Topic: Media Research Center
On the Jan. 22 edition of CNN's "Reliable Sources," host Brian Stelter criticized the blatant lies White House press secretary Sean Spicer told about inauguration crowd sizes, questioning if this sort of "gaslighting" and dennial of reality is what we should expect from the White House press office and the Trump administration as a whole. Stelter added: "Will conservative media outlets play along with Trump’s lies? Will they claim he is telling the truth or will conservative outlets respect their readers enough to call BS on BS?"
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro answerrf Stelter in a post the same day. He claimed Stelter "issued his arguably most dire/bonkers warning about the president yet," "showed nothing but contempt for the president," and "vigorously tried to sow the seeds of doubt" about Trump's veracity. Fondcaro dismissed concerns about the demonstrable falsehoods coming from Spicer as nothing but "talk of crowd sizes."
Fondacaro then launched a full-on rant attacking Stelter for daring to question the conservative media's response to Trump:
If Stelter wants to “call BS on BS” then let’s get right to it. He claims that Trump cannot be trusted, to tell the truth, and present real facts. But Stelter was nowhere to be seen when Obama’s State Department was caught editing official video of a press conference, on someone’s order. They removed questions posed by Fox News’ James Rosen that exposed that the department lied about being in negotiations for the Iran deal. If that isn’t something out of George Orwell’s 1984, I don’t know what is.
The real “BS” that needs to be called out is the media’s, there is a reason their approval ratings are in the toilet. Were ABC and NBC telling “the truth when it really hurts” Sunday morning when they omitted the loony ramblings of Ashley Judd and Madonna’s fantasy about “blowing up the White House?” Both of those networks also failed to cover any of ObamaCare’s failures for the first eight months of 2016.
When it comes to telling the truth, Stelter is on very unstable terrain, let’s review.
On air in October, he openly blamed Trump’s ‘overheated’ rhetoric for the firebombing of a GOP county headquarters in North Carolina. When there are cold hard facts reported that he doesn’t care for he discredits them, like he did to Associated Press when they exposed how Clinton Foundation donors received special access. Or how about when Stelter himself pushed dubious claims of Islamophobia by a YouTube prankster? There’s a lot more where that came from.
For a journalist fixated on the media regaining the trust of the public, he doesn't appear to be helping very much.
So, Fondacaro's answer to Stelter is: No, the MRC -- which includes "news" division CNSNews.com -- does not respect its readers and will not call BS on BS. It will play along with Trump's lies, because that's what the Mercers are funding the MRC to do.
Thanks, Nick, for proving Stelter correct.
