The so-called “Big Three” networks are CBS, ABC, and NBC, all pioneers in television entertainment and news coverage. It didn’t go unnoticed this week that only CBS told its audience a federal grand jury handed down an 11-count indictment against the controversial Alabama-based organization.
“The Justice Department charged the organization with fraud for allegedly misleading donors and lying to financial institutions,” Jan Crawford, the news network’s chief legal correspondent, states in the two-minute news segment.
Tim Graham, of the Media Research Center, told AFN the media watchdog was watching when ABC and NBC ignored the news.
"Naturally they're going to say, well, this must be some sort of right-wing trick. So they tried not to report it,” he said of the two other networks.
Reacting to the SPLC indictment, MRC reported in an April 23 story how cable news and network news have used the SPLC as a reliable source going back to President Trump’s first term in office. An analysis using SnapStream and Nexis found 392 references to the SPLC, in particular its “Hate Map” and its designation of “hate groups” that all lean right politically.
MS Now, formerly MSNBC, accounted for most of those citations, 246, followed by CNN at 120. The remaining 28 citations were spread among the “Big Three.”
Balanced segment gets noticed
The two-minute segment on CBS News, featuring Crawford, was an example of a balanced news report. Crawford begins the segment pointing out how Southern Poverty gained respect when it sued and bankrupted the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazi groups. The “tables have turned,” she says, after the SPLC is now being accused of misleading its donors and lying to the banks after paying millions to informants.
The segment also shows Tuesday’s press conference that featured Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general. His quote about the indictment was balanced with a former federal prosecutor who told CBS News he doubts the DOJ has a strong case.
The segment also includes footage from the violent "Unite the Right" rally in 2017. That footage was shown because CBS viewers saw a page from the indictment, flashed on the screen, in which the DOJ alleges a person known as "F-37" helped organize that event and was on the SPLC payroll at the time.
In her final words, Crawford reminds viewers an Alabama newspaper was a finalist for the Pulitzer, back in 1995, after its stories alleged the SPLC was misleading donors and wasting its funds.
The balanced news segment got noticed on X, including by Elon Musk, for its lack of spin.
Tim Young, a media analyst at Heritage Foundation, called it “great reporting,” and Republican Party communications expert Steve Guest called it “bombshell” reporting.
Jorge Bonilla, an MRC analyst, also praised CBS for reporting on the indictment and including the "United the Right" rally. "Not so hard, was it?" he wrote in an X post.
In a one-word reaction, Musk retweeted Guest's comment on the news segment. "Wow," Musk wrote.
