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On Monday night, CBS News seemed eager to start their 2020 presidential campaign coverage as they led CBS Evening News with a segment hyping a theoretical campaign run by Oprah Winfrey. “‘We welcome the challenge. Whether it's Oprah Winfrey or anybody else.’ That was the reaction from the White House today after a widely discussed speech at the Golden Globes last night,” touted anchor Jeff Glor. An absurd start to a newscast that wasn’t repeated on any other network.
“Winfrey did nothing to dissuade presidential talk. In fact, her long-time partner seemed to encourage it. With more on this potential matchup in 2020,” Glor continued before handing the segment off to political Correspondent Nancy Cordes. The fact that they had a political correspondent and not an entertainment reporter do the segment shows they wanted to give the story more legitimacy.
Cordes began her report by highlighting Winfrey’s speech at the Golden Globe Awards were she apparently sounded like a presidential candidate. “To the casual observer, the speech was vintage Winfrey, an emotional commentary on sexual harassment,” she opined. “But fans thought they heard something more, the crescendo of a campaign address.”
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