Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck loves it when reporters are as hostile and biased as Fox News' Peter Doocy -- but only if they, like Doocy, advance right-wing talking points. So he was pretty darn happy when writing about the July 20 White House press briefing:
Tuesday’s White House Press Briefing was a welcome reprieve as Fox News’s Peter Doocy found himself with more than a few colleagues willing to join him in grilling Press Secretary Jen Psaki as ten reporters (including Doocy) lobbed one question after another about Texas Democrats fleeing Austin for Washington D.C. and triggering a superspreader of coronavirus cases.
By the time Doocy spoke, he was the third reporter to inquire about how Texas Democrats have spread COVID on both Capitol Hill and in the White House. Doocy, however, went where his colleagues wouldn’t with the use of the word superspreader.
“More than 10 percent of the traveling party with these Texas Democrats now claim to have a breakthrough case. Is there any concern that this trip that was intended to advocate for voting rights is now a superspreader event in Washington,”he asked.
An abrasive Psaki griped “that’s not a characterization we’re making from here,” but rather insisted that these “breakthrough cases” among unvaccinated individuals was proof that vaccines work in preventing from “death,” “hospitalization,” or even “serious illness” (which is entirely correct).
Note that Houck couldn't simply admit that Psaki was right about something; he also had to smear her as "abrasive," something we're pretty sure he never said about Kayleigh McEnany. Also, calling the coronavirus cases among Texas Democrats leaving the state to slow down a voting-restriction bill a "superspreader event" comes straight from Republican leadership, so Houck may as well be congratulated for adhering so close to partisan messaging (as well as exposing himself as a blindly partisan hack).It's also not accurate; all the Democrats who caught the virus were fully vaccinated, which is actually a lesson about how transmissible the Delta variant iseven among vaccinated people.
On July 22, Houck cheered that "Thursday’s White House press briefing gave us another welcome surprise as Press Secretary Jen Psaki found herself under the gun from not just Fox’s Peter Doocy, but a variety of reporters on issues such as Covid cases inside the administration, Critical Race Theory, Hunter Biden’s artwork, and masking." And, as usual, Doocy got special attention -- and whitewashing how he got owned by Psaki:
Doocy came next and things didn’t get any easier for Psaki. First, he wanted to know whether the Education Department will ensure that a pro-critical race theory group isn’t included in school curriculums seeing as how they had claimed its inclusion in new guidance was a mistake.
Psaki tried to minimize it, saying it was one small footnote and insinuated Doocy was lacking the full context.
Here's how that exchange actually went down:
Doocy asked if the Biden administration “will follow up with school districts to make sure that the Abolitionist Teaching Network material is not in lesson plans.”
Psaki replied, “Just to be clear, for the context, because I know you love context of what you’re asking about here, what you’re referring to is a citation in a report of which there were a thousand citations, so I’m quite impressed with your researchers for finding one of a thousand citations.”
Psaki went on to say that “it was an error in a lengthy document to include this citation. The specific site does not represent the administration’s view and we don’t endorse the recommendations of this group and I believe it’s been removed or is in the process of being removed.”
Doocy’s network has been covering outrage over CRT and its tenets extensively.
Houck is not going to admit Psaki won that exchange, nor will he admit that Doocy was parroting his employer's agenda. He didn't even bury the transcript in the item -- he simply censored it.
That's the bias -- and hostility to anyone not as right-wing as he is -- Houck brings to his so-called reviews of Psaki's press briefings.