Topic: Media Research Center
It seems the Media Research Center will not allow anyone to criticize Fox News -- not even a longtime former employee who would know more about the channel's inner workings than anyone at the MRC.
And that explains the MRC's odd attacks on Alisyn Camerota, who left Fox News a couple years back to work for CNN.
On June 15, Tim Graham insisted that Camerota's upcoming novel about a morning news anchor working for an outlet called FAIR News was actually about "a CNN-like network" -- despite citing a description of the fictional network that includes "misogynistic emails from viewers, social-media backlashes and the cold shoulders of Brooklynites who despise the worldview of FAIR News" that sure sounds a lot like Fox News.
Because Graham makes up for in cattiness what he lacks in insightful media criticism, he makes sure to note that "Fox & Friends is usually higher-rated than New Day," the CNN show Camerota currently co-hosts.
After that, someone finally figured out which channel Camerota's book is about -- then attacked her for writing it. In a July 25 post, Alex Xenos complained that Camerota's book was taking a "jab at the network that made it possible for her to succeed," adding: "Camerota worked for the Fox News Channel for 16 years before moving to CNN in 2014. Yet, it is strange she is now constantly criticizing her old employer for skewing reporting when her new network's boss has all but declared war on the President."
Interesting that Xenos is effectively admitting Fox News is biased, but he won't hold it accountable for its bias the way he attacks CNN.
Brad Wilmouth followed up in a July 31 post, grousing that Camerota "has been showing this past week a greater willingness to criticize her former employer" in promoting her book, "which is a fictional work that is nevertheless based in part on her past experiences working as a FNC host for the weekend edition of Fox and Friends." Wilmouth further grumbled that Camerota was "going so far as to charge that her old FNC show 'unnecessarily stoked outrage' and 'took a really myopic view of, say, President Obama or the current administration.' She even suggested the show has sometimes been 'toxic" or 'foxic.'"
Rather than defend "Fox & Friends" -- something even he surely knows he cannot do with a straight face -- Wilmouth went on a Camerota-bashing tirade, declaring that "Since she joined CNN in 2014, Camerota has built up quite a record of left-leaning journalism and bias against the conservative point of view."
Of course, the MRC will never hold Fox News to the same scrutiny it holds pretty much every other outlet -- it's pretty much the only TV home for MRC talking heads, after all.
