Topic: Media Research Center
So many of the Media Research Center's so-called "studies" involve attacking non-right-wing media for not promoting right-wing narratives and for supposedly spending too much time not hating certain populations disfavored by the right. In that vein is an Oct. 4 "study" by Clay Waters that is much more of an anti-LGBT screed than any sort of legitimate "media research":
One of the most ignored passages in legislative history is this phrase in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967: Taxpayer-funded media outlets should observe "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature."
Yet a new Media Research Center study finds PBS’s flagship NewsHour program aired nine times more coverage in favor of the left-wing "woke" position on so-called "LGBTQ" issues compared to more traditional positions. Over the seven-month period of March 1 through September 30, 2023, supportive coverage almost wholly dominated the "debate," if you could call it that: 172 minutes for the left vs. 19 minutes for the right. That's 90.2% supportive coverage for the side pushing “identity” issues.
It was even worse for in-studio guests: 19 to one -- and the one utterance that opposed the left-wing position came from gay tennis star Billie Jean King, who dared to suggest that men shouldn't compete in women's sports once it came to advanced competitions like the Olympics.
The findings prove that the PBS NewsHour has been wholly captured by left-wing “woke” ideology on a major cutting-edge social issue: sex-and-race related “identity” issues that come under the heading of “LGBTQ,” which stands for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer.”
Extreme “gender identity” positions shun the facts of male and female biological differences in favor of how an individual person identifies, a delusion that sometimes results in irreversible surgeries performed on teenagers, to match their self-diagnosed gender identity.
Dissent was instead limited to isolated soundbites, such as a clip from a legislator on a statehouse floor. Those statements were typically cued up for an in-studio journalist or trans-activist (sometimes it was hard to tell the difference) to either neutralize as somehow false or to condemn as a threat to trans children.
Note Waters' framing here -- merely showing basic respect to LGBT people is portrayed as "left-wing" and "woke" and "radical" and "extreme," while no such epithets are attached to right-wing anti-LGBT viewpoints aside from a single reference to those views being on the "right." Waters went on to rage that PBS wasn't sufficiently hateful toward a transgender state legislator:
On April 26, PBS leaped upon the causeof Montana legislator and transgender Democrat Zooey Zephyr, barred from the Montana House floor for violating rules of decorum during a debate on a bill that would have banned so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors wishing to surgically or chemically “transition.”
Medical institutions in Europe and now America are backing away from such “care,” which also includes puberty blockers and hormone therapy. But such concerns haven’t registered a blip in the brave new world of PBS’s wholly supportive news coverage.
(Ironically, the September 24 edition of PBS News Weekend did consider European health and safety regulations when it came to…tattoo ink. Host John Yang asked a doctor: “Then talk about the ink, because as I say, it’s not regulated in the United States, the EU, the European Union, has banned some ingredients.”)
The Montana vote came after a nasty speech by Zephyr, a biological male, accusing colleagues who oppose such care of encouraging youth suicide: “If you vote yes on this bill, I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.” Zephyr also claimed that failing to provide such care was “tantamount to torture.” But those inflammatory quotes, delivered on the Montana House floor, didn’t make PBS’s hagiography.
Host Amna Nawaz revealed how passionately she and her PBS colleagues work in defense of transgender ideology, marshalling dubious activist-provided statistics as plain truth: “You know, we looked up some statistics. This is something you have spoken about before, the link between some of the political rhetoric and real-world violence in particular…”
Waters did not explain why he is of the opinion that being transgender is an "ideology," nor did he offer evidence that right-wing anti-LGBT rhetoric doesn't inspire threats and violence -- indeed, it's been shown that harassment and threats of violence typically follow when an LGBT individual or institution is featured on the virulently anti-LGBT Libs of TikTok Twitter feed. Waters also failed to disclose that his employer has repeatedly hurled invective at Zephyr for standing up for LGBT rights.
Waters also complained that "When potential Republican presidential candidates dared appear on the NewsHour, there was a good chance they’d get hit with hostile questions on gender identity." But the examples he cited are not "hostile" at all, consisting of asking candidates or summarizing their anti-LGBT agenda, the accuracy of which Waters did not dispute. He also complained that the alleged transgender status of the Nashville school shooter wasn't emphasized more, and he offered no evidence that Hale's transgender status was of any relevance to the crime. Remember that the MRC obsessed over Hale's sexuality as a distraction from the gun aspect of a gun massacre.
Waters praised one segment "for actually achieving a rough balance of views, treating the gender debate as actually debatable, not a one-sided matter of tolerance versus hate." He didn't explain why someone's gender must be "debatable," or why "tolerance versus hate" isn't an accurate description of the sides involved. He further praised the segment for giving a voice to "opponents of pornographic books in school libraries," which falsely frames those opposed to library censorship as endorsing "pornographic books."
Despite putting out a wildly biased and slanted "study" like this, the MRC still thinks it should be treated as credible. It shouldn't.
