Topic: Media Research Center
T
he Media Research Center, it seems, still can't handle the fact that the media is accurately reporting that Republicans are to blame for the recent government shutdown.
On the heels of his earlier mini-study complaining about this accurate reporting, Rich Noyes has cranked out a larger Oct. 17 study saying exactly the same thing. For the first time that we can remember, Noyes attempts an explanation for why the MRC focuses so narrowly on the TV networks and ignores cable news:
For millions of Americans, big political contests such as presidential elections and pivotal congressional hearings are still largely witnessed through the lens of ABC’s, CBS’s and NBC’s evening newscasts. According to Nielsen Research, more than 20 million viewers tuned in over the past two weeks for the Big Three’s take on the shutdown drama.
Noyes isn't going to tell you, of course, that the main complicating factor in complaining about cable news bias is Fox News, which like the MRC is a proud shill for the Republican Party, as well as pretending that Republicans had nothing to do with the shutdown.
As before, Noyes never why Republicans are not to blame for the shutdown -- he merely complains that they're being blamed and Democrats aren't. He never stops to consider that this may be because these news outlets are reporting facts and that it's false equivalency to claim otherwise.
Noyes finally conceded the possibility of some GOP responsibility at the very end of his study, then tries to take it back:
As the shutdown neared its end, the networks’ polls found the American public more critical of the GOP than either Democrats or the White House. While some blame can perhaps be assigned to Republicans’ lack of a unified conservative message, the incessant drumbeat of hostile, and slanted, media coverage surely took its toll as well.
Earth to Noyes: "Lack of a unified conservative message" was not the problem; conservatives' insistence on deviating from longstanding practice by trying to defund an approved program by holding the rest of the government hostage was.
There's also a little matter that Republicans had been planning a shutdown for months, but Noyes won't tell you that.
