Topic: Media Research Center
Tim Graham and Brent Bozell whine in their Sept. 21 column about presidential debate moderators:
Already, Fox's Chris Wallace drew liberal outrage by declaring: "I do not believe that it's my job to be a truth squad. It's up to the other person to catch them on that." Wallace sees his role as being like a referee in a heavyweight boxing match, where no one remembers him being there. But the left hounds today's liberal media, saying that being a mere referee is being an accessory to evil.
Funny, we remember when the Media Research Center felt the opposite way about vetting Trump -- earlier this year, to be exact. This time, though, the MRC's Nicholas Fondacaro was complaining that NBC's Chuck Todd said what his bosses are now praising Wallace for saying:
For Chuck Todd to insinuate that it’s not the media’s job to dig into a candidate’s past or fully vet a candidate for the public is just plain ridiculous. Todd laid the this duty at the feet of the other candidates stating “Folks, those are all inconsistencies that a normal campaign that was running against Donald Trump would probably put together, into TV ads and try to see if it would leave a mark with voters.”
For a member of the media to advocate for campaigns alone to do the vetting is an abdication of journalistic duty.
So, to summarize: In February, when Trump was the MRC's enemy, it was "abdication of journalistic duty" not to vet Trump or point out that he's lying. Now, with Trump the Republican nominee and the MRC obliged to defend him no matter what, not vetting Trump or pointing out when he's lying is the highest form of journalism.
Graham and Bozell also kept up the anti-fact jihad against fact-checkers, complaining that Trump has been caught by fact-checkers in more lies than Clinton -- " PolitiFact routinely fails to assign its "fact-checkers" when Team Clinton lies through its teeth" -- without apparently stopping to consider the seemingly obvious fact that Trump has told more lies than Clinton.
But, hey, when you have to defend a candidate that seemingly lies all the time, attacking the mere existence of facts is pretty much the only defense you have.
