This is why the pundits got it all wrong. They believed the media and their spin, not just on the coronation of Hillary Clinton, but more important, on America’s repudiation of Donald Trump.
They saw Trump’s voters just as the Clinton campaign saw them: a basket of deplorables. All season long the pro-Hillary press treated Trump’s followers with utter contempt. At the same time the leftwing media were giving aid and comfort to Hillary Clinton, covering up her scandals when they could, spinning them in her favor when they couldn’t.
Don’t anyone here deny it. We documented it all season long. What we saw is what the public saw. In fact, conservatives heard top leftist reporters like Jorge Ramos calling on the news media – yes, the news media – to take sides against Donald Trump.
Needless to say, Bozell won't talk about what we saw:
How his MRC cravenly flip-flopped from Trump-bashers to Trump defenders without telling its readers why. Part of that was its conspiracy theory that "the media" wanted Trump to win the primary so he could be torn down in the general election.
How he and his MRC studiouslyavoided criticizing anything Fox News did in covering the election -- even when Trump criticized it -- in order to preserve the channel as an outlet for Bozell and other MRC staffers to pontificate about the terrible "liberal media."
Bozell's feigned outrage about Ramos was actually part of a calculated war against the Univision anchor to get him fired for daring to be critical of Trump.
The MRC further protecting Trump by insisting that any bad thing he was accused of doing was done first and worse by a Clinton.
The MRC embracing Trump's "rigged media" rants -- based on the MRC's own work -- and remaining silent about the threats of violence against journalists such rhetoric generates.
Bozell went on to show that his mission is only about destruction:
This was a massive repudiation of the press. Our message – “Don’t Believe the Liberal Media” succeeded, and in the next few days we will be unveiling a massive amount of polling data that will document this empirically.
The Gallup organization released a poll recently showing that the trust in the national news media has dropped to an all-time low, and dropped 25% in the last year alone. This is devastating.
The public now knows it is not getting news from the “news” media. It’s getting leftist propaganda, just as we’ve maintained.
The liberal media were the second-biggest losers last night. But as opposed to Clinton, their loss continues. Their credibility is shot, quite possibly for good. It is unfortunate for the honorable, professional journalists working – yes, they do exist – but it’s an incredible win for the American people.
Bozell never mentions the fact that his anti-media crusade has the effect of hurting the credibility of all media, not just the ones he deems "liberal."
And he never says what he wants this destroyed "liberal media" replaced with. That's because his preferred replacement is a right-wing media that just as biased. That's why the MRC stayed silent about right-wing media guy Steve Bannon going straight from Breitbart to running Trump's campaign -- something a member of the "liberal media" has never done for a Democratic candidate. That makes Bozell's complaint about "how these leftist reporters were working side by side with the Clinton campaign" incredibly hollow.
Bozell said nothing new here -- his only goal is to remain a right-wing political player.
MRC Binges on Schadenfreude Over Trump Win, Forgets How It Acted in 2012 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was in full schadenfreude mode, detailing critical media reaction from others to Donald Trump's win. "Meltdown" was a prettyheavily used word.
Curtis Houck wrote: "By Wednesday morning, the on-air, online, and print meltdowns by liberal media types were exploding at an exponential rate with CNN’s New Day facilitating a few as senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin shrieked at the idea of conservatives on the Supreme Court while chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour lost it over 'far-right' European figures being 'eager and jubilant' about President-Elect Donald Trump."
P.J. Gladnick touted "Perez Hilton's mental meltdown last night when it became obvious to him that Donald Trump would be elected president. I am sure there will be other mental meltdowns over this election but this one should definitely be placed in the top 10 of this category as you can see in the following video."
Matthew Balan highlighted one blogger's "extended diatribe in reaction to the election of Donald Trump." And Scott Whitlock featured how "the liberal sulking over Donald Trump’s win on election night continued on MSNBC, Wednesday."
But we remember how MRC staffers reacted to President Obama's re-election in 2012, and, well, it looked a lot like the behavior they're mocking now. For example, Whitlock showed his right-wing sulking when he flatly declared, "America is screwed." Then-MRC writer Liz Thatcher said she was "Sick to my stomach about what the future of the country may be."
In contrast to his 2016 post-election column cheering the death of facts, which the MRC helped throw under the bus to deflect from Trump's continual lies, MRC chief Brent Bozell devoted his entire 2012 post-election column to ranting about how "The media lauded Obama no matter how horrendous his record, and they savaged Obama’s Republican contenders as ridiculous pretenders."
(It's also worth noting that the MRC spent a lot of the 2012 election attacking Nate Silver's poll predictions as being too Obama-friendly -- and, thus, driven by liberal bias -- but couldn't be bothered to apologize when the election results proved him right.)
So, yeah, the MRC was in total meltdown mode four years ago. Which probably means it shouldn't be so gleeful about indulging in the politial meltdowns of others, since it should know that what goes around comes around.
MRC's Bozell & Graham Cheer The Death of Facts Topic: Media Research Center As we've documented, the MRC protected Trump from the torrent of falsehoods he spouted on a regular basis by attacking the fact-checkers who caught him as biased. Brent Bozell and Tim Graham's post-election column for the Media Research Center couldn't be more proud that facts no longer matter, [playing the false equivalence card by insisting without evbidence that Trump and Hillary Clinton lied equally:
Trump can be careless with facts, and resistant to media shaming. But for these fact-checkers to claim Clinton is far more honest is preposterous. PolitiFact awarded its "Pants on Fire" tag to Trump 57 times to Clinton's seven. Likewise, Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler reported that "Trump earned significant more four-Pinocchio ratings than Clinton — 59 to 7, and "The numbers don't lie."
Well, yes, they do. Just ask the parents of the brave men murdered in Benghazi if Clinton lies. Ask the FBI — even Director Comey, who exonerated her. Ask those who held hearings in the House and Senate and listened to her testimony. Ask those who have investigated the Clinton Foundation. They and so many others will speak to her endless lies. But not so the "fact checkers."
It is a given that the default position for the media elite is to rate liberal politicians "True" and conservatives of every faction "False." Take the vice presidential candidates on the PolitiFact "Truth-o-Meter" in this campaign. Tim Kaine was rated "True" or "Mostly True" 26 times, and Mike Pence drew those positive ratings only 8 times. Pence was "False" or "Mostly False" 18 times, and Kaine drew those marks only 11 times. Since Sept. 1, conservatives and Republicans have been scolded as "Pants on Fire" 28 times (fully 14 of those tags were for Trump). Liberals and Democrats? Only four (and only one for Clinton). That's a 7-to-1 tilt, and an obscene 14-to-1 tilt for the presidential candidates.
Bozell and Graham offer refuse to admit the possibility that Trump and Pence were called out for more falsehoods than their Democratic counterparts becaues they told more falsehoods. They don't prove otherwise.
In other words, they're simply throwing more shade at fact-checkers instead of criticizing their falsehood prone candidate. They conclude:
It's time to fact-check the fact checkers. In fact, it's already been done. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, just 29 percent of likely voters trust media fact-checking of the candidates, while 62 percent believed the media "skew the facts to help candidates they support."
Don't you just love the American people? They have awarded on big, fat "Pants on Fire" to the entire national news media for their fact-checking arrogance and plain old dishonesty. And that's a fact.
Bozell and Graham don't mention that Rasmussen has a pretty unambiguous conservative bias -- even Nate Silver thinks so -- or that Rasmussen Reports founder Scott Rasmussen is an occasional columnist at the MRC's NewsBusters blog -- a place Bozell would not allow him to write at were he not a conservative.
Those are facts, and Bozell and Graham are dishonest and arrogant to hide that from their readers. But then, have they ever not been?
MRC Notes Trump Backers Threatening Journalists, Doesn't Denounce It Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center set the stage for Donald Trump's attacks on the media, but won't talk about the threats of violence against journalists from Trump supporters. Now the MRC has finally acknowleged it -- albeit in a rather lame manner.
Appearing on Thursday’s NBC Late Night With Seth Meyers, aired early Friday morning, ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos worried about Donald Trump making the liberal media an “enemy” in the presidential campaign, confessing that “it's hard to walk down the street right now” and warning that reporters need “security.”
Host Seth Meyers observed: “...tensions are very high in this election on both sides....is it safe to say that you receive criticisms from both sides in your day to day?” Stephanopoulos complained: “It's hard to walk down the street right now....I have this one woman in my neighborhood....Every time I walk down the street she keys in on me, walks right up to my face and whispers, ‘Disgusting’....Then a few days later, does the same thing....walks right up into my face, ‘Bastard.’”
Meyers sympathized: “You know, there was a lot of talk about how the press covered Trump. But now, there's a lot of talk about how Trump is sort of framing the press as a villain.” Stephanopoulos agreed: “The enemy, absolutely.” Meyers fretted: “And so, for those of you in journalism right now, like, have you ever seen an attack like this?”
Stephanopoulos voiced concern for the safety of his colleagues: “No, I mean, he's singling people out from the crowd. And his – you know, I don't really go out into the rallies so much – but our reporters actually have to have security at his rallies because everybody gets so riled up and he riles them up as well.”
And that's pretty much it. Drennen not only can't be bothered to denounce such threats, he's actgually suggesting that it's "liberal media bias" for even mention that it's happening -- as if Stephanopoulos deserves to be harrassed by random people for doing his job.
MRC: Media 'Smears' GOP Senate Candidates (By Reporting On Them Accurately) Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro complains in a Nov. 3 post:
With the Republican controlled Senate hanging in the balance this election cycle, NBC turned up the heat against GOP candidates in tight races on Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News. One of the largest influences the Senate would have for the new president is the confirmation of Supreme Court justices. “There are many races currently polling within the margin of error,” announced Anchor Lester Holt as his colleague Hallie Jackson tried to tip the scales in favor of Democrats.
Jackson noted that candidates on both sides are trying to tie their opponent to the top of their party’s ticket. She noted this as she touted Senator Roy Blount’s opponent, “That's the argument Senator Roy Blount is making in Missouri. In the fight of his political life against a Democrat whose gun assembly ad went viral.”
From there, Jackson flaunted controversies plaguing some Republican candidates. “In North Carolina, Senator Richard Burr had to apologize after seeming to joke Hillary Clinton should be shot,” she reported, “Senator Mark Kirk forced to say he's sorry for those racially charged remarks [against Tammy Duckworth].”
[...]
What Jackson failed to mention was any controversy or negative news plaguing any of the Democratic candidates. Even though she touted McGInty in Pennsylvania, Jackson failed to mention (like CBS did) how McGinty was a long time lobbyist in Washington, DC. And according to a recent WikiLeaks e-mail dump, McGinty may have violated state law by asking Clinton campaign chair John Podesta if she should run for Senate.
So it's a "smear" to accurately point out the truly terrible things Republican Senate candidates have done, like suggesting Clinton should be shot or making racially charged remarks about one's opponent? Fondacaro doesn't explain how a Democratic candidate being a Washington lobbyist or sending an email asking for career advice (seems a bit harsh for that to be a violation of state law, doncha think?) are "offenses" equal to what the Republicans did.
Fondacaro also complained that "NBC continued to blackout how a law firm in Boston, Massachusetts allegedly funneled $1.6 million to Democratic Senate candidates illegally. Included in the list of candidates money was funneled to was McGinty, Hassan, Duckworth, and Jason Kandor. Those are the same Democrats Jackson was glorifying during her report." But Fondacaro provides no evidence that the candidates were involved in soliciting those contributions, let alone that they knew the contribuions were potentially illegal (the issue behind the controversy over the donations, which were allegedly made through an illegal straw-donor scheme).
The MRC is apparently getting a wee bit oversensitive on the "liberal bias" thing.
Where's the MRC's 'Every Hour' Post Admitting Fox News' Anti-Hillary Story Is Wrong? Topic: Media Research Center
When Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell ranted about the alleged lack of coverage of a Fox News report claiming that an FBI indictment of Hillary Clinton was imminent, he said, "We will report developments on this continuing cover-up every hour from here on out."
Apparently, the fact that Fox News itself has effectively retracted the story is not a sufficiently important development for the MRC devote one of those "every hours" to report on.
We've documented how Bozell and the MRC have complained that the story wasn't receiving the media coverage it wanted the story to get -- and was continuing to demand that coverage even as the story fell apart. Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who first reported the story, now admits no indictment of clinton was forthcoming and walked back his claim that it was all but certain -- a "99 percent accuracy" -- that Clinton's private server had been hacked, admitting that "there are still no digital fingerprints of a breach."
And the MRC is still complaining the story isn't getting covered.
A Nov. 4 post by Scott Whitlock skipped around any mention of Fox News or the story being retracted, asserting the story from an unidentified outlet contained "the bombshell news that the FBI is conducting an active investigation into the Clinton Foundation." Then he grumped that other outlets accurately pointed out that the reports were "inaccurate" and "unsubstantiated."
A post the same day by Curtis Houck touted the Fox News "bombshell FBI report about the Clinton Foundation" while complaining about "the rush to gang up on Fox News and Special Report host Bret Baier over his FBI story."But he waits until theninth paragraph of his item to note in passing, by quoting Brian Stelter noting that Baier "walked it back."
Doesn't the fact that Baier walked back the story deserve to be a bit higher up than the ninth paragraph? Houck apparently doesn't think so. Shouldn't that, in fact, be the subject of its own post, complete with the MRC apologizing to the media outlets and reporters it trashed for failing to promote the story to its desired high level?
Despite Bozell's declaration that the MRC would publish updates on the story "every hour," Houck's post is the last MRC item to properly identify the story as a product of Fox News. That's more than two days ago.
Once again, we see that pushing its right-wing agenda is more important to the MRC than telling people the truth.
MRC Demands Media Cover Discredited Story Because It Makes Hillary Look Bad Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loved the big story Fox News dropped on Nov. 2. As the MRC's Kyle Drennen recounts: "On Wednesday evening, Fox News Special Report anchor Bret Baier led off his show with explosive breaking news revealing an extensive ongoing FBI investigation into the corruption scandals swirling around Hillary Clinton, with bureau agents looking into everything from newly discovered e-mails to pay for play allegations against the Clinton Foundation."
Media observers were quick to point out the flaws in Baier's story -- the main one being that it's be based on accounts from two anonymous sources who claim to have knowledge of the investigation, not necessarily actual FBI sources.
But that didn't stop the MRC from complaining that the story wasn't getting traction outside the usual right-wing haunts. Drennen went on to huff, "Despite the bombshell coming just days before election day, the broadcast networks have yet to touch the story." He also complained that "While the networks were unwilling to report on the Democratic nominee being embroiled in a criminal investigation, back in 2000, the same media were eager to hype a decades-old DWI charge against then-Republican nominee George W. Bush as a November surprise designed to damage the candidate," apparently not understanding the difference between a documented police record a an anonymously sourced article by a parisan media outlet.
Then, the next morning, Baier walked back the central claim of his story -- that an indictment was "likely" over the Clinton Foundation allegations -- calling that statement "inartful" because "that's not the process." The MRC continued pushing the story anyway. Curtis Houck complained that "MSNBC acknowledged the story but repeatedly chided Fox News perpetuating a story using 'anonymous sources' that’s not 'corroborated or substantiated.'"
Meanwhile, other news outlets did their own investigating, and they came to a much different conclusion: NBC's Pete Williams reported that "this idea that there are indictments near or something like that, I am told is just not true," and CNN similarly pointed out that "there is no evidence that any of the Fox stuff is true. That there is nothing close to an indictment."
Still, the MRC kept pushing the story. Houck was offended that NBC did its own reporting on the story, then touted GOP operative Matt Schlapp dutifully sticking to the increasingly dubious Fox News talking points, at one point telling an MSNBC host, "Your reporting is not accurate." Needless to say, Schlapp's quote was the headline of Houck's post.
Then, right on cue, the MRC bigwigs injected themselves into the story. MRCchief Brent Bozell issued a press release ranting about the "media cover-up" of the increasingly dubious Fox News story and asserting that "No one in the so-called ‘news’ media can deny this without lying through his/her teeth." Tim Graham ran to fight-wing-friendly Fox Business, sister network of Fox News, to complain that other news outlets are accurately reporting that the Fox News story has "no substantiation whatsoever." (he also veered off topic and into right-wing fantasyland by saying, "Well, we could certainly argue that the Watergate story itself was left-wing partisanship in action.")
The MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro, meanwhile, was still complaining about a lack of media coverage of the increasingly shaky story, asserting that "A solid 24 hours after Fox News reported the massive bombshell that the FBI was pursuing a criminal investigation into the Clinton Foundation, the liberal “Big Three” networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) were scrambling to defend Clinton Thursday evening." NBC's reporting that there is no imminent indictment as Fox News claimed is merely an attempt to "downplay" the Fox story, Fondacaro claimed.
Bozell and Graham then teamed up for a column declaring that "The network blackout so far on this FBI probe is beyond the pale." They did not mention the unsubstantiated nature of the allegation, the growing body of reporting contradicting it, or that Baier actually walked back the key allegation.
After their column appeared, however, Baier effectively retracted his story, admitting that "just wasn't inartful, it was a mistake" to report that an indictment was forthcoming, "and for that I'm sorry." He also walked back his claim that it was all but certain -- a "99 percent accuracy" -- that Clinton's private server had been hacked, admitting that "there are still no digital fingerprints of a breach."
The MRC, however, still wants to believe Baier did not correct the story, again complaining about accurate reporting: "On Friday morning, the rush to gang up on Fox News and Special Report host Bret Baier over his FBI story was full speed ahead with CNN repeatedly harping on Baier’s 'completely false' bombshell being 'a prime example of the echo chamber at work' spreading 'lies' to hurt Hillary Clinton."Houck did not acknowledge the validity of the reporting by other media outlets on this story, and he did not mention Baier's retraction at all.
Bozell said in his rant, "We will report developments on this continuing cover-up every hour from here on out." But the MRC has yet to report on Baier's retraction, which one would think is an important development -- or explain why it's continuing to push a bogus story.
Then again, we all know the answer to that: Because the story hurts Hillary, and the MRC is in the tank for Trump.
UPDATE: The MRC has sent out an email touting how "Fox News’ Bret Baier exposed the startling new revelations regarding the FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation on Wednesday night" telling readers to call the presidents of non-Fox networks to "let them know, in no uncertain terms, that the American people demand an end to this pro-Hillary blackout of major new developments regarding ongoing FBI investigations." The email didn't mention that the story has been retracted.
MRC's CNN Gotcha Was Kind Of A Fail Topic: Media Research Center
Curtis Houck thought he had the goods on CNN in an Oct. 31 post:
On Sunday night, Justin Baragona at Mediaite caught CNN red-handed nine days before the election in the highly unprofessional act of fabricating claims that Donald Trump told a Colorado rally that they should vote repeatedly on Election Day.
With time ticking away and the original story retweeted from @CNNPolitics over 900 times, Mediaite successfully shamed them into only a measly correction and deleting the original tweet with the false headline over two hours later.
But a couple hours later, Houck himself was forced to do a correction of his own, in a note that now resides at the top of his post:
Upon reviewing CNN’s on-air coverage of Trump’s Colorado rally at the center of these false claims, the network actually aired live the entirety of Trump’s comments on Sunday about voting in the Centennial State.
Somehow, the CNN Politics team still published the butchered and erroneous Trump quote. I’ve provided video below of Trump’s full comments that CNN’s reporters didn’t appear initially interested in following. The headline has also been changed to include the acknowledgement that this blog has been updated.
In other words, it was accurate on the air but apparently not in a story on the CNN website, and when that was pointed out, CNN corrected it. That seems to be exactly what one should do in that situation, and CNN did it. Granted, that throws a wrench in Houck's attempt to elevate this to fit the MRC's "rigged media" agenda it shares with Trump, but even major news organizations get things wrong in the rush to get a story posted, and there's not necessarily a huge conspiracy behind it -- in fact, there almost always isn't.
When a media outlet continues to push a false story even after it has been proven false -- as, say, the MRC-operated CNSNews.com did when it falsely claimed Democratic strategist Paul Begala said that Republicans are trying to kill him and his family, then adamantly refused to correct the falsehood -- then you can cry conspiracy.
MRC Flips, Is Now Mad That Comey's Judgment Is Being Questioned Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center used to hate FBI director James Comey in the wake of his decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her emails:
Brent Bozell and Tim Graham asserted that Comey's decision not to prosecute Clinton was "bizarre."
Graham complained that the media wasn't sufficiently reporting a poll showing "that a majority of Americans disagreed with the decision not to indict Hillary Clinton over her emailing of classified information."
Clay Waters pointed out that "Comey endured condemnation from conservatives for his weak-kneed decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in handling classified documents as Secretary of State."
Nicholas Fondacaro touted how Comey faced a hearing "where Congressional Republicans unloaded on him for giving immunity to people they accused of being liars."
The MRC published a column by Cal Thomas asserting that "Comey's refusal to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her deliberate mishandling of classified information seems to prove that the Obama administration is little more than an arm of her presidential campaign." It published another column by R. Emmett Tyrrell complaining that "Comey outlined a list of flagrant violations against her and then gave her a pass."
But now that Comey injected himself in the election process by announcing, a week and a half before the election, that the discovery of new emails meant he was reopening the investigation, the MRC has his back and his shocked -- shocked! -- that anyone would dare criticize him. Commence the whining, Geoffrey Dickens:
Ever since it was announced, on Friday, that the FBI was pursuing new leads into the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server scandal, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have gone into attack mode against James Comey, turning what should be a scandal about Clinton into a smear against the FBI director.
Beginning with the evening (October 28) of the announcement through Monday morning (October 31) MRC analysts reviewed all statements (by reporters, analysts, and partisans) that took a position on Comey and Clinton and found arguments against Comey (88) swamped those against Clinton (31) by a ratio of almost 3 to 1. There were a handful of statements that praised either Comey (10) or Clinton (4)[.]
So we're supposed to take Comey's word without question now after conservatives bashed him for months for failing to hew to the right-wing agenda?
Dickens is merely complaining that the media is covering both sides of the story, and he's ignoring the fact that the story really is about Comey. It's his announcement that's driving the story, not any actual evidence of further Clinton wrongdoing. And there isn't any -- the FBI hadn't even reviewed the emails, let alone obtained the proper legal permission to do so, at the time of Comey's announcement.
In other words, the MRC has flipped again like it has throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. It shows that the MRC has no fixed priniciples other than bashing the media at every possible opportunity, even if it has to twist itself into knots to justify doing so.
NEW ARTICLE: Rigging the Media at the MRC Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center laid the foundation for Donald Trump's "rigged media" rants -- but Brent Bozell and Co. won't acknowledge the threats of violence against journalists that toxic rhetoric generate, let alone tell Trump to dial it back before someone gets hurt. Read more >>
MRC's Graham Lashes Out Again At NPR Media Reporter Topic: Media Research Center
For some reason, the Media Resarch Center's Tim Graham loves to pickfights with NPR media reporter David Folkenflik. Graham got huffy with Folkenflik again in an Oct. 27 post:
NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik loves to report negative stories about Fox News, over and over again. Since July 6, he’s filed 16 negative reports on Fox News and the sexual-harassment lawsuits, leading to the departure of longtime boss Roger Ailes.
But try to find him mentioning anything about the media sucking up to the Clinton campaign in the Wikileaks emails. He skipped that, just like he skipped Gawker’s trove of suckup emails going to Hillary press aide Phillippe Reines back in February. One might rightly conclude bashing Fox News is a favorite pastime.
Those 16 reports on Fox News and Ailes are, as we've noted, approximately 16 more than the MRC has devoted to it. Fox News is the MRC's favorite news outlet, and Brent Bozell and crew appear there regularly, so they didn't want to jeopardize that by reporting such unpleasant things.
Graham went on to whine: "The least surprising story on Wednesday night’s All Things Considered was Folkenflik enjoying the Tuesday night Fox News fight between Megyn Kelly and Newt Gingrich. Like the other leftists, Folkenflik took the side of Kelly, scorning Gingrich as a finger-wagging old man who specialized in cheating on his wives losing voters for Trump."
But criticism of Gingrich was not coming solely from "leftists" (and Graham does not prove Folkenflik is one). For instance, Katie Pavlich and Cheri Jacobus -- no "leftists" they -- also criticized Trump.
Stranger than Graham's attempt to pick another bogus fight with Folkenflik is how the MRC promoted it. A post on its NewsBusters Twitter account carried the introduction "GEORGE SOROS GRANT NEWS."
Graham didn't even mention Soros in his post, nor did he engage in a "defund NPR" rant that is usually a staple whenever Graham writes about NPR.
The NewsBusters tweet was apparently a reference to a donation Soros' Open Society Institute made to NPR back in 2010 -- but that was earmarked for NPR's "Impact on Government" project and apparently not to Folkenflik's salary.
But, hey, when has anyone ever accused Graham and the MRC of caring about inconvenient facts?
MRC's Study of Media Bias On Trump Is Hypocritical And Narrow Topic: Media Research Center
Remember when the Media Research Center thought that media coverage wasn't negative enough? We do.
Remember when MRC chief Brent Bozell said it was irrelevant that most of Trump's media coverage was negative? We do.
Which is why the MRC's big report last week complaining about negative media coverage of Trump is a big, hypocritical nothingburger. Add to that the study's extremely narrow focus: a review of only the evening newscasts on NBC, CBS and ABC -- a tiny sliver of "the media. Nevertheless, report author Rich Noyes interchangably uses "the broadcast networks" and "the media," as if they were the same thing:
The results show neither candidate was celebrated by the media (as Obama was in 2008), but network reporters went out of their way to hammer Trump day after day, while Clinton was largely out of their line of fire.
Our analysts found 184 opinionated statements about Hillary Clinton, split between 39 positive statements (21%) vs. 145 negative (79%). Those same broadcasts included more than three times as many opinionated statements about Trump, 91 percent of which (623) were negative vs. just nine percent positive (63).
Noyes also played false equivalence with Trump's extensive record of falsehoods, complining that "Reporters also bluntly called out Trump for lying in his public remarks in a way they never did with Clinton, despite her own robust record of false statements." The MRC has long denied the obvious fact that Trump has told more falsehoods than Clinton, to the point that it attacks fact-checkers to deflect from that.
Further, the MRC's method of coming to its preordained conclusion (does anyone think the MRC would make this public if it wasn't?) seems suspect. Noyes writes:
Our measure of campaign spin was designed to isolate the networks’ own slant, not the back-and-forth of the campaign trail. Thus, our analysts ignored soundbites which merely showcased the traditional party line (Republicans supporting Trump and bashing Clinton, and vice versa), and instead tallied evaluative statements which imparted a clear positive or negative tone to the story. Such statements may have been presented as quotes from non-partisan talking heads such as experts or voters, quotes from partisans who broke ranks (Republicans attacking Trump or Democrats criticizing Clinton), or opinionated statements from the reporter themselves.
Additionally, we separated personal evaluations of each candidate from statements about their prospects in the campaign horse race (i.e., standings in the polls, chances to win, etc.).
Evaluating statements as either "positive" or "negtative" seems like a recipe to introduce bias; after all, since the MRC is pulling for Trump, it would be predisposed to mark more statements about Trump as "negative," which may skew its results. Since the MRC never posts the raw data from its "research," there's no way to independently evaluate those statements or the MRC's classification of them.
Most egregiously, Noyes ignores that one reason Trump received more negative coverage is because he has done more things that warrant it, having apparently decided to push the fiction that Trump is merely just another Republican.
Another example of Noyes' bias: he complains that stories about "Donald Trump’s treatment of women" are "alleged" and "unproven," while applies no qualifiers to "Bill Clinton’s past treatment of women, and Hillary Clinton’s role in covering up her husband’s wrongdoing."
In short: It's a biased report produced with biased intent, and all the uncritical coverage of it on Fox News -- whose election coverage the MRC conspicuously refused to study -- doesn't change that one bit.
MRC Tries The Gore Equivocation, And Fails Topic: Media Research Center
It seems the Media Research Center's Clinton Equivocation to deflect Donald Trump's sleazy behavior has sprouted a corollary: the Gore Equivocation. Again, it's in service of Trump.
As Trump faced increasing criticism for criticizing the legitimacy of tyhe entire election process by screaming "Rigged!" at every opportunity and refusing to state at the final debate that he would accept the election results, the MRC was eager to change the subject:
Nicholas Fondacaro criticized CNN commentator Van Jones' "frustration with Trump’s refusal to say that he would accept the results of the election, but went on to praise Al Gore for dragging the country through months of chaos," going on to huff: "Yet there are liberal [sic] to this day that refuse to accept the results of the 2000 election."
Kyle Drennen complained that Tom Brokaw " defended Gore’s refusal to concede to George W. Bush for two months after the 2000 presidential election."
Clay Waters huffed: "Democratic candidate Al Gore lost narrowly in Florida, and thus lost the election to George Bush. Yet that didn’t stop Democrats from trying to overturn the results until the Supreme Court ruled in Bush’s favor."
Trump-fluffer Jeffrey Lord declared: "While Trump is being criticized for saying he would keep the media and the nation in suspense as to whether he would accept the results of the election, the hard fact is that Al Gore spent two months not accepting the election results."
Fondacaro, Drennen and Lord are falsely overstating the amount of time Gore spent contesting the results of the 2000 eleciton. In fact, it was just 36 days between the Nov. 7 election and Gore's Dec. 12 announcement that he would accept the Supreme Court's ruling suspending recounts in Florida -- just over a month.
All of these MRC writers, however, ignored the fact Gore's challenging an extremely close election and Trump undermining the entire process beforehand are two different things. As New York magazine's Jonathan Chait explains, Gore did not challenged the validity of the process as Trump has, the 2000 recount exposed flaws in the voting process in Florida such as voters falsely disenfranchised because they were wrongly labeled as felons, and Trump's attempted deligitimization of the process is based in wacky right-wing conspiracy theories.
But the MRC is all in for Trump, and it won'tcorrect any falsehoods that interfere with that.
MRC Pushes Another Bogus Hillary WikiLeaks 'Scandal' Topic: Media Research Center
The story of a political donation to the wife of an FBI agent who, months later, headed the FBI's Hillary Clinton email investigation isn't the only bogus WikiLeaks-based story the Media Research Center has been pushing in recent days. Here's NewsBusters blogger Tom Blumer in an Oct. 24 post:
Among the WikiLeaks documents recently released is a 2008 email with an attachment running to dozens of pages telling Democrats how to "maximize what we get out of our media polling."
Fox & Friends covered this story Monday morning. Very few other online and broadcast outlets have.
[...]
Whenever the strategies identified above are used — even oversampling, which when properly employed can be a valid polling practice — the routine standard line from pollsters about getting a "random sample" is obviously no longer true. Does that stop pollsters from claiming that their samples are random? Apparently not. If you're filling up quotas, it's not genuinely random.
[...]
What is going on here at the very least is an attempt to sway people who support Trump to rethink their choice before they actually cast their ballots. What could also be happening — anyone ruling this out hasn't been in the market research trenches, as yours truly has — is that some respondents might ask if they can change their previously expressed presidential preference for Trump, or that the survey taker may even ask such respondents if they wish to change their presidential preference.
Finally, there are many polls which don't reveal the detailed makeup of those polled, and they make reverse engineering the results to figure that out all but impossible. In these cases, deliberate oversampling of key groups without weighting to fit a representative demographic mix skews the results, and will go undetected.
Naturally, none of what's in this damning e-mail and its attached detailed instructions is news at the Associated Press or the New York Times. The only attention it's getting from establishment is from a few outlets like The Atlantic which claim that there's nothing to see here. Oh yes, there is — and plenty of it.
Um, nope, Tom, there really is nothing to see here. The Washington Post's Philip Bump explains:
First of all, [Democratic consultant Tom] Matzzie [who wrote the stolen WikiLeaks email in question] doesn't appear to be talking about public polling — nor does it make sense that he would be, since public polls from media outlets are developed by pollsters who work for or with those outlets. Matzzie's talking about polling that's done by campaigns and political action committees to inform media buys. In other words, before campaigns spend $200,000 on a flight of TV spots, they'll poll on the messages in those ads and figure out what to say to whom and then target that ad to those people as best they can.
The problem is that it can be hard to find enough people to get robust enough sample sizes to offer the necessary information. Normal polling in a state will usually have no problem getting enough white people in the mix to evaluate where they stand, but you may need to specifically target more black or Hispanic voters to get a statistically relevant sample size.
[...]
They recommend an oversample from Native Americans and Democrat-leaning independents and moderate Republican women. Those are all groups that are fairly small parts of the electorate, so to get statistically accurate data, you'd need to make sure you include more of those voters in your poll sample. This increases the cost of the polling substantially, but if you're spending hundreds of thousands on TV ads, it's worth spending an extra $20,000 up front to make sure that you're targeting the ads right.
So why do pollsters include more Democrats in their samples than Republicans? Well, because there is a secret national conspiracy in which there actually are more Democrats than Republicans. Gallup tracks party identification over time; in its most recent summary, 32 percent of Americans identify as Democrats to 27 percent who identify as Republicans. (Analysis from Pew Research has it at 30 percent to 24 percent.) The vagaries of polling and identifying poll respondents mean that there can be some fluctuations in the gap between the parties, but overall a national poll would be expected to include more Democrats than Republicans. And note that this is party identity, not party registration.
In short, then: This is an eight-year-old email talking about a common polling technique for ensuring accuracy among demographic subgroups from a guy who was not working for or representative of a media outlet.
It is not, in other words, an explanation of why Trump is losing.
So, the reason nobody else is reporting about this email is because it's a nothingburger -- except in the eyes of folks like Blumer and Fox News who are desperate to read into it things that simply aren't there.
And just as Brent Bozell and the MRC will never apologize for pushing the false donation story -- Bozell ludicrously called it "bribery" -- Blumer is highly unlikely to correct the record.
NEW ARTICLE: The Debate Double Standard at the MRC, Part 2 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center did the same thing it did during the primaries, attacking debate moderators for not being sufficiently right-wing-friendly -- except for Chris Wallace of conservative-friendly Fox News. Read more >>
Brent Bozell's post-election rant was his usual anti-media bashing:
The Media Research Center was in full schadenfreude mode, detailing critical media reaction from others to Donald Trump's win. "Meltdown" was a prettyheavily used word.
As we've 
We've 
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro complains in a Nov. 3 
When Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell 
The Media Research Center loved the big story Fox News dropped on Nov. 2. As the MRC's Kyle Drennen 
Curtis Houck thought he had the goods on CNN in an Oct. 31 
The Media Research Center used to hate FBI director James Comey in the wake of his decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her emails:
For some reason, the Media Resarch Center's Tim Graham loves to 
Remember when the Media Research Center thought that media coverage wasn't negative enough? 
It seems the Media Research Center's Clinton Equivocation to deflect Donald Trump's sleazy behavior has sprouted a corollary: the Gore Equivocation. Again, it's in service of Trump.
The story of a political donation to the wife of an FBI agent who, months later, headed the FBI's Hillary Clinton email investigation isn't the only 
