Topic: Media Research Center
While we wait for the Media Research Center to correct the record regarding CNN's complete vindication on an MRC-promoted accusation of scripting questions at a televised forum, here's something else the MRC ought to be updating its readers about.
Last November, the MRC pounced on a report about a Border Patrol agent dying while on duty -- with the suggestion that the agent was killed by someone illegally crossing the border -- complaining that the media wasn't exploiting the story to its satisfaction.
Kyle Drennen wrote that "Reporting on Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez being killed in the line of duty over the weekend, on ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday, co-host George Stephanopoulos and correspondent Tom Llamas criticized President Trump for renewing his calls for a border wall in the wake of the death, dismissing it as 'political theater.'"
Nicholas Fondacaro hyped the story further:
Over the weekend, tragic news broke in Texas just miles from the U.S./Mexico border of an apparent attack that left one Border Patrol agent dead and another one seriously injured. According to reports as of Monday, it seemed to indicate that the agents may have been beaten with rocks by attackers in an ambush. Coverage of the death varied widely among the big three networks on Monday evening. CBS Evening News led with the incident while NBC Nightly News omitted completely.
Brad Wilouth expressed satisfaction that "Fox & Friends" was aggressively exploiting the story:
In the last couple of mornings, FNC's Fox and Friends has not surprisingly been spending substantially more time than CNN's New Day show discussing the death of a border patrol agent, Rogelio Martinez, and serious injury of his partner on the border in Southwest Texas.
On Wednesday, as Fox and Friends, New Day, and CBS This Morning all reported that a $25,000 reward is being offered by the FBI for information on the agent's death, FNC's morning show spent more than eight minutes on his death, along with discussions of the need for more border security, while CNN's primary morning show only spent about one and half minutes on the story as CNN's Alisyn Camerota asked a Republican congressman what he knew about the investigation.
On Tuesday, Fox and Friends coverage of the border agent's death and the border security issue had amounted to almost 13 minutes while CNN's New Day gave the story just over two minutes.
[...]
The FNC hosts were more dismissive of the theory that the border agents might have been injured from a fall instead of from a deliberate attack.
Unfortunately for both "Fox & Friends" and the MRC, being dismissive of that theory was the wrong choice. Last month, the FBI reported that its intensive investigation, involving 37 field offices and 650 interviews conducted -- found no evidence that Martinez died from any sort of altercation, and it is believed he died in an accidental fall.
This completely undermines the MRC's exploitation of Martinez's death to promote Trump's anti-immigration agenda. But despite having a month to correct the record for its readers, the MRC has thus far refused to do so.
