Topic: NewsBusters
In a March NewsBusters post, Tim Graham trumpets the Washington Post's tweak of the new book by David Brock and Paul Waldman of Media Matters (disclosure: our employer) about fawning media coverage of John McCain, "Free Ride," that "oops, the title doesn’t match the rough reporting coming out from newspapers on McCain’s alleged hypocrisy (and adultery?) with lobbyists."
Graham, of course, co-wrote with Brent Bozell a book about fawning media coverage of Hillary Clinton, "Whitewash." But what's the headline on this NewsBusters post today by Mark Finkelstein?
'Today' Pans Hil's Obama-for-VP Ploy: Ignorant, Arrogant, Illogical, Condescending
Oops, indeed.
Nevertheless, Graham writes that "the MRC will allow that Hillary Clinton hasn't always received a 'free ride'" (while not offering any examples that it has done so without also trying to explain how that doesn't conflict with his book's thesis). But the promotional copy for "Whitewash" tells a different story:
In Whitewash, L. Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham of the Media Research Center, America’s largest and most respected media watchdog organization, expose the unprecedented media favoritism that is the real key to Hillary’s political career. Marshalling stunning evidence compiled exclusively by the Media Research Center, the authors show how the media have relentlessly promoted Hillary from the moment in 1992 when Time magazine introduced her to the country as an “amalgam of Betty Crocker, Mother Teresa, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.”
We're not seeing any equivocating there. (Of course, that description is a bit misleading.)
Graham also purports to elucidate the difference between the MRC and Media Matters (apparently because "Brent would want to avoid having the two groups blurred into identical twins"). Media Matters, Graham writes, "spreads the search for "misinformation" all over radio and the Internet and opinion sections everywhere, trying to make everyone avoid the biased "mainstream" media roaring behind the curtain," while the MRC "tr[ies] to stick to news reporting." That, of course, is why the MRC has studies on Rosie O'Donnell and bloggers at the Huffington Post.
