MRC's Attempt To Own NY Times Reporter On Twitter Fails Miserably
Topic: Media Research Center

Being quick and snarky is the coin of the realm on Twitter, but the Media Research Center was a little too quick in an attempt to attack a New York Times reporter -- and then refused to admit its error.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted out a link to a story she co-wrote on the questionable effectiveness of President Trump's divisive rhetoric in the 2020 presidential campaign that stated:

Trump is “the Rod Stewart of politicians — he may keep coming up with new material but deep down he knows his fans just want to hear ‘Wake Up Maggie,’ so he keeps playing the same tune because he can’t stand the thought of them not loving his performance.”

The MRC's response, from its NewsBusters account, was to huff: "Dear Maggie: The song is 'Maggie May,' not 'Wake Up Maggie.'"

The MRC's social media guy or gal clearly did not read the Times story before he or she tweeted; otherwise, he or she would have known that this was not a quote from the writers but, rather, the writers quoting Republican strategist Terry Sullivan.

Also, "Wake up, Maggie" are the first three words of "Maggie May," so those words are exactly what Rod Stewart fans want to hear.The fact that Sullivan got the song title wrong is irrelevant since everyone knows it anyway; Haberman and her co-writer accurately quoted what Sullivan said.

The MRC's response to this was, unsurprisingly, not to admit it had screwed up. Instead, it blamed the Times for its refusal to fully read the story it was trying to snark on. After Haberman pointed out to the MRC that it was a person being quoted as saying "Wake Up Maggie" instead of the formal song title, the MRC doubled down: "So why is The New York Times lacking the copy editors to suggest the quote isn't a good one to use?"

Haberman snarked in return, since she seems to know how the MRC operates: "Will take that as the rare acknowledgement you're wrong. We will all strive to be as perfect as you going forward." But the MRC still wasn't admitting it screwed up and was still blaming others for its own screw-up like a common Trump: "We'll admit when we're wrong. But you tweeted out the inaccurate quote, like it was brilliant."

The MRC is in utter denial that it was wrong, even though it can't prove Haberman wrong. Just take the L, guys.

MRC Forgets It Used to Peddle Conspiracy Theories About Employment Stats Being Fudged
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez complained in a June 5 item:

President Donald Trump’s economy proved it’s not going down without a fight. An excellent new jobs report has Keynesian New York Times economist Paul Krugman babbling about a Trump conspiracy on Twitter to make sense of it.

CNBC reported that “Employment stunningly rose by 2.5 million in May and the jobless rate declined to 13.3%,” based on Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics’s (BLS) report. The report “was far better than economists had been expecting and indicated that an economic turnaround could be close at hand.” Krugman didn’t appear to know what to do with these numbers, except try to speculate the “possibility” that the Trump administration has “gotten to the BLS” to fudge the numbers. 

Really.

[...]

Then came the kicker: Krugman floated a conspiracy theory, suggesting that the Trump administration could have coerced the BLS to produce fraudulent data: 

[...]

Even the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Barack Obama Jason Furman took issue with Krugman’s conspiracy theory. Furman said in a retweet to Krugman: “You can 100% discount the possibility that Trump got to the BLS. Not 98% discount, not 99.9% discount, but 100% discount.”

Vazquez liked this tweet so muchhe put it on a list of the "Top 10 WORST Paul Krugman Tweets of 2020 … So Far."

Just one problem: the MRC had no problem pushing conspiracy theories about unemployment numbers when Barack Obama was president.

As we noted, in a March 2017 NewsBusters post, Tom Blumer -- who would later be canned from NewsBusters for putting white nationalist links in his items, though the NewsBusters editors who allowed them to be published in the first place apparently went unpunished -- accused outgoing BLS leader Erica Groshen of fudging unemployment numbers during her four-year tenure:

During Groshen's reign, as the reported unemployment rate dropped from 8.0 percent to 4.8 percent during her term, there was reason to believe that BLS may have changed its criteria for whether a person was in the labor force and began excluding more people who were legitimately looking for work. Doing so in a manner inconsistent with previous practices would artificially reduce the officially reported unemployment rate.

Groshen has been gone for six weeks. With new leadership, it's at least possible that Team Trump has gained confidence in the BLS data, and has had the opportunity to correct any major flaws which the previous director might have allowed into its processes.

Blumer provided no evidence to back up his accusation.

Blumer also acused Groshen of having "ties to decidedly left-wing political groups," but the Daily Caller article he cited as evidence for this noted only that she co-authored an article "urging an end to small businesses’ exemption from expensive federal regulations," and that her husband donated $20 to "the far-left Working Families Party."

MRC Demanded That Media Cover WHO Claim That Was Misleading
Topic: Media Research Center

For much of the spring, the Media Research Center acted like the division of the Trump re-election campaign it is and parroted the president's attacks on the World Health Organization as effectively a division of the Chinese Communist Party for purportedly downplaying the threat of coronavirus as it was emerging in China. This led to headlines such as "CBS & ABC Rush to Defend WHO From Trump, Ignore Failures," "MSNBC Spends Two Hours Siding with Pro-China WHO Over U.S. Since Trump Is ‘Worse’" and "New York Times Lauds WHO Against Trump, Quotes CCP Stooge's Criticism."

But when the WHO apparently did something that coincided with the MRC's right-wing agenda, it suddenly demanded that it be covered. Thus, this June 8 post from Nicholas Fondacaro:

Back in April, CBS and NBC threw a fit because President Trump had decided to cut off U.S. tax dollars from flowing to the World Health Organization (WHO), citing their kowtowing to China. They defended the organization as critical to fighting the coronavirus. But, on Monday, the WHO announced that the virus was very rarely transmitted via asymptomatic patients. Due to what was a mystery of who was a carrier, health officials ensured governments and business sunk the global economy, destroying lives. Now that it seemed as though we did all that for nothing, CBS and NBC were nowhere to be seen.

But to their credit, ABC’s World News Tonight did cover the WHO’s new announcement thanks to correspondent and weekend anchor Tom Llamas.

 [...]

Instead of reporting on this revelation from the organization they feverishly defended from Trump, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News touted how their city, New York was finally reopening. NBC even wasted time with a segment dedicated to promoting the radical idea of defunding and abolishing police departments.

Just one problem here: the WHO kinda botched things. The next day, it clarified its position by stating that "we don’t actually have that answer yet" on asymptomatic transmission and that the original statement confused presymptomatic transmission with the asymptomatic type, and the original statement ignored studies showing that  asymptomatic people do, in fact, spread the virus.

As one would expect, the MRC then got mad that "liberal" fact-checkers called out the WHO on this.Corinne Weaver huffed in a June 11 post:

Facebook’s third party fact-checkers, selected by the liberal Poynter Institute, have officially labeled World Health Organization’s (WHO) statement about asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 as “misleading.” Ironically, in April, Facebook used the WHO to disprove myths about COVID-19.  

According to Healthfeedback.org, a wing of Sciencefeedback.org, two scientists analyzed a piece on CNBC and determined that the “statements by the WHO and the reporting by CNBC were misleading and imprecise.” The CNBC piece touting the WHO’s statement was covered up with an interstitial, or filter, and labeled “partially false.”

Weaver concluded by turning on the WHO again: "As far back as mid-January, WHO was reporting information that was not accurate, based on misinformation from China. An infamous tweet dated January 14 from the WHO stated, 'Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.'"

Weaver didn't mention that her employer had demanded that the media report the original, misleading WHO report.

MRC Heavily Pushed Trump's No-Tear-Gas Falsehood
Topic: Media Research Center

A couple weeks back, we noted how a Media Research Center post embraced the Park Service's explanation that no tear gas was used when Lafayette Square was cleared of protesters so President Trump could do his Bible-clutching photo op in front of a church near the square -- even though that story fell apart almost immediately. Turns out the MRC pushed that story a couple other times as well.

In a June 2 post, Kyle Drennen complained about the media "hyping the 'outrage' over President Trump visiting the church" and reports that tear gas was used on protesters, further huffing: "The Park Police dispute that version of events, denying that they used tear gas and claiming that they were unaware of the President’s plan to exit the White House and walk across Lafayette Square to St. John’s." He closed by complaining, "If journalists want to criticize the timing and optics of Trump visiting a church, they should at least be as outraged by rioters who set that church on fire a day earlier."

Maybe Drennen should question his swallowing a false narrative before attacking others.

In another post the same day, Curtis Houck ranted about a "juvenile diatribe" on  CNN that noted the flashbang grenades going off and tear gas in the air," huffing in response: "As we later found out, the use of tear gas was a complete lie."

The following day, Houck grumbled that "CNN chief White House correspondent and resident quack Jim Acosta predictably inserted himself into Wednesday’s press briefing, taking up over four minutes lamenting about Monday night’s events in D.C.’s Lafayette Park and refusing to denounce violence against police officers. And just as predictably, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany made him look like a fool." He claimed Acosta was trying to "filibuster" when he responded to McEnany's (false) denial that no tear was was used by pointing out that "chemical agents were used,"and he gave a pass to McEnany's falsehood by delcaring, "Thankfully, McEnany put a stop to it and laid out the timeline and rationale for clearing Lafayette Park."

A June 5 post by Ryan Foley included a transcript from "Late Nigh with Seth Myers" that includes the McEnany-Acosta exchange and another CNN clip pointing out the false tear-gas claim. But Foley doesn't mention it in his post; instead, he attacks Meyers for criticizing Republican Sen. Tom Cotton's notorious New York Times op-ed calling for military force to stop "looting and rioting."

That's the only time -- buried in a transcript -- that the falsehood of the tear-gas narrative is noted. None of the other posts have corrected the record, and their promotion of the Trump administration's false narrative remains. 


MRC's Graham Is Mad 100,000 Coronavirus Deaths Were Honored
Topic: Media Research Center

Tim Graham began his May 29 column somberly: "On May 27, the American death toll from coronavirus sunk into the six figures: 100,000 lives lost. That’s a very sad number, made sadder when we ponder that the virus prevents loved ones from saying goodbye in person, and makes any funeral an extremely small event."

That somberness disappeared quickly, as Graham spent the rest of his column ranting that the media was noting that sad number in an alleged conspiracy to make President Trump look bad:

The nation’s largest national newspapers have all made dramatic front pages out of the number. The New York Times came first on Sunday, filling their entire front page and three more pages with names of the victims. USA Today followed on Wednesday with an entire front page in black, with photos of the dead. The Washington Post waited until the horrible number was true, but still printed some actual news stories on the front page.

In the Post, Marc Fisher brought the usual emotional language to the milestone. It “slipped by like so many other days in this dark spring, one more spin of the Earth, one more headline in a numbing cascade of grim news.”

It’s hardly “slipping by.” They’ve made sure of that.

CNN promoted each and every one of these performative pages, which strongly enhanced the notion that this wasn’t just a number. It was a political strategy. Each of these newspapers and CNN haven’t just reported on President Trump, but have cast him as a dangerous man who should be removed from office long before he had a chance to campaign for re-election.

[...]

You can’t merely grieve in a vague way for the 100,000. They have to be trotted out as talking points, as Public Rationale Number One for removing Trump from office in November.

Graham concluded: "We can all lament this death toll, but some clearly are beating their breasts in the most opportunistic way imaginable. It doesn’t honor the victims. It merely exploits them." We don't recall Graham complaining when his employer spent years exploited the deaths of people at Benghazi or the Border Patrol agent who died in a tangental link to the Fast and Furious operation -- but, hey, that was when there was a Democratic president.

CNS Also Touts Its Parent's Agenda-Affirming Poll
Topic: Media Research Center

We documented how the Media Research Center's promotion of its agenda-confirming poll claiming that a majority of voters believe the media want a long coronavirius shutdown to hurt President Trump's re-election chances failed to tell readers about the conflict of interest that the MRC's pollster is shared with Trump's re-election campaign. The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, didn't do any better.

Managing editor Michael W. Chapman's June 9 article on the poll reads like a the press release it is, and it still carries a "BREAKING" notice in the head despite it being long past breaking news, if indeed it ever was:

A new survey released this morning shows that 59.8% of likely voters, liberal and conservative, believe that "some members of the media" would like to see the coronavirus shutdown drag on so that "it hurts" President Donald Trump's chances of reelection in November.

“This is just more evidence of how at odds the American liberal media are with the American public,” said Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell. “Honest journalism has been replaced with leftist advocacy. Even in these divisive times, both conservatives and liberals can agree on one thing: the media have it out for President Trump.”

Not only did Chapman fail to disclose that the pollster the MRC used, McLaughlin & Associates, is also on the payroll of the Trump re-election campaign --  raising questions about the veracity of the poll, given the partisan motivations of those behind it -- or that McLaughlin has an atrocious polling record, he also failed to supply the basic disclosure of the fact that the MRC is CNS' parent.

Chapman loves to load up the items he writes with lot of images, but this time he threw in a shot of CNN anchor Don Lemon for no apparent reason; he's not mentioned anywhere in the article.

Chapman keeps demonstrating that the "news" outlet he manages cares more about being a pro-Trump stenographer and less about news.

MRC Goes A-Heathering Against Conserative Trump Critic, Fox News Host
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has spent years Heathering itsd fellow conservatives who step out of line by failing to rigidly toe the conservative line. These days, though, Trumpism must be enforced, and the MRC will tolerate no dissent, even from those whose conservative credentials are impeccable (and Fox News hosts).

So when "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace and conservative guest Jonah Goldberg criticized White House press secretary Kayleigh McEneny's unprofessional behavior in attacking journalists who dare to question the actions of the Trump administration, Nicholas Fondacaro went into full Heathering mode:

Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace invited a panel to bash White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany because she dared to stand up to the opposition press. Between Wallace taking it personally and the Never-Trump editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg attacking her, it was like watching CNN.

Wallace’s chief complaint was that McEnany had taken the White House pool to task for ignoring and downplaying the revelations in the corrupt investigation of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and how the Russian collusion narrative was unraveling.

“I have to say that if Kayleigh McEnany had told Sam Donaldson and me what questions we should ask, that would not have gone well [for her],” Wallace bristled as he addressed Goldberg.

[...]

Wallace also repeatedly threw around how he used to be a White House correspondent back in the day with ridiculously biased Sam Donaldson. That being the case, Wallace should acknowledge the fact that every press secretary has acted as a spokesperson for the respective administration they work for.

Now, the argument can be made that McEnany's comments can be a little hot, but the hyperbolic rhetoric from Goldberg and Wallace was uncalled for.

Fondacaro -- who is a Trump true believer, incapable of considering that he or his administration is capable of doing anything wrong -- repeated his employer's old blame-the-media schtick: "But back in reality, the liberal media were the ones who had turned nearly every press briefing into 'gladiatorial arenas' since day one of the Trump presidency. One just needed to look at how CNN’s Jim Acosta, Playboy’s Brian Karem, and the plethora of other so-called 'journalists' who used the briefings to make themselves the news story."

This fit of Heathering is just another example of how the MRC has become an arm of Trump's re-election campaign.

MRC Censors Fact That Cop Killer Is A Right-Wing Extremist
Topic: Media Research Center

In a June 11 item, the Media Research Center's Bill D'Agostino complained that "ABC, CBS and NBC have churned out a massive amount of coverage for protests during the past two weeks (1,042 minutes on their morning and evening news programs), but these same networks have spent almost no airtime letting viewers know about the injuries and death inflicted on police officers during these two weeks of social unrest." He cited two incidents in particular:

On the night of May 29, federal law enforcement officer Dave Patrick Underwood was killed in a drive-by shooting while providing security at a U.S. courthouse in Oakland. The incident was labeled “an act of domestic terrorism” by Acting Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli. Underwood’s death received just 10 seconds of airtime from NBC; the incident received 14 seconds from CBS and 19 seconds from ABC. 

[...]

Another police killing -- the June 6 ambush and murder of a sheriff's deputy in Santa Cruz, California -- was not immediately linked to the protests and social unrest, but it also received miniscule coverage: 2 minutes, 14 seconds on ABC; 50 seconds on CBS; and 46 seconds on NBC.

The MRC has yet to tell you, however, that the man arrested in both killings is a right-wing extremist.

Steven Carrillo, an Air Force sergeant who is apparently affiliated with the far-right Boogaloo movement -- which seeks to ignite a second civil war in the U.S. -- was arrested on June 11, the same day as D'Agostino's post, for the Santa Cruz ambush, then was charged five days later with the killing of the Oakland officer.

The MRC has invoked both incidents to suggest that left-wing Antifa activists are responsible for these officers' deaths:

A June 3 post by Kristine Marsh claimed Underwood's death was an example of  how "The media also largely ignored when another black man was killed last week during the riots.

A June 4 item by D'Agostino invoked Underwood's death in a similar "study" on law enforcement deaths that were "glossed over or were ignored outright by the broadcast networks."

In his June 6 column, Jeffrey Lord referenced "the murder of Dave Patrick Underwood, a black federal security officer in Oakland" as an example of the "looting and burning."

Nicholas Fondacaro complained in a June 7 post that "ABC chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz appeared on Good Morning America claimed Trump wanted to bring 'combat troops' to bear against peaceful protesters. But while ABC was mischaracterizing Trump’s use of active-duty military, they completely ignored the ambush of sheriff’s deputies in Santa Cruz, California, where one was murdered and two more injured.

Fondacaro used the Santa Cruz incident to attack Raddatz in another post the same day: "But even though a Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputy was killed and two others were injured in an ambush the previous night, Raddatz indignantly declared: 'There have not been too many examples in the last few days.'"

The MRC should tell its readers the full story about the incidents it cites -- you know, what it demands from the media outlets it criticizes.

NEW ARTICLE: Beyond The Benghazi Bungle
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center gave Lara Logan a pass after she botched her "60 Minutes" story on a fake Benghazi witness. Now Logan is back, falling for Antifa hoaxes -- and the MRC is totally cool with that as well. Read more >>

MRC Uses Trump's Crappy Pollster For A Poll Reaffirming Its Agenda
Topic: Media Research Center

How closely is the Media Research Center working with President Trump's re-election campaign? It's now using Trump's pollster. From an anonymously written June 9 post:

The Media Research Center (MRC) in coordination with McLaughlin & Associates on Tuesday released the findings of a new poll examining likely voters’ attitudes toward media coverage of the coronavirus shutdown and President Trump.

The poll found that 60% of likely voters, both liberal and conservative, believed some members of the media would like to see the shutdown drag on so that it hurts President Trump's chances of reelection in November. Of those polled, 85% of self-identified conservatives and 41% of self-identified liberals agreed with the above statement.

“This is just more evidence of how at odds the American liberal media are with the American public,” said MRC President Brent Bozell.

All the MRC is doing here is confirming how its messaging -- in this case, the narrative that the non-Fox News media hate Trump -- is holding up. Given that 85 percent of conservatives buy this, the MRC is doing a fine job of preaching to the converted.

As it happens, the day before this press release was posted, McLaughlin & Associates issued a memo on behalf of the Trump campaign claiming that polls showing Trump losing are "skewed," adding, "Let’s prove them wrong again." This was followed by a letter from Trump's campaign demanding that CNN retract a poll it didn't like. CNN responded by noting that "this is the first time in its 40-year history that CNN had been threatened with legal action because an American politician or campaign did not like CNN's polling results."

The MRC is certainly not going to tell you that McLaughlin is considered to be among the worst political pollsters. Most notoriously, in 2014 a McLaughlin poll for then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor showed him up by 34 points two weeks before a Republican primary against his opponent Dave Brat; Brat ended up defeating Cantor by 11 points.

This is who the MRC and Trump are partnering with to advance their agenda. No wonder they seem a bit jittery about things.

MRC Tries To Keep CNN Conspiracy Theory Alive
Topic: Media Research Center

Curtis Houck began his June 9 Media Research Center post this way:

Try not to laugh or feel the urge to destroy your electronic devices after reading these quotes. On Tuesday, the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) announced their 2020 award winners, which included the insanely partisan Yamiche Alcindor of taxpayer-funded PBS, the liberal hacks at CNN, and The New York Times. 

That's right -- it's yet another MRC meltdown over journalists getting awards (though the only electronic devices in danger of getting destroyed are the ones in arm's length of Houck). Thus, we have the usual pained, unhinged exclamations from Houck like "What were the judges smoking?" But the really unhinged thing Houck wrote was this:

In the “Merriman Smith Memorial Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage under Deadline Pressure for Broadcast” category, WHCA handed first place to Jeffrey Zucker’s CNN for being parked outside Roger Stone’s Florida home on January 25, 2019 as FBI agents arrived before dawn to arrest him.

CNN has long denied being tipped off and insisted it came from a pure hunch. But no matter what they’ve said and will continue to say, the episode will always leave people skeptical.

That, of course, is the conspiracy theory -- promoted heavily by the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com -- that  CNN happened to be on hand to film Stone's arrest because it was tipped off, possibly by special counsel Robert Mueller himself. Houck himself pushed it back in the day, refusing to believe CNN's claim it followed the story closely enough that it could prepare for an arrest.

Despite the fact that absolutely no evidence whatsoever has surfaced to contradict CNN's explanation, Houck is still embracing the conspiracy theory and insisting there's reason for people to be "skeptical." Of course, "people" in this case means unhinged, irrational CNN-haters like Houck who are paid to hate CNN.

The headline on Houck's piece indicates that he believes any journalist who's not a right-wingher to be a "liberal hack." But his insistence on clinging to a never-proven conspiracy solely because he hates CNN that much demonstrates what a right-wing hack he is.

MRC Loses It Over The Fact That Opening Economy Means More People Die of Coronavirus
Topic: Media Research Center

Back when the coronavirus pandemic got into full swing, the Media Research Center had meltdowns over people wanting to protect abortion rights -- even though it defended a man who advocated letting elderly people die of coronavirus in order to save the economy. Since then, the MRC has been pushing another argument under in the same neighborhood.

For months, the MRC has been whining about people who claim that Trump allies who demand that lockdowns and stay-at-home orders end immediately in order to save the economy are putting people's lives in danger. It was so obsessed over this, in fact, that it devoted an April 21 post to compiling 16 examples, with Geoffrey Dickens huffing, "Liberal journalists and hosts exhibited little sympathy for protestors wanting to go back to work as they belittled them as zombies and a 'doomsday cult.' The President and conservatives that shared their concerns were derided as 'reckless and “dangerous.'" Nicholas Fondacaro ranted with his usual hateful bile and unprofessional name-calling in a May 12 post:

In arguably his most toxic diatribe to date, CNN host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo ended Tuesday’s Cuomo PrimeTime by lashing out at Fox News in the vilest of ways: Falsely declaring that they were totally fine with 10,000 more Americans dying from the coronavirus.

“But right now, the American family is in a period of dysfunction, we're estranged and acting strangely. 10,000 more Americans could die by August because so many places are relaxing social distancing? What happened to no man left behind? Now it's 10,000 is okay,” Cuomo asked, in a “closing argument” he draped under the veil of Mother’s Day.

Joseph Vazquez similarly grumbled in a May 21 post that New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman was issuing  "disgusting shots at President Donald Trump, Republicans, and ordinary Americans for wanting to reopen the economy: by claiming that "thousands of Americans may be about to die for the Dow," further complaining that "Krugman encouraged readers to speculate about the potential 'blowback — especially, by the way, among senior citizens — if an attempt to restart the economy leads to a new wave of infections.'"

MRC official Tim Graham, meanwhile, served up his own take on this in a May 18 post complaining that writer Molly Jong-Fast wrote an item about Fox News host advocating the roemoval of lockdowns under the headline "Laura Ingraham Wants Your Grandmother to Die." Graham huffed in response: "This has all the nuance and finesse an article headlined “Molly Jong-Fast Wants You to Commit Suicide From Sheltering in Place.” Or "Molly Jong-Fast Wants You to Be Unemployed for the Rest of Your Life." When Jong-Fast pointed out that conservatives advocating the ending of lockdowns are going against science, Graham declared: "That's not right. The conservative media is saying Democrats are claiming to be Science, but what happens when their favorite models and projections do not come true? They haven't been humble about admitting a hypothestis failed  -- like science lovers should."

But Graham and the rest of his science-questioning MRC minions don't want to question the possibility that the lockdowns saved lives and stopped out-of-control spreading of the virus. One study found that lockdowns slowed the infection rate in the U.S. and saved millions of lives worldwide. And it's indisputable that opening up business to restart the economy while there's still a significant risk of coronavirus spread will, indeed, needlessly cost lives if precautions aren't being taken. And, indeed, that's what's happening worldwide.

It's difficult to enjoy economic freedom if you're dead from something that could otherwise be avoidable. The MRC doesn't seem to understand that.

MRC's Double Standard On Presidential Coloring Books
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Gabriel Hays was in full hateful-snark mode in a May 8 item:

The timing couldn’t be any better for a sexy-themed adult coloring book featuring former vice president and current 2020 Democrat nominee Joe Biden, right? Actually, don’t answer that.

Unfortunately, it’s not a joke.

The real (and very disturbing) news is that there’s a new adult-themed coloring book titled “Hot Cup of Joe” featuring a buff Joe Biden that will be coming out on June 16, 2020.

 [...]

Sadly, this abomination exists. What might be even more disturbing than the book’s cover illustration, which depicts an “in-shape” Joe Biden wearing a tight T-shirt, aviator sunglasses, and holding a cup of joe (get it?) while standing in an old-school diner, is the book’s creepy tagline.

[...]

Conservative reactions were a mix of disgust and humor.

If you thought Joe Biden was a hard candidate to take seriously, this dials it up a notch.

So having a coloring book dedicated to you makes you a less serious presidential candidate? Don't tell Hays about all the creepy coloring books dedicated to President Trump.

Like this one, for instance, which ridiculously portrays an impossibly buff Trump as Superman, among other scenarios. It's describwd this way:

Acclaimed artist Tim Foley offers colorists thirty-one black-and-white illustrations featuring the classic Donald smirk and that unmistakable (albeit magnificent) blonde swoop. Foley has transposed Trump into classic scenes from history. Whether it’s placing his face on George Washington crossing the Delaware or superimposing it on Mount Rushmore, Foley masterfully incorporates the outspoken Republican nominee, Apprentice star, and New York real estate tycoon into a wide array of famous historical scenes and paintings for you to color. Additionally, Foley portrays the magnate at famous events such as the signing of the Constitution, Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston, and Superman lifting up a car in his initial comic book appearance.

There are more.But Hays obviously loves Trump too much to snark about them, making his Biden piece nothing but a mean-spirited cheap shot -- you know, the standard MRC output these days.

MRC Pretends To Care About CBS
Topic: Media Research Center

Randy Hall worked up some crocodile tears in a May 29 NewsBusters post:

CBS is in trouble. The network -- including its news and entertainment divisions -- has faced many financial hurdles over the past few years, which eventually led to a merger with the Viacom media conglomerate last December. Even though that combination gave the company access to more resources, the business has still had to deal with financial hardships, which led to a round of restructuring and layoffs on Tuesday.

According to The Wrap, this includes "veteran White House reporter Mark Knoller, Pentagon reporter Cami McCormick and correspondent Dean Reynolds,” among others.

How do we know that Hall's sympathy for one of the MRC's favorite targets is fake? He went on to forward the idea that "other, more highly paid journalists, could have sacrificed for their fellow journalists."

Hall's post might lead you to think that the MRC genuinely cares about the plight of CBS and its employees. It doesn't. Remember that the MRC's goal is to destroy all media that isn't sufficiently right-wing. Remember how gleeful it was when Norah O'Donnell's tenure as CBS Evening News anchor generated low-ish ratings.

The MRC hates CBS so much, it expressed joy over technical difficulties. Nicholas Fondacaro devoted an entire May 19 post to crowing about the "latest embarrassment" in which the Evening News couldn't be broadcastdue to technical issues, going on to mock the technical problem as "painfully ironic" because CBS promotes the newscast as "one voice you can turn to."

This isn't "media research" -- this is a hateful attack for partisan reasons.

McCorvey Film Makes MRC's Anti-Abortion Activists Unhappy
Topic: Media Research Center

Last month, a documentary was released about Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the Roe v. Wade case in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a right to abortion. In it, she claims that she became an anti-abortion activist in the 1990s because she was paid to do so. Needless to say, that shook a lot of people in the anti-abortion movement -- like those at the Media Research Center.

Alexa Moutevelis wrote in a May 21 post, before the film was released:

The week, a new documentary alleges that Norma McCorvey, aka “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade, claimed she was paid to convert to the pro-life position in a “deathbed confession.” Those who knew her in the pro-life movement are skeptical and said she always seemed sincere in her beliefs, pointing to two decades' worth of McCorvey’s pro-life activism as proof. The documentary isn’t even out yet (AKA Jane Roe will be released by FX on Friday) but still pro-abortion activists pounced on the news to indict the entire pro-life movement and Christian right.

She went on to complain that "pro-abortion feminazi" Amanda Marcotte "said [McCorvey's] original pro-life conversion was met with skepticism from pro-aborts."In fact, Marcotte did not use the term "pro-abort" anywhwere in her piece; that's a derogatory term anti-abortion activists like Moutevelis use to attack those who support abortion rights.

Moutevelis then dismissed McCorvey's statements to stay on message: "Whatever McCorvey's true feelings, the fact remains, abortion is not medical care, it's the intentional destruction of human life. We don't need to pay anyone to believe that, embryology textbooks will do just fine."

The same day -- again, before the film was released -- Kyle Drennen complained that ABC "hyped" the bombshell claim from McCorvey, going on to attack correspondent Deborah Roberts: "At no point in the segment did Roberts speak to pro-life activists who worked with McCorvey for years or the Catholic priest who helped guide her conversion to the Church and conducted her funeral, all of whom cast doubt on how the documentary portrayed her." That despite the fact that none of them had seen the film.

The MRC finally got around to reviewing the film in a May 29 post by Rebecca Downs, who predictably panned it because it doesn't advance her narrative, then attacked its makers: "Live Action News pointed out that the documentary was heavily edited. The producers of the film also have pro-abortion ties." We remember when the MRC defended editing when anti-abortion activists tried to run a sting operation on Planned Parenthood, to the point where Tim Graham and Brent Bozell declared that "all video is edited."

Downs tried to spin things by insisting that the it was actually the "abortion movement" that used McCorvey, not her side, with gaslighting asides that "It’s actually the abortion movement doing the exploiting and betraying women." She concluded by huffing: "Nowhere are the lies from the abortion movement fully examined; pro-lifers are the bad guys. The takeaway of the documentary ought to be how misleading and one-sided the abortion industry is, only further propagated by the pro-abortion media."

Stated like someone who has to keep the narrative going no matter what.