Topic: Media Research Center
How sick, cynical and hafe-filled is the Media Research Center? Its first reaction to the arrest of a man who issued death threats against employees at CNN was to mock CNN for reacting to it.
On Jan. 22, it was reported that a Michigan man was arrested for making 22 calls to CNN headquarters in Atlanta threating violence against its employees, stating at one point, "Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down."
You'd think that the MRC -- despite hating CNN with the passion of a thousand suns -- would issue a statement that violence or threats of violence against the news media is frowned upon. But for two days it was silent -- even MRC officials Brent Bozell and Tim Graham said nothing.
Finally, a Jan. 24 NewsBusters post by Randy Hall addressed the issue -- but only through attacking CNN anchor Don Lemon for reacting to it. Lemon suggested that President Trump's repeated attacks on CNN as "fake news' may have spurred thte death threats, and Hall wasn't having it, declaring that Lemon was engaging in "a pathetic act of self-sanctimonious behavior" by raising the issue.
Hall quoted Lemon saying "When you tweet a doctored video of you body slamming CNN, people are watching," followed by political analyst Brian Karem stating to Trump, "You're complicit in any harm to any journalist anywhere in the United States by encouraging the violence that you encourage."Which you'd think would be self-explanatory, but apparently it wasn't toHall; instead, he retorted: "Wait, so Brian, would that mean that you'd agree that James Hodgkinson was inspired by Rachel Maddow and Bernie Sanders to try and murder Republican congressmen in June at a Virginia baseball field?"
Hall offered no evidence that Maddow or Sanders ever encouraged violence against any Republican congressman.
Meanwhile, Graham broke his silence on the CNN death threats by retweeting Hall's post with the embellishing insult of "SOUR Don Lemon." Yeah, well, when one's life has been threatened, it does tend to make one a bit sour.
This, by the way, is the same MRC that can't stop blaming the Southern Poverty Law Center for a 2012 shooting at the right-wing Family Research Council, even though the SPLC never encouraged violence or had any personal contact with the shooter beforehand (he admitted looking at the SPLC's list of anti-gay hate groups, of which the FRC is one, before the shooting).
