In the eighteen months since the Operation Fast & Furious investigation began, Brian Williams and NBC Nightly News have never mentioned the Department of Justice’s gunwalking controversy. Every single time Mr. Holder has testified or a major development happened, NBC Nightly News ignored it. Tonight, in their first mention of the scandal–ever–NBC Nightly News and Brian Williams distorted Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony.
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While the majority of the testimony covered Operation Fast & Furious, NBC made it appear that the hearing was mainly over the national security leaks. The segment even made it appear that Senator John Cornyn called for Mr. Holder to resign over said leaks when, in fact, he expressed his greatest frustration with Mr. Holder over Fast & Furious.
NBC devoted roughly thirty seconds to Fast & Furious in a segment lasting two minutes and seventeen seconds–the explanation of the controversy less than a third of it. No background information was given about the operation and no mention was made of how it led to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and over 300 Mexicans. You’d think that after eighteen months, NBC’s producers would want to give their in-the-dark audience some information to get up to speed on the controversy.
There is no way Williams and everyone involved in NBC Nightly News could watch Mr. Holder’s testimony and not notice Fast & Furious. They went out of their way to make sure the primary topic of discussion at the day’s hearing was not the main story of their report. This news segment is further proof that the mainstream media seeks to control viewers’ reaction to issues of great public concern with less information, not more.
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