Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's desperation to defend Donald Trump from being held accountable for his actions led to no fewer than four bouts of Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome, demanding that the media cover him and not Trump. Kevin Tober complained in a March 19 post:
Continuing the week-long trend of the leftist media ignoring each and every new revelation in the rapidly growing scandal surrounding the Biden family’s corrupt overseas business dealings, the March 19 Sunday shows all blatantly ignored this latest Biden scandal in favor of a familiar media spectacle: Donald Trump.
The four liberal Sunday talk shows, which consist of ABC’s This Week, CBS's Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union spent a combined 46 minutes and 46 seconds obsessing and sometimes gleefully reporting on the news that former President Donald Trump could be indicted over his involvement with former porn star Stormy Daniels.
The time breakdown that each show spent on the Trump news is as follows: This Week (13 minutes 14 seconds), Face the Nation (7 minutes), Meet the Press (6 minutes 10 seconds), and State of the Union (22 minutes 22 seconds).
In contrast, these Sunday shows spent no time at all on the news that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) acquired the bank records of Hunter Biden’s business associates.
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Unfortunately, today’s media with the exception of Fox News and a few other outlets, serve no other purpose than being the Democrat Party’s [sic] PR agents.
Translation: Tober is very happy and grateful that Fox News is serving as a PR agent for the Republican Party.
Tober returned to complain a week later that non-right-wing Sunday shows still were not promoting Republican propaganda:
For the second week in a row (March 26), the four liberal Sunday roundtable shows ignored the rapidly growing scandal surrounding the Biden family’s corrupt overseas business dealings, even as new details continued to unravel. Instead, of reporting on the hard evidence in the federal Hunter Biden probe (and other alleged crimes and corruption surrounding the Biden family), they spent considerable airtime speculating and debating about a possible indictment of former President Trump by Alvin Bragg, the Soros-backed district attorney in New York City.
The four liberal Sunday talk shows, which consist of ABC’s This Week, CBS's Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union, spent over an hour (63 minutes and 53 seconds) of combined time on the possible Trump indictment story.
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The fact that the Sunday shows continued to ignore the Biden story while harping on a week-old Trump story with no new substantive information shows their efforts to deflect for the Biden administration.
Tober didn't explain why he didn't think the possibility of a former president facing a criminal indictment wasn't newsworthy -- or why Republican specuation about a non-politician's possible indictment is.
After news of Trump's indictment broke, Geoffrey Dickens took the indignation stick, continuing to be mad that it was considered news and Republican ranting over Hunter Biden wasn't in a March 31 post:
Shhh! Nothing to see here! The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks continue to bury the Hunter Biden probe and the growing scandals surrounding the Biden family’s corruption, including the House Oversight Committee’s revelations that Hunter, the President’s brother Jim and Hallie Biden (widow of son Beau) received payments from a Chinese energy firm — something President Joe Biden firmly denied.
However, their voracious appetite for covering the various investigations (Stormy Daniels, Mar-a-Lago documents, January 6th) surrounding former President Donald Trump remains unsatiated.
Beginning with the House Oversight Committee’s breaking of the Hallie Biden news through the evening of Trump’s indictment, MRC analysts tracked the glaring double standard.
Over 14 days (March 16-March 30) ABC, NBC, CBS filled their evening, morning and Sunday roundtable shows with over 272 minutes (4 hours, 32 minutes, 56 seconds) of Trump investigation coverage compared to ZERO seconds spent on Biden family corruption stories. On average, network audiences saw almost 20 minutes per day of Trump investigation stories.
Dickens updated his numbers for an April 6 post:
The Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks are trying to play magician again, hoping their audiences stay so focused on former President Donald Trump that they don’t notice how they’ve used a sleight of hand trick to completely hide the Biden family corruption stories.
Despite the House Oversight Committee digging up new dirt on President Joe Biden and his clan, the broadcast networks continue to censor revelations that Hunter, the President’s brother Jim and Hallie Biden (widow of son Beau) received payments from a Chinese energy firm. Most recently they whistled past more incriminating news on Biden’s improper handling of classified documents.
However, they remain obsessed with covering the various investigations (Stormy Daniels, Mar-a-Lago documents, January 6th) surrounding former President Donald Trump.
Beginning with the House Oversight Committee’s breaking of the Biden family receiving payments from payments through the day after Trump’s arrest in New York, MRC analysts tracked the glaring double standard.
Dickens concluded by huffing: "It’s striking how the networks have completely disappeared any mention of the most recent Biden family scandals while at the same time obsessively reporting on the Trump investigations. The contrast is truly stunning." He didn't mention that no actual evidence of Biden wrongdoing has been released -- even Fox News has called out oversight committee head Jamnes Comer for not producing anything meaningful to back up his Biden-bashing claims -- and he again failed to explain why Trump's indictment was not newsworthy.
