Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is already known for its shoddy "studies" of the media, which are designed to advance its right-wing anti-media agenda at the expense of objective research. Here's another example, in which Bill D'Agostino writes in a March 11 post:
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has spent the past week using his evening show The Situation Room as a platform for Democratic lawmakers to plug their numerous investigations of President Trump. Blitzer, a veteran reporter and host on the network, is not a name that immediately springs to mind when one thinks of biased or outlandish statements from CNN journalists. However, the many interviews he has conducted with politicians on the Hill — a staple of his show — tell a story of bias through careful and deliberate framing of facts.
MRC analysts looked at the 10 interviews Blitzer conducted with lawmakers (all Democrats) on his show during the week spanning Monday, March 3 to Friday, March 8. Throughout those ten interviews, the CNN host asked only three questions (3%) that suggested the numerous House investigations into the President might be partisan or politically motivated. The remaining 86 investigation-related questions (97%) either accepted at face value the importance of these inquiries, or else pressed Democrats to go even further in their oversight role.
Blitzer framed his paltry three challenges to Democrats as party-line criticism coming from Republicans (“as Republican are alleging…”, “Republicans say…”). In each case he asked no follow-up questions regardless of what answer he received.
The point of this "study" is to complain that Blitzer isn't advancing the MRC's agenda by automatically assuming that Democratic investigations into Trump are partisan witch hunts. As usual, the MRC does not share the entire list of 86 questions, though it does cite a select few it claims proves its point. But D'Agostino is such a rabid Democrat and CNN hater -- as one must be to get a job at the MRC -- that even neutral and objective questions from Blitzer are offensive to him.
The point is that D'Agostino and the MRC don't want objectivity and neutrality in their media -- they want it to be as biased as their own "news" division, CNSNews.com.
