[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]
On the 1 December 2014 edition of At This Hour, CNN's Brian Stelter brushed aside a regular conservative critique about the media – that the press has a double standard about covering controversial remarks from Republican/conservative officials, while ignoring similar comments from Democrats/liberals. Stelter, replying to a Republican flack's attack on the news coverage of GOP staffer Elizabeth Lauten's critique of the Obama daughters, asserted that "this was about a slow news cycle. There was...a void of stuff to talk about over the weekend....So, I think that has a lot to do with it."
Host Michaela Pereira later used the same term that many of Lauten's critics were using to label her post about the Obama children:
MICHAELA PEREIRA: ...The fact is, we're talking about this in a time where there is an active effort to counter cyber-bullying. And that's essentially what this comes down to. These are two teenaged girls; this is a woman – I don't know how old she is – but she's a grown-up, who takes to Facebook – which is generally a medium of the younger generation – and is setting quite a terrible example by, essentially, just being mean.