Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center will lash out at any criticism of potential Republican candidate and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In a Feb. 6 post, Tim Graham cited totally impartial fact-checker "'Fuzzy Chimp' at Twitchy": to complain that "leftists mangled an accurate Associated Press fact check correcting the false notion that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is mandating all female high-school athletes in the state to provide detailed information about their menstrual cycles." Oddly, he named none of the "leftists" who were purportedly "mangling" this fact-check, and it surely must have been painful for Graham to admit that something from the AP was found to be accurate since that blows up part of his "liberal media" narrative. Then Graham tried to embellish things, hyping a state sports official claiming the proposed mandate was "consistent with national guidelines for sports physicals" developed by medical associations and hyping that "Twitchy adds one important detail on the proposed new medical forms. They state 'This medical history form should be retained by the healthcare provider and/or parent,' not by the schools."
In fact, one medical association stated that the proposed mandate wasn't consistent with its guidelines, and one Florida county planned to store the menstrual information digitally via a "sports management software" platform, but "the platform’s privacy policy, and federal law, could require it to turn data over to legal authorities or other officials if they had a valid subpoena." Ultimately, the state decided against making the information mandatory.
Meanwhile, under the headline "Disney's Attack Dogs?" Nicholas Fondacaro advanced a conspiracy theory in a Feb. 9 post that anyone on ABC who criticizes DeSantis is being ordered by its parent company, Disney, to do so:
With Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis seemingly eyeing a run for president in 2024 and his continued pressure on left-leaning Disney as they go increasingly woke, the multinational national corporation seems to have unleashed the hounds to smear him with lies on a national level. Enter the cackling coven of ABC’s The View (owned by Disney), who on Thursday unloaded truly insane accusations; accusing DeSantis of trying to remove ALL black history from Florida schools with the goal of “eras[ing]” all minorities.
Brad Wilmouth used a Feb. 10 post to serve as a loyal member of the MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade:
On Thursday's CNN This Morning, co-host Don Lemon picked up on the story from Philadelphia of a racist video surfacing of high school girls mocking Black History Month, and exploited it to an horrifically partisan degree to pontificate against Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis's education policies.
And, even though he set up the segment by noting that the girls involved are in high school, he later incorrectly claimed they were in college and suggested that they might not have behaved so badly if they had learned about black history in high school.
[...]
Governor DeSantis, of course, did not get rid of the teaching of black history in schools, but instead imposed regulations to prevent the politicization of the subject.
Meanwhile, the MRC continued to lash out any criticism of DeSantis:
- On PBS, Amanpour Warns LGBTQ 'Human Rights Are Under Fire' from 'Strange' DeSantis
- Unhinged CNN Attacks DeSantis's 'White Nationalist Agenda'
- Scarborough Lauds Obamacare for 12 Minutes, Reruns Mockery of DeSantis Running in '24
- MSNBC Invokes The Bible While Claiming Russia, China Love DeSantis
- CNN Suggests DeSantis Could Target Companies For Showing Interracial Couples
- MSNBC: DeSantis Culture Wars Used to Distract from Unpopular Economic Agenda
- CNN Host Blackwell Lets Guest Accuse DeSantis of Making Schools Less Safe
- Sharpton Likens DeSantis's Education Policies To Slavery, Segregation
- ABC News? The View Claims ‘Fascist’ DeSantis Plans to ‘Ban the Alphabet’
- They're Scared! Reid & Jolly Cry DeSantis 'Dangerous' on Culture Wars
- Colbert, Sharpton Accuse 'Baby Trump' DeSantis of Using 'Race Wedge'
- Mitchell Spreads Fake News, Asks Harris Why DeSantis Doesn't Want To Teach Slavery
- CNN's Don Lemon Cues Up Sharpton Ally to Accuse DeSantis of 'Indoctrination'
- LA Times Columnist Claims DeSantis Is Using 'A Dog Whistle'
The MRC also made sure to take time to fawn over DeSantis as well for adhering to right-wing narratives. Catherine Salgado gushed in a Feb. 15 post:
On Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) made an announcement that puts Big Tech and Big Government on notice in the state of Florida, declaring there’s “a collusion between government and the private sector to deprive you of your rights.”
DeSantis discussed his legislative plans to restrict tech-government collusion Feb. 15, when he held a press conference to discuss his proposed Digital Bill of Rights in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to WPBF News. The governor took aim at social media and internet search engine censorship.
Florida’s Voice shared a clip from DeSantis’s press conference explaining his new Digital Bill of Rights. DeSantis said the bill of rights would not allow, “either formally or informally, any agreement between state or local government agencies and social media platforms for the purpose of content moderation.”
He cited the Twitter Files, particularly the FVBI's Twitter censorship work, and former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci’s work to censor on Facebook. “Again, that’s a collusion between government and the private sector to deprive you of your rights,” DeSantis insisted.
Salgado went on to cheer that "DeSantis has also slammed woke environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards" -- another mandated right-wing narrative the MRC is pushing.
