Good Morning America hasn't made time to cover a possible prostitution scandal involving Hillary Clinton's State Department, but the show's hosts gushed over the politician's debut on Twitter [1]. News reader Josh Elliott thrilled, "Hillary Clinton has arrived on Twitter. And, boy, does she have people talking because in part of her description of herself."
After reading the description of Clinton's bio, the GMA anchors raved over the former Secretary of State's skill at social media. Robin Roberts lauded, "She's so good at that!" Entertainment reporter Lara Spencer agreed. Sam Champion bragged, "I tweeted her yesterday. I saw it early on! I'm, like, hey is this real?" After co-anchor George Stephanopoulos inquired as to whether he got a response, a dejected Champion admitted, "No." [MP3 audio here [2].]
Though the GMA crew highlighted Clinton on Twitter, they ignored a possible scandal at the State Department. Over on NBC's Today, Savannah Guthrie explained, "According to internal State Department memos, the agency might have called off or intervened an investigation into possibly illegal and inappropriate behavior within it's ranks, allegedly to protect jobs and avoid scandals. This concerns a time that Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State."
Reporter Chuck Todd connected, "So the State Department this morning is having to response to those clams and those investigations of misconduct by State Department officials, including by an ambassador and security agents attached to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."
Now, it's true that Guthrie also hyped Clinton on Twitter, enthusing, "With a single tweet, Hillary Clinton set the Twittersphere on fire."
Today offered more time to the Twitter story, a full segment. GMA allowed only a news brief. But to NBC's credit, at least the morning show actually covered the State Department story. ABC, instead, featured Clinton and important stories such as the difficulty some married couples have with sleeping in the same bed.
For more examples of this contradiction in the media, see blogs by the MRC's Ken Shepherd [3], Matt Hadro [4] and Jeffrey Meyer [5].
A transcript of the June 11 GMA segment is below:
8:04
ELLIOTT: And finally, Hillary Clinton has arrived on Twitter. And boy, does she have people talking because in part of her description of herself: "Wife, mom, lawyer, women and kids advocate, FLOAR," F-L-O-A-R for First Lady of Arkansas, "FLOTUS," First Lady of the United States, U.S. senator, Sec state, author, dog owner, hair icon" And here's my favorite, "pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD." TBD, of course, has everybody, including us, buzzing.
ROBIN ROBERTS: She's so good at that!
LARA SPENCER: She's so good at that!
SAM CHAMPION: I tweeted her yesterday. I saw it early on! I'm, like, hey is this real?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you get a tweet back?
CHAMPION [Disappointed]: No.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here [6] to follow him on Twitter.