Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck lectured in an Oct. 8 post:
On Thursday’s ReidOut, MSNBC host Joy Reid continued what’s been years of shameful behavior by some in the liberal media to treat mental health as something to joke about in context of President Trump, with journalists playing the role of doctor, pharmacist, and psychologist.
Regarding Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, Reid asserted Trump went on a “roid-rant” Thursday morning and “not a man who sounds well” that shouldn’t be trusted with children, let alone the country. Throughout the first segment, she continued to ostracize the use of steroids (something people dealing with chemotherapy take) and asserted Trump wasn’t “in control of his emotions.”
Of course, Houck immediately undercut his criticism by judging Reid's mental health, smearing her as "ever-hateful and miserable." But dismissing someone as "crazy" or "insane" or "unhinged" because they say something the MRC doesn't approve of is something the MRC does all the time.
For instance, here's whom the MRC has proclaimed to be "unhinged" in the past month or so alone -- all of these at NewsBusters, of which Houck is managing editor:
- Joe Scarborough
- Presidential debate moderators
- Savannah Guthrie
- John Cusack
- Nancy Pelosi
- Jeffrey Toobin
- Brian Stelter
- The "Hollywood left"
- Errol Louis
- Mika Brzezinski
- Brian Stelter (again)
- Stephen Colbert
- Brian Stelter (yet again)
- Democratic talking points on Amy Coney Barrett
- Cher (under the all-caps headline "CHER LOSES HER MIND")
- Steven Colbert (again)
Further last month the MRC's Joseph Vazquez guffawed because CNBC's Jim Cramer called Nancy Pelosi "Crazy Nancy" to her face, then the next day defended Cramer from a "Twitter woke mob" who criticized Cramer, in which he dismissed actress and singer Bette Midler as "loony"and insisted Cramer's remark was just a "Freudian slip."
And literally the next day after Houck scolded Reid for judging Trump's mental status, Scott Whitlock wrote a post screeching that Keith Olbermann was an "unhinged lunatic," disturbed," and, according to the all-caps headlind, "STILL NUTS" for issuing a comment about Trump and his Supreme Court candidate Amy Comey Barrett.In other words, he was playing the role of doctor, pharmacist, and psychologist -- something his editor purports to hate.
You want civility in political commentary, Mr. Houck? Back off your ridiculous hypocrisy and demonstrate some of your own first.
(Houck loves to lecture against invoking another's mental health issues in political commentary yet plays the victim when he's held accountable for his own words.)
UPDATE: A couple more recent examples of this hypocrisy via the Twitter world. MRC writer Nicholas Fondacaro tweeted a NewsBusters post about Nancy Pelosi, adding the comment "Nutty Nancy is off her pills again." Meanwhile, the NewsBusters Twitter account retweeted a tweet by MRC executive Tim Graham regarding NPR's Nina Totenberg using a GIF stating, "She cray cray."
