This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features NBC Political Director Chuck Todd excusing the network for ignoring the highly controversial comments of Obamacare developer Jonathan Gruber that the administration took advantage of the public’s “stupidity” to pass the complicated package.
NBC Nightly News has yet to mention Gruber. Even ABC’s World News Tonight did a story last week and Jon Stewart led his Wednesday show with a lengthy eight-minute segment on it. So a comedy show beat NBC Nightly News, which still hasn’t mentioned Gruber in the days since.
From Steve Malzberg’s Newsmax TV show on Tuesday, Nov. 18:
Steve Malzberg: “But why did it take nine days once the Gruber video came out, you talked about it on ‘Meet the Press’ just the other day, but the networks, nine days before they talked about it. And now it’s a huge story.”
Chuck Todd: “I’m not saying it’s not a story. Look, I’m not in charge of any of those network newscasts. But what is the news today of that? It’s a political story. Network news in general hasn’t been covering the political back-and-forth’s of Washington a lot lately. I don’t think has to do with Gruber specifically. I would just caution people on that.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Todd should be embarrassed that Jon Stewart beat NBC Nightly News to what is an important enough story to have been highlighted several times even by the CBS Evening News. And does anyone believe that if the president were a Republican, such a boast of deceiving the public on a major policy wouldn’t lead NBC’s newscasts for days?”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
