ABC World News Continues To Ignore Fast And Furious
Mary Chastain
ABC World News is no better than NBC Nightly News. Last week was the time to do it: Department of Justice dumping 1,400 pages on Congress, Sharyl Attkisson releasing information showing they wanted to use Fast and Furious to mandate new gun laws, and, of course, Eric Holder's testimony. Then again ABC World News has never mentioned Operation Fast and Furious all year. Why start now?
The day of the document dump, Friday, December 2, ABC decided to do a segment on how the elderly are working well into their 90s and a story about a fallen soldier's dog. But let's just give them the benefit of the doubt and maybe they just ran out of time. They had the whole weekend to get a segment for it.
Come Monday did it appear on the show? No: Instead, Tiger Woods's comeback is a much bigger story than the document dump from the previous Friday. Then they had to do a healthy living segment to tell us that too much sitting is bad for us. Yes didn't you know to much sitting is bad for you? If you're going to do a healthy living segment at least tell us something we don't know.
Instead of talking about Mr. Holder's testimony the next day or new documents revealing the intent to use Fast & Furious to mandate new gun laws, ABC talks about Alec Baldwin getting kicked off a plane. An entire segment was devoted to him. They actually did a study group to figure out which one was right: Baldwin or the flight attendant. They're able to fit in a few sentences about Blago's jail sentence too. Surprise! Another governor from my home state is going to prison! They couldn't fit in one or two sentences about the attorney general testifying? No?
For sure ABC would talk about Mr. Holder's testimony on the day it happened! Right?! But they do take a little time to talk about Jon Corzine's hearing, but absolutely nothing about Mr. Holder. I know what Mr. Corzine did was horrible, but so was Operation Fast and Furious. People DIED, including Brian Terry, a border patrol agent and Marine veteran. Still they won't give a minute to this story even when the attorney general testifies. They dedicate a full segment to the secrets of happiness: how to be happy after having children. Do people lack so much common sense they don't know how to be happy after having children? Don't answer that. After all we live in a society now that you have to be told too much McDonald's is bad for your child. Their last segment of the night is about awful Christmas sweaters. At least they said "Christmas" instead of "holiday!"
Operation Fast and Furious will be their undoing just like it will be for NBC Nightly News. One day they will be forced to talk about this operation and will have to explain why they ignored such an important and deadly story. I personally cannot wait to hear their answer.
MediaABCEric HolderNBC
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