It’s so weird how the major networks frame the news. A case in point is Nora O’Donnell’s CBS evening show on the day Biden announced his run for re-election.

The only issue CBS raised was Biden’s age. An interviewer on the street asked two young women for their opinion. One was white, one black – perhaps the network’s idea of balanced perspectives. Both thought Biden was too old to run. 

Trump appeared twice in this broadcast. The first time was a clip of him declaring that “you could take the five worst presidents in American history and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done.” One doubts he could name those five presidents, but never mind. What damage, what evidence? CBS does not comment or counter. Trump’s second mention was for the opening of his trial for sexual assault and defamation..

CBS followed the “worst presidents” quote with a finding from its recent opinion poll, in which they asked people “Are things in the US out of control?” and 72% answered yes. What did they mean? Mass shootings, climate change, the debt ceiling? A ridiculously vague question, no explanation of the response, and the blame for whatever problems respondents had in mind is tacitly placed on Biden. 

Later on in the same broadcast, O’Donnell ran a piece about Harry Belafonte, who died that day at the age of 96. The piece said he was an activist for social justice “during the civil rights movement,” even though he was an activist his whole long life. Clips proved he was still vibrant, articulate, passionate, and compelling in his early 90s. 

So does advanced age mean a person is unable to fulfill important public functions? According to this broadcast, the answer is yes in Biden’s case, but no in Belafonte’s. 

If the networks hadn’t given Trump $3 billion worth of free publicity during the 2016 campaign because he was so entertaining, he might never have become president, never encouraged the resurgence of white supremacy, never roused his followers to support police violence or misogyny. Maybe now things in this country would not feel so out of control. 

This broadcast also covered Texas storms with “hail bigger than ping pong balls” and more floods in Florida, and somehow failed to mention climate change. 

CBS newscasts are very similar to those of ABC and NBC. All three networks usually cover the same stories, in the same way, and often in the same order. They rarely mention other countries, unless American citizens are involved. They don’t use graphs or charts even when using them would be the most effective way to communicate what’s going on, as with COVID or climate change. And if they lean left, as common wisdom tends to suppose, they sure have a funny way of showing it.