MRC's Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Enforced Break Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

Curtis Houck had to take an enforced break from insulting White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and fluffing right-wing reporters in the briefing room like Peter Doocy, but when the briefings returned, so did Houck's highly biased takes. He wrote about the Oct. 23 briefing:

Monday marked the first White House press briefing in 11 days, so the press corps had plenty to say about the Middle East crisis triggered by Hamas’s October 7 terror attacks in Israel. While some tried to‘both sides’ the situation, Fox’s Grady Trimble and Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann battled National Security Council figurehead John Kirby and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over the rising anti-Semitism in America, especially on college campuses.

Wegmann pressed both on the issue, starting with Kirby. Noting there’s been more Republicans (but led by 2024 GOP presidential candidate and Governor Ron DeSantis) “who have called for students or foreign nationals who are demonstrating in...pro-Palestine demonstrations or...allegedly pro-Hamas demonstrations to have their student visas pulled or to face deportation.”

[...]

The two went back-to-back during Jean-Pierre’s portion. Citing Wegmann’s exchange with Kirby, Trimble went further: “[D]oes the President view anti-Israel protests and sentiment on college campuses as anti-Semitism?”

Jean-Pierre shamefully refused to denounce it specifically and declined “to get into what’s happening across the country and — and different universities” given “the First Amendment...and peaceful protest is part of — part of our democracy, being able for folks to — to — to be able to express their feelings.”

She took a more esoteric track and sought to put equal weight on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, arguing Biden “has been very clear in wanting to make sure that Jewish Americans, wanting to make sure that Arab Americans, Muslims are protected here” and “any type of violence” is unacceptable.

Trimble called out the mealy-mouthed answer and noted Biden’s bought into the idea on injustices that “silence” on such issues “is complicity,” so why wouldn’t Biden denounce “anti-Semitic letters being sent by students or [anti-Semitic] sentiment at protests.”

As if she were malfunctioning, Jean-Pierre doubled down even though FBI crime statistics show attacks on Jews account for 51.4 percent of religious-based hate crimes whereas those against Muslims tally only 9.6 percent.

To apploy the MRC's narrative on late-term abortions to Houck's point: Just because hate crimes against Muslims are allegedly not happening at the rate they occur against Jews doesn't mean they're not happening at all.

In writing up the Oct. 24 briefing, Houck touted the biased questioning of another right-wing reporter:

Towards the back-end of Tuesday’s White House press briefing, the Fox Business Network’s Edward Lawrence got under the skin of the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre by asking whether President Biden’s energy policies are helping to expand Iran’s oil coffers and thus leaving them with more money to fund terror groups like Hamas.

“So, Iran makes 70 percent of its revenue from oil. It’s doubled that oil output since 2019, adding $40 billion to revenues. So, are the President’s current energy policies giving Iran enough money to fund terror groups,” Lawrence asked.

With an incredulous look on her face, Lawrence noted that the “price of oil has gone up under this President” from an “average price of...$58” under Donald Trump to $83 now and thus gives Iran even more “money to fund these terror groups in the Middle East.”

Jean-Pierre finally responded in disgust: “I wholeheartedly disagree that we’re — we’re — you know, we’re — our actions are giving — is that what you’re saying? Can you say that again?”>[...]

Over in the Fox News chair, Jacqui Heinrich questioned frequent Jean-Pierre crutch John Kirby if the White House “agree[s] with the U.N. Secretary-General’s statement today that the Hamas attacks, ‘did not happen in a vacuum’” and defended Hamas by arguing “[t]he Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

Houck chortled that "at the beginning of the briefing, Jean-Pierre offered an embarrassing mea culpa of sorts to make clear she believes anti-Semitism is a problem. However, she naturally still had to have the qualifier about Muslims and Arab Americans facing scorn because, as expected, she had to both-sides the issue." Houck didn't explain why he wants to pretend that other side doesn't exist.

Houck took a shot an Arabic journalist in his writeup of the Oct. 31 briefing:

Tuesday’s White House press briefing brought about more of the same with a slew of journalists standing up for Hamas and their civilian supporters in Gaza following an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia on a refugee camp allegedly posing as a giant human shield for Hamas operations. But within the questions was a curious question from one Arab reporter in which he shockingly claimed he’s lost 160 family members in the war.

The reporter was Sohail Al Shaer from the Egyptian TV station Alghad TV and he made the claim to the National Security Council’s John Kirby: “Mr. Kirby, thousands of Palestinian civilians have fallen so far, including 160 of my own relatives.”

Houck offered no evidence that Al Shaer was lying. He wen on to whine that non-right-wing reporters didn't hate Muslims enough:

Providing another example of how American tax dollars aren’t being used wisely, the government-funded Voice of America’s Anita Powll [sic] told both Kirby and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that Muslim Americans are furious with President Biden for supporting Israel and not supporting Hamas’s demands for a ceasefire.

In her question to Jean-Pierre, Powell wanted to know if any “outreach” was being done to assuage the “very many angry Muslim Americnas” and Jean-Pierre offered an eye-roller of a reply about Muslims “hav[ing] endured a disproportionate number of — certainly, of hate-fueled attacks”.

Houck made sure to show some love to his mancrush: "Doocy Time provided a contrast to all this leftist nonsense as he grilled Kirby about the way our porous southern border could lead to concerns about a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Like most answers on this issue from the administration, Kirby ducked." He also hyped the continuing temper tantrum from another right-wing reporter:

And, as Jean-Pierre walked off the podium, the New York Post’s Steven Nelson lashed out at her for continuing to ignore him as, earlier in the briefing, he asked to be called on despite a five-month-long freeze whenever she’s been at the podium: “It’s anti-democratic to refuse questions from one of our country’s four largest newspapers, Karine!”

As we noted the last time Houck sympathetically hyped Nelson's plight, he wasn't nearly as sympathetic when Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany refused to call on major media outlets because they weren't Trump stenographers.

Failed Musician Hirsen Lectures Taylor Swift
Topic: Newsmax

James Hirsen began his Oct. 25 Newsmax column by praising Taylor Swift's success with her concert film, gushing that she "made the decision to bypass the studios and instead deal directly with movie theaters. The results have been remarkable." He then praised the way she appeals to her fans:

Swift's recent movie success has a lot to do with the unique manner in which she has structured her career.

She seems to have understood at a very young age that art has an intrinsic "mission." It's not enough to merely be created. It must be shared.

It is in the sharing that a relationship is formed. And it is in the relationship that mutual appreciation and admiration blossom.

Consistent with the artist's mission, Swift dutifully placed her audience first. As a result, she acquired a highly dedicated fan base, many of whom continue to endure.

From there, however, Hirsen went into complaint mode, grumbling that she started with "early hits about first love," then moved to where "optimism turns to cynicism" then, ultimately, "moves significantly to the dark side both musically and lyrically." From there, he lectured her about it being somehow a bad thing that she stopped writing silly love songs and that she's not living up to her "responsibility" to her fans by writing about other things:

Young Taylor initially wrote and performed songs that primarily focused on the search for the one with whom she could find true love.

As time passed, the music and lyrics changed, possibly a reflection of transitions occurring within her own life.

In any event, darkness, cynicism, and coldness, which are reflected in the melodies, lyrics, and video imagery of later eras, reveal a hardened heart.

Whether or not this is the case in Swift's personal circumstance, it is important to keep in mind that along with fame comes responsibility.

This is because fans put the recipient of their admiration on a pedestal and are influenced by things said and done.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is hoping for a Swift return to her songwriting roots.

And a resurrection of the artistic mission she was graced with at the start.

While Hirsen named a few songs he supposedly objects to, he didn't explain what, exactly, is wrong with them or how they are on "the dark side both musically and lyrically." Given that she has grown and maintained her fanbase throughout all these changes Hirsen is criticizing, one can argue that she's doing just fine with her career and doesn't really need unsolicited advice from a right-wing writer who may be jealous that his own music career (he has worked as a session musician and onetime touring keyboardist for the Temptations) didn't exactly take off.

FAKE NEWS: WND Touts False Claims About COVID Vaccines It Knew (Or Should Have Known) Were False
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh served up even more fake news about COVID vaccines in an Oct. 13 article:

A new study shockingly has linked the mRNA shots, the DNA treatments used as vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic that came out of a Chinese lab working on bat viruses, to millions of sudden deaths.

The study by Correlation Research in the Public Interest is titled, "COVID-19 vaccine-associated mortality in the Southern Hemisphere," and looked at 17 equatorial and Southern-Hemisphere countries including Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Suriname, Thailand and Uruguay.

They include 9.1% of the world's population and reported 10.3% of the world's COVID shots.

"In the 17 countries, there is no evidence in all-cause mortality (ACM) by time data of any beneficial effect of COVID-19 vaccines," the stunning results found. "There is no association in time between COVID-19 vaccination and any proportionate reduction in ACM. The opposite occurs."

The COVID shots, mostly mRNA-based shots that actually are not vaccines, but are DNA therapies, were fabricated in a rush to respond to COVID, and governments, corporations and organizations demanded people around the world take them.

The side effects long have raised questions, including sudden heart failure in relatively young people, and others equally as threatening.

The study states, "The all-ages vaccine-dose fatality rate (vDFR), which is the ratio of inferred vaccine-induced deaths to vaccine doses delivered in a population, is quantified for the January-February 2022 ACM peak to fall in the range 0.02 % (New Zealand) to 0.20 % (Uruguay). In Chile and Peru, the vDFR increases exponentially with age (doubling approximately every 4 years of age), and is largest for the latest booster doses, reaching approximately 5 % in the 90+ years age groups (1 death per 20 injections of dose 4). Comparable results occur for the Northern Hemisphere, as found in previous articles (India, Israel, USA). We quantify the overall all-ages vDFR for the 17 countries to be (0.126 ± 0.004) %, which would imply 17.0 ± 0.5 million COVID-19 vaccine deaths worldwide, from 13.50 billion injections up to 2 September 2023."

The study described it as a "mass iatrogenic event that killed (0.213 ± 0.006) % of the world population (1 death per 470 living persons, in less than 3 years), and did not measurably prevent any deaths."

But as actual journalists at AFP reported, this study is shoddy and dishonest:

Correlation Research in the Public Interest claims that, in the countries analyzed in its report, "there is no association in time between Covid-19 vaccination and any proportionate reduction in (all-cause mortality)."

The group bases that conclusion on figures from the World Mortality Dataset, Our World in Data and a few other regional sources. The authors accurately note that excess deaths -- those recorded in a crisis beyond what would have been expected in a "normal" year -- rose in early 2022 after an uptake in Covid-19 vaccination.

But Oliver Watson, a visiting researcher in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, told AFP that instead of proving Covid-19 shots cause death, the report simply "correlates vaccine rollout with increases in mortality" without accounting for other events that could have caused the spikes.

[...]

The paper shared online also focuses solely on the Southern Hemisphere, which Tara Moriarty of the University of Toronto said "had really high rates of all-cause mortality before vaccines came out."

That trend continued after the rollout in the United States and Europe, the infectious disease researcher added, because many countries "didn't have access to vaccines."

Health Feedback similarly noted that the study "arrived at its conclusion by claiming that spikes in excess mortality in the post-vaccination period correlated to vaccine rollout. Apart from the fact that correlation alone cannot demonstrate a causal relationship, it neglected to account for the fact that these spikes in excess mortality corresponded to surges of COVID-19 deaths. This means that these spikes were very likely due to COVID-19, not the vaccines.

Also, contrary to Unruh's assertion, mRNA vaccines are vaccines and do not alter DNA.

Interestingly, both of these analyses debunking the study were published before Unruh's article -- AFP's analysis was published on Oct. 10 and Health Feedback's was published the next day. This means that Unruh knew or should have known that the study was bogus. Further, the only outside source Unruh citied regarding the study is a far-=right side called Slay News. But it appears Slay News has deleted the article without explanation; Unruh's link to it currently redirects to a donation page. Slay News has been rated unreliable due to is conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, right-wing propaganda, poor sourcing, lack of transparency, failed fact checks, and blatant plagiarism," so it's strange that it found a story that no longer met its abysmal standards.

Yet this story remains live and uncorrected -- a story that should never have run in the first place, at least if anyone at WND actually cared about the truth.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Loud And Lame War On NewsGuard, Part 4
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent the first half of 2023 rehashing its old, discredited attacks on the website-ratings firm, whining that it pointed out the shoddiness of right-wing media. Read more >>

MRC Pushed Unproven Republican Narrative That Bowman Deliberately Pulled Fire Alarm
Topic: Media Research Center

When Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulled a firearm at the Capitol in an attempt to leave the building during a contentious showdown over attempts to avoid a government shutdown, the Media Research Center repeatedly attacked non-right-wing outlets for refusing to echo right-wing claims that he did it deliberately to disrupt the debate and -- even worse -- reported bowman's side of the story. Alex Christy complained in a Sept. 30 post:

Saturday brought the simultaneously bizarre and outrageous development of New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulling the fire alarm in order to disrupt the House’s business as it eventually passed a 45-day continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. Naturally, MSNBC’s Yasmin Vossoughian accepted the statement that it was just an accident.

At the end of a long diatribe against Republicans ranging from Speaker Kevin McCarthy to Rep. Matt Gaetz, Vossoughian added, “Last thing I wanna mention and then we’re going to take a quick break, there was a mention of Jamaal Bowman, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, and the pulling of some sort of fire alarm.”

[...]

Bowman, who as a former school principal who knows candy does not fall from the ceiling upon the pulling of the fire alarm, did not trip over himself while running and pull the alarm in a freak accident. He is clearly standing by the alarm and deliberately pulling it.

Vossoughian and MSNBC would never give a Republican the benefit on the doubt if they were to pull the fire alarm with photographic evidence. Instead, Vossoughian went to break and on the other side of that break, conducted an interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin where she proceeded to ignore his fire-alarm pulling colleague as the two spent that entire time attacking Republicans.

Meanwhile, over at CNN's Smerconish,  McCarthy's presser was the only immediate reference to the almost certain felony.

Christy is admitting his own bad faith by pushing the right-wing narrative that Bowman acted with malign intent without any evidence to prove it.

Curtis Houck similarly whined in a Oct. 2 post:

This week in liberal media double standards, ABC, CBS, and NBC spent the weekend and Monday morning defending far-left Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) after he pulled a fire alarm< inside a House office building, delaying a vote to keep the government open. In all but two instances, the “big three” uncritically accepted his excuse that it was an “accident.” If this were a Republican, it’d be a safe bet they’d cover it differently.

With college football airing Saturday on ABC, only CBS Weekend News and NBC Nightly News aired. In both cases, they only relayed what happened and Bowman claimed it was a mistake.

Houck did not explain the relevance (or the accuarcy) of labeling Bowman as "far-left." He then cheered that some in the media were fowarding Repubican narrative attacks on Bowman:

CBS Mornings had a full segment on Bowman as part of its “What to Watch” block and co-host Vladimir Duthiers noted Bowman’s excuse runs counter to “images obtained by Punchbowl News” that “show the exit with a number of signs warning about an alarm sounding if you push on the door clearly labeled ‘emergency use only.’” 

“It's the same one we all have in this building, in high school, in elementary school. It says ‘fire.’ ‘Pull in case of’...I like what Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis from New York said, ‘this is the United States Congress, not a New York City high school,’” he added.

Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King seemed sympathetic to Bowman, but even she conceded it’s “a little difficult” to accept him saying he didn’t think the lever he pulled “was a fire alarm.”

“It says fire...We gotta call it for what it is. You’re a congressman,” Duthiers replied.

The Bowman story crossed over into Nicholas Fondacarto's hate-watching of "The View" in an Oct. 2 post:

Over the weekend, we saw the liberal media rush to spread New York Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman’s disinformation that he set off a fire alarm in a House office building because he thought that’s how doors worked. But, on Monday, a couple of the radical liberals on ABC’s The View had their own conspiratorial theories. According to both moderator Whoopi Goldberg and racist co-host Sunny Hostin, the door he was trying to get through was closed as part of a Republican plot to stop him from voting.

Despite the fact Bowman and his office admitted he set off the fire alarm, faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin asserted he “allegedly pulled a fire alarm.” “He claims that it was because he was trying to get to the House floor,” she added while pivoting her words to admit he did pull the alarm. “The video seems -- or the pictures suggest otherwise.”

Hostin decried any suggestion that Bowman pulled a “stunt” and cooked up a conspiracy theory that there was an ulterior and nefarious reason the emergency exit Bowman was trying to get through was closed: “I know Jamal, and so again, I'm a little biased, but the doors that are normally open so that he could get to the chambers to read were somehow miraculously closed. How did that happen?”

Fondacaro offered no evidence to back up has assertion that Bowman;'s explanation is "disinformation." (Shouldn't that be "so-called disinformation"?) And, again, Fondacaro thinks Hostin is "racist" largely because he doesn't understand how metaphors work.

An Oct. 2 post by Kevin Tober whined that non-right-wing outlets weren't obsessing over the Bowman story they way they do in the right-wing bubble:

After running with New York Democrat Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s absurd excuse for why he pulled the fire alarm in one of the House office buildings on Saturday, it appears at least two of the big three news networks grew tired of the scandal and decided to move on and hope Americans forget about the serious crime Bowman committed. CBS Evening Newswas the only nightly network news broadcast to continue covering Bowman’s stunt. 

[...]

While CBS Evening News continued their coverage from earlier in the day, they only deserve half credit since correspondent Scott MacFarlane painted the crime as simply Republican accusations despite there being video footage of the incident:

“Some Republicans are also calling for the ouster and prosecution of New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman, a former middle school principal who they accuse of pulling a House office building fire alarm to delay the tense proceedings Saturday,” MacFarlane whined. 

He then simply regurgitated Bowman’s excuses: “Bowman apologized and said he thought the alarm would open a locked doorway as he rushed to votes,” MacFarlane said. “The House Administration Committee and U.S. Capitol Police are investigating.”

Tober failed to back up his claim that Bowman was deliberately performing a "stunt."

Bill D'Aogstino spent an Oct. 3 post insisting that reporting Bowman's side of the story was "spin":

This past weekend, CNN and MSNBC found themselves in the awkward position of having to defend Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who on Saturday afternoon pulled a House office building fire alarm during a vote. While some journalists on these networks have uncomfortably questioned Bowman’s excuse that he pulled the alarm by “accident,” the more partisan among them have been trying everything they can think of to spin the story.

On multiple occasions, talking heads on both liberal cable networks uncritically read Bowman’s official statement aloud. MSNBC host Yasmin Vossoughian was the first to do so on Saturday, during a quick aside which reeked of damage control.

Her colleague Alex Witt later followed suit, going on to complain to Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA)that Republicans were criticizing Bowman: “What do you say to Republicans who just jumped on this, saying, ‘Oh, he should face an ethics investigation for creating a delay in voting and be expelled,’?”

[...]

This story was supposed to be a slam dunk for the media: a chance for them to demonstrate their supposed even-handedness by criticizing a Democrat who had clearly acted improperly. Instead, it was a tortured scene of political damage control — the kind one might expect to play out in Bowman’s DC office, rather than on national television.

What D'Agostino ignores is that, unlike right-wing media activists, actual journalists wait for evidence before accusing someone of malign intent -- and there was still no evidence that Bowman set off the alarm deliberately.

Tim Graham rehashed the incident on his Oct. 4 podcast with numerous personal attacks on Bowman that have nothing to do with what happened:

Managing Editor Curtis Houck joined the show to discuss this and radical leftist Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who pulled a fire alarm in a House office building to delay a vote on a shutdown package on Saturday. They can never identify someone like Bowman as a "hard left" Democrat. Alex Christy hopped on the pro-Democrat media trend right away, explaining away that this was some sort of accident. Bill D’Agostino made a video clip package of all the pathetic press release-reading and excuse-making.

CBS reporter Scott McFarlane spun furiously: “Some Republicans are also calling for the ouster and prosecution of New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman, a former middle school principal who they accuse of pulling a House office building fire alarm to delay the tense proceedings Saturday,” MacFarlane whined. “Bowman apologized and said he thought the alarm would open a locked doorway as he rushed to votes.” How stupid do they think we are?'

How nutty is Bowman? According to the leftist website Raw Story, Jamaal Bowman said this about on Tim Scott saying America's not a racist country. This was apparently pro-Trump: “Now the fact that he would want to be VP to a racist, fascist person is beyond me, but that was him pandering to the Sambo section of the Black community.” Black conservatives are always abused like this.

What does that rant have to do with the incident at hand? Nothing. Graham is simply lashing out because that the facts don't support right-wing attacks on Bowman over the incident.

When Bowman eventually pleaded guilty to a minor crime related to the alarm incident and paid a fine, Houck returned to spend an Oct. 25 post whining that non-right-wing networks didn't cover the relatively insignficant news while praising Fox News for keepingup the right-wiong obession:

Late Wednesday afternoon, it was announced that far-left Congresswoman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) will be facing a single criminal charge for his September 30 pulling of a fire alarm at a House office building the briefly delayed the House’s passing of a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. Given how the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC barely covered the initial incident, it’s not surprise none of the Wednesday evening flagship newscast covered it.

But just as unsurprising was the fact that the Fox News Channel’s flagship newscast Special Report was all over it with a full, two-minute-and-53-second report. Host Bret Baier announced the breaking news that “Democratic congressman who pulled the fire alarm before a House spending vote will surrender to Capitol Police tomorrow.”

[...]

Was Wednesday a busy news night? No doubt about it as there wasn’t even time for a puffball human interest story on any of the network.

But if this were a Republican, there’s no doubt ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News would find a way to work this story in and maybe a few seconds less on, say, promoting the Hamas propaganda of the day and their dubious death tolls.

Like Christy, Houck doesn't understand that non-right-wing media cares more about facts than right-wing media. He would rather praise Fox News for keeping Bowman conspiracy theories alive  -- indeed, he cheered that the Fox News report quoted a Republican congressman "to represent how Republicans aren’t 'buy[ing]' Bowman’s excuses" -- than admit that the facts don't support such speculation. And, again, he failed to justify the relevance or accuracy of labeling Bowman "far-left" here; it seems he wants to hint at malign intent by labeling his purported beliefs.

That's not "media research" -- that's partisan activism. That would seem to violate the nonprofit tax charter the MRC runs on, which restricts the kind of political activity it can engage in.

Red Scare: WND Brands Anything Not Right-Wing As 'Communist'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The October issue of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine was themed “AMERICA’S COMMUNIST REVOLUTION: How the freest nation in history is rapidly becoming a Marxist police state.” The theme was promoted this way:

“Our country is going communist!” warned Donald Trump recently. “It's going Marxist, it's going really bad. And the people of our country aren't that way – but the people running it are.”

Hold on. America “is going communist”?

Is this just election-season bluster and hyperbole, or can the utterly unthinkable actually be true?

Unthinkable because, after all, America sacrificed hundreds of thousands of young lives fighting communism in countries across the globe – from Korea and China to Vietnam and Cambodia and Cuba and many others, and was instrumental in forming NATO to “contain” the spread of communism. Then came the showdown with the nuclear-armed Soviet Union, when America’s 40th president, Ronald Reagan, leading a militarily and economically stronger superpower, urged Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” And not only did the hated Berlin Wall come down, but along with it the entire U.S.S.R.

How is it possible, then, just a few decades later, that the 45th president, Donald Trump, can state out loud what so many Americans have suspected but dared not say? That the greatest, freest and most successful nation in world history is in the throes of a full-scale communist revolution.

That's not what happening, of course, but there wouldn't be a magazine if WND actually cared about telling readers the truth. In his essay for the issue, managing editor David Kupelian made things up by insisting anything that isn't right-wing like himself is "communist":

In 2023 America, the Democratic Party – its agendas, its core values and its audacious and often ruthless methods – are virtually indistinguishable from those of modern-day communists. Compare the Communist Party USA’s website (CPUSA.org) with the Democratic National Committee’s website (Democrats.org) and try to discern any truly substantive difference. Since the Communist Party USA was long funded by the Soviet Union and traditionally very pro-Moscow, one might expect to encounter on its website classic party slogans like “Workers of the world, unite!” alongside photos of Marx, Lenin and other famous communists. Instead, the CPUSA’s No. 1 top-of-the-page issue is, believe it or not – as the site’s screaming headline declares it – “TRANS RIGHTS.”

“The demonization of transgender people in the United States is today a focal point of the far right’s campaign for political and economic domination,” CPUSA’s feature story begins, going on to condemn the “fascist” Republican Party for its “oppression of people of color, immigrants, women and LGBTQ people.”

[...]

Big question: How did card-carrying communists – who for generations have been obsessed with the “evil capitalist oppressors” exploiting and abusing the “working class” – mysteriously become preoccupied instead with insane “woke” gender ideology? Why is today’s Communist Party USA obsessed, as are today’s Democrats, with the radical LGBT agenda and the demonization of everyone – especially Christians – who stand in opposition to it? Even more fundamentally, what do seriously mentally ill men who insist they are women and who destroy women’s athletics have to do with communism?

Kupelian is injecting his own far-rught ideology here, of course, insisting without evidence that gender is an "ideology" and that transgender people are  "seriously mentally ill." Still he whined that others don't viciously hate LGBT people like he does:

It was natural, then, for homosexuals and transsexuals to jump onto the same “oppressed minority” bandwagon. After all, the powerful and well-financed LGBT movement strategically modeled itself after the successful 1960s civil rights movement, casting its members as part of an aggrieved, long-victimized minority. Plus, by positioning itself as one more unjustly “marginalized community,” like African-Americans, the LGBT movement offered an additional benefit to Marxist revolutionaries: It would serve as a weapon specifically targeting Christianity – atheistic communism’s greatest enemy – since genuine Christians oppose homosexual behavior as biblically forbidden (along with adultery and other sexual sin), and could thus be portrayed as bigots and anti-LGBT “haters.”

Kupelian continued to rant:

In the end, the truth emerges: Marxism (and its implementation, communism) constitutes a malevolent religion. And although it has captivated untold millions, and murdered millions more, its leaders don’t believe in it and never have. It’s all a giant pretense, so they can attain and increase their own personal power, glory, wealth and privilege.

George Orwell arrived at this conclusion in his classic novel “Animal Farm,” when at the end of the story, the pigs emerge as the new oppressors of all the other farm animals, replacing the original farmer “oppressor.” When confronted with the religious mantra – “All animals are equal” – which they had long espoused while pretending to side with the rabble, now the ruling pigs with a straight face offered a slightly reworded version: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

Finally, here’s how respected historian Victor Davis Hanson recently sized up America’s communist revolution: “The left is waging a full-fledged cultural revolution against traditional America. And the Maoist results are often as absurd as they are terrifying.”

Likewise, Donald Trump, in his inimitable way, aptly captured the current dynamic while campaigning recently in Michigan. Allowing that the current chaos isn’t really all Biden’s fault – because “he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing” – Trump added that “crooked Joe” is “surrounded by radical-left Marxists and crazy people.”

Kupelian made no effort to fact-check anything Trump said; he's a true believer. If Trump says it, that settles it -- which makes Kupelian an ideologue and cult member, not anything remotely resembling the journalist he claims to be.

Circular Promotion: MRC Hypes Right-Wing Host Touting Shoddy MRC Attack On Ad Fontes
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's attack on media-ratings firm Ad Fontes is such a shoddy and biased partisan document that it took us two posts to fully expose that shoddy work. But doing quality work is not the MRC's goal here -- pushing partisan narratives is, and the so-called study does exactly that. Toward that end, a Sept. 25 post by Luis Cornelio hyped one of the MRC's favorite right-wing TV and radio ranters hyping the shoddy study:

Nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin blasted the left’s newest tool to destroy right-leaning media outlets.

In a fiery segment of The Mark Levin Show on Sept. 22, host Levin highlighted an MRC Free Speech America exposé that detailed how Ad Fontes — a media ratings company and self-proclaimed arbiter of truth and facts — is working behind the scenes to redirect Americans from conservative media to leftist outlets through dubious ratings of reliability and bias.

“This is how totalitarian regimes conduct themselves,” Levin said of Ad Fontes’s reach, which extends to major educational institutions and government-tied entities.

The MRC report found that Ad Fontes gave 64 percent of media the rating firm deemed to be on the left as reliable, while only rating 32 percent of media it labeled on the right as reliable. Ad Fontes’s tirade against Levin was among the most disturbing in MRC Free Speech America’s findings. Levin’s flagship shows — The Mark Levin Show, The Blaze’s LevinTV and Fox News’s Life, Liberty and Levin — were all slapped down as “unreliable,” “misleading” and “problematic.”

Cornelio offered no evidence that Ad Fontes' assessment of Levin's programs is in any way inaccurate, and he did not indicate that Levin disputed it. Instead, he continued to be Levin's servile stenographer:

In response, Levin did not mince his words. “Of course,” said Levin of Ad Fontes’s slap down of his popular shows. “I am considered ‘unreliable.’ … Who else is considered unreliable? The Federalist, Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity, The Ingraham Angle, The Epoch Time, PragerU, The Daily Signal, RedState, Turning Point USA, Newsmax [and] OAN.”

Ad Fontes, through its self-proclaimed leftist executives, has partnered with some of the largest Big Tech platforms like Meta and advertising agencies to target right-leaning outlets, including Levin’s own radio show. Ad Fontes was the subject of a months-long MRC Free Speech America study that ultimately revealed that the media ratings firm skews its analysis to treat media critical of the Biden regime more harshly than legacy outlets, such as NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times and The Washington Post. 

Later in the segment, Levin issued a dire warning. “We’re way beyond the world liberal and progressive,”  Levin said after citing the damning findings in the 12-page report. “We’re way, way beyond that America.”

Because Cornelio is one of the co-authors of the study, he will not be making an effort to fact-check anything Levin says.

In more self-promotion, Tim Graham used his Sept. 28 podcast to hype the so-called study:

Then we discuss [MRC Free Speech America]'s big investigation into Ad Fontes Media, one of those businesses that claim to measure the reliability and tilt of media outlets in the interest of "media literacy." We never trust any chart that puts AP and PBS and NPR in the "Middle" with high reliability. NewsBusters and Fox News and most conservative outlets are painted as unreliable and "hyperpartisan." 

But this is worse. The Ad Fontes team wants to use their cockamamie ratings and suppress conservative advertising and go into schools and teach "media literacy," as in "kids, stay away from those dangerous conservative neighborhoods."

But the study made no serious attempt to prove the reliability of right-wing websites -- it simply cherry-picked examples to attack Ad Fontes' rating system -- nor did it prove that its findings about those sites was driven by partisan animosity (like the MRC's attack on Ad Fontes). And Graham didn't explain why "media literacy" is a bad thing if it teaches people how to recognize shoddy websites -- unless pushing shoddy misinformation is the goal of right-wing media.

NEW ARTICLE: 'Sound of Freedom' -- And Silence About QAnon
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb loved the anti-child-trafficking film -- but they didn't want to talk about how the film, its star and its inspiration are in the QAnon orbit, And they were almost completely silent when the film's inspiration was hit with charges of sexual misconduct. Read more >>

MRC's Fox News Defense Center Assembles After Murdoch's Retirement
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is the Fox News Defense Center, incapable of criticizing the right-wing channel -- even when it was caught lying to its viewers -- becuase it does such a great job of peddling right-wing narratives. So when Rupert Murdoch stepped down as the head of Fox News' parent company, the MRC was quick to lionize him and defend him from any criticism. Nicholas Fondacaro did the latter in a  Sept. 21 post:

On Thursday, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp., announced he would be stepping down later this year. But the fact he would be turning over control to his son Lachlan Murdoch threw cold water on any excitement Fox News haters in the liberal would have. The ones hurt most by that realization were the liberals of CNN, chief among them was media urchin Oliver Darcy who appeared on CNN’s Inside Politics to bellyache that Fox would not ditch their “right-wing” “world view.”

[...]

And in going to Darcy, Raju asked the Orwellian question: “What do we think about this change?”

Darcy opened his comments by stoking fear of Murdoch as “one of the most powerful people in the world” in terms of media and politics (you know, everything former CNN boss Jeff Zucker and his underlings wished he was).

“But I think People should be cautious and not jump to the conclusion that that means that the editorial bent of his companies is going to change,” Darcy warned viewers. He read from Murdoch’s memo to his staff and made it clear “Lachlan Murdoch is actually going to continue the tradition of allowing these companies to be right-wing in nature.”

Darcy, who used to write for The Blaze, scoffed at Murdoch for stating “there is a ‘battle for the freedom of speech,’ ‘for the freedom of thought.’” He took particular issue with Murdoch saying “Most of the media is in cahoots with those peddling political narratives rather than the truth.”

Fondacaro whined that Darcy pointed out those Fox News lies, attempting to play whataboutism in response:

Of course, he took the opportunity to make a dig at Fox News and their settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, calling “rich” of him. “[I]t would be irresponsible for me to read that to you without pointing out that Rupert Murdoch himself talks about people peddling narratives and not the truths when he just paid $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems for knowingly advancing falsehoods about the 2020 election,” he sniped.

It would be irresponsible for NewsBusters to call out Darcy without pointing out that CNN had to similarly settle a $275 million defamation suit with Nick Sandmann after the liberal network spit venom at the then-teenager with false claims that he was a racist for smiling at a liberal protestor who assailed him. And the network that demanded transparency from others demanded the settlement stipulate that they couldn’t disclose the final price tag.

It would be irresponsible for us not to point out that Sandmann, in all likelihood, received much less than $275 million from CNN (the amount was not made public), and it's entirely possible that he received little more than token go-away money, or to remind Fondacaro that we last saw Sandmann's lawyer, L. Lin Wood, choosing to retire his law license rather than face discipline from the Georgia state bar for peddling falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

It was Alex Christy's turn to whine that CNN criticized Fox News in a Sept. 22 post:

CNN Primetime host Abby Phillip wasted no time on Thursday in attacking Rupert Murdoch as he steps down as CEO of Fox News, blaming him and his “outrage porn” for the state of political discourse and the “perilous” state of democracy.

As she came on the air, Phillip solemnly declared, “Objectively American democracy is in perilous condition. The nation's politics are poisoned. Truth has become optional. Instead of desired or even required. The republic has, of course, always faced threats to it even before Rupert Murdoch, but so much of the current state of our democracy can be traced back to the beast of his creation.”

Only now did Phillip introduce herself, “Good evening everyone, I'm Abby Phillip and Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as CEO of Fox News tonight. His legacy is outrage porn. Partisan red meat. Stoking relentless culture wars.”

[...]

To make her point, Phillip then played a nearly six-minute montage of over 40 separate clips of various Fox News moments over the years. While some of the moments shown could be legitimately criticized others could not. If CNN can’t tell the difference between unproven theories about Venezuelan voting machines and critiquing gender ideology or Sean Hannity joking about Halloween being a liberal holiday, then it is also in the outrage porn industry. As for Phillip, she was the host that tried to tie Sound of Freedom to QAnon.

As we pointed out when Christy originally made this complaint, the film does, in fact, lean into QAnon consparacies, the film's star Jim Caviezel is a QAnon adherent, and the man on whose story the film is based, Jim Ballard, has refused to distance himself from QAnon.

In his Sept. 22 podcast, Tim Graham complained about "the outbreak of badly disguised joy as Rupert Murdoch announced he's going to step away from day-to-day control of the Fox News Channel. Leftists from Oliver Darcy to Brian Stelter to David Folkenflik rounded up their hot takes how terrible Fox is, and how it can only get worse." He didn't mention the MRC's own undisguised joy when CNN chief Jeff Zucker lost his job, making his outrage here more than a little hypocritical. Jeffrey Lord served up a gushy tribute to Murdoch in his Sept. 23 column:

Rupert Murdoch and his creations of Fox News and the News Corporation have at long last ended the one-sided dominance of liberal media. The liberal monopoly on information simply no longer exists. Not to mention that well beyond Fox News the invention of the Internet and social media has provided mass access to sites like this - NewsBusters - where the left-leaning media itself can be examined and challenged 24/7.

And, of course, not to be forgotten either is the advent of talk radio’s Rush Limbaugh and the spread of conservative talk radio over the AM radio air waves.

But as Rupert Murdoch at 92 hands the reins of his media empire to son Lachlan, his importance in American politics with the creation of a major-league conservative media alternative and challenge to the once-dominant liberal media will always be remembered.

And millions of conservatives out there are surely appreciative.

Clay Waters served up some Murdoch-related Folkenflik Derangement Syndrome in a Sept. 24 post:

The "public" broadcasting elite loathes Fox News. When news broke that 92-year-old media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Fox News founder and chairman of News Corp, is stepping down in favor of his son Lachlan, that encouraged tax-funded PBS to trot out Murdoch-bashing journalist David Folkenflik of tax-funded National Public Radio on Thursday evening to lament the chairman’s "corrosive" right-wing influence on the media landscape.

PBS knew what they were getting. Folkenflik is the author of a hostile 2013 biography of Murdoch and delights in Fox News scandals (CNN and MSNBC ones? Not so much).

Reporter John Yang asked Folkenflik about the elder Murdoch’s legacy.

Waters made no effort to rebut or disprove anything Folkenflik said beyond playing weak whataboutism.

The MRC also published a Sept. 26 syndicated column by Cal Thomas under the fawning headline "Rupert Murdoch Was Right From the Start."

Newsmax Pushed Faux Republican Outrage Over Bowman's Pulled Fire Alarm
Topic: Newsmax

When Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm at the Capitol in an attempt to leave the building in the midst of turmoil over passing legislation to avoid a government shutdown, Newsmax made sure to crank out some performative partisan outrage over the incident. It first published a wire article that featured Bowman stating it was an accident and another one on the investigation he will face over it, but those were quickly followed by said outrage:

• McCarthy: Punish Rep. Bowman for Pulling Fire Alarm Before Vote
• Whitaker to Newsmax: Bowman's Alarm Act 'Obviously' Obstruction
• Larry Elder to Newsmax: Bowman Oughta be Called an 'Insurrectionist'
• Fmr Rep. Collins to Newsmax: Rep. Bowman Must Face Consequences

An Oct. 1 article by the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy served up more general manufactured Republican outrage:

Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman's act of triggering a fire alarm at the Capitol as lawmakers rushed to pass a bill and avoid a government shutdown sparked outrage among Republicans.

Bowman admitted to pulling the alarm in one of the U.S. Capitol office buildings around noon Saturday. The act prompted a building-wide evacuation at a time when the House was in session and staffers were working in the building.

Republicans accused the progressive New York congressman of triggering the alarm in the Cannon House Office Building so Democrats would not have to vote on the continuing resolution to fund the government temporarily and avoid a shutdown.

McCarthy did note that Bowman said it was an accident, then added that "Many Republicans weren't buying it." to have an excuse to hype more Republican outrage:

Political commentator Julie Kelly said Bowman should be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, just as people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

"Rep. Bowman clearly violated numerous laws including 1512(c)(2) obstruction of an official proceeding. At least 320 Jan 6 defendants including Donald Trump have been charged with this felony count," Kelly posted with a screen grab of the law.

It wouldn't be a full-blown fit of manufactured Republican outrage if Donald Trump wasn't involved, and Nick Koutsobinas and Eric Mack oblige in another Oct. 1 article:

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., should be "prosecuted and imprisoned" for the "egregious act" of pulling a Capitol Hill fire alarm, an actual "Obstruction of an Official Proceeding," former President Donald Trump wrote in a pointed rebuke Sunday.

"Will Congressman Jamal [sic] Bowman be prosecuted and imprisoned for very dangerously pulling and setting off the main fire alarm system in order to stop a Congressional vote that was going on in D.C.," Trump posted on Truth Social.

"His egregious act is covered on tape, a horrible display of nerve and criminality. It was a very dangerous 'Obstruction of an Official Proceeding,' the same as used against our J-6 prisoners. Actually, his act may have been worse. HE MUST SUFFER THEIR SAME FATE. WHEN WILL HIS TRIAL BEGIN???"

That was followed by an Oct. 2 article by Luca Cacciatore sounding deflated that the Capitol Police found that Bowman's story "was at least somewhat truthful." Then came a paywalled Oct. 4 article by Marisa Herman lamenting that it would be difficult to expel Bowman from Congress over the incident.

When Bowman pleaded guilty to pulling the fire alarm and agreed to pay a small fine and issue an apology, Cacciatore wropte a surprisingly straight Oct. 25 article on it. It also ran an Associated Press article on the plea that was doctored to reflect Newsmax's right-wing bias. The original AP article reads:

 Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor count for triggering a fire alarm as lawmakers scrambled to pass a funding bill before a government shutdown deadline.

Newsmax's version reads:

Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., a member of "The Squad," pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor count for triggering a fire alarm as lawmakers scrambled to pass a funding bill before a government shutdown deadline.

Changing "Democratic Rep." to "Democrat Rep." is a nod to the right-wing campaign to rename the Democratic Party because right-wingers think it's a way to mess with Democrats, and the addition of a "Squad" label for him is irrelevant since it's not mentioned anywhere in the original AP article. 

This, of course, was followed by more right-wing whining,  this time over the punishment purprtedly not being severe enough. Sandy Fitzgerald wrote in an Oct. 26 article:

Allowing Rep. Jamaal Bowman to enter into a plea agreement and pay a fine for pulling a fire alarm as members of the House were heading into chambers to vote on a continuing resolution on Sept. 30 is "disparate treatment," considering how others were prosecuted for impeding an official process in the Jan. 6, 2021 protests, Rep. Andy Biggs said on Newsmax Thursday. 

The continuing resolution was to keep the government open and funded.

"I know he might not think it's a very big deal, but think of all the personnel that he took off the line for first responders around this city because he pulled that alarm," the Arizona Republican said on Newsmax's "American Agenda."

Note Fitzgerald's downgrading of the Capitol riot to a mere "protest." Needless to say, it's laughable to liken a pulled fire alarm to violent protesters. Fitzgerald served up more Republican attacks in another article taken from Newsmax TV:

Rep. Jamaal Bowman should have pleaded "not guilty by reason of insanity" to charges of triggering a fire alarm on Sept. 30 in the Cannon House Office Building on Sept. 30, when a critical vote was being put forward by Republicans for a continuing resolution to keep the government open, Rep. Troy Nehls said on Newsmax Thursday. 

"I don't know why he's even pleading guilty to this thing," the Texas Republican told Newsmax's "National Report." "I think if you know this guy and you're seeing who he is, and some of his interviews, he should have pled not guilty by reason of insanity, and he would have got away with it."

In an effort to keep the story alive, an Oct. 27 article by Nicole Wells hyped a demand by a right-wing watchdog group -- which she dishonestly called "nonpartisan" -- that Bowman "be punished for activating a fire alarm in a federal office building last month and disrupting congressional business."Wells also irrelevantly labeled Bowman as "a member of 'The Squad'" without explaining what it is or why it matters. A Nov. 8 article by Bowman touted a "follow-up complaint" filed by the group, which was again dishonestly called "non-partisan." But that hit a dead end when the House Ethics Committee chose not to open an investigation, which Brian Freeman ruefully reported in a Nov. 22 article.

WND's Cashill Serves Up More George Floyd-Derek Chauvin Revisionism
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill has shown himself to be on the wrong side of history by supporting and defending Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd. That continued in his Oct. 4 column, which actually began by attacking anti-racism activist Ibram X. Kendi, gloating over the alleged "fall of the House of Kendi – the $40 million Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University" in the wake of an investigation into the center's operations. That attack didn't age well given that the investigation found no issues with how the center's finances were managed, though the center was restructred. Cashill then used the turmoil at Kendi's center to engage in some revisionism:

With Kendi, Black Lives Matter, and other race hustlers forcing open the eyes of their funders, those funders may want to take a hard look at the incident that forced open their pockets. The media should shine the necessary light,

The major media being corrupt beyond redemption, the task falls to the conservative media. Unfortunately, at the time they were nearly as complicit in the railroading of Derek Chauvin and his fellow officers as their mainstream brethren.

He was particularly annoyed with Fox News' Gregg Jarrett, who committed the offense of reporting on Chauvin's guilt; Cashill claimed that Jarrett "seemed to be either blind to the facts or beholden to the suits upstairs," then claimed that Chauvin didn't deliberately kill Floyd:

There was no pressure on Floyd's airways. There was pressure, however, on the one doctor brave enough to testify in Chauvin's defense. Allies of the prosecution sought to ruin his career.

Cashill rehashed his earlier claim that medical examiner Andrew Baker changed an initial finding that Floyd did not suffer asphyxiation to a later finding that he did due to political pressure:

In the frenzied atmosphere of Minneapolis, Baker feared not only for his reputation, but also for his life. He gave the prosecution the wiggle room they needed to hang Chauvin.

Baker was not the only one with reason to be scared. During the trial, the judge had good reason to fear for his life as did the witnesses, the attorneys and the jurors most of all.

Openly apprehensive, the jurors much too quickly found Chauvin guilty on all counts. Watching the verdict come down, I recalled Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' caution from a century ago: "Mob law does not become due process of law by securing the assent of a terrorized jury."

Or, Holmes might have added, the assent of a terrorized media.

In fact, Baker testified during the trial of three other Minneapolis police officers in Floyd's death that he faced no political pressure to add or delete anything in Floyd's autopsy report and that his learning about neck compression-- the method Chauvin used to incapacitate Floyd -- is what caused him to rethink his conclusions. But that doesn't fit Cashill's narrative of exonerating Chauvin, so he ignoted it.

Cashill's column is headlined "Time to rethink the martyrdom of George Floyd" -- but he wants you to think that Chauvin, who killed a guy, is somehow the real martyr.

NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC Flips Over Elon Musk, Part 16: A Community Notes Conundrum
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is of two minds when it comes to Twitter's Community Notes fact-checking function: great when applied to liberals but "censorship" when applied to conservatives. PLUS: The MRC hates Twitter's new Musk-chosen CEO. Read more >>

More Bias, Shoddiness Found In MRC's Attack On Ad Fontes
Topic: Media Research Center

We've already shown how the Media Research Center's attack on website-rating firm Ad Fontes is as loud, lame and partisan as its previous attacks on a similar firm, NewsGuard. But a deeper dive into the study shows just how shoddy and biased it is. There's nothing impartial about it at all; the MRC went into it with the goal of smearing Ad Fontes as biased, and its so-called evidence to make that narrative was just as biased. Luis Cornelio and Tim Kilcullen dubiously framed the fact that Ad Fontes rates right-wing websites lower than liberal-leaning websites as some sort of conspiracy:

With regard to its “reliability” scoring, Ad Fontes ranks media sources from a high of 64 to a low of zero. As Ad Fontes explains it, “Scores above 40 are “reliable” and “generally good;” scores below 24 are “unreliable” and “generally problematic.” 

MRC Free Speech America staff analyzed the reliability scores of the 3,134 media entities rated by Ad Fontes between July 31 and Aug. 7. The disparity in scoring was readily apparent. Of the 2,032 media that Ad Fontes rated on the political “left,” 1,299 (64%) were given a score of 40 or above, solidifying their status as “reliable.” 

Examples of left-leaning media awarded this highest rating include CNN, The New York Times,NPR, Associated Press, Vox, ABC, CBS and NBC. However, of the 975 media Ad Fontes rated on the “right,” only 313 (32%) were given a “reliable” score of 40 or above. (e.g. The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, National Post, CATO Institute). Ad Fontes was exactly twice as likely to award its highest rating to media on the left.

[...]

The bias is even more extreme in terms of what media Ad Fontes considered to be “unreliable” and “generally problematic.” Ad Fontes rated only 59 of the 2,032 (2.9%) media on the political left as “unreliable” (scores below 24). Media in that group included MSNBC’s The ReidOut and The Daily Dot. By contrast, Ad Fontes rated a sizable 286 of the 975 (29%) media on the political right as “unreliable.” Included among that tier were: The Federalist; Fox News shows Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity and The Ingraham Angle; The Epoch Times; PragerU; The Daily Signal; RedState; Turning Point USA; NewsmaxTV, Timcast IRL,OAN, and The Matt Walsh Show. This means that Ad Fontes is exactly 10 times more likely to rate right-leaning media as “unreliable” and “generally problematic.”

Comparing the overall scores of comparable media further emphasizes how relentlessly Ad Fontes’s reliability system favors big media entities on the left and punishes media it labels as on the political right:

Cornelio and Kilcullen are trying to impose false balance on Ad Fontes; there's no reason for it to give equivalent ratings to an equal number of left-leaning and right-leaning websites if the data doesn't support it, and they offer no actual evidence that it doesn't. Insetad, they cherry-pick stories from right-wing media they believe are rated lower than they desire:

Take, for example, a Breitbart article summarizing the testimony of a mother accusing Fairfax County’s school lockdown policies of exacerbating her autistic son’s fatal depression. Ad Fontes gave this story a rare single-digit rating (9.33), far beneath the score of 24 that marks something as “unreliable.” The article did not endorse the woman’s speech, but merely quoted and embedded the video of the mother’s public testimony and transcribed what she said.

Cornelio and Kilcullen are dishonestly portraying the story; in fact, the headline claimed the mother blamed "critical race theory" for her son's suicide. And their insistence that Breitbart "did not endorse the woman’s speech" is laughable since its decision to publish the story was an effective endorsement -- it would not have allowed this woman's testimony to stand without comment it didn't fit into right-wing narratives against CRT and COVID-era lockdowns.

Cornelio and Kilcullen further shows their hostility to Ad Fontes by arguing with its leader, Vanessa Otero, and laughably denying that right-wing media outlets have any sort of reach and are staffed with ideologues:

Otero’s willful disregard of facts contrary to her worldview is not limited to the subject of Biden bribery. When pressed about the left’s disproportionate representation in the media, Otero interjected: “I don't agree with your premise that … there are more left leaning folks in that field than right leaning folks.”

When it was pointed out to Otero that by her own site’s designations left-leaning sources more than double right-leaning ones (2,032 to 975), Otero still refused to acknowledge the disparity. “There's a lot of media out there and like, like Fox News, New York Post, you know, the Daily Mail, those are some of the biggest media organizations in the world,” she insisted. “And they're not populated by left-leaning journalists.”

Even if one takes at face value that these three organizations lack left-leaning journalists, it is ludicrous to claim that the market share of Fox News, the New York Post and Daily Mail approach the impact of legacy media. According to Nielsen ratings published by Variety in Dec. 2022, Fox News and its sister channel Fox Business had a combined 2.43 million total viewers in 2022. This is less than half of the 5.148 million viewers of NBC (NBC is owned by Comcast, which is actually one of “the biggest media organizations in the world”). The other two broadcast news channels—CBS at 5.144 million viewers and ABC (owned by Disney) at 3.867 million viewers—also dwarfed Fox News’s total viewership.  

The case is the same for news site traffic. According to an August report by the Press Gazette, Fox News has 262.1 million monthly visitors; Daily Mail has 125.3 million. The two websites’ combined influence is significant, but it is only a fraction of the 441.6 million that The New York Times or of the 415.2 million that CNN — two far-left outlets that are pushed by Big Tech giants like Google — receive.

Note that Cornelio and Kilcullen apply the the "far-left" tag to the Times and CNN -- a tag they don't justify, showing just how marinated they are in right-wing ideology that portrays any media that not as far-right as they are as "far-left." (They do not similarly identify any outlet as "far-right.") They also engage in more dishonesty by comparing the ratings of Fox News, which runs programming 24/7 designed to promote right-wing politcal narratives 24/7, to networks like ABC, CBS and NBC, which run non-ideological entertainment programming for most of its day.

Cornelio and Kilcullen were even mad that Ad Fontes endorsed the American justice system:

Otero and Berens’s political agenda pervades the actions of Ad Fontes, right down to its marketing. After nineteen MAGA Republicans, including former President Trump, were indicted in Atlanta, Georgia, Ad Fontes sent out a celebratory email declaring: “[t]he process of bringing those at the center of a conspiracy to defraud the American people and misrepresent the good work of the officials responsible for mounting a free and fair election in Georgia had been identified by Georgia District Attorney, Fani Willis, and indicted for their alleged actions. The wheels of justice, however slow, had turned in the general direction that they are supposed to turn.”

Yes, supporting the prosecution of alleged criminals is now a "political agenda" -- though it used to be the one on the right.

Cornelio and Kilcullen's attack seems to have been motivated by its criticism of the MRC itself:

Ad Fontes often gives “unreliable” ratings to stories critical of the Biden agenda that legacy media does not cover, even when there is no doubt as to their veracity. MRC Free Speech America’s February 2022 study documenting over 800 cases of COVID-19-related censorship by Big Tech platforms was labeled “unreliable” (15.67) despite the platforms themselves they censor speech that disagrees with establishment guidelines.

As usual, the MRC is portraying correcting lles and misinformation about COVID as "censorship," or that prioritizing accurate information is somehow "establishment."

Cornelio and Kilcullen concluded:

While Ad Fontes claims to have a methodology for how it scores the articles it chooses, this framework is habitually abandoned so as to pursue Otero’s aggressive hard-left agenda. Concerningly, the brokenness of Ad Fontes’s methodology has not yet affected the firm’s effectiveness in pushing its product. Otero boasts that Ad Fontes has been imposed in schools across the country, removing the ability for students to access news sources skeptical of the left’s agenda. Ad Fontes also has partnered with Big Tech giants Meta and Microsoft, making it easier to pressure advertisers into blacklisting media Otero’s ratings system disapproves of.       

Censorship tools like Ad Fontes have no place in a free country. Americans benefit from a diversity of viewpoints, not conformity to Otero’s warped worldview.

Again, they want you to think that not being hard-right like they are means being "hard-left." This is not "media research" -- it's a political hit job designed to dishonestly portray the pursuit of accurate, trustworthy information as a partisan enterprise. Cornelio and Kilcullen need to explain their ideological motivation behind wanting to let misinformation spread unchecked and attacking anyone who opposes that.

FAKE NEWS: WND Repeats False Story Claiming COVID Vaccines Cause 'VAIDS'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily publishes so much misinformation about COVID vaccines that it occasionally has to outsource some of it. That's what it did with an Oct. 2 article it stole from something called the People's Voice:

Official data released by the Canadian government reveals that at least 74% of the vaccinated population across Canada now have full-blown Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (VAIDS).

The data reveal that the double vaccinated population across Canada have now lost on average 74% of their immune system capability, and the triple vaccinated population across Canada have now lost on average 73% of their immune system capability compared to the natural immune system of their unvaccinated counterparts.

Expose-news.com reports: So much damage has now been done that the figures show the double vaccinated population are on average 3.8 times more likely to be infected with Covid-19 and 3.3 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than the unvaccinated population.

As we've noted, Media Bias Fact Check calls The People's Voice, formerly known as NewsPunch, a "clickbait news website that promotes extreme right-wing conspiracy theories and pseudoscience misinformation," where "Headlines use loaded emotional language" and "story selection almost always favors the right through negative stories regarding liberal policy and politicians." It concluded: "This website has zero credibility due to the routine publishing of fake news." The People's Voice's solurce for this story, Expose News, has a similar lack of credibility.

You will not be surprised to learn that this story is completely false, as a real news organization (and Health Canada) reported:

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said October 10 that it "would not be possible for a Covid-19 vaccine to cause AIDS," as messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) shots do not use a live virus to trigger an immune response and viral vector jabs include "a harmless virus (in this case, an adenovirus) as a delivery system."

"To date, no reports of AIDS following Covid-19 vaccines have been submitted to PHAC," the agency said by email.

[...]

To support their claims, the articles analyzed government data< on the number of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Canada in January and February 2022 -- when the Omicron variant was circulating widely.

What Canada's data actually shows is that the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines wanes over time and that the initial jabs were less effective against Omicron.

AFP also pointed out that "Independent experts say VAIDS is not a real condition":

"There is no VAIDS," said Rachel Roper, professor of microbiology and immunology at East Carolina University, in an October 5 email. "All data worldwide show that Covid vaccines save lives and do not increase deaths."

WND has not told its readers this story is discredited, nor has it told them the truth. That refusal to correct the record means WND is discredited as well.

MRC 'Study' Filled With Anti-LGBT Invective, False Framing
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.