Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center -- and in particular its "news" division, CNSNews.com -- gives Bill Donohue of the right-wing Catholic League a free pass to rant, rave and lie. Read more >>
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Favorite (Dishonest) Catholic
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center -- and in particular its "news" division, CNSNews.com -- gives Bill Donohue of the right-wing Catholic League a free pass to rant, rave and lie. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:43 PM EST
WND Finds Another Irrelvant Movie Image To Mock Transgenders
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily loves to dishonestly reduce the issue of transgender rights iin schools to boys showering with girls, and then illustrating it with insulting and irrelevant images, i.e., the shower scene from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Well, WND's anti-LGBT bias as struck again and it upped the insulting-image factor. A Feb. 17 WND article by Bob Unruh began by claiming in highly biased language that "An LGBT activist group claims that when Congress adopted Title IX in 1972, banning sex discrimination in schools, lawmakers had in mind that boys who believe they are girls should be allowed to use girls restrooms and showers." The article is illustrated with an image of ... the shower scene from "Psycho": This is not the kind of thing that inspires confidence in the credibility of a "news" organization begging readers to rescue it from financial oblivion.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:59 AM EST
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
CNS Managing Editor Falsely Calls Trump Dossier 'Fake' And 'False'
Topic: CNSNews.com WorldNetDaily isn't the only ConWeb outlet reporting false information on the Christopher Steele dossier on Donald Trump. In one of his rewritten Judical Watch press releases on Feb. 6, CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman wrote:
Like WND, Chapman offered no evidence to back up his claim that the Steele dossier is "false" or "fake." (We'll concede "salacious.") Nor does Chapman quote anyone at Judicial Watch making such a claim. Contrary to Chapman's false assertion, several parts of the Steele dossier have, in fact, been verified. Even the Republican House Intelligence Committee memo concedes that the dossier is at least "minially corroborated." Nevertheless, Chapman asserted in a Feb. 14 article -- again, another Judicial Watch stenography effort -- that the dossier is "fabricated." He once again failed to offer any evidence of fabrication. Still, he asserted that "The document has zero credibility and even then-FBI Driector James Comey testified before the Senate in 2017 that the dossier was 'salacious and unverified.'" In fact, Comey stated only that portions of the dossier were "salacious and unverified," not the entire dossier. He did not state that any of it was false or had "zero credibility." Indeed, between this and his bogus story about Melania Trump ordering that the White House be exorcised before she moved in, the person with zero credibility here is Chapman.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:52 PM EST
WND Whitewashes Right-Wing Militia Extremism of Oath Keepers
Topic: WorldNetDaily An anonymously written Feb. 26 WorldNetDaily article states:
Wait, what? Oath Keepers is "an organization of former police officers, first responders and veterans"? Not that we recall. And not that the Southern Poverty Law Center recalls either:
WND has previously whitewashed the Oath Keepers as "a group of veterans who provide security at pro-Trump rallies."
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:44 AM EST
Updated: Tuesday, March 6, 2018 7:19 PM EST
MRC's Latest Fox News-Shaped Blind Spot
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center spent a lot of time complaining that media outlets were surprised that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un's sister, who represented the country at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, wasn't an ogre or a terrible person. Nicholas Fondacaro, for instance, whined that "Despite the fact her job entailed censorship and glorifying public executions, numerous outlets had touted her for 'stealing the show,' winning 'diplomatic gold,' being the 'Ivanka Trump of North Korea,' and hyping the extremely creepy North Korean cheerleading group." But there was one media outlet curiously missing from the MRC's scorn, and we're pretty sure you can figure out what it is. A Feb. 9 video on the Fox News website carried the headline "Kim Jong Un's sister steals show at Olympic ceremony." Repoter Greg Palkot stated: "Stealing the show today, the sister of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. She was interacting and very friendly whith South Korean president Moon, especially with a unified Korean team." But that segment never got singled out by the MRC. In the midst of a Twitter argument with the MRC's Fondacaro and Fox News media reporter Brian Flood, CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy pointed out that both Fox and the MRC omitted the Fox segments fawning over Kim's sister from its attacks on similar coverage elsewhere. In a poor attempt at deflection, Fondacaro wouldn't talk about why the MRC tave Fox News a pass, instead huffing that Darcy was "trying to make it about Fox News," then huffed further, "Quit trying to change the subject." Darcy helpfully added: "I don’t think the MRC is allowed to criticize fox!" True dat. The MRC's Fox News-shaped blind spot just keeps getting bigger.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:25 AM EST
Monday, March 5, 2018
Russia Has Another Comrade at WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily Over the past few years, WorldNetDaily has gotten unusually cozy with Russia and Vladimir Putin. The motherland gained another comrade in Hanne Herland, whose Feb. 22 WND column praises how Christian Russia has become:
Herland doesn't mention that Putin considers the Russian Orthodox Church to be an unofficial arm of the government and part of his propaganda machine -- a merging of church and state not permitted in the U.S. As a result, there is no real religious freedom in Putin's Russia. Merely protesting the construction of a Russian Orthodox church can get you arrested. In addition, the church is virulently anti-gay and helped to relax laws against domestic violence. That's not a brand of Christianity Herland ought to feel comfortable defending -- especially if it comes from a country that is trying to meddle in U.S. politics.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:54 PM EST
CNS Censors HUD Secretary's Prolifigate Spending Habits
Topic: CNSNews.com Editor in chief Terry Jeffrey is CNSNews.com's go-to guy on federal spending, particularly of the wasteful variety. A couple weeks ago, for instance, Jeffrey penned an entire article about how "The federal government is funding a clown school located in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco-based congressional district that has classes and workshops on 'Precision Idiocy' and how to act like a 'Buffoon,'" as well as another article about food stamp fraud. But one of CNS' favorite conservatives, Ben Carson -- CNS llikes it when Carson denigrates the transgender community or invokes God as a Republican supporter -- has been accused of wasteful spending of his own as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Reports have surfaced that Carson attempted to spend $31,000 on a dining set for his office suite, while another HUD oficial reportedly said that "$5,000 will not even buy a decent chair." A HUD employee who complained about the expenses was reportedly demoted and reassigned to a new job. That's the kind of wasteful spending that should be up Jeffrey's alley. But neither he nor anyone else at CNS has reported a word about this to their readers. Funny how Jeffrey's only interested in wasteful spending when it involves people or causes he doesn't like. But that's a pattern for the obsequiously pro-Trump CNS under Jeffrey; as we've already documented, CNS was days behind the rest of the media in reporting on HHS Secretary Tom Price's extravagent spending on private charter flights, waiting until literally an hour before he resigned over it to do its very first article.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:33 PM EST
WND (And Chuck Norris) Still Won't Correct That False 'Scripted Question' Story
Topic: WorldNetDaily The Media Research Center isn't the only ConWeb outlet to hide the truth about a story tied to the Florida school shooting from its readers. An Anonymously written Feb. 22 WND article recounted how "A teen survivor of the tragic Parkland, Florida, school shooting claims he turned down an invitation to participate in a CNN town hall Wednesday evening because the network gave him a list of 'scripted questions' to ask." WND did note CNN's denial of Haab's claim, then added that "It wouldn’t be the first time CNN has been accused of featuring political plants at its town hall forums." The next day, WND got a comment from Chuck Norris, of all people, about Haab's story:
WND also stuck a reference to it into another Feb. 23 article, which noted that Haab "claims CNN wanted to censor his views at a town hall." Just one problem: Haab's story isn't true. As we documented when the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro peddled the story, CNN has since released the full email exchange between it and Haab's family, and it revealed that the emails released by Haab's family to the media were altered to make it look like CNN look bad. Haab's father has now conceded that he altered the CNN emails. But like Fondacaro, WND has refused to report that CNN has been vindicated, apparently out of hatred of CNN. Shouldn't a business that purports to be a "real news" operation, as WND's Joseph Farah claims it is, want to do something about the fact that the story it published three articles about has been discredited? That's not helping to change WND's well-earned reputation for publishing fake news. Likewise, we could also find no evidence that Norris has retreacted his defense of Haab now that his story has been discredited. C'mon, Chuck, what's the holdup?
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:36 AM EST
Sunday, March 4, 2018
CNS Article on Hope Hicks Resignation Reads Like A WH Press Release
Topic: CNSNews.com The White House doesn't appear to have written a full press release about the departure of Hope Hicks as the Trump White House' communications director. But if it had, it would read a lot like Melanie Arter's Feb. 28 CNSNews.com article about it. Arter's article is chock-full of press release-eseand nothing but congratulatory statements:
As a longtime Trump stenographer, Arter fails to mention the actual events that may have precipitated Hick's resignation, regardless of the cheery fluff being peddled. As an actual news outlet reported, Hicks' resignation comes a day after she testified before the House Intelligence Committee and admitted that she sometimes tells "white lies" as part of her job. Hicks was also involved in another very recent high-profile controversy. She is the (apparently now ex-) girlfriend of White House staffer Rob Porter, who was forced to resign after his history of spousal abuse was made public. And as a different actual news outlet reported, Hicks may have helped draft a White House statement defending Porter before the scandal fully expoded. Arter is such a dutiful stenographer for the White House press office anyway, she might as well be on Trump's payroll.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:37 PM EST
WND's Farah Pushes Zombie Lies to Attack Obama's Foreign Policy
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily's recent near-death experience didn't keep editor Joseph Farah from rehashing old, discredited anti-Obama conspiracy theories. In a Feb. 22 column ranting about President Obama's purported "political crimes," Farah cited -- with an assist from the right-wing American Spectator -- what he claimed were "six instances of Obama interfering in the national politics of other countries." At least two of them are bogus non-scandals WND has tried to puff up over the years. Farah wrote, "He did it in Israel in an attempt to deny Benjamin Netanyahu the prime minister position." That's a reference to State Department money going to a group in Israel for a completely unrelated project, though that infrastructure was later used in a campaign against Netanyahu in 2015 Israeli elections. As we pointed out the last time WND try to portray this as a scandal, a Senate subcommittee found that the grup fully complied with the terms of the original grant, no grant money was used in the election, and the State Department placed no limitations on the post-grant use of those resources. Farah also wrote, "He did it in Kenya as a U.S. senator who went to the aid of one of his corrupt relatives, Raila Odinga." (The Specator article actually cited WND's Jerome Corsi as evidence of this.) This is one of WND's zombie lies, as we've also pointed out; Obama remained neutral in Kenyan politics and did not support Odinga during his 2006 trip to Kenya, and though Odinga attended some of Obama's events while Obama was in Kenya and clearly wanted to associate himself with Obama, there's no evidence that Obama "openly supported" Odinga. Farah wasn't done, of course; he also write that Obama "did it famously in Egypt by supporting a Muslim Brotherhood fanatic to replace a pro-American, pro-West president, Hosni Mubarak." That's not true either; Obama supported a democratic political process post-Mubarak in which the Egyptian people elected Muslim Brotherhood-linked Mohammed Morsi, not any specific candidate in that election. Also, Farah ignores the fact that however "pro-American" Mubarak may have been, he was also a dictator who repressed critics of his regime (and for whom WND served as a willing mouthpiece). Farah additionally claimed that Obama "did it in Honduras by standing by a corrupt leftist, like himself, a close friend of Hugo Chavez, as he tried to dismantle the country’s constitution." This is a reference to Manuel Zelaya, the Honduran military leader who was overthrown in a coup in 2009. Again, as in Egypt, Obama was expressing support for a democratic process in Honduras and against a military overthrow. And Farah is wrong here too: it turns out that Obama administration officials helped to keep Zelaya from returning to office after the coup and also helped the overthrowing junta in consolidating its power. Of course, Farah has never cared that much about facts when they conflict with his right-wing political agenda. But he doesn't seem to realize this lack of credibility is one big reason why he has been spending the past few months begging for money to keep WND alilve.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:44 PM EST
Saturday, March 3, 2018
What LGBT Stuff Is The MRC Freaking Out About Now?
Topic: Media Research Center How has the Media Research Center been hating on the LGBT community lately? Let's review! Gabriel Hays had a freakout over a Coca-Cola commercial during the Super Bowl that was just a little too acknowledging of people he despises for his personal and political comfort:
Kyle Drennen followed up the MRC's attacks on gay Olympic skater with a swipe at gay Olympic skiier Gus Kenworthy for criticizing Vice President Mike Pence's anti-gay history, grumbling that "The media have been eager to find any way to politicize the Olympic games." Hays returned to ramp up the sneering anti-gay sarcasm over the idea of boys wearing makeup:
Tim Graham complained that "On Wednesday, NPR's Fresh Air devoted more than 36 minutes to promoting transgender Democratic activist Sarah McBride and her new book Tomorrow Will Be Different[foreword by Joe Biden, cover blurbs by Sen. Kamala Harris and Cecile Richards]. She spoke at the 2016 Democrat [sic] convention," going on to huff that "transgender activism has never been more extreme and aggressive."
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:45 AM EST
WND Repeatedly -- And Falsely -- Calls Trump Dossier 'Discredited'
Topic: WorldNetDaily A Feb. 22 WorldNetDaily article by Art Moore carries the headline "Report: Mueller still relying on discredited 'dossier.'" Moore goes on to write that "Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton asserted the revelations about the discredited dossier’s centrality in obtaining the surveillance warrant means the entire Mueller investigation is unjustified." But Moore offered no evidence that the dossier has been "discredited"l all he did was link back to a Feb. 2 article he wrote in which he repeatedly called the dossier "discredited" -- also without supporting evidence. The Steele dossier is far from "discredited"; in fact, several parts of it have, in fact, been verified. Even the Republican House Intelligence Committee memo concedes that the dossier is at least "minially corroborated." Still, WND has insisted on falsely describing the dossier as "discredited." It's been doing so as early as June 2017, when then-reporter Garth Kant claimed the dossier was "full of sensational but widely discredited allegations." The only evidence Kant supplied beyond unverified denials from the people involved was a claim that "The charge that Trump attorney Michael Cohen met in August in Prague with Russian agents to cover up payments to Russian hackers was disproved when he produced his passport and travel documents." But as Newsweek pointed out, that doesn't prove he never met with Russian agents, just that he didn't meet with them in Prague (if he did indeed meet with them). And Politico notes that Cohen traveled to Italy during hte time in question, and he would not need a passport to travel from Italy to the Czech Republic and then return to Italy. WND's false attacks on the veracity of the dossier continued:
Much of this promotion of a right-wing political agenda over facts occurred as WND was fighting for its life, a situation driven in part by its love of conspiracy theories and fake news. Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it true, after all. You'd think WND would've figured that out by now.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:15 AM EST
Friday, March 2, 2018
Fake News: CNS Pushes Bogus Story About Melania Trump Having White House Exorcised
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman knows a story that's too good to spend much time fact-checking when he sees one -- especially when it fits his preconceived right-wing political and religious notions -- so he wrote a Feb. 8 blog post that began this way:
Chapman decided that Begley's reference to the purported "Haitian witch-doctor influence" on Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton’s lives" and that "They spent their honeymoon with a witch doctor" need a little fact-checking. Just a little, though, enough for Chapman to decide the story was plausible enough:
Chapman wrote that "CNSNews.com contacted Pastor Paul Begley and asked for more information about the spiritual cleansing. Begley said his source for the story was close to 'those working in the White House' and requested that he (or she) not be named." Despite lacking any sort of actual proof that any of this ever happened, Chapman went on to justify it anyway:
What Chapman never bothered to do, however, is contact the first lady's office. A few days later, the Associated Press reported that "A spokeswoman for the first lady says multiple reports that Melania Trump had a ceremony to rid the White House of demons before moving in is false. Stephanie Grisham said the reports that were shared widely on social media are 'not true in any way.'" But in the few weeks that have passed since that story first appeared, Chapman has never corrected it or written a follow-up noting the White House's denial. (Begley, for hispart, still insists the story is true.) As Right Wing Watch details, Begley's story fits the right-wing narrative -- pushed by Chapman and CNS -- that Trump is a deeply religious man despite having spent much of his life never expressing any evidence of such, and it has become the funhouse-mirror reflection of how right-wingers treated President Obama:
Indeed, at the end of his blog post, Chapman stated that "In his many prayer meetings, President Trump reportedly has welcomed evangelical Protestants, Catholics and Jews." Chapman clearly isn't about to let the facts get in the way of his narrative. That's pretty disturbing for a man who is the managing editor of what purports to be a "news" operation.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:58 PM EST
Farah Says WND Is Saved, Going Back to Nonprofit Roots
Topic: WorldNetDaily Well, WorldNetDaily's not-terribly-transparent fundraising campaign to avert death has apparently succeeded. Editor Joseph Farah's March 1 letter declared that WND met its $200,000 goal by that day's deadline, adding, "You have provided the cushion we needed to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps so we could fight another day." Farah also shared "some exciting plans for the future – even if I can’t provide the details today":
Going nonprofit will bring WND back to its roots; it was founded as a division of the Farah-founded nonprofit Western Journalism Center before being spun off a couple years later as a for-profit operation. The WJC, by the way, still exists, run by Floyd Brown and presenting itself as a training center and laughably insisting that its goal is to "nurture, develop and deploy top notch classically educated journalists of integrity who will report the news in an unbiased fashion," despite being staffed with right-wing operatives like, uh, Joseph Farah. We don't know if WJC is the nonprofit WND is working with, or even if WJC under Brown still has the nonprofit status it had under Farah. But this is likely the type of nonprofit WND is trying to hide behind. As far as the "a new revenue stream that is very exciting" goes, well, who knows? An organization that is partly nonprofit and partly for-profit is tricky to manage, since a nonprofit is not allowed to be as explicitly political as WND has been over the years. More details are needed on that. And, once again, Farah has refused to address the problematic content that helped bring WND to this state. Further, if WND is going to become part of a nonprofit, is Farah really the best person to continue running it, given that it was under his watch that WND was mismanaged to its apparent loss of independence? He can't blame everything on Google and Facebook, after all (not that he isn't trying to do exactly that). So WND will live another day. But if it continues as it was content-wise, Farah will not have learned the lesson of how he got to this point -- and will be dooming WND to yet another "existential threat" down the road.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:24 AM EST
Thursday, March 1, 2018
MRC Won't Tell Its Readers CNN Is Vindicated In 'Scripting' Allegation
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center hated Hillary Clinton so much -- and loves Fox News to the same extent -- that it never told its readers that Fox News retracted its story that Clinton's indictment was imminent, a story the MRC heavily promoted until said retraction. It appears that the MRC is going to censor news of another retracted claim, again apparently out of spite toward its target. Last week, the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro latched onto a claim by Florida school shooting survivor Colton Haab that CNN to him to ask a question it scripted in order to take part in the channel's forum on guns. When CNN swiftly denied it, Fondacaro attacked CNN anew (in a separate post to which his original post was never linked), basically saying, "Hey, it could've happened! And CNN sucks no matter what!" Meanwhile, CNN released the emails it and the Haab family exchanged before the forum, which showed that the Haab family released an edited version of one email to falsely support the "scripted" narrative; in reality, CNN wanted Colton to ask a question that he himself had proposed. And even Fondacaro's fellow conservatives were buying into the anti-CNN narrative; commentator Erick Erickson argued that Haab misunderstood what CNN wanted for its forum. A couple days later, the final vindication for CNN arrived: Haab's father admitted that he altered the CNN emails he released. Fox News commentators Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, who like Fondacaro promoted the bogus story, have corrected the record. Fondacaro has not. Even though he has had two days to do so -- and to tell his readers that the story he promoted has proven to be false -- Fondacaro has said nothing. He has found the time to whine about Dick's Sporting Goods ceasing the sale of AR-15 rifles at its stores and to freak out about President Trump wanting to take guns from certain people without due process ... but not to correct the record. Nobody else at the MRC has corrected the record either. We know the MRC is heavily invested in its institutional hatred of CNN for not parroting the pro-Trump agenda found at, say, the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com. But is hate more important to the MRC than the truth? Apparently so.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:34 PM EST
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