During live coverage of Barack Obama's Tuesday press conference Chuck Todd surprisingly pressed the President about Democratic Senator Max Baucus calling ObamaCare a "train wreck." It was surprising because his own network has yet to report on the almost two-week old warning [1] that the Montana Senator made to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during an April 17 hearing.
Until Tuesday morning's press conference not one of the Big Three (ABC, CBS and NBC) network reporters or anchors reported on Baucus's criticism.
Aside from the April 17 hearing there was an additional opportunity to cover the "train wreck" remark when Baucus announced he wasn't running for reelection. Still no coverage from the networks. Only NBC's Brian Williams, on the April 23 Nightly News, even bothered to report Baucus was not running.
The following question from Todd, during the April 30 press conference, represents the sum total of coverage of Baucus's "train wreck" comment from any of the Big Three network reporters:
Max Baucus, Democratic senator, referred to the implementation of your healthcare law as a potential train wreck. We've had other Democrats been whispering nervousness about the implementation and the impact -- self-centered a little bit – the impact that it might have on their own political campaigns in 2014. Why do you keep -- just curious, why does Senator Baucus, somebody who extensively helped write your bill, believe that this is going to be a train wreck? And why do you believe he's wrong?
The refusal to report on Baucus's dire warning for Obamacare is only the most recent example of the Big Three networks turning a blind eye [2] to its many recent setbacks.
-- Geoffrey Dickens is the Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Click here [3] to follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter.