Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell started his April 18 column by asking, "Conservatives often ponder why more young conservatives don’t go into journalism." Perhaps because conservatives tend to put ideology over the pursuit of journalistic truth, as evidenced by the MRC giving an award to Rush Limbaugh (for "media excellence" and "outstanding leadership in the conservative movement," not "journalism").
Bozell then launches into a rant over the recently awarded Pulitzer Prizes, complaining that they have a liberal agenda. In attacking the award for commentary given to Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bozell dug up a column in which she cited "unindicted liars walking the halls of the Bush White House," adding, "Tucker can’t deliver a shred of evidence to support the accusation of a presidential 'lie.' " But Bozell offers no evidence that it was submitted for consideration by the Pulitzer judges; in fact, since it was written only a month ago, it couldn't have been.
Bozell also deplored giving the National Reporting prize given to Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe, for his reporting on President Bush's use of 'signing statements' to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws. "This underlines that heavy usage of a story on left-wing publicity machines like Air America and the Huffington Post apparently wins you major Pulitzer considerations," he added. Note that Bozell is not attacking the accuracy of the reporting but, rather, that "left-wing publicity machines" used it. The better question is, why didn't "right-wing publicity machines" use it? Are such signing statments somehow less offensive to conservative sensibilities if a Republican president signs them? Because we certainly would have never heard the end of it from Bozell and Co. if Clinton had been caught using them to the same extent that Bush did.
Further, Bozell lumped the New York Times' Maureen Dowd on "the liberal list" of recipients of the commentary prize. But Dowd won her prize in 1999, when she was advancing conservative anti-Clinton talking points in her columns. For example, in one of her prize-winning columns, Dowd called Clinton the "Animal House President," adding, "If he escapes again, he will grope again." Another column called Clinton a "sex addict." How is that different from what Bozell himself wrote about Clinton at that time? (Beyond Dowd's belief that Clinton shouldn't have been impeached over sex, that is.)
