Topic: CNSNews.com
Whether it's skewed headlines or "news" articles that editorialize, CNSNews.com is not terribly interested in offering fair and balanced coverage to Democratic politicians. Read more >>
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
NEW ARTICLE: Democrats Face Bias At CNS
Topic: CNSNews.com Whether it's skewed headlines or "news" articles that editorialize, CNSNews.com is not terribly interested in offering fair and balanced coverage to Democratic politicians. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:11 AM EDT
Monday, July 29, 2019
Norah O'Donnell Derangement Syndrome At The MRC
Topic: Media Research Center
On the day of her debut, Geoffrey Dickens ranted about she purportedly decided to act "liberal" in order to get the job:
Dickens then provided examples of O'Donnell allegedly "adoring Democrats and liberals and attacking Republicans and conservatives, one of which was described as "Slapping a Republican for Failing to Follow Liberal Playbook." Of course, Dickens is slapping a journalist for failing to follow the conservative playbook. So theMRC minions were clearly looking for something -- anything -- to be offended by in O'Donnell's debut so it could fill out its narrative against her. And boy, were they. Under a sneering "We TOLD You So" headline, Curtis Houck declared that Dickens' post "struck gold" because "the debut episode of O’Donnell’s CBS Evening News made it apparent that the newscast will return to being virulently anti-Trump, waging war against the President after his 'racist' 'tweets.'" But all Houck could actually identify was O'Donnell letting the targets of Trump's tweets (why did Houck put scare quotes around "tweets"?) to respond. Houck also found O'Donnell guilty of reporting the news in an order he didn't like: More odiously, O’Donnell sandwiched between coverage of Trump’s tweets and more pro-illegal immigration coverage a news brief about the latest life sentence for the white supremacist convicted in the Charlottesville murder of Heather Heyer, as if to link him to Trump and the GOP." Houck ended his post with more deranged sneering, responding to O'Donnell's closing declaration that journalism should fight against "ignorance, intolerance, and indifference" with unironic smugness: "Look out, Scott Pelley. Because you might have some competition at CBS in the smug department." Houck simply linked to the MRC archive on Pelley and identified nothing whatsoever from him that could be described as "smug." Houck ranted even more after the next day's program:
(Houck put "racist tweets" in scare quotes because it's the right-wing narrative never to admit that Trump's tweets were racist.) Houck then expressed faux concern for the "great journalism" at CBS purportedly being hurt by letting Gayle King interview people: Showing how not only biased but ethically challenged some at CBS are (thus hurting many there who do great journalism), the newscast then aired an except ofn CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King’s “exclusive” interview with Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). For some reason, the higher-ups thought letting a Democratic donor, Corey Booker friend, and Obama family friend in King would work. Based on the released excerpt, King lived up to her partisan streak by lobbing softballs[.] Houck also put words in O'Donnell's mouth claiming that she "blamed" a heat wave on climate change -- followed by a quote in which she accurately said that it's something "scientists link to climate change." He then lectured: "Now, this writer doesn’t have a degree in climatology or meteorology, but climate looks at matters over periods of time while the weather concerns things happening in now or near future. Sure, one can discuss climate change, but a singular weather pattern being emblematic isn’t ideal." Houck seems to have forgotten that his employer loves to portray the existence of cold weather as evidence that global warming isn't real. The following day, Houck snarkily claimed that O'Donnell served up "a rare reprieve with substantive, snark-free coverage of the illegal immigration crisis at the border (compared to what we usually see) and another example of how, even in the liberal media, broken clocks can occasionally be right. In antoher post, Houck cheered that O'Donnell reported on the "legal victory" for Trump in the form of the closing of an investigation into Trump's hush-money payments to a porn star, but offered up more snark by climing that the program "offered a tinge of disappointment there were no new charges." The outrage baton was then handed to Scott Whitlock, who attacked O'Donnell's appearance on Stephen Colbert's late-night CBS, huffing that O'Donnell's declaration that journalism is what "makes democracies work" was an example of she "continued to announce just how pleased she is with herself and fellow journalists." He linked to Dickens' post again as evidence that O'Donnell "has a long history of liberal bias." Houck concluded O'Donnell's debut week with more ranting that her show "has showcased a CNN-like penchant for liberal bias and punditry masquerading as reporting." He didn't explain why CBS is forbidden from doing that while his employer's own "news" division does so with impunity. Houck then groused that the program had done a "covert" interview with "someone with far-left, hate-Trump mindset already predisposed to oppose him." Meanwhile, Houck and his MRC colleagues have firmly established themselves as people with far-right, hate-O'Donnell mindsets who were already predisposed to oppose her. Which, of course, makes this kind of prefabricated, agenda-driven and outrage-obsessed "media research" difficult to take seriously.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:13 PM EDT
WND's Massie Joins Peterson In Blacks Sounding Like White Supremacists
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Massie concluded by offering a faux lament:
Massie clearly won't be going to heaven anytime soon, given how filled with hate his column is.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:15 AM EDT
Sunday, July 28, 2019
MRC Bashes Critic For Criticizing Comedian's Unfunny Transgender Jokes
Topic: Media Research Center We've noted how the Media Research Center berlieves that the LGBT community is a preferred target for comedy, as exemplified by its defense of Steven Crowder's homophobic attacks on gay journalist Carlos Maza as being OK because it comes from a "comedian." Now the MRC has defended more bad LGBT-mocking humor.
Needless to say, the MRC loves to tell people who they can and cannot joke about. Indeed, the very next day, MRC leaders Tim Graham and Brent Bozell attacked a cartoon for making jokes about President Trump:
Of course, Waters never explained why jokes about transgenders are inherently and perpetually funny and immune from criticism. Waters would never dare to call his bosses out for complaining that "Our Cartoon President" was "telling jokes about people that" Graham and Bozell don’t "think he should be telling jokes about," though they're acting exactly the same as the Times critic he attacks. We assume he values his paycheck too much.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:16 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, July 28, 2019 9:17 PM EDT
CNS Buries Trump-Epstein Story, Pushes More Minor Crime From Federal Employees
Topic: CNSNews.com
We see that again with the Jeffrey Epstein story. In contrast to its parent Media Research Center's efforts to deflect the Epstein scandal by trying to turn the story from Trump's connections with Epstein to Bill Clinton's connections with him (despite the fact that Clinton hasn't held public office in nearly two decades while Trump is the current president), CNS largely ignored it. The only mention of it in an original CNS article following Epstein's arrest on sex-trafficking charges was a July 9 piece by Melanie Arter repeating Trump's claim that "he’ll be looking 'very carefully' at the role that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta played in a 2007 immunity deal for billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. As befit her usual stenography mode, Arter uncritically repeated Trump's insistence that he "was not a fan of" Epstein, but failed to report that Trump said in 2002 that Epstein is a "teriffic guy" and even complemented the man's taste in younger women. When a video surfaced of Trump and Epstein together at a 1992 party -- further disproving Trump's claim never to be an Epstein "fan" -- CNS refused report on it. Nor did it report on Acosta's eventual resignation as labor secretary in the wake of criticism over the plea deal. The next day, however, an anonymous CNS writer found something that was allegedly more newsworthy: more minor crime by a federal employee!
Yep, this was more important to report for CNS than sex-trafficking allegations against a onetime friend of the president.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:50 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, July 28, 2019 2:57 PM EDT
Saturday, July 27, 2019
MRC Leader Graham's War on Fact-Checkers Grinds Dishonestly Forward
Topic: Media Research Center
In January, Graham once more denounced the very act of Trump being fact-checked, complaining about fact-checkers' "one-sided aggression toward Trump" -- seemingly oblivious to the idea that perhaps the president of the United States should be held to a higher factual standard than the "liberal Senators" he thinks should be fact-checked a lot more. Of course, nobody's stopping Graham and the MRC from setting up their own fact-checking operation; it seems complaining makes for a more exploitable narrative than actually doing something about it. In April, Graham complained that Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler hasn't denounced Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for claiming that Vice President Mike Pence supported anti-gay conversion therapy -- only to admit that "Buttigieg hasn't expressly attacked him for it." He then complained that Kessler said that "Pence could certainly settle this conundrum if he has rejected such therapies in his own words, rather than through a spokesman. Then there would no longer be any question," adding that "It's especially weird for Kessler to diss [Pence spokesperson Alyssa] Farah like this. ... Those aides are good enough for him to make a ruling (or avoid a ruling)." That might be a good argument had the MRC not done the same exact thing. In 2016, disgraced NewsBusters blogger Tom Blumer insisted that Bill Clinton's denial that he raped Juanita Braoddrick isn't real because the denial came from spokesmen and not directly from Clinton's mouth. In May, Graham tried to justify Trump's statement at a rally abpout laws protecting the right to abortion that "The baby is born and you wrap the baby beautifully and you talk to the mother about the possible execution of the baby" was somehow true because the statement was "borrowing from what Gov. Northam said in an awkward radio interview about how a baby 'unsuccessfully' aborted would be treated." But Northam's spokesperson pointed out later that the governor misspoke and was not endorsing infanticide but, ratrher, "the tragic and extremely rare case in which a woman with a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormalities went into labor." Shouldn't Graham have given Northam the benefit of the doubt here because of the spokesman's statement, just like he demanded Pence's spokesperson be treated as the real thing? In a June post, Graham stuck the right-wing narrative while grousing that a fact-checker pointed out that there's "little evidence" to support Trump's claim that the real Russian collusion was done by Democrats and not with the Trump campaign, further whining that "he won't explicitly acknowledge the Russian cooperation in the Steele dossier, where an ex-British spy dug up salacious dirt on Trump from Russian sources. He only mentioned it to deny it had any importance (and forget the fact of the FISA warrants spawned by it)." But as others have pointed out, the Steele dossier was not the basis for the FISA warrant to invesitgate onetime Trump campaign official Carter Page. Graham joined (read:ghostwrote) with his boss, Brent Bozell for a July 2 column complaoining that Democratic presidential candidates aren't fact-checked as much as they demand:
Perhaps because there's no evidence that Warren ever deliberately lied about her heritage -- she was simply repeating family stories about it that were ultimately found not to be true. Graham and Bozell presented no evidence whatsoever of deliberate deception. That kind of partisan pettiness permeates the column; at one point they grouse that "Our favorite whopper of the night was when Julian Castro asserted that a 'trans female' should have a right to an abortion, when a 'trans female' is someone who is born male, born without a uterus." As leaders of a partisan political operation that sneers at transgenders, they would say this.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:10 AM EDT
WND's Peterson Goes Full White Supremacist
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Well, Peterson found a bigger crank. Behold his July 21 WND column:
Again: Peterson sounds no different from David Duke, Jared Tayulor or any garden-variety white supremacist. But sounding like a white supremacist is something WND wants in his columnists -- espeically since he can invoke his black-conservative privilege and face no consequences in his shrinking right-wing bubble. Normal, polite society doesn't accept this kind of talk from white people. Why should Peterson get away with it?
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:26 AM EDT
Updated: Saturday, July 27, 2019 12:27 AM EDT
Friday, July 26, 2019
MRC Does Damage Control For Border Patrol
Topic: Media Research Center
In a July 5 post, Corinne Weaver asserted that "Facebook’s past policies may have implicated innocent users in some controversial activities" -- even though she admitted that ProPublica double-checked names in the group against that of known Border Patrol agents. She continued:
Weaver is simply making excuses. The facts remain that this Facebook group does exist, and these agents did belong to it -- even Border Patrol chief Carla Provost was forced to admit she belonged to it (though she denied being an active member). It's highly unlikely that Weaver or anyone else at the MRC would give the same benefit of the doubt to anyone who belonged to a Facebook group that published offensive content that could be considered liberal-leaning -- recall its incessant whining about the "Journolist" listserv because non-conservative journalists were involved (and its complete silence about Groundswell, the secret listserv for conservative journalists and activists, not even to discuss whether any MRC employee took part in it). Weaver's defense of the Border Patrol is nothing but political damage control that's little more than just another MRC double standard.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:23 PM EDT
Jones' CNS 'News' Article Is A Pro-Trump Editorial
Topic: CNSNews.com
Jones began by noting a July 4 speech by Biden in which he said that Trump "is incapable of celebrating what makes America great because I don't think he gets it." Then the editorializing began with Jones writing:
After a long excerpt from Trump's speech, Jones editorialized against Biden, claiming he "recited the familiar Democrat litany of various injustices heaped on the middle class and the working class." She concluded by whining; "And so it went, as Americans in Iowa listened to what's wrong with Trump's America -- and Americans on the Mall listened to Trump tell them what's so right." But if Trump was all about telling people "what's so right" with Trump's America, his speech wasn't exactly as "nonpartisan" as Jones claims, was it? Further, at no point did Jones refute any of the claims Biden made -- she simply mocked them as a "Democrat [sic] litany." Jones has already proven herself to be a loyal Trump stenographer. But such blatant bias on her part belies CNS' mission statement to "put a higher premium on balance than spin."
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:47 AM EDT
Thursday, July 25, 2019
MRC Goes Into Full Deflection Mode on Trump-Epstein Ties
Topic: Media Research Center
A July 8 post by Kristine Marsh set the page, huffing that one ABC news show failed to report on "Epstein’s highly controversial connection to former President Bill Clinton" or that Epstein was "a major Democrat [sic] donor," referencing a Fox News report (of course) claiming that "Clinton was a frequent flier on Epstein’s private jet full of underage girls." Marsh further complained that other news reports "tried to connect Epstein to Trump" and one of those reports "didn’t mention that after Epstein had been convicted of assaulting an underage girl, Trump had barred him from Mar-a-Lago." Marsh didn't address the issue of why Trump allowed Epstein into Mar-a-Lago in the first place. Scott Whitlock followed up the next day:
Whitlock failed to acknowledge Trump's links to Epstein, though he did reference the Acosta controversy. Marsh got all huffy again in another deflection-filled post, complaining that "The View" co-host Joy Behar "tried desperately to connect the longtime Democrat donor to President Trump" though "Epstein was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and President Bill Clinton reportedly took over two dozen trips with the sexual predator on his private jet nicknamed the 'Lolita Express'." Ryan Foley, meanwhile, simply engaged in stenography, touting how Fox News' Sean Hannity was "scorching the media’s attempt to make President Trump such an outsized force in coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case," making sure to repeat the talking point that Trump "banned him from Mar-a-Lago years ago." Emma Fantuzzo groused that MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell and guest Tim O’Brien made over-the-top claims and speculations into the relationship between recently indicted Jeffery Epstein and President Donald Trump," further complaining that a "17-year-old quote" from Trump calling Epstein a "terrific guy" and complementing his taste in younger women "was supposedly evidence that Epstein still stands in the President’s good graces, despite accounts that Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago years ago for inappropriate behavior." She added, per the MRC's narrative: "Incredibly, the only mention of Bill Clinton was in his defense, citing the statement written by Clinton that he hadn’t known about Epstein’s crimes." Alex Christy complained about "insistence on Wednesday's Deadline: White House comparing President Trump to alleged serial child sex abuser and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein," while Gabriel Hays gave a big "YAWN" to "lefty" John Lithgow "read[ing] an excerpt from his poetry on Trump’s relationship with now-resigned Department of Labour Secretary Alexander Acosta, a man Lithgow believes covered for sex trafficker, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein," sneering "Clearly Lithgow wants us to know he’s a Renaissance man … Please clap?" Bill D'Agostino whined:
So in denial is the MRC over Trump and Epstein that when a video surfaced of the two together at a 1992 party, Gregory Price insisted there was no news value whatsoever:
But if the current president's link to a convicted pedophile is not newsworthy, why is a long-former president's link somehow totally newsworthy? Unsurprisingly, Price never explained the difference.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:29 PM EDT
CNS Pushes Idea That Biden Doesn't Really Want To Be President
Topic: CNSNews.com
This is under the meaningless teaser headline "Biden: 'Whether or Not I'm Your Nominee...'" Of course, Jones is simply apply her own right-wing bias to Biden's words. Biden is simply saying that the goal of the Democrats is to oust President Trump in 2020, and he's realistic enough to note that while he may or may not be that person, keeping eyes on the prize is the important thing. But in Jones' biased eyes, acknowledging reality gets twisted into a suggestion he's not really serious about running for president or is expecting to lose.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:41 AM EDT
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
MRC's Double Standard On Calling A Conservative Journalist A 'Conservative Journalist'
Topic: Media Research Center
We'd take Marsh's outrage at face value, but for the fact that the day before, the MRC identified Ngo as ... a conservative journalist. "Conservative Journalist Andy Ngo Recounts Vicious Assault By Antifa" was the headline of Nicholas Fondacaro's July 1 post, adding: "On Saturday, conservative journalist Andy Ngo, who reports for Quillette, was brutally beaten with fists and weapons and doused with milkshakes laced with quick-dry cement by the left-wing, domestic terrorist group Antifa." Foncacaro's post even carries the "Conservatives and Republicans" tag (curiously missing frpm Marsh's post). Of course, if Ngo wasn't a "conservative journalist," the MRC wouldn't be working so hard to exploit the incident (it helps that Ngo himself is eager to exploit it to boost his media profile). It cranked out a slew of its patented "a narrow slice of media didn't cover X, so that proves it's biased" post whining that Ngo's attack wasn't covered. Curtis Houck huffed that a CNN story "was spun with Ngo being dubbed a 'conservative blogger' and mentioned alongside white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys." It's OK for the MRC to identify Ngo as a "conservative" but it's somehow bias and spin for a non-conservative outlet to do the same thing? We're confused. (Houck didn't mention thaty the Proud Boys was founded by Gavin McInnes, who was at the time a host for CRTV, run by close friend of the MRC Mark Levin.)
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:35 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, July 25, 2019 1:12 AM EDT
WND Columnist Gushes Over Putin's Russia
Topic: WorldNetDaily
'Hanne Nabintu Herland devoted her July 3 WND column to gushing over Russia, delcaring that "Over 80 percent in the former atheist USSR now believe in God, >probably constituting the greatest revival of Christianity in our time," while "somehow the left in America got so tired of individual freedom and the Constitution, they now crave to become a socialist state where the elite has total control over national revenues, the media, the public, the universities." She copntinued to gush:
Actually, Putin's Russia is a crony capitalist system run by oligarchs with Putin's blessing (and profiting off the scheme) that suppresses dissent, sometimes violently, as LGBT activists have discovered. And Herland describing Russia as "religion-friendly" ignores that pretty much the only religion it's friendly to is the Russian Orthodox Church, effectively the state religion, and is hostile to even other Christian religions. Herland did aver that "Russia is far from perfect, still battling corruption, elitism and its own vices," but she didn't mention Putin's role in said corruption and elitism; she was too eager to return to gush mode over how "an address by President Putin at the 2013 Valdai Summit illustrates the million miles between the borderless relativism most Western politicians seem to promote and the Russian way of thinking."
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:41 AM EDT
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
NEW ARTICLE -- CNS' Managing Editor of Gay-Bashing: 2019 Edition
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman has been spewing hate at the LGBT community for years, and he's continuing to use his Media Research Center-provided platform to spew more of it. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:15 AM EDT
Monday, July 22, 2019
Newsmax Columnist Somehow Blames Obama For HIV Among Gay Black Men
Topic: Newsmax
In short: Brewer is mad that Obama didn't hate the LGBT commmunity as much as he does, and he offered no evidence that ceasing to hate gay people has created more of them or caused an increase in HIV infections. Also, allowing gays to marry does not "challenge the biblical definition of marriage"; it expands it. Further, there are numerous reasons that gay black men are at a higher risk of HIV that don't involve "promotion" of the "lifestyle." Brewer also complained:
Brewer didn't mention that the country was recovering from a recession for much of Obama's presidency, and he doesn't explain how cutting off food stamps to those who needed them would have helped things. Though Brewer proclaimed himself to be a "lifelong Democrat" who supported Obama (until he stopped hating gays, apparently), he's basically a pro-Trump shill here. In praising Trump for signing the First Step Act, he bashed Bill Clinton and Joe Biden for supporting the "evil" 1994 crime bill, ignoring that the bill had the support of many black officials at the time, as well as bipartisan political support. He also didn't mention that the First Step Act had bipartisan support too. And, lo and behold, on July 21 Brewer tweeted thanks to Trump "for taking so much time to meet with me this weekend to discuss tackling the critical issues affecting blacks in America." If the reason Brewer sucked up to Trump was to get a meeting with him, he succeded.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:39 PM EDT
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