BROADCAST BIAS: Networks snooze as top Biden aides take the Fifth on Biden-decline scandal

Fox News

3 days ago

The evening news shows on the broadcast networks these days aren't always fixated on politics. They often lead their half-hours with frightening weather footage, and turn to Washington about 10 minutes later. But ABC, CBS and NBC can still determine what political scandals should be considered important, and what scandals should be buried and not acknowledged as scandals.
The networks blatantly demonstrate their partisanship by treating Republican scandals as urgent matters loaded with historical weight, and dismissing Democrat scandals as either nonexistent or as desperately partisan misinformation.
When Democrat and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stacked a "special committee" on the January 6 riot with only two personally picked Republicans who would obey all of her commands, that was "historic" and nonpartisan. All of its hearings were aired live on the broadcast networks every minute, even in prime time. When Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer investigates anything about former President Joe Biden and the Democrats, these networks act like all of their Capitol Hill reporters were laid off.
One major scandal of historical import is Biden's mental decline throughout his presidency, and especially at the end, as Democrats refused to consider any primary opponents, trying to push him into another four incapable years.
In May, an online national I&I/TIPP Poll found 58% of those surveyed were in favor of hearings (or even criminal proceedings) on the Biden-decline scandal, and only 30% picked "do nothing, it's just politics as usual." All of the so-called scandal cops at the networks are in the minority.
The networks failed to move on Monday morning when The New York Times published an eye-opening front-page story. The headline was bland – "Biden Says Autopen Clemencies Were All His" – but within, you could see that Biden was letting his staff make decisions for him. NBC offered 34 seconds on Monday night. The others did not.
Early on Monday, NBCNews.com published a ludicrous article with the Democrat spin that Rep. Comer has used digital signatures in committee correspondence – as if that's anything like a president being unaware if he pardoned a cocaine dealer. That story was so lame that NBC didn't even put it on "Today" or "Nightly News." It was just MSNBC bait.
On Wednesday, Comer's committee dragged in subpoenaed top Jill Biden aide Anthony Bernal. He's a major figure in "Original Sin," the Alex Thompson-Jake Tapper book on hiding Biden's cognitive decline. "Biden's aides would say that she was one of the most powerful First Ladies in history, and as a result he became one of the most influential people in the White House," wrote Thompson and Tapper. They touted Bernal as the "loyalty police" and one of the "protectors of the myth."
Bernal is still loyal: he took the Fifth Amendment. "Well, unfortunately, that was quick," said Comer after the deposition ended. "I believe the American people are concerned. They're concerned that there were people making decisions in the White House that were not only unelected but no one to this day knows who they were."
ABC, CBS and NBC failed to devote one second to this story. If it pleases President Donald Trump, it's not getting touched. Taxpayer-funded PBS and NPR had no segment. (Fun fact: neither did Jake Tapper on his CNN show that day.) These networks didn't offer that judgment when Trump aides took the Fifth before the Pelosi-picked panel on January 6. That showed rotten contempt for the public!
Bernal was not alone: on July 9, Biden's personal doctor Kevin O'Connor repeatedly took the Fifth. In that case, "NBC Nightly News" offered a story. The other networks did nothing.
This week, the broadcast networks properly devoted stories to Trump's new diagnosis of a "chronic veinous insufficiency," but that is a routine diagnosis for older people. It in no way compromises his capacity to be president, unlike Biden's growing enfeeblement.
In May, an online national I&I/TIPP Poll found 58% of those surveyed were in favor of hearings (or even criminal proceedings) on the Biden-decline scandal, and only 30% picked "do nothing, it's just politics as usual."
Of course, there was a Trump scandal to push at these networks this week: a fight between Trump supporters over what would be released by the Justice Department about the late child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Among them, the Big Three evening newscasts devoted 20 minutes and eight seconds to Trump's Epstein problems from Monday through Thursday, more than half of it (11 minutes, 43 seconds) on ABC.
ABC's Rachel Scott performed the classic spin at the end of her story on Thursday: "And as much as the president wants to turn the page, behind the scenes, this is consuming a lot of time at the White House. His advisers [are] meeting about this, trying to figure a way to move past it, but many Republicans [are] making it clear this is not going away."
Scandals are "not going away" when the liberal networks want to inflict headaches on the Republicans. With Democrat scandals, they can't "go away" when they never arrived.