At my desk I have on all three major cable news channels, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, so I can monitor them throughout the day. But as I sat there this morning, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of discussion on Benghazi – apart from Fox News that is.
I decided to dig a little deeper and just see if I missed it, because sometimes that happens.
So I searched a web application that I pay big bucks for that indexes all the closed captioning of every major TV channel in the US, including the local markets. I set the parameters of my search for today from 5AM to 12PM ET and searched for the word Benghazi.
Here’s what I found:
FOX NEWS: 30 RESULTS
MSNBC: 11 RESULTS
CNN: 1 RESULT
I also looked at the three main network morning shows, CBS This Morning, Today Show, and Good Morning America. Here is how the same search turned out for them:
CBS THIS MORNING: 2 RESULTS
TODAY SHOW: 1 RESULT
GOOD MORNING AMERICA: 0 RESULTS
As you see I couldn’t find any results for GMA. But in case the word Benghazi was misspelled in the closed captioning, I also searched for other keywords like Republicans, committee, Clinton, report — and I didn’t find any of those searches that turned up results related to Benghazi. Nada.
So with the exception of Fox News, MSNBC (still weak), and CBS This Morning (which only airs for 2 hours), the rest of the media has decided to follow Hillary Clinton’s advice yesterday and move on.
Perhaps I am wrong and there will be more coverage tonight and tomorrow, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.