Topic: Media Research Center
Just because the Supreme Court has a right-wing tilt these days doesn't mean that the Media Research Center will be pleased with everything it does. Ineeed, it was annoyed that the court struck down a congressional district map in Alabama for violating civil rights because it failed to apportion a second black-majority district. Kevin Tober complained in a June 8 post:
On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s congressional map on the basis that it was a violation of the 1964 Voting Rights Act. The partisan decision was even more head-scratching when it was revealed that so-called conservative justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the three leftists on the court. As was expected, the three evening news broadcasts gloated over the ruling.
ABC’s World News Tonight was the most obnoxious with justice correspondent Terry Moran breathlessly hyping the “Supreme Court stunner.”
“Two conservative Justices, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court's liberals in striking down Alabama's congressional map that critics said diluted the power of black voters,” Moran gushed.
Yes, Tober thinks it's "obnoxious" to preserve the voting rights of people.
Three minutes later, Cassandra DeVries served up her own complaint:
MSNBC asked three Democrats to discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling on Alabama’s redistricting plan, neglecting to acknowledge any alternate view point. NBC senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice Michael Waldman, and former Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones expressed surprise that the conservative Supreme Court would uphold Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act when they previously “gutted the 65 [Voting Rights] Act.”
“While the court isn't breaking new ground by just simply reaffirming what the law has been for the better part of several decades, it was a surprising decision, especially from this conservative majority,” Laura Jarrett said, alluding that a conservative court would traditionally choose to ignore the Voting Rights Act.
Michael Waldman, author of The Super Majority: How the Supreme Court Divided America, agreed with Jarrett’s assessment and added, “Overwhelmingly, that population growth comes in communities of color, and they are not being represented in the maps that legislatures have drawn. So this will have an impact beyond this one case as these rulings often do, though it is upholding what had been the law for decades.”
Waldman portrayed the court as doing the bare minimum in its ruling, which fits the narrative of his new book.
[...]
Even when MSNBC agreed with the Supreme Court’s verdict, it still portrayed the conservative court as corrupt. If this is how they treat decisions they support, one can only imagine their response to a decision they dislike.
In a delightful aside, DeVries' post was promoted on the NewsBusters front page with a headline claiming that the MSNBC folks were suggesting the court had "allterior motives" behind their decision. Doesn't anyone copy-edit anything over there before posting?
