MRC Still Touting Gosnell Crowdfunding, Still Won't Ask About Billboard
Topic: Media Research Center

Matt Philbin effuses in a May 9 Media Research Center item:

Here’s a story for the nightly news: a plucky upstart overcomes establishment hostility to reach a seemingly impossible goal. The problem is that the nightly news is the establishment, and the Gosnell Movie project, which just reached its initial crowd-funding goal, deals with something they don’t want to talk about.

Headed by producer Phelim McAleer and wife Ann McElhinney, the Gosnell Movie campaign has reached its initial goal of raising $2.1 million from more than 23,000 individual donors through the crowd-funding site Indiegogo. The money raised will fund a scripted TV drama based on abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s trial and grand jury report. 

There's no mention, however, of where McAleer got the money to post a billboard outside Kickstarter headquarters in an act of revenge for Kickstarter imposing standards on McAleer's  crowdfunding campaign (which ultimately used another website).

Billboards are costly, after all. Did McAleer use his crowdfunding money to pay for it? If so, did he receive permission from his crowdfunders to use the money in that way?

Those are basic questions that go to the heart of whether McAleer is a good steward of the millions he's raising for his propaganda film. But Philbin apparently doesn't want to know the answer -- he's too busy making sure McAleer is pocketing even more cash.

Meanwhile ...
Topic: Media Research Center
Media Matters uncovers more examples of right-wing media outlets picking up the Media Research Center's dishonest video purporting to debunk the "gun show loophole" -- as well as more examples of how easy it is to buy a gun at a gun show without a background check.

MRC's Philbin Sneers At Gay Football Player
Topic: Media Research Center

Matt Philbin's May 7 Media Research Center column on gay football player Michael Sam is filled with sneering derision:

If an NFL team ends up taking Michael Sam in a late draft round – or not at all – don’t blame the media. The Missouri defensive end came out of the closet to near universal media adulation (coincidentally timed with the NFL Combine in February). Now, with the draft looming on May 8, ESPN and ABC are doing their parts to make sure Sam is picked.

ESPN announced May 7 that it’s bestowing Sam with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. The ceremony doesn’t take place until July, but it’s never too early to remind NFL coaching staffs that Sam had the courage to join society’s most trendy and celebrated grievance group.

But the sports and news media alike have a habit of obnoxiously intruding on sports with their political preoccupations. (Here’s looking at you, “Pinky” Costas.)

The Ashe Award was ostensibly the excuse for having Sam on “Good Morning America” May 7. But, covering mostly the same ground as the February media love fest, it was really about confirming that Michael Sam is still a homosexual.

Yes, the MRC has an anti-gay agenda, but apparently it's so anti-gay that hurling insultsis considered right-wing media criticism.

MRC Still Doesn't Want To Talk About Lara Logan
Topic: Media Research Center

We've previously documented how the Media Research Center promoted Lara Logan's "60 Minutes" story on Benghazi, only to go silent when it was discovered that Logan's main source was a liar. Despite "60 Minutes" being a big, fat mainstream media target, the MRC still doesn't want to talk about it.

Last week, a New York magazine article told the story behind Logan's Benghazi debacle and examines whether she will return to the show, from which she has been suspended since her story imploded.

The reaction at the MRC? Total silence. Again, even though "60 Minutes" is one of the MRC's prime targets.

Logan did get a mention at the MRC this week -- the first in five months. A May 8 NewsBusters post by Tom Johnson grumbling about a Salon piece highlighting Logan's conservative views. Johnson conceded only that Logan's Benghazi story "proved seriously flawed."

Then again, the MRC is too busy fundraising off Benghazi to do any honest media criticism about media coverage of it.

 

AIM, MRC Fundraise Off Benghazi
Topic: Media Research Center

So newly appointed Benghazi select committee chairman Trey Gowdy has been decrying the idea of Republicans fundraising off Benghazi (ironically, at the exact moment Republicans were fundraising off Benghazi). The ConWeb has not gotten the message.

Media Matters catches Accuracy in Media seeking to raise money to fund its "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court. But AIM isn't the only one.

The Media Research Center is running ads on its website stating, "Demand the media tell the truth about Behghazi." It takes you to a page that regurgitates right-wing talking points:

We have a smoking gun in the Benghazi cover up scandal: emails tying the White House to Susan Rice's false talking points about the terrorist attack. Finally, there’s proof that this administration lied about the terrorist attack in order to protect the President during his reelection campaign.

This is earth-shattering news. But guess what? The media are for the most part covering up the smoking gun! That the so-called “news” media refuse to report a smoking gun in one of the biggest scandals in modern history is a major scandal in its own right!

Signing the website's petition to "demand that the media stop censoring the news about Benghazi" takes you toanother page that solicits donations that "will enable us to build a grass roots army that we can unleash on the liberal media to demand that they tell the truth."

But the MRC's campaign -- and the right-wing media's Benghazi obsession in general -- seems to demonstrate that this is much less about telling the truth than it is about raising money and motivating the base.

MRC's Double Standard on Veterans Care Scandals
Topic: Media Research Center

In a May 6 Media Research Center item, Scott Whitlock proclaims "the brewing controversy impacting American veterans and a shocking lack of access to hospital care" to be a "a Barack Obama scandal" -- despite the utter lack of evience of any personal involvement by the president -- further huffing that the media is somehow "censoring" this.

But the MRC sang a different tune about another scandal involving the care of veterans when it occurred under a Republican president. In a March 2007 MRC item, Brent Baker fretted over a report on substandard treatment at the Walter Reed Medical Center, which stated that "the White House is well aware of the PR nightmare that it faces. The last thing this administration can afford is another Katrina."

That's one of the very few direct mentions of the Walter Reed scandal you'll find at the MRC, demonstrating that it's no stranger to the censorship it accuses others of conducting.

MRC Doesn't Ask Where Crowdfunding Filmmaker Got Money for Billboard
Topic: Media Research Center

Phelim McAleer is apparently wasting his crowdfunding money designated to make a movie, blowing it on a billboard instead. And the Media Research Center couldn't be happier.

The MRC's Katie Yoder has served as one of the right-wing media cheerleaders for McAleer's crowdfunding campaign to make a film about rogue abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. A May 1 item by Yoder keeps up the cheerleading, touting how McAleer "erected a billboard slamming Kickstarter – a half mile away from Kickstarter’s headquarters in Brooklyn, New York," attacking the company for putting restrictions on McAleer's crowdfunding efforts. (McAleer's campaign moved to another site.) Yoder goes on to proclaim that "the Gosnell movie’s Indiegogo campaign boasts more than $1.6 million raised with 16,500 funders – 76 percent of the $2.1 million goal."

One thing Yoder doesn't ask, however: Where did McAleer get the presumed thousands of dollars to erect a spiteful billboard? Did he take that money out of his crowdfunding pot, even though McAleer's little vendetta billboard has nothing to do with movie production? If so, did McAleer obtain permission from his donors to spend money on something other than movie production?

Yoder clearly doesn't want to know the answer. She's McAleer's PR agent, after all.

MRC's Bozell and Graham Again At War With Grammar And Perspective
Topic: Media Research Center

Last week, we noted that a column by the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell and Tim Graham cited an "early childhood memory" without explaining to which of the authors the memory belonged.

Bozell and Graham do it again in their May 2 column:

Saint Mary's Institute is the Catholic grade school in my wife's New York hometown, Amsterdam. It is affiliated with Saint Mary's Catholic Church, whose pastor Rev. John Medwid pens the opening to the Saint Mary's Institute annual newsletter.

Whose wife is being referred to here? We might assume that it's Bozell's, but it was revealed in February that Graham does all the heavy lifting in writing with Bozell's contributions unclear at best.

Either Graham has forgotten he deserves credit for his ghostwriter, or he has forgotten that it's a violation of grammar to offer a first-person perspective in a column authored by more than one person.

By the way, it seems that MRC division CNSNews.com has finally settled upon a way of properly crediting Graham after weeks of botching it. But at the MRC's main site, Graham got credit for a while but recent columns carry only Bozell's byline.

Will MRC Admit GOP's Obamacare Study Is Bogus?
Topic: Media Research Center

Matt Hadro writes in a May 1 Media Research Center item:

House Republicans determined that just two-thirds of ObamaCare enrollees paid their first month's premium in the federal marketplace, but the broadcast networks ignored their finding on Thursday evening, though FNC's Special Report with Bret Baier ran a full story. If true, the report would drastically undercut the White House's number of ObamaCare enrollees.

Hadro won't tell you, but the operative term here is "if true." Turns out it isn't.

As TPM detailed, the GOP survey was rigged to produce that result -- it included language that explicitly left out the fact some people would still have time to pay their premium after April 15, which is when the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked companies to return their answers.Nearly 40 percent of Obamacare enrollees signed up after March 15, which means their first premium wasn't due until after the committee finished collecting its data.

Having demanded that the media cover a bogus study, will Hadro now report that the study was bogus and admit no self-respecting news outlet should have covered it in the first place?

MRC Obsesses Over Sterling's Long-Ago Dem Donations, Ignores He's A Registered Republican
Topic: Media Research Center

Scott Whitlock huffs in an April 28 Media Research Center item:

In just over 36 hours, the three network morning and evening shows have already devoted 70 minutes of coverage to racist comments apparently made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Yet, ABC, CBS and NBC have ignored Sterling's long history of supporting Democrats, including Senator Patrick Leahy, Bill Bradley and Gray Davis.

But Whitlock failed to report that -- as we noted when his colleagues at NewsBusters also obsessed over Sterling's donations to Democrats more than20 years ago -- Sterling is a registered Republican.

The "MSM ignored something" meme fails when the person making the accusation is ignoring something as well.

MRC's Bozell and Graham Mock Idea of Gay Etiquette
Topic: Media Research Center

Brent Bozell and Tim Graham start their April 30 column by writing:

The times they are a-changing in ways even Bob Dylan didn't foresee.

I have an early childhood memory riding my bike and coming across a discarded booklet on proper social etiquette. It had the perfunctory rules. Gentlemen always open doors for ladies. Stand when a lady comes in the room. And so on. But the one I remember vividly is this: A lady always extends her hand first in greeting. Why? Fifty years ago I could understand the concept, but even then, I thought it was a bit much. Today that rule's been abandoned.

Whose "early childhood memory" is this? Perhaps it's Graham's since he's been shown to be the actual writer and Bozell just the figurehead. But this is the kind of problem you have when you have a singular memory described in a column written by two people.

Conflicts in literary perspective aside, Bozell and Graham's goal is to further the MRC's anti-gay agenda by mocking the idea of the Washington Post hiring a columnist to address issues of gay etiquette:

"Steven Petrow will be joining our advice ranks," declares the Post, "with a special emphasis on LGBT and straight etiquette issues." Petrow, states his bio, is "the go-to source for modern manners ... known as Mr. Manners." Why was he chosen for the job? He will tell you it's largely because he's the former president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.

His column is called "Civilities" (get it, homophobes?), and Mr. Manners will tackle many thorny etiquette issues as well. In his introductory piece, he outlines some of the issues he's dealt with in the past.

He muses about the gay cop who wrote in to say he was subjected to homophobic jokes, feeling it was his colleagues' way of convincing him to resign. Or the gay widower upset that his in-laws omitted him from his husband's obituary. Or the most vexing question of them all: How to introduce a married same-sex couple? (Answer: They "should be referred to as you would any legal spouse, and that's 'husband' and 'wife.'")

Questions, questions. "Do parents pay for their gay son or lesbian daughter's wedding?" "Is a dad expected to walk his son down the aisle?" "What pronoun (and restroom) is appropriate for a person who is transgender?" "How do you respond to 'assimilated' gays who find 'flamboyant' ones embarrassing?"

How do you respond to an entire industry you find embarrassing?

Well, you've just seen you Bozell and Graham respond to something it finds embarrassing -- with sneering and derision for their fellow Americans.

MRC Thinks Right-Wing Propaganda Filmmaker Is Just Like Spike Lee
Topic: Media Research Center

As part of its suspiciously enthusiastic promotion of Phelim McAlleer's crowdfunding campaign to make a movie about "serial killer" Kermit Gosnell, the Media Research Center's Katie Yoder has cranked out yet another article about it, this time trying to manufacture a claim of bias:

Spike Lee and Phelim McAleer are both film-makers who’ve both achieved something unique: each has successfully raised $1.4 million to finance his movie through crowdfunding – a campaign seeking donations from the public. But Spike Lee is famous and established, with a net worth of $40 million. Phelim McAleer isn’t. So it’s a bit odd that the networks took note when Lee (a famous, if not household name) did it, but not when McAleer overcame greater odds to reach that number. Well, it would be odd, except that McAleer is trying to fund a movie about abortionist Kermit Gosnell – America’s “most prolific serial killer,” and the media’s most ignored story.

[...]

ABC, CBS and NBC gave Spike Lee’s psychological blood thriller on Kickstarter six mentions in 2013. The project earned a total of $1,418,910 with 6,421 funders. The nets adore the idea of raising money from the public for projects, and referenced crowdfunding (including mentions of Kickstarter and Indiegogo) 55 times in the past two years.

But the Gosnell movie failed to make their cut – or rather, meet their agenda.

Yoder seems not to have considered the possibility that Lee is a respected filmmaker while McAleer is a factually challenged right-wing propagandist whose filmmaking, to our knowledge, has demonstrated none of the artistry exhibited by Lee.

MRC Loves Sharyl Attkisson, Buries Her History of Shoddy Reporting
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is unsurprisingly promoting former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson's media tour in which shse claims that she was being too critical of the Obama administration:

Tim Graham promoted Attkisson's appearance on Fox News, in which she and Hhoward Kurtz commisserated about "liberal bias leading to soft coverage of Obama." Graham touted Attkisson's CNN interview as well, in which she discussed how "CBS lost interest in investigative journalism to favor Obama." NewsBusters' Tom Johnson attacked TPM's Josh Marshall for being critical of Attkisson's unsupported claims of being targeted by Media Matters (disclosure: my employer); Johnson didn't mention that Media Matters has denied the claim and pointed out that it targeted Attkisson solely for her shoddy reporting.

What you won't read at the MRC, however, is any new criticism of Attkisson's embrace of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, even though it has criticized other anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy.

As author Seth Mnookin reports, Attkisson has "parroted anti-vaccine rhetoric long past the point that it’s been decisively disproved," repeatedly pushing the discredited idea that vaccines cause autism.

And the MRC certainly won't tell you that it criticized Attkisson's reporting on vaccines in the past:

• A 2005 item criticized an Attkisson report for lending credence to claims linking vaccines to autism. A 2005 column by Dan Gainor repeated the criticism.
• A 2008 MRC item criticized how "Attkisson reported on the plight of the parents of an autistic child and their fight to win money from a federal fund for 'vaccine damages.'"
• Another 2008 item noted that CBS' newfound reporting that there is no link between vaccines and autism contradicts Attkisson's earlier reporting.

In one of his posts, Graham references "people who questioned [Attkisson's] reporting on autism and vaccines," but he didn't mention that one of those critics has been the MRC.

If the MRC didn't trust Attkisson when she peddled faulty reporting on vaccines, why does it trust her now on her victimhood, even though her reporting on Benghazi and other Obama administration issues is just as untrustworthy?

Because Attkisson is now portraying herself as a victim of liberal bias, which aligns perfectly with the MRC's anti-media agenda.

MRC's Bozell, Who Uses Catholicism As A Cudgel, Questions Pelosi's Sincerity of Faith
Topic: Media Research Center

Craig Bannister gives us his boss' latest rant in an April 18 CNSNews.com blog post:

Conservative leader and Catholic L. Brent Bozell III today blasted Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for mimicking the pope's Holy Week foot-washing tradition while touting her immigration reform legislation:

"I am a Catholic and I am offended at Minority Leader Pelosi's continued abuses of the Catholic Church's teachings and traditions.  As a Catholic who has watched Ms. Pelosi champion one anti-Catholic cause after another, I believe this to be sacrilegious.

"Christ taught the washing of the feet as an act of utter humility, while she turned a sacred religious tradition into a grandstanding political publicity stunt. Ms. Pelosi's politicizing of Holy Week is sickening and shameful."

That's an odd statement coming from someone who has made a career out of politicizing his religion. As we've documented, Bozell has made one of the MRC's missions to go after any critic of Catholicism, no matter how much that criticism is deserved. He even has a NewsBusters blogger whose sole job is to whitewash Catholic scandals.

Isn't Bozell's using his religion as a political cudgel just as sacreligious as what he's criticizing Pelosi for doing? When has Bozell ever practiced his religion with "utter humility" instead of using it for political gain?

Perhaps Bozell should answer those questions before he publicly questions the sincerity of others' religious faith.

MRC's Graham Sneers At Chelsea Clinton's Pregnancy
Topic: Media Research Center

Yesterday we asked if the Media Research Center's Tim Graham would learn a lesson from that Sally Kohn column he's been touting -- you know, the one where she realized her conservative opponents were personable and human.

The answer, apparently, is no.

Graham used the opportunity of Chelsea Clinton's announced pregnanacy to sneer in a tweet, "Congratulations! The Clintons have decided it's a baby, not a women's-rights-problem."

It seems that Graham is continuing to refuse to acknowledge the Clintons as human, and he is apparently incapable of being nice to someone without turning it into a snide partisan attack. But we knew that about him already, didn't we?