morning America
instead spent more time asking why American Idol judge Randy Jackson
left the show, and telling its audience "celebrity secrets" on how to
"get sexy for summer."
Correspondent Paula Faris reported Lerner's move in a news brief: "The
woman in charge of the IRS division accused of targeting conservative
groups is off the job this morning. Lois Lerner was suspended after
invoking the Fifth Amendment, refusing to testify about the scandal on
Capitol Hill. Her suspension came after she refused to resign." That was
all of ABC's coverage on Friday.
Friday's show completely ignored another Obama administration
controversy, the news that Attorney General Eric Holder approved the
Justice Department's search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen.
Holder's approval enabled the seizure of Rosen's personal e-mails.
Another BiasAlert noted that while NBCNews.com broke the story, NBC ignored it as of Friday morning.
