Topic: NewsBusters
Believe it or not, the Media Research Center still wasn't done defending the Canadian trucker protesters even though they engaged in the same protest tactics the MRC deplored when non-right-wingers used them.
Reliable New York Times-basher Clay Waters huffed in a Feb. 12 post: "The New York Times continued to smear the Canadian truckers’ protest against vaccine mandates, a protest that has attracted other Canadians, sick of the country’s overzealous Covid regulations under smug liberal leader Justin Trudeau." He added the usual MRC whataboutism: "This sudden concern for small businesses was rich, considering how the paper ignored the plight of burnt-out businesses and shuttered shops that occurred after mass rioting on the streets of American cities connected to George Floyd-inspired protests."
P.J. Gladnick freaked out over what he insisted was a conspiracy theory in a Feb. 13 post:
The claim by the American intelligence community that the Hunter Biden laptop story is just a result of Russian disinformation is so 2020. Old news. The new hotness for 2022 is that the protesting truckers and their supporters in Canada are being manipulated by Russian agents.
And what both reports have in common is that the claims are/were based on exactly nothing. The latest iteration of Russian subversion comes to us by way of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. However, if you didn't know any better you could be forgiven for thinking that the video interview was produced by the Babylon Bee mocking the CBC for giving credence to a completely unhinged conspiracy theory.
By contrast, one Canadian writer pointed out that Russia propaganda network RT provided more obsessive coverage of the protest than even Fox News -- more than 1,200 stories -- adding that "prominent supporters of the Ottawa occupation like Ontario MPP Randy Hillier have urged Canadians to trust Russian state media over established news outlets in their own country." (This was a few weeks before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which caused RT's English-language service to be pulled from prettly much all Western distribution.) So, yes, there clearly is some synergy going on there; meanwhile, Gladnick wants you to think that this CBC interview shows "just how desperate the CBC is to demonize the Canadian truckers and protesters by using an "expert" who, based on zero evidence of Russian agents, claims the government must crackdown on social media to keep the citizenry from being exposed to prohibited thoughts."
Tim Graham served up more whataboutism in a Feb. 14 post: "NPR provides a dramatic example of the national media's adoration of Black Lives Matter in dramatic contrast to their panic over "extremist" Canadian trucker protests. Don't forget that NPR embarrassed themselves trying to deny the obvious fact that the BLM founders are self-proclaimed Marxists. That was "disinformation" on the internet!" At no point did Graham dispute the claim that the trucker convoy organizers were "extremist."
Waters returned to serve up another dose of whataboutism: "Where were the police during the Canadian truckers protest against vaccine mandates? That’s what the hypocritical media is suddenly demanding, now from the front page of Sunday’s New York Times: “Ottawa’s Police Reacted Slowly As Protest Built.” The online headline: “In Ottawa Trucker Protests, a Pressing Question: Where Were the Police?” (Black Lives Matters protesters in the U.S. were apparently unavailable for comment.)"
Joseph Vazquez served up his own whataboutism-laden meltdown:
New York Times economist Paul Krugman spewed bile at the so-called “vandalism” by Canadian truckers protesting the country’s draconian COVID-19 policies. He did this while dismissing the 2020 Marxist Black Lives Matter riots across the U.S. that reportedly caused at least around $2 billion in damages.
[...]
His hyperbole-laced rant of an op-ed, headlined “When ‘Freedom’ Means the Right to Destroy,” buried the extent of the damages caused by BLM riots scattered across different states.
"so-called 'vandalism'"? Vazquez was too busy playing whataboutism to offer any proof for his assertion that there was no vandalism. Ironically, a couple weeks later his boss, Tim Graham, would complain about overuse of the "so-called" dismissal in the media (but he didn't criticize his employees for doing the exact same thing).
Waters, meanwhile, continued to be angry that the New York Times didn't cover the protest like Fox News would. On Feb. 18, he whined that the Times "remains breezily supportive of their socialist dreamboat Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his authoritarian crackdown on COVID protests, including even the deployment of troops. " Waters was presumably cool with authoritarian crackdowns on BLM protesters. Two days later, he was back in whataboutism mode:
The New York Times continues to smear the Canadian trucker protest against vaccine mandates as crazed angry haters, treatment that is nearly 180 degrees from the sympathetic tone it took with Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests turned riots fueled by George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police in the summer of 2020.
The latest example appeared in Wednesday’s New York Times, with Sarah Maslin Nir and Natalie Kitroeff reporting on “The Group Trying to Steer Ottawa’s Restive Protesters.”
As usual, right-leaning protests are characterized as well-organized and conspiratorial, not as organic.
Waters offered no proof the protest was organic. Nevertheless, he repoeated the complaint in a Feb. 27 post:
After its smear-filled coverage of the Canadian truckers’ protest over anti-vaccine mandates, now shuttered by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s authoritarian government, The New York Times is stoking fears of similar protests in the United States and New Zealand.
“A Truck Caravan With Far-Right Links Heads to Washington, D.C.,” Shawn Hubler and Alan Feuer reported from California for Thursday’s edition. Typically, the reporters characterized right-leaning protests as conspiratorial, not organic.
waters went on to sneer, "Apparently, protests destabilize democracies when they're against Democrats ." And violent protests are apparently cool with Waters and the MRC when their fellow right-wingers run them.
