Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has been desperately trying to make Hunter Biden happen, and they blame anything and anyone but the complete lack of an actual story for that failure to happen. Geoffrey Dickens seemed to think it might start happening in a May 1 post:
Stunningly, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks are actually getting out of their censorship mode (for a while) to actually cover the Hunter Biden scandal.
On April 19 The Wall Street Journal reported that a whistleblower who works in the IRS’s criminal investigation division came forward to reveal that the Biden administration is allegedly giving Hunter Biden preferential treatment and has tried to stonewall the investigation into the alleged tax crimes Hunter committed.
Then on April 20, the New York Post reported that now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the catalyst behind the debunked and infamous October 2020 letter from former intelligence officials dismissing the surfacing of Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation.
These incredible revelations actually woke ABC, CBS, NBC out of their Joe Biden-esque sleepy slumber to devote, on their evening, morning and Sunday roundtable shows, a total of 24 minutes, 56 seconds to the Hunter-related scandals from April 19 to April 23. The nets then quickly dropped the story and haven’t even mentioned Hunter's name in 8 days.
[...]
The whistleblower story was covered by all three networks.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the earth-shattering news that Blinken was behind the 2020 letter of former intelligence officials that debunked Hunter’s laptop as Russian disinformation.
Since the networks initially bought into this lie it’s not too surprising they’d be reluctant to report on this bit of embarrassing (for them) news.
Dickens didn't mention that 1) the laptop really did look like Russian disinformation, and 2) the pro-Trump New York Post, which first pushed the laptop story, refused to offer any indepdendent verification of the laptop that might have made the story less susceptible to being dismissed as the partisan October surprise it was.
For the rest of the month, it was back to whining that the story remained stuck in the right-wing bubble and cheering occasional outbreaks of it:
- Nets Skip Deadbeat Hunter Biden's Court Appearance Over Child Support
- Biden's Puffball Press Corps Ignores Hunter Biden in Court (Tim Graham column)
- Ruhle Defends Biden on Hunter, Mourns Unpopularity 'Despite All These Wins'
- Gingrich Steamrolls Williams on Hunter's Corrupt Business Dealings
- Nets Ignore Biden White House Banning NY Post Reporter Who Asked About Hunter
- Nets Ignore New Hunter Biden Revelations, Hype Santos Charges
- NewsBusters Podcast: The Ongoing Suppression of Hunter Biden Scoops
- Whistleblower Claims IRS Removed Investigative Team from Hunter Probe, Nets CENSOR
- Let’s Play a Game: Fun with Hunter Headlines!
- CBS Rediscovers Hunter Biden Scandal With IRS Whistleblower Interview
- CBS Skips Own Scoop on ‘Multiple’ ‘Whistleblowers’ Claiming Hunter Probe Shenanigans
It wouldn't be the MRC ifit wasn't trying to run up the numbers on purported Biden scandals. Thus, we have a May 11 post by Dickens headlined "11 Brand New Biden Family Scandals the Networks Are CENSORING." (It's also in Spanish.) By our count, the MRC hasnow claimed to identify 56 separate and distinct "scandals," mostly centering on Hunter, which doesn't seem accurate.
Meanwhile, a May 12 article by Clay Waters complained that the New York Times pointed out that despite all of these partisan accusations against Hunter in particular and the Bidens in general, there has been very little in the way of actual evidence to prove anything:
The same front page featured this blurb to a story on page A18 that had the political scandal roles reversed and the treatment was quite drastically different:
“G.O.P. Lacks Proof on Bidens --After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against President Biden and his family, an inquiry by the House G.O.P. has yet to find evidence of misconduct.
The Times’ negative aggression toward Republican oversight of a Democratic president is amazing, especially after years of the paper’s giddy coverage of Trump scandals, with Democrats like Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. Eric Swalwell were hailed as heroes in its pages, even if they're not truthful themselves.
As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd pointed out, the headlines are also factually inaccurate. The GOP may not yet have proof of Biden family misconduct, but they’ve laid out plenty of “evidence.”
The fact that Waters puts "evidence" in scare quotes suggests that he knows what Republicans have put out so far isn't really evidence of anything.
