[VIDEO] Sharyl Attkisson: Why No One Trusts the Mainstream Media
Posted: November 7, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, History, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: corruption, journalism, media, New York Times, news, PragerU, propaganda, Sharyl Attkisson, Trust, video Leave a commentTrust in the media is at an all-time low. But should it be? Why do fewer and fewer Americans trust the mainstream media. Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, author of The Smear, explains.
[VIDEO] Sharyl Attkisson Details Government Surveillance Tactics
Posted: March 16, 2017 Filed under: Law & Justice, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: Sharyl Attkisson, Surveillance, video Leave a comment
SMIDGEN REPORT SPECIAL UPDATE: IRS Created ‘Special Project Team’ of ‘Hundreds of Lawyers’ to Hide Information from Congress
Posted: June 5, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice | Tags: American Center for Law & Justice, Freedom of Information Act (United States), Freedom of information laws by country, Internal Revenue Service, Jason Chaffetz, Sharyl Attkisson, The Washington Times, United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, White House 1 CommentThe American Center for Law and Justice‘s Jay Sekulow reports: New testimony reveals that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) used “hundreds of attorneys” to hide critical information from Congress’s investigation of the IRS targeting of conservatives.
According to new congressional bombshell testimony today, the IRS set up a previously unknown “special project team” comprised of “hundreds of attorneys,” including the IRS Chief Counsel (one of only two politically appointed positions at the IRS).
The “special project” this team was given? Concealing information from Congress.
The IRS’s director of privacy, governmental liaison, and disclosure division, Mary Howard, testified that soon after the IRS targeting scandal was revealed, the IRS “amassed hundreds of attorneys to go through the documents [requested by Congress] and redact them.”
Members of Congress have long complained that many of the documents produced by the IRS have been “redacted to the point of absurdity.”
Now we know why.
As the Washington Times reports:
Mary Howard, who also works as the head Freedom of Information Act officer in the IRS, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that once the “special project team” was created and operational, she never saw requests for information.
“My understanding was that it started soon after the request came from Congress and other investigators asking for documents around this whole issue,” which she surmised meant around spring of 2013.
In other words, as soon as the IRS targeting scandal broke, the IRS set up a special team of hundreds of attorneys, including President Obama’s political head of the Chief Counsel’s office, to keep requests for publicly available information away from the person who would normally review those documents and turn them over to Congress and the public. That “special” team then overly redacted, delayed, and determined which documents it wanted Congress to see.
After setting up a special “group” to target and delay applications by Tea Party groups for tax-exempt status, the IRS set up a new “special project team” to delay and redact information from Congress about that targeting. Can you smell a cover-up? Read the rest of this entry »
The IRS email scandal: Where’s the Outrage?
Posted: June 18, 2014 Filed under: Politics, Think Tank, U.S. News | Tags: Associated Press, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Jonah Goldberg, Lerner, Los Angeles Times, Ron Fournier, Sharyl Attkisson, White House 4 CommentsFor the Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg writes:
“Congressional investigators are fuming over revelations that the Internal Revenue Service has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy.”
That’s the opening sentence of the Associated Press’ story on the IRS’ claim that it lost an unknown number of emails over two years relating to the agency’s alleged targeting of political groups hostile to the president.
But note how the AP casts the story: The investigators — Republican lawmakers — are outraged.
Is it really so hard to imagine that if this were a Republican administration, the story wouldn’t be the frustration of partisan critics of the president? It would be all about that administration’s behavior. With the exception of National Journal’s Ron Fournier, who called for a special prosecutor to bypass the White House’s “stonewalling,” and former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, it’s hard to find a non-conservative journalist who thinks this is a big deal.
Let’s back up for a moment. Read the rest of this entry »
CBS, ABC News Censor Benghazi
Posted: May 3, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Ben Rhodes, Benghazi, CBS, CBS News, Robert Lovell, Sharyl Attkisson, United States, White House 1 CommentFor TownHall, Katie Pavlic writes:
(read more)…Two major pieces of news surrounding Benghazi happened this week. The first: Emails showing Ben Rhodes edited talking points, proving the White House had a direct role in editing after a previous denial. The second: Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell, who was in charge of Africa Command at the time of the Benghazi attack, said he was never given orders from the State Department to send help to Americans on September 11, 2012.
Guess who didn’t mention any of this on their broadcast last night? CBS News. Other networks also failed to cover the story.
NBC, CBS Ignore Congressional Hearing on Benghazi; ABC Gives It Only 46 Seconds http://t.co/HqCczxzzaF
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) May 2, 2014
It’s no surprise CBS News repeatedly squashed investigations into Benghazi by investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. She left the network earlier this year.

Daily Caller Asks: Did Sharyl Attkisson Get too Close to the Truth? Attkisson Free from Unethical Environment at CBS News
Posted: April 14, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: Benghazi, CBS, CBS Evening News, CBS News, Fox News Channel, Jeff Fager, Scott Pelley, Sharyl Attkisson 2 Comments
Jeff Fager (L), chairman CBS News and executive producer ’60 Minutes’, Scott Pelley, anchor and managing editor CBS Evening News and David Rhodes (R) president CBS News, speak at the CBS Television Network‘s 2011 Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour in Beverly Hills, California August 3, 2011. REUTERS/Fred Prouser
Patrick Howley writes: Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who said Sunday that the network did not want to deal with the “headache” of covering Obama controversies, seems happy to be free from the network.
And why not? CBS News is run by the brother of the Obama official Attkisson was pursuing for one of the very stories that earned her “troublemaker” status in the CBS newsroom.
Attkisson also recently said that she was routinely discouraged from pursuing Obama administration scandals like Fast and Furious and Benghazi.
Sharyl Attkisson: There Is Coordination Between Reporters And Politicians
Posted: March 22, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, U.S. News, White House | Tags: CBS, Chris Stigall, Jay Carney, Sharyl Attkisson, White House, White House Correspondent, White House Press, WPHT 2 Comments
KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Chris Stigall talked to former CBS News Reporter Sharyl Attkisson this morning on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about the trouble reporters have to deal with while covering politicians and the government, as well as the current state of investigative reporting.
“Nobody was interested in the stories. It didn’t seem to matter what the topic was. There’s sort of a problem all over, I talk to my colleagues in different mediums. There’s just a lot of pressure. Investigative reporting gets a lot of backlash. They don’t quite know how to deal with it. Why not just put on stories that don’t draw that kind of response?”
— Sharyl Attkisson
Responding to comments regarding a Phoenix television reporter yesterday who initially claimed that the White House pre-screens questions from reporters, Attkisson said, “I wouldn’t surprised if sometimes there is that level of cooperation with some questions. If I need something answered from the White House and they won’t tell me, I’ll call our White House Correspondent. They’re friendlier with the White House Correspondents in general. So the White House Correspondent may ask Jay Carney or one of his folks about an issue and they will be told ‘ask that at the briefing and we’ll answer it.’ They want to answer it in front of everybody. They do know it’s coming and they’ll call on you. There’s that kind of coordination sometimes. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s sometimes more coordination. I don’t think it’s everybody on every briefing, every day. I’m pretty sure it’s not. But I think people would be surprised at the level of cooperation reporters have in general with politicians.”
Cleansing Dissent: Sharyl Attkisson’s Time on CBS Evening News Fell by Two Thirds After 2009
Posted: March 11, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, U.S. News, White House | Tags: CBS, CBS Evening News, CBS News, James Rosen, John Sexton, media, Obama administration, Sharyl Attkisson, Washington Post Leave a commentBreitbart.com‘s John Sexton reports: Earlier today Sharyl Attkisson announced on Twitter that she was leaving CBS News. Early reports suggest the split was “amicable” though Attkisson is said to have wanted to leave because she had grown frustrated with the network’s “liberal bias.” Specifically, she felt it was a struggle to get her work on the CBS Evening News, the network’s flagship news program.
[Talk about media bias, Politico‘s idea of a headline, no joke: The right loses its hero at CBS. Hero? What Attkisson did is uncontroversial: apply equally tough standards to the Obama Administration and the Bush Administration. This is news? Isn’t that what all reporters are supposed to do?]
The brother of a top Obama administration official is the president of CBS News
Sharyl Attkisson is currently at work on a book — tentatively titled “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington” — that addresses the challenges of reporting critically on the administration.
Erik Wemple of the Washington Post reached out to Andrew Tyndall who was able to put some numbers to the frustration that apparently drove Attkisson out the door:
Attkisson was the 18th most used reporter in major network nightly news, with 160 minutes of exposure. In 2008, she held steady at 18th, with 145 minutes, and in 2009, she was 19th, with 152 minutes.
She hasn’t landed in the top 20 since.
In a quick chat with the Erik Wemple Blog, Tyndall said that Attkisson tallied a mere 54 minutes on “The CBS Evening News” in 2013, a third of her previous totals. That was good for a ranking of 78th among network news reporters. “She was obviously being sidelined,” says Tyndall.
So Attkisson did not imagine that her status at CBS had changed, it really did. And given that it changed after 2009 when she started to focus on the Obama administration it stretches credulity to suggest that this was not a primary reason for the sudden change.