NBC Ignores McCabe’s Criminal Referral, ABC and CBS Downplay

Nicholas Fondacaro | April 19, 2018
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***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s retirement went from bad to worse Thursday, when the Bureau’s Inspector General brought his case to federal prosecutors with a criminal referral. McCabe was fired in March after an IG investigation found he had lied to investigators about leaks to the press during the Clinton e-mail investigation. When It came to reporting the damning news that evening, NBC Nightly News ignored revelation all together while ABC and CBS gave it less time than his firing.

This was not the first time NBC had ignored developments involving McCabe’s misconduct during investigations. When it was first revealed that McCabe’s head was on the chopping block just days before his retirement, NBC didn’t dedicate a single second of airtime (as the Media Research Center previously reported). And when the IG report was actually released last Friday, NBC didn’t touch on it until Saturday (14 seconds on Nightly News).

Again looking back at the MRC’s previous reporting on McCabe coverage, we found that CBS Evening News downplayed the criminal referral. When it was apparent that McCabe had the possibility to be fired, CBS dedicated one minute and 15 seconds to the news. But come the criminal referral, they crammed it into another larger report and only spent 42 seconds on it. And as for the release of the IG report, CBS also spent just 42 seconds informing their viewers.

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