MRC Reacts To Kavanaugh Accuser By ... Smearing Anita Hill (Again) Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been in full spin mode defending Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and attempting to discredit allegations by a woman who said he had sexually assaulted her during a party during high school. One of the ways it's doing so is going back to an old trope: attacking Anita Hill, who had made accusations of sexual harassment against another conservative Supreme court nominee, Clarence Thomas.
The MRC has been bashingHill for more than a quarter-century, and the Kavanaugh story is giving it yet another excuse to do so. The MRC's Tim Graham and Brent Bozell rant in their Sept. 21 column:
Anita Hill, perennially painted as the "Rosa Parks of sexual harassment" by the national press, is back on the scene as the media push the unproven teenage-groping accusations against Brett Kavanaugh. The New York Times asked her to write an op-ed on how we can get these next Kavanaugh hearings "right." The Boston Globe put Hill on the front page, lecturing about a better protocol in Congress for sexual harassment claims.
Asking Anita Hill how to get a fairer congressional hearing is like asking Janet Cooke how to get better newspaper reporting. If you're too young for the analogy, Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize for selling a fraudulent story in The Washington Post in 1980 about Jimmy, an imaginary 8-year-old heroin addict who "lives for a fix."
On ABC, George Stephanopoulos sympathetically asked if the prospect of hearings for Kavanaugh's accuser Christine Blasey Ford was meant as an intimidation tactic. Yes, that's right — the same Stephanopoulos responsible for running "bimbos" into the political ditch for Bill Clinton.
Donald Trump could tweet it: Anita Hill's 1991 accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas were "fake news." The American people sided with Thomas. Even The Washington Post editorial board sided with Thomas. Her stories were never proven. But to this day, the media treat her as if her accusations were precious jewels of truth.
Even after her million-dollar book deal — after she pledged she would not cash in on her story — she is still portrayed as the victim, not the victimizer.
Graham and Bozell provide no evidence that Hill willfully lied about anything a la Janet Cooke. Yet they continued to rant about Hill's "feminist fictions" and that "the accusers of Thomas and Kavanaugh have been 'weaponized' by liberals to spread lies about offenses that never happened."
Meanwhile, over at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, Susan Jones penned a Sept. 19 piece attacking Hill and drawing parallels to Kavanaugh's accuser:
Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford -- the only two women to bring sexual accusations against nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court -- have certain memory lapses in common. And for what it's worth, they both hold degrees in psychology.
Christine Blasey Ford has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually attacking her in a bedroom at a party some 36 years ago, when both were in high school.
Yet Ford told the Washington Post she doesn't remember how the gathering came together; at whose home the party took place or exactly when it happened; how she got there; or how she got home after she fled from the house.
[...]
Questioned about that one-on-one dinner with her alleged tormenter, Hill could not remember the restaurant where the dinner took place; what type of food was served at the restaurant; whether she had a drink; or how either one of them got home.
"I took the subway home, if I recall correctly," Hill said in response to a question. "As I am recalling -- I'm not sure how I got home."
Even though Jones purports to be a objective reporter, she was seething with right-wing bias as she concluded:
Meanwhile, liberal media outlets are full of the "lose-lose" scenario for committee Republicans -- all white men -- faced with an alleged sexual assault victim in the "#MeToo" era, just weeks before the midterm election. And Judge Kavanaugh, even if he is confirmed, will have an asterisk attached to his good name, just as Clarence Thomas has, in what could be nothing more than a replay of an old, dirty trick.
Like her MRC bosses, Jones provided no evidence that Hill or Kavanaugh's accuser have lied.
UPDATE: Curtis Houck chimed in as well, responding to a cmmentator's claim that women who accuse powerful men of sexual harassment "don't benefit from this. Their lives are ruined. They are threatened. They are chased out of their homes" by retorting: He must have neglected to mention Anita Hill receiving a million dollar book deal, a job at Brandeis, commencement addresses, and celebrity status in liberal political circles." As with every other MRC employee who made the claim, Houck offers no evidence to back up his claim that Hill made her accusations against Thomas specifically to get a teaching gig and a book deal.
MRC Was Much Harder On CBS Chief's Sexual Harassment Than Fox News Chief's Topic: Media Research Center
How did the Media Research Center cover the sexual harassment allegations that ultimately forced Les Moonves from his position CEO of CBS? In short, with glee:
Kyle Drennen claimed the network was in "damage control" and asserted that one reporter "tout[ed] the company line that the accusations may just be a case of 'corporate hardball' as CBS fights off an attempt to re-merge with its former parent company Viacom."
Scott Whitlock sneered that CBS host John Dickerson showed "no self awareness as to the people he’s worked with" when he talked about how "one test of a person’s character is if they do the right thing when they don't think anybody is looking," claiming that "The network that, for years, employed alleged sexual harassers Charlie Rose and CEO Les Moonves decided to lecture Americans."
Whitlock cheered that "CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King on Tuesday launched a preemptive strike against her own network. She attacked top officials for not showing transparency in an investigation of ex-CEO Les Moonves, a man now accused of sexual harassment and assault.
When CBS "60 Minutes" exective producer Jeff Fager was ousted amid similar allegations though, apparently, ultimately because of a not-so-veiled threat he made to a CBS correspondent covering the allegations, Nicholas Fondacaro praised how the correspondent did "her due diligence as a journalist" and how "CBS Evening Newsanchor Jeff Glor delivered a heartfelt message to his colleague" after reporting the story on his show.
Tim Graham and Brent Bozell wrote a column bashing Moonves as a "shameless hypocrite, claiming that "Moonves seems similar to Bill Clinton, who struck women as very warm and charming... until he made unwanted advances – to say the least! – and wasn’t getting what he wanted." They went on to grumble: "Over the years, CBS has championed a commitment to expose sexual harassment, even as inside its studios, it was doing the opposite. They wanted to punish Republicans from Donald Trump to Clarence Thomas, whether the accusations were true or not. All along their executives were harassing and assaulting dozens of staff. This wasn’t a casting couch. It was an entire living-room set."
Let's recall how Bozell, Graham and the rest of the MRC provided a much different tone of coverage regarding allegations of sexual harassment against the head of its favorite news channel, Roger Ailes, its top anchor, Bill O'Reilly, and other Fox News hosts and executives, shall we?
Graham made light of the accusations against Ailes by quipping that "If these claims of sexual harassment are true, Ailes seems more like Bob Packwood than J. Edgar Hoover."
One NewsBusters blogger insisted that Ailes shouldn't be blamed for the pervasive culture of sexual harassment at Fox News, and another claimed it was "liberal bias" for anyone to even discuss Ailes' sexual harassment issues.
Whwen Ailes died a year after his sexual harassment was exposed, Bozell gushed that "The good Roger did for America is immeasurable" while completely ignoring the harassment claims. Meanwhile, his MRC attacked every media outlet who referenced thte sexual harassment while reporting on Ailes' death.
Graham and Bozell issued a perfunctory denunciation of O'Reilly ("If all the charges of sexual harassment are true, his case is indefensible"), then spent the rest of their column attacking O'Reilly's critics as guilty of "rank hypocrisy," dismissing the allegations as old news and portraying O'Reilly as the victim of a hypocritical "liberal media."
The MRC touted O'Reilly's appearance on NBC in which he denied any harassment without offering any evidence to back him up and insisted he was the victim of a "hit job, a political and financial hit job."
Bozell touted in an intervew how Fox News viewers would ignore the accusations and that “They’re not going to stop watching Hannity because of Roger Ailes. ... I don’t think they connect the two of them at all.”
Graham attacked one of Ailes' accusers, Gretchen Carlson, suggesting she made the accusations only to get a big out-of-court settlement and to promote her book. Graham also insisted that ex-Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was making too much money in her new gig at NBC to complain about harassment from her former employer.
Given their double standard-laden record, perhaps Bozell, Graham and the rest of the MRC should refrain from acting so high and mighty the next time an employee of a channel they loathe faces sexual harassment charges.
MRC's Yoder Again Repeats The 'Fungible' Lie About Federal Funding to Planned Parenthood Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Katie Yoder is a repeatoffender in spreading the never-proven myth that federal funding to Planned Parenthood is "fungible" and, thus, somehow pays for abortion in violation of federal law. Yoder does it again in a Sept. 13 post attacking new Planned Parenthood leader Lena Wen:
Wen again insisted Planned Parenthood was right: “There are no federal taxpayer dollars that go towards abortions.”
That’s incorrect. The Hyde Amendment, a legislative provision approved annually by Congress, bars federal funding (aka taxpayer funding) for abortion, but not in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Wen also refused to address the argument that that money is fungible, or that Planned Parenthood could offset costs with public funds to free up other resources for abortion. Another point highlighted by pro-life groups.
But once again, Yoder never proves that it's "incorrect" to claim that federal funding to Planned Parenthood is "fungible." On the words "money is fungible," Yoder simply links to an old post of hers making the stupid and irrelavant analogy in which we are told to "imagine giving your teen $20 to use specifically for gas. Although he can’t buy beer with that $20, he can now use his own $20 to purchase alcohol since the gas was covered by you." As we pointed out at the time, that's not how federal funding works, and the teen can't legally buy alcohol.
For the rest, Yoder uses weasel words like "could offset costs" and "highlighted by pro-life groups" -- there are no definitive statements of fact.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC's War on Journalists, Part 2: Jim Acosta Topic: Media Research Center
Endless insults and cheering on hecklers at Trump rallies: That's how the Media Research Center conducts "media research" on CNN's White House correspondent. Read more >>
The MRC's Thomas the Tank Engine Freakout Topic: Media Research Center
A beloved children's TV show decided it wanted to expand its audience, and the Media Research Center was not having it. From a Sept. 5 post by Melissa Mullins, who argued that "whining SJW’s" somehow bullied the franchise into it:
The beloved British children’s television show Thomas The Tank Engine has jumped on the PC culture bandwagon by incorporating more gender-balanced characters with a multi-cultural flavor.
After being accused by whining SJW’s of sexism, classism and racism for years, the show is hoping a “major strategic brand refresh” with the addition of three new female characters as well as the introduction of 14 new friends from countries such as Brazil, China, India and Mexico. They hope this will help give the show a more updated and “inclusive” look and feel.
[...]
But remember, you can’t please everyone. Some are worried of the cultural stereotyping the show portrays, such as a “feisty, strong and agile” train from Brazil named Raul, or a “proud” Mexican train named Carlos who always smiles and sports bushy eyebrows that seem inspired by Frida Kahlo.
Others take a more traditional stance on the revamped show, arguing its original identity will be lost; say goodbye to the sleepy and scenic town of Sodor and the much loved Thomas music tune, and say hello to a more “energized” theme song, international travel and trains of various cultural backgrounds.
[...]
Actually, if you put all that aside and look a little further, you will find that toy manufacturer Mattel is behind the big brand refresh. The toy giant purchased the Thomas & Friends production company in 2012 and already brings in over $500 million in revenue per year, the most of any toy range, but they want to expand their Thomas empire and make it more appealing to the rest of the world. Not that the current success of the show or sales are worth any measure of success (note sarcasm), making it seem the brand refresh is more about the bottom line than inclusivity and equality.
As much of a freakout as this is, it comes off as relatively reasonable compared with the take offered by Dana Loesch of the National Rifle Association's news division, who for some reason felt the need to superimpose Ku Klux Klan hoods on the engines to protest the idea of the franchise trying to appeal to more people.
MRC's Maxson Doesn't Know What A Buyout Means Topic: Media Research Center
As part of his ESPN derangement, mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson has long despised ESPN commentator Jemele Hill for tweeting that President Trump is a "white supremacist." For example, Maxson raged when Hill received an award from a group of black journalists that she didn't deserve it after a year of "failure, suspension and demotion."
So when Hill announced she was leaving ESPN, Maxson couldn't be happier. Maxson raranted in an Aug. 27 MRC post that Hill is a "bombastic race-baiter" who "talked, tweeted and finally bought her way out of ESPN."
"Bought her way out of ESPN"? Actually, according to the Sports Illustrated article (Maxson falsely states it's from the Sporting News, making this the second error in his/her piece) from which Maxson quotes, Hill's departure from ESPN "includes a buyout" of her contract. Typically, that means ESPN paid Hill an agreed-upon amount to be released from her contract -- not that, as Maxson appears to assume, Hill paid ESPN for the contract release. Indeed, ESPN reportedly paid Hill $6 million.
Maxson is not the sharpest knife in the MRC drawer. Last year, he/she tried to insult Caitlyn Jenner but couldn't figure out what "nee" means.
The MRC Loved McCain, Except When He Got in Its Way -- And Doesn't Particularly Love Him Now That He's Dead Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was never going to miss John McCain upon his death. It has long despised McCain for being a frequent guest on Sunday morning news shows; for instance, Tim Graham ranted in 2013 about how those shows consider him a "dream guest" because he's a "squishy" Republican and has "done 60 Sunday shows just since 2010." Jeffrey Lord similarly huffed that "McCain has every reason to prefer the mainstream media to conservative media precisely because conservative media is more than willing and capable of holding him -- and other Republican ObamaCare supporters -- to task for their bold and deliberate hypocrisy."
The MRC particularly hated him for his decisive vote last year to stop a Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, and even having an incurable brain tumor didn't stop the hate. As one MRC writer put it (in boldface, no less), "Having an illness, no matter how serious, precludes neither the President nor the public from judging Senator McCain’s political acumen on its merits."
It clearly grated on the collective nerves of the MRC that McCain was lionized upon his death. But it had to publish something about it, so it focused on reliving the one time it consistently defended him: the 2008 presidential election, when it's contractually obligated to defend the Republican candidate no matter what -- and then only to defend the honor of McCain's vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.
Curtis Houck complained that Vox tweeted that "[y]ou can draw a straight line from John McCain to Donald Trump — through Sarah Palin" and freaked out over Vox misattributing Palin's hockey-mom joke to the wrong speech, then cheered how Vox was "ripped on Twitter" over the claims (meanwhile, the MRC's falsehood that Time Warner Cable was still a part of Time Warner at the time of its merger deal with AT&T remains live and uncorrected, and the MRC still hasn't told us which editors allowed the white nationalist hyperlinks in Tom Blumer's NewsBusters posts to stand).
Kyle Drennen huffed that "Amid glowing tributes to the life and career of Arizona Senator John McCain on Monday, MSNBC took time to use the Republican lawmaker’s passing to trash his 2008 vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin, labeling McCain’s selection of the then-Alaska governor as his 'biggest political mistake.'" Brad Wilmouth similarly whined that "several personalities on both CNN and MSNBC have lamented his selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee in 2008 as a 'mistake'."
You know who else that picking Palin was a mistake? John McCain. Drennen didn't mention that; Wilmouth did note it, though it didn't keep him from insisting on framing his piece as blaming folks on TV for calling it a mistake.
Scott Whitlock rehashed negative 2008 coverage of McCain's campaign as a counter to positive coverage of him after his death, claiming that "journalists weren’t so fond of McCain when he dared to stand in the way of Barack Obama." But can't both be true, that McCain was ultimately a decent person and that he ran a terrible campaign in 2008?
The MRC also worked Trump into it. Tim Graham complained that "Time.com published a glowing eulogy video of McCain above a typical expression of disgust at President Trump's failure to behave like a traditional politician and say glowing things about someone you didn't like one bit (and who banned the president from his funeral)." Houck, meanwhile, whined about CNN's alleged "obsession with tying McCain tributes to President Donald Trump, the latter’s attacks on the former, and how McCain was the anti-Trump."
The MRC's Geoffrey Dickens also wrote an unironic piece titled "Media Loved McCain EXCEPT When He Got in Their Way." He failed to point out that this more accurately describes his employer.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:18 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, September 12, 2018 3:21 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC's War on Journalists, Part 1: Katy Tur Topic: Media Research Center
After priming President Trump's attacks on her, the Media Research Center seems to think that the NBC correspondent deserves to fear for her safety for failing to be a Trump sycophant. Read more >>
MRC Selectively Decides When Context Matters Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth went off on people in the media he said were "smearing Fox News host Laura Ingraham as someone who uses her show to promote 'racist' and 'white supremacist' views as they reacted to a commentary she gave on The Ingraham Angle show in which she advocated for merit-based immigration and lamented 'massive demographic' changes." Wilmouth further huffed:
As the various hosts showed skepticism that she was telling the truth in her clarification, they all neglected to inform viewers that even in her original monologue from Wednesday, August 8, she declared that "it's not about race or ethnicity" and quoted President Donald Trump's assertion that "merit-based legal immigration is fantastic."
Instead, it appeared that none of the hosts who were so eager to weigh in and condemn the FNC host could be bothered to actually watch her 13-minute commentary, instead relying on one 30-second clip in which she referred to demographic changes and "in some cases, legal immigration" being a problem.
So context matters, huh? That's usually not the argument the MRC makes when ignoring context advances its right-wing agenda.
For instance, the MRC's Tim Graham recently assailed a PolitiFact fact-check on a Republican challenger to "ultraliberal Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin" claiming that she "opposed displaying the flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or singing the National Anthem in our classrooms,"calling it "mostly false" because the claim ignores the context that the bill in question was narrowly tailored and never made it into law: Graham insisted the claim was true on its face, whining: "The website doesn't call itself PolitiContext. It claims to be a Fact Checker."
MRC Mocks Another Reporter For Being Concerned About Her Safety (Again) Topic: Media Research Center
The last time the Media Research Center mocked reporter April Ryan for being concerned about her safety at a time when President Trump has declared the media to be the "enemy of the people," we pointed out that Ryan felt sufficiently threatened to need bodyguards.
The MRC's Kristine Marsh address the issue of Ryan's bodyguard in a sneering Aug. 24 post -- only to argue that she ought to feel threatened:
In a laughably obtuse interview with The Hollywood Reporter published August 21, April Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio and CNN contributor, griped about needing to pay for security because of how often she is approached or heckled in public. This comes just a few weeks after Ryan complained that White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders shouldn’t need security guards.
According to the media outlet, Ryan said she feared for her personal safety at times because she is approached in public and complained that the White House should fund her bodyguards:
[...]
She added:
There is a concern now. I mean, I've had death threats, I've had craziness, so I have a real concern. An honest, real concern.... Do I have a bodyguard? Yes, I do. Am I paying for it? Yes, I am. And, I think [Sanders] should have to pay for it, especially if she's stirring it up with her boss [Trump].... I did not sign up for this. I was just doing a job.
Sound familiar? Isn’t this exactly what Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters explicitly ordered liberals to do to Republicans? The media didn’t care about public harassment then, as long as it wasn’t happening to them. In fact, many journalists went on television and defended the abuse of Trump Administration officials and Republican party members. But suddenly it’s a different story when the shoe is on the other foot.
So Ryan should feel threatened because some people in the White House feel threatened? Tallk about utter hatred for -- and the desire for vengeance against -- journalists doing their jobs.
The MRC's callousness toward the safety of journalists continues to be appalling.
The latest love letter to McAleer and his film is an Aug. 15 piece in which Katie Yoder gushes over the film's trailer:
On Tuesday, The Hollywood Reporter (THR) broke the news that filmmakers had released a trailer for the anticipated Gosnell film, which stars big name actors.
In the moving video, actor Michael Beach’s character, district attorney Dan Molinari, warns those investigating Gosnell that, “When you get to the courthouse, you are going to be swarmed by reporters.”
But as they walk past empty rows of seats with signs reading “This row reserved for press,” actor Dean Cain, who plays a detective, asks, “Where is everybody?”
Yoder is in full PR mode, declaring that "the film isn’t just for pro-life audiences, as one scene in the trailer stresses."
Since she's doing press for the film instead of being even remotely objective, Yoder never gets around to asking McAleer an unanswered question from her last post on the film, despite getting access to an "exclusive statement" from him: How did McAleer settle the defamation lawsuit filed against him by the judge who presided at Gosnell's trial over his portrayal in McAleer's book on Gosnell and his presumed treatment in the film? That would seem to be an important, newsworthy issue, given that the lawsuit had stalled production on the movie and settling it allowed the film to move forward.
But Yoder isn't interested in reporting -- this is PR, remember? Thus, she concludes by gushing even further, "With big names involved, the film promises to be a success."
It's almost as if McAleer paid Yoder to say that.
Yoder's fawning promotion for McAleer's film -- which doesn't even open until October -- is doubly hypocritical given that a couple weeks earlier, her MRC colleague (well, intern) Peter Sifre was complaining that CNN was "devoting an entire segment to the promotion of an anti-Trump book that hasn’t even come out yet," huffing that "reporting of non-news stories should not be tolerated," adding: "[B]ecause the book has not come out yet, we don’t know what it contains. Thus, there is no news to report. This segment is nothing but book promotion of an obviously anti-Trump book that hasn’t even come out yet."
MRC Just Can't Stop Denigrating Anita Hill, Stormy Daniels Topic: Media Research Center
When confronted with a sex scandal involving a conaservative, the Media Research Center's default mode is to go into Clinton whataboutism mode. And as the MRC continues to insist that teh likes of Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick must be believed because they accused a Clinton, they also believe that all accusers of conservatives must be discredited.
The MRC continues its quarter-century-longquest to bash Anita Hill for committing the offense of accusing conservative darling and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in a July 31 post by Isaac Cross complaining that HBO's John Oliver interviewed Hill, calling her an "old liberal hero" who achieve notoriety because "Thomas is a strong conservative and one of the media’s favorite targets." Cross sneered:
Oliver painted Hill as a victim of “character assassination.” (Clarence Thomas called himself the victim of a “high-tech lynching,” for what it’s worth). The interview quickly turned into an Anita Hill pity party as Oliver listened to her talk about her misfortunes.
[...]
Other than helping Hill claim victimization, Oliver asked questions about how to address sexual harassment and even had time to talk about his previous innaction and failings regarding assault. This last part the newsite Salon gawked over as an “extraordinary … moment of self-reflection.”
Oliver’s show was a big hit across the media as Vanity Fair called the interview “a must watch”, and USA Today headlined a piece “John Oliver tackles sexual harassment, Les Moonves with help from Anita Hill.” The interview also got hits on sites like Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, and Time magazine, among others.
The media simply fell over themselves trying to give voice to their fallen hero, Anita. Who knows? Maybe with the #MeToo movement, Hill will be able to tople that terrible conservative Clarence Thomas after all.
As for Stormy Daniels, who has credibly accused Trump of paying her hush money to conceal an affair with her, the MRC is even more dismissive. It has tagged articles about her as "pornography" (because she was a porn star, you see, which should raise questions about Trump instead of her), and its "news" division CNSNews.com had trouble speaking Daniels' name.The MRC has launched several attacks on her just the past month alone.
On Aug. 1, Gabriel Hays huffed that Daniels had been invited to take part in a satirical awards show designed to mock sexism created by comedian Lizz Winstead:
Ms. Stormy appeared grateful for the invitation. She claimed that she was “surprised and honored when I was invited to be a presenter at this year’s Golden Probe Awards and I’m very much looking forward to the exciting evening.”
And in case you were hoping a porn actress would show more class than Winstead, you were wrong. “With reproductive rights under assault in Washington, there’s never been a more important time to shine a light on the assholes trying to take our rights away.”
Hays weirdly didn't mention Trump at all in his piece, let alone that Trump is credibly accused of paying hush money to Daniels.
In an Aug. 28 post, Tim Graham describes Daniels as a "porn star" and "liberal stripper" as well as a "#Resistance mascot and plasticized container of impeachment fantasies-- again, no mention of the hush money, and again, no mention of how this reflects on Trump rather than his critics -- as he whines about Vogue magazine "trying to glamorize" Daniels.
Graham was also triggered by Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, complaining that he's quoted in the Vogue article as saying that "Stormy is 'really f---ing smart' three times...like it's a porn version of Beetlejuice."
The same day, Curtis Houck was similarly triggered by the appearance of the "liberal journalist" who wrote the Daniels profile for Vogue appearing on TV calling Daniels the "perfect adversary" to Trump.Houck also complained that the writer "passed her off as just [a] 'working mom' with 'a family to support'" even though "Daniels doesn’t have full-time custody of her child and makes money that most Americans could only dream of making."
The MRC would never treat Broaddrick like this, even though she's a documented liar.
MRC's Graham Complains CNN 'Blurred' Reporting, Opinion (In Article Clearly Labeled As Opinion) Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham huffed in a July 28 post:
CNN has blurred any distinction between reporting and editorializing not only on television, but also on their own website. On Thursday, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr raged against President Trump just like every other correspondent and host on CNN....this time in a commentary on CNN's online opinion page.
Weirdly missing from Graham's post was a link to Starr's piece. Perhaps because if he did, MRC readers would discover that Graham is lying.
As Graham concedes, Starr's article is placed on CNN's opinion page in the "Political Op-Eds" section. The top of the article contains an editor's note stating, "Barbara Starr is CNN's Pentagon correspondent. The views expressed in this commentary are her own."
In other words, there is no blurring -- Starr's piece is clearly labeled as opinion.
If Graham really wants to attack reporters who also expressed opinions, he need not go any farther than down the hall at MRC headquarters, where reporter Susan Jones has a bad habit of injecting opinion into articles that are supposed to be "news."
He doesn't even have to leave the building to vent his outrage over alleged violations of journalistic standards -- at least, not if the MRC wasn't embracing double standards and refused to hold its own "news" operation to the same standards it holds the rest of the media.
What LGBT Stuff Is The MRC Freaking Out About Now? Topic: Media Research Center
So many LGBT freakouts at the Media Research Center, so little time.
Matt Philbin mocked the "good old days" when "if you show up at the border -- or, more likely, get caught crossing it illegally -- you can claim anti-LGBT discrimination in your home country and get asylum," then sneered at reports of undocumented transgender immigrants being mistreated by ICE: "Our immigration personnel are so benighted they haven’t figured out the special treatment required by .4% of the people they encounter. Monstrous!"
Philbin followed that by huffing over a story about a largely lesbian synchrohized swimming team that aspires to perform at the Gay Games. After quoting one participant saying about her chosen sport that "I get to be sporty, but I get to do it in a sparkly costume," Philbin cattily added: "Just like Bruce Jenner!"
The mysterious Jay Maxson was annoyed that after a few pro baseball players saw racist and homophobic tweets they made when they were teenagers resurface, Major League Baseball is pushing sensitivity training: "Three of MLB's 750 players have racially tinged skeletons in their Twitter closets, so now MLB must whirl into action. Sensitivity training assignments have been made, programs must be initiated and everyone must look deep inside to find that inner racist. That's the progressive media way." Because trying to root out homophobia is worse then the homophobia itself, apparently.
Melissa Mullins threw a fit over a New York Times theater critic having "abjectly apologized" for not referring to a transgender actress, huffing that "'Misgenders' is PC code for 'uses a pronoun that is offensive to the gender benders'" and concluding that "Once again, political correctness wins. And they don't celebrate 'ALL people.' They don't celebrate people who won't bow before their demands."
Gabriel Hays is weirdly disappointed that Guns 'n' Roses omitted from a massive box set reissue of its debut album the song "One In A Million," whose racist and homophobic content was retrograde when it came out and hasn't, shall we say, aged well since. Hays insisted the offensive song is "an integral piece of the original formula" and that "Many would skip this purchase on principle." He then bizarrely likened the song to a statue of a Confederate general:
Offensive and ignorant garbage? You bet. But should it be memory-holed -- especially in a big retrospective? Wouldn’t a “warts and all” approach be justified. It would certainly be more honest.
I know, it’s only rock n’ roll. But erasing history -- whether a dumb Guns N’ Roses song or statues of Robert E. Lee -- is engaging in Stalinism for the mere sake of not triggering someone.
And Rachel Peterson whined that transgender activists want better representation in movies, suggesting they're overrepresented already: "The New York Times estimates transgender people make up, '0.6 percent of the adult population.' This doesn’t stop activists from bashing Hollywood for not catering to them."
MRC Lectures Liberals On The Exceedingly Narrow Limits Of Its Bogus Study Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how the Media Research Center's potrayal of news coverage of President Trump as relentlessly negative is utterly bogus because it is so narrowly defined -- a specific set of statements on 3 news shows, as opposed to an analysis of all coverage on all news shows and channels -- that its only purpose is to provide Trump and Republicans a meaningless talking point.
The MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro inadvertently demonstrates just how meaningless that talking point is when he uses an Aug. 7 post to lash out at CNN anchor Don Lemon for purporttely misrepresenting it:
Speaking of being unable to say anything nice about someone; at the top of his show following the handoff, Lemon attacked a Media Research Center study that found 90 percent of broadcast network evening coverage of the President was negative.
“It always gets me when people say, ‘There's 90 percent. This study shows that 90 percent of the reports about this president are negative,’” he opined in a mocking voice. “But they don't talk about the things that come out of his mouth and the policies he proposes. And what he does and says to people.”
Lemon emphatically argued that reporting negatively was really the only way the media could cover the President. “How are we as media to report positively on something that’s negative,” he shouted. “If that is indeed true, then you need to counterbalance that and weight it against what comes out of this President's mouth and what he's doing.” Clearly, Lemon didn’t do his homework or else he would know exactly how we conduct our studies.
As MRC Research Director Rich Noyes explained in the study, “our analysis of ‘spin’ tracks only explicitly positive and negative statements from reporters and non-partisan sources; it excludes neutral statements as well as statements from partisans such as Trump praising himself or Democrats criticizing him.” It’s the evaluative statements from what’s supposed to be a neutral press that’s counted.
But "a narrow tracking of 'explicitly positive and negative statements' on just three TV shows that deliberately excludes the vast amount of neutral coverage" isn't how Fondacaro first described the study; he said it "found 90 percent of broadcast network evening coverage of the President was negative." It's only when a non-conservative pushes back against that bogus, overbroad talking point -- which, again, was crafted to be spread in the way Fondacaro first described it -- is he forced to concede how narrowly drawn it actually is.
And, as far as we know, nobody at the MRC has ever lectured Trump or any conservative for misleadingly extrapolating that talking point the way Fondacaro lectured Lemon. After all, Brent Bozell and Co. want that misrepresentation coming out of the mouths of conservatives -- but they don't want anyone to read the fine print.
The Media Research Center has been in full spin mode defending Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and attempting to discredit allegations by a woman who said he had sexually assaulted her during a party during high school. One of the ways it's doing so is going back to an old trope: attacking Anita Hill, who had made accusations of sexual harassment against another conservative Supreme court nominee, Clarence Thomas.
How did the Media Research Center cover the sexual harassment allegations that ultimately forced Les Moonves from his position CEO of CBS? In short, with glee:
The Media Research Center's Katie Yoder is a 
A beloved children's TV show decided it wanted to expand its audience, and the Media Research Center was not having it. From a Sept. 5 
As part of his 
The Media Research Center was never going to miss John McCain upon his death. It has long despised McCain for being a frequent guest on Sunday morning news shows; for instance, Tim Graham 
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth 
The 
For years, the Media Research Center has been hyping. and 
When confronted with a sex scandal involving a conaservative, the Media Research Center's default mode is to go into 
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham huffed in a July 28 
So many LGBT freakouts at the Media Research Center, so little time.
We've 
