Networks Spend Over 20 Minutes Protecting Hillary Clinton from 'Nasty' GOP
With over two years to go until the 2016 presidential election, the
media are already trying to ban unflattering topics about Hillary
Clinton. From Tuesday morning through Thursday morning, NBC, ABC, and
CBS aired 9 full stories – totaling 20 minutes 12 seconds – defending
Clinton from health questions raised by Republican strategist Karl Rove.
NBC was first to go after Rove and devoted the most coverage to issue,
with 4 stories adding up to 7 minutes 42 seconds of air time. On
Tuesday, Today hosts declared that Rove had "stepped a little bit into it" with his "explosive new claims" and Nightly News anchor Brian Williams proclaimed it to be a "nasty" Republican "smear campaign."
ABC and CBS didn't pick up on the story until Wednesday morning, with Good Morning America and This Morning reporting on the "backlash" against Rove, emphasizing how he "took some friendly fire" from fellow Republicans on the issue.
Nightly News provided a second night of coverage on Wednesday, giving 63 seconds of uninterrupted air time to Bill Clinton defending his wife. Meanwhile, on ABC's World News,
correspondent Jonathan Karl looked at the issue more critically, noting
the lack of public information about Hillary Clinton's 2012 health
scare.
ABC did 3 full stories – totaling 6 minutes 53 seconds – between
Wednesday and Thursday, while CBS had 2 full stories totaling 5 minutes
38 seconds in the same time period.
All three network morning shows offered full reports on Thursday.
At the top of Today,
co-host Savannah Guthrie announced: "On offense. Bill Clinton firing
back at Republican critics who questioned Hillary Clinton's health."
Introducing the segment later, she touted how the former president was
"hitting back at what he considers ridiculous suggestions that Hillary
Clinton's health might impact a potential White House run for her."
National correspondent Peter Alexander hyped: "You've got the Clintons
going head-to-head with Karl Rove....Bill Clinton strikes back...The
former president mocking comments from Republican strategist Karl Rove,
who last week reportedly questioned whether Hillary Clinton may have
brain damage."
Alexander observed: "Reviled by Democrats, Rove, analysts say, was stirring the pot."
On Good Morning America, Karl heralded: "Bill Clinton also
predicted there will be harsher attacks to come against Hillary. And his
response sent a clear message to her political opponents, when you take
on one Clinton, you're taking on both of them."
On CBS This Morning,
fill-in co-host Anthony Mason told viewers: "Former President Bill
Clinton is defending his wife Hillary Clinton against attacks
questioning her health." Co-host Norah O'Donnell chimed in: "At a forum
in Washington on Wednesday, the former President said he is dumbfounded
by Rove's comments."
In the segment that followed, political director John Dickerson
actually saw some success for Rove in raising health questions about the
former secretary of state: "If his goal was to get people talking about
this a lot earlier and in this kind of weird twilight period where
Hillary Clinton isn’t a candidate, can't respond as a candidate, but
also has to respond because she doesn't want it out there, so he has
succeeded."
Dickerson also pointed out: "And it's usually the Democrats who are the
ones who are beating up on Republicans. They did it with Bob Dole,
Ronald Reagan, and they did it with John McCain."
The media certainly thought such questions about Republicans were
reasonable at the time, but when it comes to Hillary Clinton, it's off
limits.
— Kyle Drennen is Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Kyle Drennen on Twitter.
