Is This A CNS News Story? Or A Trump Press Release? Who Can Tell? Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham wrote in a March 13 post:
Is This a POLITICO Story? Or a Biden Press Release? Who Can Tell?
Take a look at this Politico story about Biden's coronavirus speech on Thursday -- but pretend you're reading it as a release on Biden for President letterhead. This is written by Adam Cancryn, a professional reporter for a respected, national media outlet. But it's not a story, it is a press release.
Suggestion: Get some Biden for President letterhead -- put this on it, make the reporter the contact with his email (acancryn@politico.com) ... and then post it, asking: Is this a Biden 2020 news release? Or a "news story" in a national media outlet? Can you tell the difference? We can't either....at least not until deep in the story, when Cancryn finally quotes the Trump campaign's response.
[...]
The Trump campaign response came in paragraphs 14 and 15. The other 16 paragraphs were Biden campaign music and lyrics.
Graham won't tell you this, but he's really complaining that Politico is reporting on Biden thte way the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, reports on President Trump.
We'vedocumentedhow CNS' news coverage of Trump is largely uncritical, even when it's spreading falsehoods.That sycophancy has continued over the past couple months with positively fawning takes on Trump that really have no purpose but to serve as PR piees for the president's re-election campaign.
A Feb. 24 article by Susan Jones described Trump's visit to India in absurdly glowing terms, complete with a headline that simply cribs from his speech:
Trump Travels 8,000 Miles With a Message for India: America Loves You
Throngs of Indians lined the route of President Trump's motorcade on Monday, as the U.S. president made his way to the world's largest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad to reinforce the U.S. relationship with one of the world's most populous countries.
The crowd of 125,000 people -- revved up by the introductory song "Macho, Macho Man" by the Village People -- cheered wildly as Trump and first lady Melania Trump were escorted to the podium by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"The first lady and I have just traveled 8,000 miles around the world to deliver a message to every citizen across this nation. America loves India; America respects India; and America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people," Trump said.
Trump thanked the many people who turned out to welcome him, "in a stunning display of Indian culture and kindness."
That was joined by an article the next day, in which managing editor Michael W. Chapman gushed: "While speaking to an estimated 110,000 people at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, India on Monday, President Donald Trump stressed that 'our nations have many differences' but 'every person has a sacred soul' and 'we are all born' to aim high and 'give all glory to God.'" As if Trump actually thinks that or wrote those words.
As questions grew about Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, CNS was quick to tout polls showing that Americans (barely) approve of his work and not that of his critics, like the media:
Craig Bannister transcribed Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera's praise for Trump, in which he proclaimed Trump "the right warrior for this fight" providing "effective, yet flamboyant leadership" and doing "an epic job."
This presidential fawning reached an apex with a March 27 article by chapman further shoring up Trump's alleged leadership against the pandemic by treating bland boilerplates from the the head of the World Health Organization as something akin to an endorsement:
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), applauded President Donald Trump for "the great job" he is doing in harnessing the tools of the private sector and the public sector to combat the coronavirus.
On March 23, Dr. Tedros tweeted, "Productive call with President @realDonaldTrump."
"I appreciated him for the great job he is doing to fight #COVID19 through whole-of-government approach, leveraging R&D, engaging private sector incl. on essential medical supplies, expansion of testing, educating public," wrote Dr. Tedros.
At a March 23 press briefing, Dr. Tedros also said, “Fighting this pandemic needs political commitment and commitment at the highest level possible and the president’s [Trump's] commitment, you have already seen it."
“And that kind of leadership is very, very important, the whole of government approach, to mobilize all sectors to suppress the pandemic," he said. "So I know he’s doing all he can.”
Of course, Tedros' sucking up to Trump didn't keep him from attacking WHO and threatening to withdraw U.S. funding for the organiation.
If Graham genuinely thinks news articles should not read like campaign press releases, he should fix his own house first and examine the practices of his employer's "news" division before attacking other media outlets.
MRC Transgender Freakout, Coronavirus Edition Topic: Media Research Center
At the Media Research Center, it's not enough to merely criticize transgendered people -- they must be mocked and shamed for being who they are and for thinking they have any inherent human rights. Which brings us to Matt Philbin's March 20 post attacking transgenders as portrayed in a article at the website Vice on the subject of transgender surgeries being delayed by the coronavirus pandemic with all the sensitivity he's known for (which is to say, none):
You knew it was coming. The only question was how frivolous and besides-the-point it would be. Vice has answered with an article on how the Wuhan virus is inconveniencing “transgender and gender non-conforming people.”
Specifically, Vice related that “trans communities on Reddit and Twitter are being flooded with reports of postponed and canceled surgeries in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Thailand, and elsewhere, leading to enormous stress and disappointment on top of a global health crisis.”
Um, huh? Nearly all international travel has ceased, entire cities are on lockdown, wealth and jobs are evaporating at a staggering rate, and in Italy they’re re-enacting the “Bring out your dead!” skit from The Holy Grail. “Enormous stress and disappointment” is currently the baseline emotional state of a vast portion of the global population. Whatever you call the level above “First World problems,” Vice has found it.
See, “trans people already wait far longer than is safe or healthy” for what Vice calls “gender-affirming” surgeries. “Further delays can be dangerous and even life-threatening.”
Really? In what way can waiting a few months before mutilating your body be life threatening? In fact, how does Vice justify calling the procedures “Life-Saving Trans Surgeries” in its headline?
[...]
So … really, there’s no story here. A tiny sliver of a tiny sliver of the population is being temporarily stymied in its short-term aspirations -- just like the rest of the planet. But it’s never a bad time to underscore the victimhood and marginalization of America’s most trendy grievance group.
It must be sad to have so little empathy for people not exactly like him -- that is, right-wing conservative -- as Philbin. We assume the MRC pays him well enough to keep such pesky empathy at bay.
WND's Cashill Gloats Over A Man's Personal Issues Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jack Cashill took unseemly pleasure in the personal problems of another human being in his March 18 WorldNetDaily column:
A surefire way to remove oneself from the short list even of Democratic vice-presidential candidates is to get caught by the police vomiting in the bathroom while your naked gay male escort is overdosing on crystal meth, surplus bags of which are strewn everywhere.
This past Saturday morning, Florida politico Andrew Gillum had a lot of splainin' to do. Talking to the wife and kids would be hard enough. The real challenge for the famously black Gillum was explaining to his racially charged base why his "date" was white.
In 2018, the former Tallahassee mayor came within 32,000 votes of becoming the governor of Florida. Race was his ticket from the beginning of his career to the very end.
Why is Cashill so irrationally angry at Gillum and taking such perverse pleasure in his apparent downfall? He took the side of Trayvon Martin against the man who killed him, George Zimmerman. Cashill has been a longtimechampion of Zimmerman, portraying him as a civil-rights martyr and Martin as a thug in training. Cashill fired up the old tropes again as an attempt to heap more scorn on Gillum:
As filmmaker Joel Gilbert documents in his film and accompanying book, "The Trayvon Hoax," Gillum built his career by ruthlessly and dishonestly exploiting the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.
To make the gambit work, Gillum had to defame George Zimmerman, the man who shot Martin, and lie about the circumstances surrounding the shooting. Gillum was always up to the task.
Said Gillum during a Democratic debate in 2018, "George Zimmerman was able to interpret the very presence of Trayvon Martin to be a threat. And because of Stand Your Ground laws, which have no place in civilized society, was able to engage him, snuff out his life and get away with it."
As Gillum knew well, Florida's Stand Your Ground law had nothing to do with Zimmerman whose case was a classic example of self-defense.
[...]
Gillum could never admit that the wayward Martin gratuitously and viciously attacked a man half-a-foot shorter and might have killed him had not Zimmerman fired a single shot.
Gillum could never tell his supporters how Trayvon Martin's parents split when he was 3, how the boy's father abandoned Trayvon's loving stepmom when Trayvon was 15, how the biological mom kicked Trayvon out of her home for fighting months before the shooting, how Trayvon's life devolved into a maelstrom of street fighting, burglary, guns, sex and drugs.
No, Gillum could not say any of this. He lied so often and so effectively about the case a City Lab article after his primary win began, "Last night Andrew Gillum became the first African American candidate to win the Democratic Party nomination for Florida governor, and it's not out of the question to say that he can thank Trayvon Martin for that."
Unfortunately for Gillum, Florida's racist "for-profit police state" chose not to arrest him on a drug charge. He doesn't even get to be a martyr.
Joel Gilbert, of course, is the charlatan filmmaker who spread lies about Barack Obama, so there's no reason to take him seriously on anything. Cashill does, however, because they share the same conspiracy theories.
And, thus, Cashill's affinity for killers continues, and his callousness toward those who don't advance his right-wing agenda is all too apparent.
MRC Reprints An Old Obama Conspiracy Theory Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham likes to pretend that he is above right-wing conspiracy theories, despite the fact that his employer has allowed them to perpetuate, as we've pointed out. There's an even more recent example of that.
On March 19, the MRC's NewsBusters -- of which Graham is executive editor -- published a column by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. in which he complains about a "dreadful" book titled "The Ones We've Been Waiting For," which he points out "takes its dreadful title from a dreadful speech given back in 2008 by presidential candidate Barack Obama."After a stretch of labored writing in which he treated a rhetorical point Obama had made as literal ("One cannot wait for the arrival of one's self. It is an impossibility"), Tyrrell wrote this:
Which brings me to the literary reputation of the former president. You will recall that when he arrived in the White House, people began murmuring about the precise authorship of his masterpieces, "Dreams From My Father," and "The Audacity of Hope." They said he did not write them. Rumors spread that he could not write. Now word has it that his memoirs have not turned up at his publisher's office. He is not months behind. He is years behind schedule. How can this be? Is it possible that he is not what the literary elites told us? He is not the author of the greatest presidential memoir ever, just the line, "We are the ones we have been waiting for"? If this is so, it is clearly another black mark for the elites.
Yes, Tyrrell is trying to revive the old, never-proven conspiracy theory -- promoted most prominently by WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill -- that Obama didn't write his books.Note that Tyrrell cites no evidence to back up his claim, just "murmuring" from "people," which would seem to go against the MRC's (hypocritical) attacks on anonymous sources.He offers no proof at all for his claim that Obama's presidential memoir is "years behind."
Yet the MRC -- and, thus, Graham, who is ostenibly in charge of the publication where this was published -- is privileging Tyrrell's anonymous and possibly made-up claims.
This is how conspiracy theories perpetuate themselves: forming in the darkest reaches of the internet, then occasionally bubbling up to the mainstream where they are passed along uncritically. No wonder Graham was so incensed at Brian Stelter's doucmentary on such conspiracy theories.
We'vedocumented how CNSNews.com has been gushing over every monthly employment report under the Trump administration (as long as it was good). With the unemployment spike driven by the coronavirus, how was CNS going to play that in a Trump-friendly way?
CNS then spent the following few days before the monthly employment numbers preparing readers for the worst (and, of course, shielding Trump from blame). An April 1 column by Allison Schrager of the right-wing Manhattan Institute claimed this was all goibng as planned, as summarized in the headline "High Unemployment Numbers Show the CARES Act Is Doing Its Job." That was followed by an article by Susan Jones noting that as bad as the March numbers will be when they come out, they only reflect the pay period that includes the 12th of the month, which was "was one day before President Trump declared a national coronavirus emergency; and three days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that Americans avoid gatherings of 50 or more people, thus accelerating the economic squeeze." There was also a gloomy article by Michael W. Chapman with poll finding on how many people have seen their hours cut.
When the numbers did come out, Jones reverted to her old Obama-era obsession with the labor force participation rate -- not surprising, perhaps, since it "increased by 1,763,000 to a record 96,845,000 in March." She still worked in some pro-Trump rah-rah, stating that "After breaking 25 records under President Donald Trump--most recently in December 2019--the number of employed Americans dropped sharply in March, to 155,772,000."
The usual sidebars similarly stuck a little pro-Trump rah-rah in as well. Craig Bannister's article on Hispanic employment copy-and-pasted Jones' reference to the "25 records under President Donald Trump," while Chapman's item on black unemployment (the first time in months that statistic has been referenced) spun hard by claiming that "the 6.7% unemployment rate for African Americans is still historically low ... In other words, the Black unemployment rate in America was higher than 6.8% for 46 years. Only editor in chief Terry Jeffrey's item on health care employment didn't mention or allude to Trump.
Newsmax TV White House Reporter Pushes Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Topic: Newsmax
In February, Newsmax TV hired Emerald Robinson as its White House correspondent. Her resume is scant, with her most recent job being White House correspondent for the even-farther-right-and-even-more-pro-Trump One America News Network. That OAN experience is showing, for Robinson has embraced a far-right coronavirus conspiracy theory.
In a series of tweets on April 6, Robinson ranted that Bill Gates "basically controls global health policy' and that his "plan" is "Using vaccines to track people" using a "quantum dot-tattoo." The goal, Robinson insists, is to "leverage immunization as an opportunity to establish digital identity worldwide," declaring: "He just bought off relevant orgs & did it. It’s not just incompatible with democracy. It’s the end of it."
This claim comes from right-wing fever swamps, which extrapolated Gates' claim to want to create trackable data for who has received a possible future coronavirus vaccine as a means to control its spread into a full-blown sinister conspiracy.
Robinson, meanwhile, can't handle criticism of her conspiracy theory. In a response to a commenter who rightly criticized her, Robinson huffed: "Why was Jeffery Epstein donating Gates's cash to MIT anonymously?" In another response to a different critic -- in this case, Atlantic writer Conor Friersdorg -- Robinson sneered: "You've never written a single thing of the slightest interest. You're unable to get 12 people to like any of your posts on Twitter and you write for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. So, who cares what you think?"
Hiring a conspiracy-mongering reporter from an outlet known for both pro-Trump sycophancy and conspirach-mongering is not a good look for Newsmax if it's seeking to build credibility for its TV operation -- which, by the way, just got rid of Wayne Allyn Root for his shady coronavirus shenanigans.
MRC Won't Tell Readers Why 'Censored' Federalist Coronavirus Article Is Dangerous Topic: Media Research Center
In a March 26 post, the Media Research Center's Corinne Weaver attacked Twitter for "censor[ing]" right-wing opinion site the Federalist for a coronavirus-related article it published that violated Twitter's rules against promoting potentially harmful misinformation, shutting down its account until a tweet promoting the article was deleted.
Weaver first played whataboutism: "That's not how Twitter treated state-sponsored disinformation from China. The platform also ignored tweets that potentially violated its rules, if they came from liberal outlets." Then it was on to obscuring the facts about why the Federalist article was so dangerous:
The piece from The Federalist was introduced on Twitter with the caption “time to think outside the box.” It did not disagree with the current method of avoiding the virus but offered a third potential strategy: “controlled voluntary infection” (CVI).
Perednia wrote, “CVI involves allowing people at low risk for severe complications to deliberately contract COVID-19 in a socially and medically responsible way so they become immune to the disease. People who are immune cannot pass on the disease to others.”
Weaver described Perednia as a "dermatologist," which is deceitful in two ways: the Federalist actually described him as a physician in Portland, Oregon"; while he has worked as a dermatologist, he is not currently licensed to practice in Oregon.
Strangely (or not), Weaver refused to tell her readers exactly why Perednia's advice is considered dangerous: because coronavirus kills people, it's impossible to know how it can affect people, and it's not even known at this point whether catching coronavirus confers immunity, which would make the whole "coronavirus party" thing moot. (One such party did not go well.)
Weaver also failed to tell her readers the reason Perednia advocated his approach: to get the economy going and "save the day for millions of Americans, jobs, and future generations who will bear much of the cost of this disease."
Weaver clearly does not disagree with this approach. The MRC has previously given tacit support to the idea of letting people die of coronavirus in order to save the economy (and, thus, boosting President Trump's re-election chances).
Hypocrisy: CNS Attacks Pelosi For Holding Up Coronavirus Relief Bill -- Then Criticizes Bill After It Passed Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has long had a schizophrenicapproach to federal deficits: attacking them and blaming President Obama by name for them during his presidency, but criticizing them much more gently under President Trump while not calling him out by name and seeking to hangh part of the blame on Nancy Pelosi even though she controls only one-half of one branch of government. This approach was made even more stark when it came to the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill.
CNS said little about the bill's contents before byond complaining that the Kennedy Center would receive $25 million under it. It devoted much more energy to accusing Democrats in general and Pelosi in particular of standing in the way of the bill's passage with a couple articles quoting Republican politicians attacking her.
It was only after the bill passed the Senate and was assured of passage in the House and, thus, Trump's signature that CNS raised questions about its provisions. An anonymously written article complained that public broadcasting would receive $%75 million for coronavirus mitigation -- as we noted, that's a fraction of 1 percent of the total stimulus cost, and it launched a cynical attempt by CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, to try and get public broadcasting completely defunded, as if there wasn't a pandemic going on. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman contributed an article on "self-described democratic socialist" (and frequent target) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticizing the bill as a corporate bailout that gives little to working Americans; Chapman did concede that the bill "has a fair amount of federal pork barrel spending thrown in."
And in stark contrast to its treatment of Pelosi, when Republican Rep. Thomas Massie tried to delay passage of the bill in the House by forcing an on-the-record vote, blowing up an earlier agreement for a simple voice vote -- something even Trump attacked him for -- CNS lionized him in a March 27 article by Melanie Arter letting him rant conspiratorially about a cover-up:
“They’re trying to cover-up their votes. They had enough people there to pass the bill, but they still refused to have a recorded vote, and they told me they were trying to protect members,” he said.
“They’re trying to protect the members who are there from political ramifications,” the congressman said.
Massie intended to call for a recorded vote, which requires at least half of all sitting House members to participate, despite warnings against doing so by both Republican and Democratic leaders and the White House.
“Like I said in there, I came here this week to make sure our republic doesn’t die in an empty chamber by unanimous consent. These people need to do their jobs. If they’re telling people to drive a truck, if they’re telling people to bag groceries and grow their food, then by golly, they can be in there, and they can vote, and that’s what we did this week,” Massie said.
Arter did note Trump's criticism of Massie, but not until after she gave Massie a soapbox.
CNS later cited a Republican senator criticizing "spending porn" in the relief bill and rolled out its buddy Mark Levin to whine about "real stupidity" in the bill and complain that "fiscal conservatism is dead" -- but also touted Franklin Graham attacking Pelosi for delaying the bill's passage, and Jones bashed her for talking about another relief bill "even before the full $2.2 trillion in bipartisan relief funding is out the door."
CNS' attitude was seemingly encapsulated in a March 31 blog post by Craig Bannister noting a Rasmussen poll finding that "while U.S. likely voters overwhelmingly support the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package passed by Congress, they also suspect it’s packed with costly, irrelevant pork-barrel items." It's willing to overlook the pork to hand Trump a political victory, then criticize it when it has no relevant impact.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC Needs To Calm Down Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center feels it needs to attack Taylor Swift for committing the offense of being an entertainer who expresses opinions that differ from those of the MRC. Read more >>
WND's Kupelian Promotes 'Real News,' Forgets We Know Its History Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily continues to be on life support -- an apparent de facto division of the Floyd Brown-operated fake-news outlet the Western Journal -- and Joseph Farah remains out of commission. Meanwhile, managing editor David Kupelian continues to send out email letters to WND's mailing llist that thinks we've forgotten about WND's journalistic non-legacy.
In a March 11 letter, Kupelian serves up a WND-standard anti-media rant:
When radical left media bullies talk about "Freedom of the Press," they're not talking about the vision of the Founding Fathers who understood the crucial, life-and-death role a free and independent press plays in keeping our democratic republic healthy and strong.
[...]
I had the honor of spending a year working closely with the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intel official ever to defect to the West during the entire Cold War, former communist spymaster Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, on his groundbreaking book, "Disinformation."
That's why I know disinformation when I see it — and that is precisely what so much of today's "news" amounts to.
This disinformation is designed to brainwash the American people with regard to what is going on in our country, scare people with "crisis stories" or fake "bombshell reports" attacking our president, and leave people with the mistaken belief that there is nothing they can do to fight back.
Funny, we figured Kupelian knew disinformation when he saw it because he published so much of it at WND -- which is what the website's obsession with Obama birtherism and Seth Rich conspiracy theories were. And we remember when WND falsely smeared a Tennessee car dealer as a drug dealer -- despite years of denial, WND was forced to quietly settle the man's defamation case against it before it went to trial. (How much did WND have to pay the man, David? Why are you keeping that secret after all these years?)
WND did not care about the truth before, and there's no reason to beleive Kupelian now when he claims that WND cares about "real news stories about important issues free of bias and selective reporting" and "isn't politically motivated." Honestly -- has WND ever been like that? Not in our 20 years of monitoring it.
On March 29, Kupelian sent out another letter, this time rehasing most of the typical right-wing talking points about the coronavirus pandemic, including the obsession with chloroquine, claimingn without evidence that "many physicians in America who are currently treating COVID-19 patients are taking the drug themselves right now, prophylactically." That led to more bogus posturing:
We are living in an exceedingly dangerous time – and I don’t mean just from a dangerous and highly contagious virus. I also mean from the dangerous virus of leftism that has infected both the Democratic Party and the elite news media. It’s very contagious.
But we’ve got the cure!
The cure for lies is truth. The cure for confusion, obfuscation and doubletalk is truth. The cure for hysteria, demonization and exploitation of crises “to restructure things to fit our vision” is truth.
WND has been publishing real news nonstop for almost 23 years, since long before Google, Facebook, social media – or for that matter, most of the rest of the online news media – even existed. We are experienced, professional journalists dedicated to our craft. But we are also Christians who above all honor God, America, the U.S. Constitution, liberty, and our nation’s Judeo-Christian culture, which of course is the glue that holds everything good about America together. That is our anchor, the rock we stand on, and we will be here for the duration, like a lighthouse, to help illuminate the way forward for good Americans to navigate through these troubled and turbulent times.
If Kupelian wants us to believe he publishes "real news" by "experienced, professional journalists," he should start apologizing for and retracting all the fake news WND has published through the years.
Both letters end with a plea for donations. Again, not until it repents for its decades of reprehensible behavior.
Following Orders, MRC Slavishly Pushed Trump's 'Chinese Virus' Narrative Topic: Media Research Center
Like its "news" division CNSNews.com, the Media Research Center proper latched on to President Trump's insistence (for about a week) on labeling the coronavirus the "Chinese virus." And like a local Trump apparatchik, the MRC declared Trump to be perfect in his assessment and attacked or mocking anyone who dared questioned dear leader -- and issued blanket denials that anyone was inspired to commit violence against Asian Americans because of it.
And faster than you can say “identity politics,” CNN abruptly began to toe the Chinese Communist party line. One CNNer after another began saying that, yes indeed, the phrase “Wuhan Virus” or “Chinese Virus” is….racist.- - Jeffrey Lord, March 14
[Mark Levin and Michael Pillsbury] discussed how China is intimidating American media outlets, using their loathing of President Trump to now insist that talk of a "Wuhan virus" or a "Chinese virus" is racist. American media outlets want access to China, but China won't allow critical reporters to enter China, or stay if they grow critical. -- Tim Graham, March 16
We've all witnessed the shocking scenes of racists attacking Asian-Americans, accusing them of responsibility for the coronavirus! Oh, wait: we've seen no such thing. But that didn't stop MSNBC political analyst Karine Jean-Pierre of MoveOn.org from spouting off late Monday afternoon that talking about the coronavirus as "Chinese virus" (as President Trump has) was not only racist, but places Asian-American "lives at risk" for having spoken as such. The horror! -- Mark Finkelstein, March 17
Trump’s insistence on calling the coronavirus a “Chinese virus” -- which again, it is -- triggered vast swaths of the lefty community, particularly in Hollywood. Remember, saying “Chinese virus” might rub Chinese folks the wrong way. It’s not politically correct and that’s what matters in a global emergency. -- Gabriel Hays, March 18
During Wednesday’s coronavirus press conference at the White House, ABC’s Cecilia Vega and PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor worked together to claim that President Trump’s use of the term “Chinese virus” was “racist” and “puts Asian Americans at risk.” -- Kyle Drennen, March 18
[Stephen Colbert] was again torching the President’s coronavirus response and press briefings, particularly blasting Trump for his use of the phrase “Chinese virus.” Colbert called Trump stating the obvious a “very racist term.” -- Gabriel Hays, March 18
Communist China knew about the coronavirus for months and wasted critical time trying to silence those who tried to warn the world. But broadcast networks ABC and NBC seemed intent to help the Chinese propaganda machine cover up those facts on Wednesday as they insisted President Trump was being “racist” by calling it the “Chinese Virus.” ABC senior White House correspondent Cecilia Vega even insinuated Trump was trying to unfairly shift blame onto the communists. -- Nicholas Fondacaro, March 18
Dr. Anthony Fauci and the rest of the coronavirus task force were busy dealing with the crisis and it wasn’t their job. They’re not the ones that need to tackle the geopolitical jockeying or play the international game of chess between the U.S. and China right now. That’s the President’s job. Calling it out as the “Chinese Virus” or “Wuhan Virus” cut through the propaganda campaign. -- Nicholas Fondaaro, March 18
On Thursday, the NBC and CBS morning shows kept pushing the narrative that President Trump’s use of the phrase “Chinese virus” was “racist” and endangering people. NBC even attempted to claim that China “helped” the rest of the world by “delaying” the spread of coronavirus. ... The reporter never bothered to mention the President’s explanation for using the term was about holding China’s authoritarian government accountable for its dishonesty about the initial spread of the virus – not a racial statement.-- Kyle Drennen, March 19
Thursday’s New York Times again showed the paper’s warped priorities during the global health emergency: “Trump Calls It the ‘Chinese Virus.' Critics Say That’s Racist and Provocative.” (Normal people would say it's factually accurate.) -- Clay Waters, March 19
On Wednesday's Deadline: White House on MSNBC, fill-in host John Heilemann joined in on the pettiness of some journalists claiming that it is "racist" for President Donald Trump to accurately acknowledge that the coronavirus infections first appeared in China by calling it the "Chinese virus." -- Brad Wilmouth, March 19
The three instances of Chinese propaganda shown by Telemundo within an 18-hour period are, to wit: That addressing the pandemic by its geographical origin is now racist. ... Telemundo seems intent on mirroring the rest of the liberal media’s “Blame America” coverage of the Wuhan virus, and on asking its audience to accept Chinese propaganda at face value. -- Jorge Bonilla, March 19
While Americans are suffering as people lose their jobs due to the economic impact of the coronavirus, ABC journalists continue showcasing how they care more about President Trump using politically correct terms than anything else. Just one day after ABC’s White House correspondent Cecilia Vega badgered “racist” Trump during a press conference, Nightlinehost JuJu Chang tied Trump's use of the term “Chinese virus” to an alleged “rise in outbreaks of racism” and violence against Asian-Americans. -- Kristine Marsh, March 20
The Avengers star lectured the president for referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus.” Though the pandemic has interrupted life around the globe in part because the Chinese failed to be honest about the outbreak, AND though it’s from CHINA, referring to it as “Chinese virus” is “xenophobic” and makes Trump supporters act “violently and “exclusionary.” ... Second: again, most of the reason that the virus is being referred to as the Chinese virus is because of expediency. The damn thing came from there and most normal folks will colloquially refer to it as so without flipping through the PC handbook to the lengthy chapter on “How to Politely Greet Foreign Viruses Who Knock On Your Door.” -- Gabriel Hays, March 20
On Joy Reid's MSNBC show today, Asian-American ex-Republican Kurt Bardella claimed that because President Trump uses the—accurate—term "Chinese virus": "People who look like me can't ride the subway without being attacked. They can't go to school without being attacked." ... But there is no evidence that this is widespread, or that many Asians are not riding the subway or going to school out of fear. Moreover, there is no evidence of any attacks being caused by Pres. Trump's use of "Chinese virus." Guess what? Without any help from Pres. Trump, most people know where the disease came from! -- Mark Finkelstein, March 22
After blaming regrettable (if anecdotal) confrontations with Asian-Americans on a factually accurate label (“Asian-Americans also say the “Chinese virus” label has led to incidents of racial slurs and physical attacks.”), the story ended with a quote from (naturally) an Obama official, Ryan Hass.- - Clay Waters, March 23
TV journalists have yet to go a day without crying “racist” in the nearly two weeks since President Trump accurately stated that the current coronavirus outbreak originated in China. But although the President’s continued assertions that the virus is “Chinese” or “foreign” have so thoroughly upset the media, most of them are unable to explain what exactly has them so upset about it.-- Bill D'Agostino, March 24
Hollywood loves using the Coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to bash the Trump administration's priorities. But what about Hollywood’s priorities? Is it a good time to drag out a bunch of Asian and Asian American actors to continue a petty squabble about the President’s usage of the phrase “Chinese virus,” something he has even dropped in the past week? -- Gabriel Hays, March 25
And just as Hays was seemingly disappointed that Trump backed off on the "Chinese virus" narrative, so did the MRC after that. They're slavishly in lockstep with the president, after all, and they no longer had a narrative to push.
Jeffrey Turns His Bad Coronavirus Take Into CNS' Editorial Agenda Topic: CNSNews.com
Remember when we caught CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey pushing the dumb take that churches (in Virginia, where CNS is based but wasn't disclosed in his article) are somehow having their religious freedom violated because some states are restricting church services in the name of stopping the spread of coronavirus? Well, Jeffrey has doubled down on it, making this bad take a key part of CNS' editorial agenda, putting that frame on every story on the subject.
Jeffrey attacked Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam again in a March 30 article, complaining that his executive order "makes it a crime to have a gathering of more than 10 people for a 'religious event' or 'in-person classes and instruction' at an 'institution of higher education.'" Jeffrey dishonestly failed to mention that the goal of these bans are to slow the spread of coronavirus until the fifth paragraph of his article.
Managing editor Michael W. Chapman joined the agenda-pushing the next day in a article touting how "A Texas city north of Dallas quickly amended its 'Mandatory Stay-at-Home Order,' which 'prohibited' in-person religious gatherings, after receiving a letter from the First Liberty Institute detailing how the city order apparently violated CDC guidelines, state law, and the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause." Chapman waited until the 10th paragraph to mention COVID-19, even though it was the basis behind the order.
Jeffrey returned to huff, with bonus personal attack:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is threatening to “permanently” close the meeting places of religious organizations that persist in holding services while the city is shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A small number of religious communities, specific churches, specific synagogues are unfortunately not paying attention to this guidance [to close] even though it's been so widespread,” de Blasio said in a briefing on Friday.
[...]
De Blasio does not belong to any religious denomination. In a question-and-answer session on Reddit six years ago, he said: “Although my mother was raised a Catholic, she did not bring me up in the Church. I considered myself a spiritual person but unaffiliated, and I was definitely very influenced by the liberation theology movement in Latin America. And BOY am I a fan of Pope Francis!”
Jeffrey is suggesting without proof that De Blasio is motivated by disdain or hatred of religion rather than public health.
Chapman struck a similar misleading tone in an April 1 article:
Because of coronavirus restrictions, Italian authorities permit people to go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the doctor, and to "essential" work. But if you go to a church to pray -- even with just a few people and widely separated -- you can be cited by the police and forced to disperse. Citations can be as high as 200 euros (about $220) and may involve court appearances, according to Crux, a Catholic news publication online.
Going to church to pray is not considered "essential."
Chapman didn't mention that the Catholic Church in Italy has canceled all Masses and religious services and that even Pope Francis is celebrating Mass daily without a congregation -- and, thus, that one is not required to be in a church to pray.
An April 3 article by Chapman noted how "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) revised his March 19 executive order in response to the coronavirus to now include "religious services" as "essential services." Chapman included stock photos of vartious religious services, none of which appeared to be taking place in Texas.
CNS even threw in an article featuring President Trump claiming that "he’s disappointed that churches can’t hold services because of social distancing guidelines limiting the number of people allowed at large gatherings to stop the spread of COVID-19."
CNS certainly knows how to commit to an editorial agenda. Too bad it's such a biased and dishonest one.
UPDATE: We missed a couple of other attempts to advance this narrative. Jeffrey devoted his April 1 column to attacking "excessive government" and complaining that some politicians "have used the threat this virus poses to public health to threaten a fundamental liberty," specifically "the free exercise of religion." Jeffrey refused to concede that even the possiblity that public health is more important in this case than freedom of religion, huffing at one point, "While COVID-19 is a threat to human health, excessive government is a threat to human liberty."
That was joined by an article from Melanie Arter detailing pastors violating the law by holding religious services for large crowds.
Pro-Trump Sycophancy, Christopher Ruddy Division Topic: Newsmax
Throughout this national emergency President Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s the right person to lead the nation.
From the beginning we have seen Trump’s best attributes.
Some time ago, the Quinnipiac poll asked Americans about the president’s best attributes.
The public said he was a “strong person” (62%) and that he “is intelligent” (58%).
Both of those attributes of his have been on display during this crisis.
Trump has other arrows in his quiver: He’s calm and doesn’t panic, decisive, and follows the evidence, not the hype.
[...]
Trump has been chided for not taking the threat seriously.
But as his congressional opponents focused on a very flimsy impeachment inquiry, he was busy convening a coronavirus task force. And that was back in January.
[...]
Throughout the crisis, Trump has remained focused and level-headed.
He defers to the experts at his task force’s daily press briefings, and has kept the nation informed without being panicked.
MRC To PBS And NPR: Drop Dead (Of Coronavirus) Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has a pathological hatred of public broadcasting, most recently demonstrated when chief Brent Bozell demostrated he doesn't know how public radio works by cluelessly demanding that there be as many stations running his buddy Mark Levin's right-wing radio show as NPR stations (which all have their own format and schedule and don't necessarily run every NPR program).
And since the MRC isn't one to let a crisis go to waste, it's seizing upon a miniscule appropriation in the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill going toward public broadcasting as an excuse to resurrect its longstanding demand that President Trump defund public broadcasting. Bozell tweeted out what he thought the money could have Bought instead:
Never mind, of course, that those numbers of tests, masks and ventilators aren't even available, and that -- giving the price-gouging currently going on -- even if they were, they couldn't be bought at pre-pandemic prices.Never mind that the $75 million is only a tiny fraction of a $2 trillion bill -- 0.00375 percent, if our calculations are correct. Never mind that Bozell objected to no other specific provision in the bill, though you'd think there would be plenty of pork to object to in a bill that size. Bozell had his talking point, and the MRC flogged it.
The MRC's NewsBusters blog dutifully repeated Bozell's tweet, adding: "Lobbyists for the public broadcasters claim this money will go to "local news and information," "distributing emergency alerts," and "partnering with local and state educational authorities to provide remote learning services for millions of pre-K to 12th grade students." But they use the same talking points about their everyday funding." That's misleading; the bill itself -- as reported by MRC "news" division CNSNews.com -- states that the money will also go to "prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus." Which means at least some of that money will pay for mitigating coronavirus exposure among public broadcasting employees.
In other words: It appears Bozell and the MRC would rather see public broadcasting employees get sick and possible die from coronavirus than receive any federal money, simply because it purports to find "partisan information and misinformation," as viewed by "many conservative Americans."
This was followed by the usual letter from Bozell, this time to President Trump, complaining that the money ewas "wasteful," declaring that thte things in his tweet that nobody can actually buy now even if they had the money "are infinitely better uses of taxpayer money than giving it to left-wing outlets like NPR and PBS, both of which attack you and your administration continuously." Bozell, of course, didn't mention that the money would go in poart to coronavirus mitigation efforts -- that would've shown he cared about people's lives or anything greater than his political agenda. Instead, he ranted:
That is why your proposal to eliminate all federal funding for CPB is completely justified. There will undoubtedly be proposals for more stimulus packages going forward. When that happens, we encourage you to push back hard against funding for such entities as CPB. No amount of classical music, Ken Burns documentaries, or “Morning Editions” is worth one saved human life.
Bozell then laughably stated: " Now more than ever, Americans must pull together in a spirit of unity. " He didn't explain how exploiting a crisis to exploit his hateful agenda advanced that "spirit of unity."
The guy who used to write columns under Bozell's name but now has finally been given the keys to it, Tim Graham, channeled his boss and threw in as well with an April 1 column whining that the public broadcasting is "niche broadcasting by liberals for liberals" and attacking PBS journalist Yamiche Alcindor for asking President Trump tough questions during his coronavirus briefings.
Needless to say, Graham didn't menion that the money helps pay for coronavirus mitigation. So it appears Graham would want public broadcasting employees sick or dead than getting the same help much of the rest of the country is getting under the coronavirus relief bill.
WND Promotes Doctor's Unverified Claims About Coronavirus Cure Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written March 24 WorldNetDaily article stated:
A physician in New York state claims he has used the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and zinc to treat 350 patients for COVID-19 with 100 percent success.
In a video posted on YouTube, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko said he saw the symptom of shortness of breath resolved within four to six hours, the Gateway Pundit blog reported.
Zelenko, addressing his message to President Trump, said he's a board-certified family practioner in the community of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, in the Hudson Valley, about 50 miles north of New York City.
"I'm seeing a tremendous outbreak in this community," he said. "My estimate is more than 60% currently have the infection.
The article downplays the fact that hydroxychloroquine has not been federally approved to treat coronavirus. Further, as fact-checkers have detailed, Zelenko has offer no documentation of his claims about curing patients.
On top of that, Zelenko's claim that residents of the Kiryas Joel community is sufering a "tremendous outbreak" of coronavirus have beendebunked by state health officials who called them "unsubstatiated and irresponsible," given that Zelenko was extrapolating from a small amount of tested patients.
Nevertheless, WND touted Zelenko the next day in an article by Art Moore, who gushed that the doctor was "a recent survivor of an extremely rare cancer with a "100% mortality rate" that took one of his lungs" and that he has now been able to "successfully treat at least 500 patients with the coronavirus" and that "he hasn't slept in the past four days." Kovacs does not offer any documentation of anything Zelenko has done.
That was followed by a March 30 WND column by dubious fringe-right AAPS doc Elizabeth Lee Vliet, who cited how Zelenko "has been successfully using the combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, zinc and vitamin C to treat almost 700 patients in the outpatient setting" -- again, no documentation given -- as an excuse to attack politicians who "have no background in infectious disease, medicine, research design, or epidemiology" and "presume to dictate to front-line physicians who are reading the emerging research and caring for patients."
Similarly, a March 31 WND column by Andy Schlafly touted how Zelenko "has treated 699 coronavirus patients with a treatment regimen using the same hydroxychloroquine tweeted by Trump. By giving this inexpensive medication early enough, Dr. Zelenko has successfully kept 695 of his patients out of the hospital, and none of them has died." He too was apparently not troubled by Zelenko's complete lack of documentation of his claims, but was apparently more concerned in using Zelenko as alleged proof that "Trump was right" to push hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment.
Promoting treatements are that clinically proven and 100% safe and effective is highly irresponsible -- but it's par for the course for WND, where a sensational story is more important than the facts.
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham wrote in a March 13 post:
At the Media Research Center, it's not enough to merely criticize transgendered people -- 
Jack Cashill took unseemly pleasure in the personal problems of another human being in his March 18 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham likes to pretend that he is above right-wing conspiracy theories, despite the fact that his employer has allowed them to perpetuate, as we've 
We've
In February, Newsmax TV 
In a March 26 
CNSNews.com has long had a 
WorldNetDaily continues to be on life support -- an apparent de facto division of the Floyd Brown-operated fake-news outlet the Western Journal -- and Joseph Farah remains out of commission. Meanwhile, managing editor David Kupelian continues to send out email letters to WND's mailing llist that thinks we've forgotten about WND's journalistic non-legacy.
Like its "news" division CNSNews.com, the Media Research Center proper latched on to President Trump's insistence (for about a week) on labeling the coronavirus the "Chinese virus." And like a local Trump apparatchik, the MRC declared Trump to be perfect in his assessment and attacked or mocking anyone who dared questioned dear leader -- and issued blanket denials that anyone was inspired to commit violence against Asian Americans because of it.
Remember when we caught CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey 
Throughout this national emergency President Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s the right person to lead the nation.
An anonymously written March 24 WorldNetDaily 
