Did the news media expose its liberal bias by ignoring a clip of a group of naval officers who needed to be instructed to applaud President Barack Obama? That's what several conservative pundits are asking, after a video of the incident in early August surfaced this week.
As Obama was introduced at the Washington Navy Yard on Aug. 5, he approached the podium to "Hail to the Chief." The assembled officers did not applaud. The senior officer who introduced the president, sensing the awkward silence, said, "You can go ahead and cheer, too." The crowd, some of who were taking photos, dutifully clapped hands.
"Perhaps it's protocol not to cheer until told to when in the military," Ben Howe, a blogger for RedState.com, wrote. "But if that's true, the media has some explaining to do as to why they went after Bush for the same thing in 2005."
Howe is referring to how the national news media covered a similar incident in June of that year, when President George W. Bush gave a speech at Fort Bragg and applause was initiated by a White House staff member.
As Howe noted, Terry Moran, reporting for ABC News, said at the time, "I must tell you that applause was initiated by a member of the White House advance team."
On NBC, Brian Williams said, "Some folks at home no doubt were curious about the lack of applause breaks. By pre-agreement between the White House and Fort Bragg, there was no entry applause as the soldiers were at attention. We were 23 minutes into it before the first break for applause."
"It was my observation that that one applause break was actually triggered by members of the president's advance team," NBC's Kelly O'Donnell told Williams. "They were just a few feet from me. They started to applaud— applause is contagious, and it then swept through the room. There was applause when the president left the room after the speech was over but people in uniform here told me that they had planned to be polite and to follow protocol."
But even if the Naval officers were following protocol, Howe wrote, "it's media bias on display."
"How come that bit of tape isn't by now famous?" Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple asked. "Why hasn't it been chewed over by every cable news outlet in the land?"
Perhaps it's because on Aug. 5, the cable news outlets were focused on the stock market's 513-point plunge.
As The Cutline noted that day, "cable and network news channels scrambled to cover the historic drop, with ABC, NBC and CBS breaking into their afternoon programming to air brief reports after the markets closed, and CNBC and Fox Business--which went commercial-free to cover the close--planning special primetime coverage."
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