It's no surprise that the year "fake news" entered our vocabularies was a controversial one for media. NewsBusters' Curtis Houck joins Cheddar to break down the year's most polarizing press events. We consider how to hold journalists accountable without vilifying them.
Houck points to Vice President Al Gore's marketing strategy for his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth 2" as an instance of dishonesty. He also revisits the media's decision to use Big Bird as a symbol of PBS' budget cuts. Despite headlines saying the government was killing the children's character, Sesame Street is still airing on PBS.
Finally, Houck reveals some of the most infamous media mistakes of the year. From Brian Ross' false reporting about the Michael Flynn guilty plea to CNN's misrepresentation of Anthony Scaramucci's Russia ties, Houck says the media lost significant credibility in 2017. We also consider the apparent double standard different networks are taking in their approaches to punishing erring journalists.
President Joe Biden has ended the immediate threat of a government shutdown, signing a temporary spending bill a day before much of the government was to run out of money.
A gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting about court personnel after he disparaged a law clerk in his New York civil fraud trial was temporarily lifted Thursday by an appellate judge who raised free speech concerns.
Chinese President Xi Jinping signaled that China will send new pandas to the United States, calling them “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.
A jury on Thursday convicted the man who broke into former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home seeking to hold her hostage and attacked her husband with a hammer of federal charges of attempted kidnapping and assault.