Until now, Mitt Romney hasn’t granted interviews to many TV news outlets other than Fox News. But on Friday night, he was interviewed by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News. His purpose was to blitz-address recent questions about when he ceased any activity as a participant in Bain Capital. Romney says he left the company in 1999, but reporting in numerous places including The Boston Globe has uncovered documents noting that he was listed as the chairman and CEO through 2002. It’s an interesting question, since the answer goes to whether Romney was engaged in any of Bain’s activities in outsourcing jobs after 1999 that resulted in the unemployment of hundreds of Americans. But watching the interviews, I was struck once again at how close-to-useless the nightly new broadcasts of ABC, NBC, and CBS are: They devoted little time to the discrepancies cited above, but instead used most of their precious little time with Romney asking why President Obama’s campaign was asking questions about the discrepancies. In other words, instead of covering the news, what we used to call the “big three” networks covered the horse race, goading Romney into attacking the President and his campaign staff. READ FULL STORY »