Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center did its partisan pro-Trump duty by echoing the president's messaging of calling coronavirus the "Chinese virus." Even Trump has stopped using that terminology, the MRC is still defending it. Alexander Hall complained in an April 10 post:
Is there an American Big Tech company that isn’t sympathetic to the communist regime in China?
“Grammar app Grammarly has started flagging the phrase ‘Chinese virus’ in references[sic] to the virus and the resulting disease, COVID-19,” Reclaim The Net reported on April 7. The virus that has brought entire countries to an economic standstill has erupted in cultural controversy as well. Both the politically correct nags of liberal America and the Chinese regime discourage calling it the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus.
“In a statement to Reclaim The Net, the company said that the new Grammarly Premium suggestions has [sic] recently been released and that it deals with providing feedback ‘relating to formality, confidence, and sensitive language,’” reported Reclaim The Net. “Grammarly has chosen to go with the WHO terminology and flag any mention of ‘Chinese or Wuhan’ virus.”
[...]
Grammarly’s move is remarkably similar to Microsoft Word’s use of AI to spread political correctness to your desktop. The artificial intelligence program “Ideas in Word” will use aim to “improve” users’ writing, by suggesting more tolerant liberal phrases.
Hall accusing critics of the "Chinese virus" terminology of being "politically correct" is next-level gaslighting -- it's supporters of that phrase like Trump and the MRC who are positioning it to be the only correct term, and they're doing it for political reasons. Further, one can safely say that Grammarly presumably knows a lot more about grammar and the English language in general than anyone at the MRC and are much less likely to have political motivations behind word usage.
Meanwhile, the MRC is still defending Trump's use of "Chinese virus" from accusations of racist motivations. Back in March, Kyle Drennen uncritically swallowed Trump's claim that his use of the phrase "was designed to hold China’s authoritarian regime accountable for not being honest about the initial spread of coronavirus"; that became a talking point for Drennen the very next day.
Drennen returned to that narrative in an April 24 post to attack new accusations that Trump's use of "Chinese virus" has inspired hate crimes against Asian Americans. "Trump also made it clear on multiple occasions that his use of the phrase “Chinese virus” was designed to hold the authoritarian communist government of China accountable for mishandling the disease and lying about it – which helped cause the global health crisis," he huffed.
Of course, given the sheer number of falsehoods Trump has spread over the years, there's no reason to take anything that comes out of his mouth at face value. Drennen will never tell you that, however.
