Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Kristine Marsh gets all huffy in a July 2 post:
When you’re a liberal and you fabricate a ludicrous story painting conservatives as the violent aggressors with absolutely zero evidence, your story gets nationwide media coverage for weeks on end with little scrutiny. If you’re a conservative clearly attacked on video by leftists, with corroborating witnesses however, you story is given scarce attention and cast with doubt by the media. We saw that this week with Quillette journalist Andy Ngo, whose assault by Antifa members was captured on video, yet CNN repeatedly qualified the incident as just “his word.”
[...]
“Conservative journalist assaulted says Antifa behind attack,” the chryon read on screen (emphasis mine). First off, anyone with two eyes can see clearly what happened, it’s not a matter of he said or she said. Second, why the “conservative” qualifier? Would CNN have called Ngo a “liberal” journalist who “says” he was attacked, if this had happened at a Trump rally?
We'd take Marsh's outrage at face value, but for the fact that the day before, the MRC identified Ngo as ... a conservative journalist.
"Conservative Journalist Andy Ngo Recounts Vicious Assault By Antifa" was the headline of Nicholas Fondacaro's July 1 post, adding: "On Saturday, conservative journalist Andy Ngo, who reports for Quillette, was brutally beaten with fists and weapons and doused with milkshakes laced with quick-dry cement by the left-wing, domestic terrorist group Antifa." Foncacaro's post even carries the "Conservatives and Republicans" tag (curiously missing frpm Marsh's post).
Of course, if Ngo wasn't a "conservative journalist," the MRC wouldn't be working so hard to exploit the incident (it helps that Ngo himself is eager to exploit it to boost his media profile). It cranked out a slew of its patented "a narrow slice of media didn't cover X, so that proves it's biased" post whining that Ngo's attack wasn't covered. Curtis Houck huffed that a CNN story "was spun with Ngo being dubbed a 'conservative blogger' and mentioned alongside white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys."
It's OK for the MRC to identify Ngo as a "conservative" but it's somehow bias and spin for a non-conservative outlet to do the same thing? We're confused.
(Houck didn't mention thaty the Proud Boys was founded by Gavin McInnes, who was at the time a host for CRTV, run by close friend of the MRC Mark Levin.)
