Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade hasn't exactly helped Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, as it's still mired in the lower end of polling. So the MRC tried one last-ditch effort to boost DeSantis: a softball interview. Curtis Houck detailed the agenda-promoting softness in the nearly 16-minute interview in a Nov. 3 post:
This week, Media Research Center Founder and President L. Brent Bozell spoke with 2024 Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about a whole host of issues and, naturally, it included exchanges about the repeated, years-long barrages of attacks from the liberal media.
Bozell began by noting the MRC has “monitored how they’ve treated you and how they’ve treated all the Republican candidates” and, while “all the focus is always on — on how awful they are to Donald Trump,” “[t]hey’re just about just as awful with you.”
Bozell cited an August NewsBusters study by our Rich Noyes on 2024 coverage from the network evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC that “78 percent of the coverage of you has been negative” before asking how that’s “not election interference when the networks are deliberately trying to derail Republicans.”
DeSantis didn’t hesitate in emphasizing that “there’s no question that they have...a partisan agenda...trying to advance a victory for the Democratic Party” that “you guys have pointed this out...for a number of years.”
He added why the liberal media have “been so negative on me is because they do see all the success that we’ve had in Florida” and fear the possibility that, if elected president, his “model from Florida” could be “implemented nationally” and deal a huge blow “to their friends on the political left.”
[...]
Bozell reacted with effusive praise:“Of all the candidates out there and perhaps even all public figures out there today when it comes to dealing with vicious attacks from the media and doing it on the spot, I really don’t think there’s anyone who’s better than you are...It’s extraordinary.”
A few hours later, a post by Luis Cornelio detailed more softballs for DeSantis:
FIRST ON MRC: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) joined MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell to speak about how Google is interfering in elections by manipulating its search results to highlight Democratic candidates ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, did not mince words in response to the MRC Free Speech America study revealing that Google buried the websites of GOP candidates. “So, of course, it’s something that is being done to change elections,” DeSantis said, before pledging to take “principled” measures, if elected president, against the potentially illegal censorship to ensure “everybody is treated equally.”
DeSantis appeared to agree with Bozell’s reasoning that Google’s censorship likely constituted illegal campaign contributions. “Is this something that a President DeSantis would be looking at?” Bozell asked DeSantis, to which the governor answered, “Yes, we could. I mean, I think that, you know, you have FEC. You have all this stuff, and those have been ineffective bureaucracies.” He added, “But I think that these guys have gotten a pass. I do think they're using corporate resources to be able to influence elections, and that is just not something that you can do without reporting under our system.”
Over at the right-wing blog that used to be the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, Craig Bannister was given his own interview segment to tout in a Nov. 6 post:
In an exclusive on-camera interview, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) discussed with Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell the dangers of media bias, especially when it comes to U.S. elections and Israel’s war on Hamas terrorism.
Gov. DeSantis, who is seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, was asked about how bias liberal media are interfering with U.S. elections. DeSantis said there’s no doubt the media have a partisan agenda and are “trying to advance a victory for the Democrat Party,” as MRC has documented “for a number of years.”
That was joined the same day by one more bit of softball stennography from Bannister:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should ignore the anti-Israel media attacks and demands for a cease-fire to Israel’s effort to wipe out Hamas terrorists, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell this week.
In an exclusive interview, the GOP presidential hopeful said that, as soon as he heard Hamas had attacked a music festival in Israel on October 7 – killing 1,400 people – he knew the media would start attacking Israel.
If Bozell asked a question of DeSantis that was even remotely challenging, it doesn't appear in any of these articles.
Because all this looked very much like an in-kind campaign contribution -- not unlike its DeSantis Defense Brigade crusade over the past several months -- the MRC felt compelled to add an editor's note to each piece: "All major 2024 candidates polling above one percent nationally across the spectrum — Republicans, independents, and Democrats — have been invited to participate in similar sit-downs. Our offers remain on the table." To date, no other candidate has -- even with the implied promise of a cushy, fawning interview by Bozell, which suggests the less-than-lofty status the MRC apparently has in the right-wing media bubble. That, and the fact that no other candidate has felt the need as of yet to take the MRC up on its softball-interview offer, leaves the unmistakable impression that this was created to be an in-kind contribution to DeSantis.
The interview landed with such a thud, in fact, that the MRC didn't publish another post centered on DeSantis for the rest of November.
