Topic: Media Research Center
In a May 4 appearance on Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto," the MRC's Rich Noyes attacked questions during last Thursday's Republican presidential debate, which he called "a series of left-leaning questions" and "the kind of stuff on liberal bloggers." But Noyes didn't acknowledge that the candidates got right-leaning questions as well (as noted by Media Matters):
- "Mayor Giuliani, how do we get back to Ronald Reagan's morning in America?"
- "What would you need, as commander in chief, to win the war in Iraq? ... Do you need anything, beyond what the president has now, to win the war?"
- "We're in the house of Ronald Reagan. Every cab driver in America knew what Ronald Reagan stood for: defeat communism abroad; reduce big government at home. Can you, Senator McCain, restore that kind of unity of purpose?"
These are "left-leaning questions"? Hardly. But Noyes pretends they weren't asked at all.
Noyes made this same point -- again overlooking the right-wing questions that were asked -- in a May 3 NewsBusters post and May 4 CyberAlert item.
Noyes' appearance on Cavuto's show was solo -- the latest in a series of unchallenged appearances by MRC reps on Fox News -- and, as before, Cavuto not only made no effort to challenge Noyes, he agreed with him and served up juicy softballs for him to hit. At one point, Cavuto stated: "What's interesting too, Rich, is someone had to ferret out those questions, right, and decide which ones to pursue. And so, obviously, there was a bit of agenda in who's doing that." Cavuto concluded: "My only reaction, Rich, was none of those Republicans was afraid to be in a venue where they knew they would probably get little snide questions like this on a network or with a host who has a certain leaning. Yet none of their counterparts in the Democratic Party would dare appear here." That, of course, served as a cue for Noyes to call MSNBC a "far-left-wing network."
