Topic: Media Research Center
It must be MRC softball question week at Fox News.
Times Watch's Clay Waters appeared May 29 on "Your World" to discuss the New York Times' purported lack of reporting on Hugo Chavez's crackdown in Venezuela. Not only was it a solo appearance, like many other MRC appearances on Fox News, and not only was it never noted that the MRC is a conservative group (which Fox News rarely, if ever, points out), guest host David Asman -- as he did the day before with the MRC's Dan Gainor, encouraged and parroted Waters' talking points:
ASMAN: I was just going to say, we go back in history to a guy named Herbert Matthews in the '50s, who was the one who created the myth about Fidel Castro. He was reporting for the New York Times. It looks like history is repeating itself.
[...]
ASMAN: So the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The enemy, in this case, being Bush, for both Chavez and the New York Times.
WATERS: Sorta like that, yes.
ASMAN: But can you get -- but that's pretty outrageous if you think about it.
[...]
ASMAN: You know, meanwhile, we should mention that the New York Times did have space for -- here's a rally in Kabul, Afghanistan. They also had a rally in Germany about globalization that was featured on page A3, I believe, a big photo of -- there it is, there's a picture from that rally. No pictures, two sentences in the New York Times about what happened in Venezuela.
And, of course, no effort made to get the New York Times to respond to Waters' (and Asman's) claims.
How much does the MRC pay Fox News to get such favorable, unchallenged coverage?
