MRC Plucks Quotes From Roosevelt Documentary Out of Context Topic: Media Research Center
A Sept. 20 NewsBusters post by Jeffrey Lord is devoted to whining that Rush Limbaugh was taken out of context when he lamented that guys can no longer wheedle sex with women by claiming "that 'no' means 'yes' if you know how to spot it." Lord asserts that "Rush has millions of listeners who, yes, actually listen to what he says, understood his context."
As usual at the Media Research Center, however, it's still perfectly fine to take non-conservatives out of context.
In a Sept. 16 MRC item, Kyle Drennen attacks the new PBS documentary on the Roosevelts:
During the first installment of PBS's The Roosevelts: An Intimate History on Sunday, historian Clay Jenkinson and former Newsweek editor turned historian Evan Thomas slammed Theodore Roosevelt as a bloodthirsty "imperialist" who promoted the "glorification of war" and built up a "cult" of personality. [Listen to the audio]
Speaking on Roosevelt's command of the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War, Jenkinson proclaimed: "There's no question that Roosevelt is an imperialist. Apologists like to try to play this down. But the fact is he's probably the most significant imperialist in American history." Jenkinson seemed troubled by Roosevelt's call for the United States to "take our place in the world's arena."
Minutes later, Jenkinson launched a more pointed attack against the nation's 26th president: "This is really important. There is a blood lust in Theodore Roosevelt. He was a killer. You can't – you can't sanitize that."
Thomas added to denunciation, declaring: "Teddy Roosevelt, although he's a wonderful figure and a glamorous figure, is a dangerous figure in some ways. This glorification of war can't be a good thing in the long run....And it was an illusion that this country from time to time succumbs to."
[...]
The Ken Burns documentary even brought on conservative columnist George Will to scold Roosevelt's belligerency: "Theodore Roosevelt, we should say this bluntly, liked war....And it gave him an unpleasant dimension, which, after a century of war, which the 20th century became, should cause us to look back on Theodore Roosevelt with dry eyes."
But if you look at the transcript Drennen supplies and the accompanying text, it's obvious that Drennen has pulled all of these quotes out of context and fails to fully report what the documentary was saying.
As the full video of the Roosevelt documentary shows, the segment from which Drennen cherry-picks these statements is about Teddy Roosevelt's adventures in the Spanish-American War. The segment starts at 1:20:12; the Jenkinson clip is prefaced with a quote from Roosevelt about "the supreme triumph of war" trumps the triumph of peace and how "it is through strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must win greatness."
There's a 13-minute gap betwen the George Will quote and the second Jenkinson quote Drennen cites, during which it's recounted how Roosevelt was unusually eager to fight the Spanish in Cuba and how his reckless behavior got many of his fellow Rough Riders wounded or killed.
Between the second Jenkinson quote and the first Evan Thomas quote is a short segment about how Roosevelt lobbied to receive a Medal of Honor for his work in Cuba although he was ineligible for one because he was a volunteer. Between the two Thomas quotes is a segment on how Roosevelt's later political career could be traced to his self-proclaimed heroism.
Curiously, for all of his plucking out of context, Drenne never contradicts anything in the documentary. Instead, he whines about Obama for some reason:
It should be noted that Theodore Roosevelt never brought the United States to a war as president and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Unlike Obama, Roosevelt actually earned his peace prize.
Drennen doesn't mention the fact that the part of the seven-part documentary from which he cherry-picked covered Roosevelt's life before coming president. Part 2 of the documentary, which covers Roosevelt's presidency, does cover Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize.
MRC Hides Fox News' Biased Coverage of Benghazi Hearing Topic: Media Research Center
Matthew Balan writes in a Sept. 17 Media Research Center item:
CNN and MSNBC viewers on Wednesday would have to switch channels if they wanted to watch the first hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. CNN aired a 15-second news brief at the top of the 10 am Eastern hour, mere minutes before the nearly three-hour meeting began, but didn't cover the proceedings live. MSNBC set aside 12 minutes worth of segments to the event, and sometimes showed split-screen video, but didn't provide the audio.
By contrast, Fox News Channel provided nearly 41 minutes (40 minutes, 51 seconds) of live coverage of the congressional committee's hearing during the 10 am and 11 am Eastern hours.
What Balan did report: Fox's coverage of the hearing was probably biased.
Media Matters monitored Fox's hearing coverage the previous day and found that the channel emphasized the question from Republican members of Congress while cutting away from questions by Democratic members. In all, Fox devoted twice as much time to Republican questions than to Democratic questions. This is something Fox frequentlydoes, but Balan won't tell you that either.
Balan also won't mention Fox's freakish obsession with Benghazi -- nearly 1,100 segments on it since the incidence occurred in September 2012.
Why? Because Fox's agenda is the MRC's agenda. If Fox is obsessed with Benghazi, Balan must be as well.
MRC Covers For Sharyl Attkisson's Shoddy Reporting Topic: Media Research Center
Now that Sharyl Attkisson has revealed herself to be an anti-Obama conservative-leaning reporter, the Media Research Center has her back, defending her by ignoring the shoddy nature of her reporting.
In a Sept. 15 NewsBusters post, Curtis Houck complained that the networks are providing "zero coverage of news from investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson that aides to Clinton when she was Secretary of State engaged in a weekend meeting that included the removal of documents related to the Benghazi attacks that portrayed her in a negative light." Houck touted how "Attickson [sic] interviewed former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, who stated that the weekend meeting took place in the basement of a room at the State Department and included going through 'boxes and stacks of documents” relating to the attack that left four Americans dead" that pruportedly involved "pull[ing] out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light.”
P.J. Gladnick followed up with a Sept. 16 post that "Politico reporting on groups of Hillary Clinton supporters who will be defending her during the Congressional Benghazi hearings which makes absolutely no mention of the Sharyl Attkisson's report about how Hillary's aides at the State Department scrubbed the Benghazi documents of possibly incriminating information." Gladnick insists that Attkisson is making "pretty damning allegations" in her "bombshell" story.
What Houck and Gladnick won't tell their readers: Attkisson's source is highly questionable at best. As Media Matters notes, even some reporters at MRC fave Fox News doubt Attkisson's report; Bill O'Reilly, for instance, called Maxwell "a disgruntled former State Department official" who, Attkisson confirmed, didn't actually witness any of the actions he claimed happened.F ox correspondent James Rosen reported that Attkisson's source had previously failed to disclose this accusation of a cover-up and that his account "bears a lot of further investigation before it can be deemed credible."
But these MRC writers somehow trust Attkisson implicitly, even though the MRC has criticized her reporting in the past for promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines. The MRC's cognitive dissonance on Attkisson continues.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Sharyl Attkisson Dissonance Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves the former CBS correspondent's anti-Obama reporting, but it's trying to forget that it criticized her for promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Read more >>
MRC Complains About Coverage Of Speech Obama Hadn't Given Yet Topic: Media Research Center
A Sept. 10 Media Research Center item by Curtis Houck carries the headline "ABC, NBC Ignore Lack of Specifics in Previewing Obama’s ISIS Speech." Houck goes on to write:
On Tuesday night, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and NBC Nightly News omitted from their coverage any mention that President Obama’s upcoming speech to the country on Wednesday night will not include some crucial details on how he plans to go about defeating the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.
Think about that for a second. The MRC is criticizing coverage of a speech that, at the time Houck's item was posted, hadn't been given yet.
The hook for Houck's item was a claim by CBS' Major Garrett that the speech "appears short on specifics." Still, that's pretty thin gruel, and it shows just how desperate the MRC is to invent any excuse to attack Obama.
Climate Change Misinformation Spreads To Another MRC Website Topic: Media Research Center
One thing about the Media Research Center's multiple web platforms is that it provides more opportunities to spread misinformation. Mike Ciandella writes in a Sept. 2 MRC post:
The same year that former Vice President Al Gore predicted that the Arctic sea ice could be completely gone, the ice has actually reached its highest point in two years. This revelation comes from a report by the Danish Meteorological Institute.
According to the report, which was cited by the British publication the Daily Mail, “[t]he Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in a row.”
As we documented when fellow MRC employee Tom Blumer parroted the Dail Mail report at NewsBusters, Slate's Phil Plant debunked the Daily Mail's reporting, pointing out that Arctic ice reaching "its highest point in two years" is a meaningless claim given the overall decades-long trend of declining Arctic ice:
Like Blumer, Ciandella makes no effort whatsoever to fact-check the Daily Mail, choosing instead to bash perennial right-wing punching bag Al Gore.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday morning that publisher Katherine Weymouth was stepping down (as Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos is now the owner), and former Politico executive Frederick Ryan is taking her place.
Post technology reporter Craig Timberg implied that the important/interesting part of Ryan’s resume is his “years rising in the Reagan administration, eventually becoming a top presidential aide and key leader in the construction of his presidential library and numerous other initiatives after Reagan left office in 1989.” This, he reports, will “raise questions about the direction” of the allegedly “nonideological” Post:
[...]
Laugh track, please, for the "nonideological" Post. Start with the incessant daily front-page coverage of former Republican governor Robert McDonnell's trial in Virginia right now, for example.
Remember, Graham doesn't think a high-ranking Republican accused of corruption is news.Which must be why the MRC has censored the story of McDonnell's trial.
Graham is being quite disingenuous about a newspaper publisher's politics not mattering because he's conservative. In a May 2012 column, he -- under the pen name of his boss Brent Bozell -- called New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger a "liberal twit." There would be no need to add that modifier to his insult of Sulzberger if politics didn't matter, right?
And the politics of the Post's owner certainly matters to Graham as well. In an August 2013 column, Bozell-slash-Graham wrote that the Graham family, in selling the Post to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, "were confident that he had all the right political values and social liberalism."
Funny how, according to Graham, the liberal politics of media owners always infuses the media the run, while conservative media owners never does. Apparently, Graham has never read the Washington Times or the New York Post.
MRC Thinks Sharyl Attkisson Is A Credible Reporter, Despite Discrediting Her In The Past Topic: Media Research Center
An Aug. 27 Media Research Center item by Geoffrey Dickens carries the headline "Sharyl Attkisson Schools ABC, CBS, NBC on How to Cover the IRS Scandal." He writes:
Unlike her colleagues at the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, on Tuesday night, actually dug into the finer points behind the big bombshells revealed in the IRS scandal this week.
Dickens appears to have let Attkisson's current mainstream-media martyr schtick blind him to the fact that the MRC's archive shows that Attkisson should not be schooling anyone about anything.
As we've documented, the MRC has repeatedly criticized Attkisson's reporting on the supposed link between vaccines and autism -- something the MRC has conveniently ignored as it promotes her anti-Obama reporting (which it turns out is at least as factuallydeficient as her vaccine reporting).
Dickens appears to think reporters at the "Big Three" networks are Attkisson's "colleagues," but that's simply not true. She left CBS earlier this year and recently signed on to work for The Daily Signal, the "news" outlet of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. An ideologically driven website is hardly the equal of a network news operation.
While Dickens notes that Attkisson issued her "schooling" on Fox Business, he didn't concede that her appearance there is another sign she's moved to outlets friendly to her anti-Obama agenda.
MRC's Gainor Goes To Bat For For-Profit Colleges Topic: Media Research Center
Dan Gainor's Aug. 25 Media Research Center article is a lengthy puff piece masquerading as "media research." He complains:
The Obama administration continues its push to regulate for-profit colleges and national media outlets have joined in and overwhelmingly taken the side of bigger government.
Three top newspapers – The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today – portrayed for-profit education negatively by a factor of 15-1 in roughly three years of news coverage.
The outlets have been laying the groundwork for more regulations, repeatedly painting for-profit education as a problem in need of solutions. The industry has been criticized for “exploitive and fraudulent practices” that “prey on veterans with misleading ads.” The colleges were bashed for their cost, their lobbying and “woefully inadequate education.” Journalists paid little attention to the challenges of educating students that more traditional schools would not accept.
Gainor spends the rest of the article bashing those newspapers for reporting the facts about problems with for-profit schools and ignoring the actual problems.
Gainor attacked the New York Times for covering the issue, complaining that "It even called them 'predatory schools' in April 2014, and 'predatory colleges' in May." Perhaps that's because that's what some of them are. One of the Times editorials Gainor criticized highlighted one analysis finding that "of the 4,420 career programs ... examined, 114 (all at for-profit institutions) had higher loan default rates than graduation rates — a situation created in part by schools that enroll poorly prepared students who can’t do the work but who borrow to pay tuition before eventually dropping out." These schools are "predatory," the Times explained, because they "rely on federal student aid for up to 90 percent of their revenue and are well versed in the art of evading the law."
Gainor went on to portray one for-profit operator, Corinthian Colleges, as the victim of a government conspiracy to run them out of business:
Corinthian Colleges, Inc. was one of the largest companies in the for-profit education field. But government had set out to take it down. It largely succeeded in July 2014.
The Los Angeles Times reported heavily on problems at the Santa Ana, Calif.,-based company – 11 full stories about what the paper called on July 16, 2014, “one of the most problematic players in the troubled for-profit college industry.” The stories featured complaining former students and angry former employees, along with the occasional comment from a company executive.
But Gainor neglects to mention the actual allegations the former students and employees made against Corinthian and outlined in that article. They include predatory marketing practices and falsely inflating placement rates.
Gainor also makes sure to skew his methodology for full propaganda impact:
The Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute analyzed education stories in three top general interest newspapers. The MRC examined USA Today, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. The other two papers landing in the top five for circulation are The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. The Journal was not included because it focuses mostly on finance. The Post was deliberately excluded because it had close financial ties with the industry for part of the study period.
Gainor didn't mention that the Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp., which also operates Fox News and, thus, automatically gets a pass. While it's true that the Washington Post did have "close financial ties with the industry" -- until Jeff Bezos bought the paper in 2012, its ownership group also ran the Kaplan for-profit schools -- one suspects the Post's coverage of the issue was actually a little too balanced to fit snugly in Gainor's propaganda piece.
The issue of for-profit colleges has been essentially ignored by the MRC until Gainor's piece. That screams of Gainor either being asked, or paid, by the for-profit college industry to write it.
Any chance Gainor will explain what's really behind his sudden interest in the issue? Don't count on it.
MRC Thinks Jon Stewart Was Serious Topic: Media Research Center
Anyone who has ever watched "NewsBusted" knows that the Media Research Center is humor-challenged. But MRC writer Kristine Marsh may very well be the most humor-challenged of the bunch.
In an Aug. 27 MRC item, Marsh somehow chooses to interpret a "Daily Show" segment on the Ferguson, Mo., shooting by declaring that "Jon Stewart had a lot of hate to unload on Fox News, and a lot of sanctimonious posturing on race." Marsh added: "Stewart condescendingly lectured Sean Hannity, saying 'Do you not understand that life in this country is inherently different for white people and black people?'"
But Marsh failed to include the context of that statement -- the accompanying video clip includes only that statement. In fact, Stewart was responding to Hannity's statement that he would simply lift his shirt to let an officer know he had a gun if he were ever stopped by police.
Marsh then demonstrated her utter lack of a sense of humor:
All standard fare for the media’s race baiters, but then Stewart pushed the boundaries of reason and claimed that racial discrimination was something every black person in America faced on a constant hourly basis.
“I guarantee you that every person of color in this country has faced an indignity — from the ridiculous to the grotesque to the sometimes fatal — at some point in their … I’m going to say last couple of hours because of their skin color.”
It’s hard to argue with such an absurd statement that Stewart could obviously know nothing about, much less, “guarantee.”
Marsh has obviously never heard of exaggerated claims being the base of humor. Marsh's huffing that Stewart was making "such an absurd statement" contrasts with Rush's Limbaugh regulardefense of his repeated offensive remarks by claiming he was merely illustrating absurdity by being absurd.
How is it that Marsh can presumably see Limbaugh's absurdity for what it is but not Stewart's?
MRC Doesn't Fact-Check, Tries To Create Scandal Where None Exists Topic: Media Research Center
Mike Ciandella does his best to make his Aug. 13 Media Research Center article sound like a real scandal:
A new report suggested that liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s hedge fund profited from a $1 billion San Francisco light rail project pushed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Steyer was also a big supporter of Pelosi.
Despite being quick to criticize conservative political donors, the morning and evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC have all ignored the allegation since the Washington Free Beacon broke the story Aug. 12.
According to Washington Free Beacon, Pelosi “steered more than a billion dollars in federal financing” to a transportation project to provide light rail access to the Mission Bay neighborhood in San Francisco. This access helped cause the property value of land owned by Steyer’s hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management, to spike. Farallon has since sold all but two of those properties. Steyer gave at least $5,000 to Pelosi in 2011 alone.
But a closer look into the facts -- which Ciandella apparently didn't do -- disproves his suggestion of a direct quid pro quo.
The light-rail line began construction in 2002, two years before Steyer’s Farallon hedge fund bought into Mission Bay. The majority of the line -- known as the Third Street Light Rail project -- including the part that goes past Farallon’s property, was completed in 2007, and it benefited an entire section of San Francisco, not just the land Farallon owned. Also, the line in question is pretty long, about 5 miles, and Farallon had 30 acres at most. And the Free Beacon concedes that Pelosi was securing funds for the project before Farallon bought land there, which Ciandella didn't note.
The Free Beacon also notes that the $967 million Pelosi helped obtain for the line -- the vast majority of the money Ciandella is writing about -- came in 2012. But that money is for an extension of the line (called the Central Subway) and would not run past Farallon-owned land.
Then, for some reason, Ciandella starts ranting about George Soros: "Media is home turf for Soros. He has poured more than $65 million into media and journalism groups through his Open Society Foundations since 2000." But as we've noted, that's less than what conservative billionaires Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch and Sun Myung Moon have spent each year over the past couple decades to keep afloat the three right-wing newspapers they respectively control (the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the New York Post and the Washington Times).
NEW ARTICLE: Fluffing -- And Protecting -- The Great One Topic: Media Research Center
Not only does the Media Research Center play stenographer for the pearls of wisdom that pour from the mouth of right-wing radio host Mark Levin, it hides his offensive remarks from its readers. Read more >>
The Washington Post has deeply and lovingly covered the corruption scandal around former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell, and couldn’t contain its excitement over the trial. In Sunday’s newspaper and in Tuesday’s Post Express tabloid, they highlighted this preview in headlines: “It’s Going To Be Ugly.” They couldn't wait for the ugliness.
Can Graham read the minds of Post writers? Apparently so.
However, it didn't take much mind-reading to foresee that the trial of McDonnel and his wife would bring out very tawdry things -- heck, the defense, as a key part of their case, is claiming that the Republican governor's wife had a crush on the man who lavished her and the governor with gifts and cash.
It seems that Graham would prefer that the media censor this story. And one part of it is -- NewsBusters sister organization CNSNews.com, which is burying the story by not highlighting it on its front page and leaving coverage to wire reports instead of sending a reporter.
NewsBusters is doing a fine job of censoring it as well: Graham's post is the most recent item with the Robert McDonnell tag.
The Media Research Center lovestoaccuse the media of censorship any time it fails to advance a given right-wing-friendly storyline. But it undermines whatever moral authority it thinks it has to make such an accusation when its own websites censor stories it doesn't like.
Mark Levin Effectively Calls Female Senator A Whore, MRC Stays Silent Topic: Media Research Center
It's been more than a week since right-wing radio host Mark Levin ranted at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its endorsement of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu: "You lie down with whores like this and you become one." That means he was effectively calling Landrieu a whore as well.
You'd think that the Media Research Center, which has a business relationship with Levin, would say something. But it hasn't -- just like it didn't when Levin went on a bizarre rant against Jon Stewart, declaring that "I don't trust Jews who change their names."
Perhaps that business relationship has a clause in which the MRC is to ignore Levin's rants, no matter how offensive. After all, this is the same organziation that reacted to Rush Limbaugh's misogynistic tirade against Sandra Fluke by starting an "I Stand With Rush" fan page and calling Limbaugh's denigration of Fluke as a "slut" and "prostirtute" merely a "regrettable blunder."
Perhaps Brent Bozell and the crew really do believe Landrieu is a whore. After all, they had no problem believing Fluke was a slut.
MRC Is Mad That People Wish Obama A Happy Birthday Topic: Media Research Center
Scott Whitlock really did devote an Aug. 4 Media Research Center item to this complaint:
From 2009 to 2014, every year of Barack Obama's presidency, the networks have observed his birthday, often wishing him a special day. A graphic for CBS This Morning on Monday touted, "Happy Birthday, Mr. President." Co-host Charlie Rose enthused, "President Obama is waking up a year older. The President turns 53 today, but his birthday weekend began Saturday." He reiterated, "Happy birthday, Mr. President."
Guest co-host Vinita Nair parroted, "Happy birthday." Over on NBC's Today, Savannah Guthrie reminded, "By the way, we should mention it's President Obama's 53rd birthday. So, happy birthday to him." Fill-in host Carson Daly offered, "Happy birthday." On America This Morning, the very early ABC show, co-host Devin Dwyer cheered, "Well, happy birthday wishes going out this morning to President Obama."
How hateful and partisan do you have to be to begrudge anyone wishing the president of the United States a happy birthday? Whitlock can't even be bothered to do any research on how "the networks" have acted in the past, only vaguely claiming that "George W. Bush's July 6 birthday only received sporadic note from the networks."
Yes, we know August is a slow month on the political calendar, but Whitlock has gone beyond "media criticism" and inadvertently exposed the MRC's partisan political agenda.
A Sept. 20 NewsBusters post by Jeffrey Lord is devoted to whining that Rush Limbaugh was taken out of context when he lamented that guys can no longer wheedle sex with women by claiming "that 'no' means 'yes' if you know how to spot it." Lord asserts that "Rush has millions of listeners who, yes, actually listen to what he says, understood his context."
Matthew Balan writes in a Sept. 17 Media Research Center 
Now that Sharyl Attkisson has revealed herself to be an anti-Obama conservative-leaning reporter, the Media Research Center 
Tim Graham writes in a Sept. 2 NewsBusters 
An Aug. 27 Media Research Center 
Dan Gainor's Aug. 25 Media Research Center 
Anyone who has ever watched "
It's been more than a week since right-wing radio host Mark Levin 
Scott Whitlock really did devote an Aug. 4 Media Research Center 
