Topic: Media Research Center
The Twitter feeds of Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondcaro and NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck are typically filled with hate and bile toward the MRC's usual targets, but particularly CNN -- they are paid well for their hate and bile after all. But they committed a minor sin in the eyes of their employer: they expressed sympathy toward CNN over the weekend when correspondent Omar Jimenez was arrested for no reason by Minnesota State Police while covering the unrest in Minneapolis following the police-custody death of George Floyd.
Houck wrote: "This is infuriating and stupid. What a horrible look for the Minnesota State Police. Absolutely inexcusable. It's pretty clear they weren't protesters. Everyone knows how blunt, possibly harsh, and maybe nasty I've been to CNN. But arresting Omar Jimenez or anyone reporting? No." Fondacaro similarly wrote: "Unbelievable! I’m not a fan of CNN but this is BS and wrong! The crew was respectfully asking police where they wanted them to move so they could stay out of the way of Minnesota State Police, and they get arrested."
None of this supposed concern made it to the pages of NewsBusters, one sign that this expression of sympathy was either utterly phony or a mistake for which they had to answer to their MRC overlords. Antoher sign: Fondacaro and Houck were soon bashing CNN as usual.
A few hours later, Fondacaro was viciously mocking CNN anchor Brian Stelter as "Pennywise" and a "clown," ranting that the channel is trying to "warp reality," and bizarrely blaming CNN for a Fox News reporter getting heckled (even though, as we've documented, he and his MRC coworkers spent years egging on people to yell "CNN sucks!" at CNN correspondents).
Houck, meanwhile, went into abusive-spouse mode a few hours later by blaming CNN itself and the media in general for losing his sympathy for the CNN reporters getting arrested:
See, this is how the media so often throw good will, which was absolutely there this morning b/c it was awful.
Perhaps the biggest lie about the news media is that their insistence that they don't like being a part of the story. They love it and relish it, especially CNN.
It's probably closer to the truth to point out that Houck has no good will whatsoever toward CNN and any sympathy was always going to be fleeting (if not entirely manufactured).
The MRC lets Houck's and Fondacaro's increasingly irrational anti-CNN rage go unabated, it's spilling over into actual MRC posts, and it seems everyone's totally cool with that.
