Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Kevin Tober huffed in an Oct. 24 post:
A canvasser for Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was reportedly assaulted and seriously injured late Sunday night while going door-to-door for Rubio’s reelection campaign, according to a statement put out by Rubio’s campaign. On Monday, all three evening newscasts ignored the vicious politically motivated attack on an innocent Republican volunteer.
Instead, ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News had plenty of time to report on local weather forecasts, the Powerball Jackpot numbers hitting $625 million, and a recall of various dry shampoo products.
“Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a DeSantis hat was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in Hialeah, Florida,” Rubio said in a tweet Monday morning.
“He suffered internal bleeding, a broken jaw &amOn Fox News’s Jesse Watters Primetime, host Jesse Watters and radio host Dana Loesch tore into the media for their failure to report on this horrific political attack.
According to The Daily Wire, “Hialeah Sgt. Jose Torres revealed that the victim was “an unidentified 27-year-old,” and was struck “multiple times in the face and the head causing the injuries.”
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If this was a Democrat campaign volunteer who was assaulted like this by a Republican, the media would be howling over it nonstop, and it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the United States.
Tober noted that the victim was unidentifed, and it turned out there was a good reason for the victim being unidentified at this ppoint -- one that made Tober's anufactured outrage age very poorly very quickly. A few hours after Tober's post went live, it was revealed by the Miami New Times that the victim was identified as Christopher Monzon, who is well known in the area of Florida where he was canvassing as a white supremacist who was known as the "Cuban Confederate," and that he attended the 2017 far-right protest in Charlottesville, Va., that ended with a counterprotester being killed. (He has clamed to have expressed regret for some of his racist hate.) And contrary to Tober's parroting of Fox News types who portrayed Monzon's assault as politically motivated, no such motivation was mentioned in the police report on the incident.The New Times also reported that members of the far-right Proud Boys were guarding Monzon's hospital room.
This seems like something Tober would want to add to his post to avoid looking liike he's defending a white supremacist. But, no, his post remains live, uncorrected, and non-updated.
And after these unsavory revelations about the victim, you'd think the MRC would steer clear of the story -- but you'd be wrong. Kathleen Krumhansl doubled down in a post the next day, asserting reporting Monzon's white supremacist background amounted to victim-shaming (no, really):
A volunteer for Senator Marco Rubio (R) Fla., was in the hospital after being brutally attacked during a midterm campaign event, and just like Rubio predicted over a Univision interview following the incident, the very network ended up victim-shaming the Republican to the point of implying that perhaps he deserved to be beaten.
The assault, which happened in Hialeah over the past weekend, left canvasser Jesús López with a broken jaw and internal bleeding. Yet the viciousness of the attack, as Rubio anticipated, mattered little to anchor Satcha Pretto, who made sure to emphasize that “the victim had previously been involved in some protests and had publicly spoken out in favor of white nationalism.”
Watch as the main national Spanish-speaking network covers up political violence from the left - like Rubio warned would happen.
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Note how the anchor uses ´alleged´, ´appears to´ and ´allegedly´ when referring to the attacker, who in Pretto´s words, was apparently “upset that the victim was handing out Republican flyers in his neighborhood while wearing a Governor Ron DeSantis cap and a Senator Marco Rubio T-shirt.”
In contrast, when talking about the victim, Christopher Monzón, there is no ´alleged´, ´allegedly´, or apparently: instead, as per the anchor, it is a given fact that the Republican volunteer “had previously been involved in some protests and had publicly spoken out in favor of white nationalism.” No ifs, ands or buts.
Krumhansl offered no evidence that Monzon wasn't a white surpremacist -- the public record is pretty clear on that, to the point that no "allegedly" is required.And we thought that one of the few things people across the political spectrum could agree on is that white supremacists deserved to be shamed; Krumhansl didn't explain why she thought Monzon shouldn't be. Then again, she's clearly not someone who's into facts, given that she went on to push the unsupported narrative tha tMonzon was the victim of a political attack:
Like Rubio noted, “The difference that exists here today is that when there is political violence from someone who they say is a supporter of the right, they devote hours and hours of coverage to it. When it comes from the left, either it is not covered, or the victim is blamed, or it is not talked about anymore.” Rubio has a point, given Univision’s non-coverage of the Congressional baseball practice shooting once it became known that the shooter was a deranged Sandernista.
On mark: So far at Univision, the violent beating of Monzón has been granted exactly 1:02 minutes of air time, and this during their morning kaffeeklatsch. Most probably, that will be all that Univision audiences will hear about the leftist political violence that left López seriously injured and in need of facial reconstruction surgery, simply for being a Republican.
The MRC was somehow so proud of Krumhansl giving a pass to white supremacism that her post was translated into Spanish.
Meanwhile, the Rubio narrative the MRC parroted continued to fall apart -- Florida Republicans had paid thousands to Monzon for get-out-the-vote efforts, and it turned out that Monzon started claiming the attack was politically motivated only after Rubio tweeted the claim, the alleged assiliant has nevervoted, and the assailant's mom said the attack had nothing to do with politics.
Not only has the MRC not told its readers about this, it hasn't addressed the story since. Even it can see no benefit in pushing this story further -- though, apparently, also no benefit in correcting the record.
