MRC Complains Once Again That Fictional (And Real) People Advocating For Abortion Are Not Shamed
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has long complained that woman who seek abortions -- even fictional characters -- are not shamed for doing so and that they and abortions providers are not smeared as Nazis. Well, the're on that kick again. Teirin-Rose Mandelberg complained in a Jan. 22 post ofering up a bizarre caricature of abortion-rights supporters:

Today’s a high holy day for lefties. On this date, January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade and mass infanticide became the law of the land.

Abortion clinic volunteer Lauren Rankin marked the occasion by complaining that “We Still Have a Long Way to Go.” Forty-eight years and 63 million lives later, the left still isn’t satisfied. What’s new?

Rankin wants laws updated so women can have access to dangerous abortion drugs via mail without a doctor's visit. Ostensibly, she’s worried about women being too nervous about COVID to go to an abortion clinic. But social distancing is a pretext so women can abort even more conveniently -- another leftist attempt to overstep and gain control.

[...]

Hollywood tries to "normalize" abortion and celebrities use it as a “dedicated to my craft” badge of honor. Having an abortion constitutes popularity.

Alexa Moutevelis used a Jan. 25 article to smear abortion-rights supporters as "feminazis" (looks like somebody's been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh!). And Rebecca Downs ranted on Jan. 29:

Not only have media outlets been ignoring the hundreds of thousands of pro-life Americans who participate in the March for Life, but they've been promoting and normalizing abortion on television. This has been going on for years, and 2020 was no different from 2019 and 2018.

Despite coronavirus canceling and postponing tv production for several months, they still managed to squeeze in several abortion storylines. Here's how abortion was portrayed on television last year.

[...]

In order for abortion to seem normal, viewers have to be bombarded that it’s no big deal.

Downs also pushed the dubious claim -- citing only an anti-abortion website -- that a chemically induced abortion can be reversed. And while she huffed at "leftist propaganda" on abortion, she was not above inserting some propaganda of her own:

It’s a biological fact that life begins at conception, meaning it's a child, the whole time. Not only is it a child, even going by the pro-abortion logic that it isn't a child until a later stage, it "would be" a child.

[...]

For an “honest abortion story” that is “diverse,” rather than just the one pro-abortion perspective television wants us to see, it would also include women experiencing not just the loss of their children, but suffering from psychological and physical effects, and from regret. 

Moutevelis returned in a Feb. 24 post to complain some more about "abortion propaganda" on TV -- unironically sounding a lot like a propagandist herself:

Pro-abortion columns are notorious for lacking facts and building bad faith strawmen to knock down, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen such a poorly constructed argument in a major paper like The Washington Post. If you're going to call for more baby slaughter on entertainment TV, put some thought into it.

Even the premise of the article is ridiculous. Apparently, the author just happened to be watching a show from 2019 that had an unexpectedly pregnant character and so she decided to rant about there not being enough abortions on TV. What editor authorizes an op-ed based on an obscure show that’s years old and includes no research to back up its hypothesis or make it relevant to today?

Somehow, on Friday afternoon, the WaPo powers that be allowed a Kate Cohen article to be published online complaining that the 2019 Netflix series Atypical did not include the preborn baby slaughter she’d wanted.

[...]

In fact, if she had made any attempt at research, she would have found that in 2019, The New York Times said abortions were “unapologetically” on TV “at record levels.” If she is still stuck in the past consuming media from 2019, I can also offer her the news that in that year, actress, director, and producer Elizabeth Banks joined the Creative Council at the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) to “help destigmatize abortion by sharing and supporting women's stories” in the entertainment industry. Or maybe she could read her own outlet’s The Washington Post Magazine piece that same year about “abortion rights…winning in Hollywood” because of Planned Parenthood consultants.

But Cohen, who wrote this column based on her own outdated anecdotes, with no statistics, facts or interviews to back her up, had the audacity to lecture, “Those who contribute to the cultural space have a responsibility to consider the historical and political context into which their work will land.” Maybe she should look in the mirror.

Written like a true propagandist for the cause, where opposing arguments must be obliterated and the people who make them must be stripped of their humanity.

MRC's Houck Uses Space Force Quip To Attack Psaki
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck has made it claear that -- in a reversal of his obsequious fawning over Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and wild attacks on any reporter who asked her a challenging question -- Biden press secretary Jen Psaki would be a target and any reporter who asked her a challenging question would be virtuous.

Houck is reviewing Psaki's press briefings as a "performance," looking for ways to attack. Thus, he declared in a Feb. 2 post because she was not sufficiently reverent of the Space Force that was created under President Trump:

Tuesday’s White House press briefing was perhaps Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s most combative one yet, facing tough questions on China, coronavirus relief, illegal immigration, Israel, and schools but also softballs on topics like COVID and impeachment.

[...]

 

It was the Space Force question that raised the most eyebrows as Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove simply wanted to know if President Biden “has made a decision on keeping or keeping the scope of the Space Force.”

Psaki interjected and chuckled, making a reference to a question about Air Force One from the inaugural briefing: “Wow, Space Force. It's the plane of today.”

Wingrove pushed back that this matters and Psaki further beclowned herself: “It is an interesting question. I'm happy to check with our Space Force point of contact. I'm not sure who that is and find out and see if we have any update on that.”

Hours later, Psaki tweeted in a piece of damage control that the administration “look[s] forward to the continuing work of Space Force.”

We don't recall Houck ever saying that McEnany "beclowned herself" -- he was much to enamored by her allegedly sick burns and scripted insults of the media she was supposed to be briefing (thought she did, indeed, beclown herself regularly).

The next day, Houck got more mileage out of the Space Force kerfuffle while adding in a couple other pedantic attacks:

On Thursday’s episode of the White House press briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to apologize for having mocked the Space Force a day earlier and skimped on funding schools that teachers unions have kept shuttered, and falsely claimed that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was the first openly gay cabinet secretary.

[...]

The daughter of astronauts, the Fox News Channel’s Kristin Fisher brought up the Bloomberg reporter Josh Wingrove’s Space Force question: “The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee is asking you to apologize for the comments made yesterday in the briefing room about the space force. Will you apologize?”

Psaki declined, only alluding to a tweet she sent “invite members of Space Force here to provide an update to all of you on all the important work they're doing and we certainly look forward to seeing continued updates from there — from their team.”

But before the above quote, she worked in another dig at the Space Force: “I did send a tweet last night. You may not all be on Twitter. Maybe they’re not on Twitter.”

Houck then complained that "Psaki memory-holed former acting DNI Richard Grenell as having been the first openly-gay cabinet official when she boasted that the Senate had 'just confirmed as the first LGBTQ secretary in a cabinet.'" But he didn't mention that Grenell was only an acting cabinet official; Buttigieg is the first gay official to be confirmed by the Senate, nor did he mention all the falsehoods McEnany from the podium.

Houck also grumbled: "And yet, no one stepped up to the plate to ask Psaki about a 2020 tweet of hers calling “LadyG,” specifically). After expressing interest in past statements from Kayleigh McEnany, the press corps doesn’t seem to care about Psaki’s record." Houck didn't care about McEnany's record, and he certainly didn't mention the MRC's proud anti-LGBT record -- which included the MRC's Dan Gainor working to get Grenell fired from Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign simply because he was gay.

MRC Pushes Bogus Anti-Transgender Angle On Biden Executive Order
Topic: Media Research Center

Tierin-Rose Mandelberg's Jan. 22 Media Research Center post was dramatically headlined "Biden’s Title IX Order Erased Women on His First Day. Twitter Noticed." In fact, Mandelberg was a woman before Biden's order, and she remained one afterward. Mandelberg then served upher definition of what President Biden's executive order to cover gender identity and sexual orientation under the Title IX guidelines governing women's sports:

Essentially, Biden’s trans-friendly order expanded the nondiscrimination protections of the LGBTQ community, prohibiting all workplace and educational discrimination against gender identity and sexual orientation. But, in addition to at least recognizing the existence of a right of association, Trump’s policy supported the difference between biological women and confused men.

Title IX was originally intended to ensure equal access and academic experience for women in higher education. But it has since progressed to locker rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms, creating plenty of potentially uncomfortable (at the minimum) situations for women. 

But the liberal overreach does real harm. In sports, for example, a biological male identifying as a “female” is inevitably going to beat out a real female if allowed to compete against her. As this situation gets more common (and the Trans industry very much wants it to) it will start depriving women athletes of scholarships, advancement opportunities, and honest victories. Biological men will dominate a sphere constructed solely for women.

Liberals claim to fight against male dominance --- ironic. This isn’t about inequality or being transphobic. It’s about taking away the honor of being born a woman.

Notice how quick she was to define Biden's order as "liberal" and smears transgender women as "confused."

In fact, as a fact-checker points out:

The executive order does not address athletics beyond the mention of discrimination in "school sports." Further, transgender amateur athletes already have policies they must follow in order to compete.

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which oversees 24 sports at over 1,000 colleges and universities, gender confirming surgery or legal recognition of a player's transitioned sex is not required in order for transgender players to participate on a team.

When hormones are used, the NCAA requires one year of hormone treatment for trans female athletes prior to competing on a women's team, and trans male athletes remain eligible to compete in women's sports until the athlete begins a physical transition using testosterone.

[...]

For K-12, according to Transathlete.com, policies vary by state and and school district, with 16 states having policies in place that facilitate the full inclusion of transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming students in high school athletics. There are 14 states that require medical proof, and 10 states that did not issue statewide practices but allow schools to create their own policies on a case-by-case basis. 

So Biden's executive order barely mentions school sports, but Mandelberg falsely tried to portray the order as mostly about it. That's a mischaracterization that, unsprurpisingly, occurred across right-wing media.Nevertherless, Mandelberg concluded by ranting: "Do they not realize they take the special part of womanhood away by allowing anyone and everyone to identify as one at any time? Where does women’s empowerment go if anybody can just decide to be a woman? Obviously, it doesn’t take strength or power. Tomorrow, you can identify as a woman, too, and then go back again the next day, if you'd like."

No, Tierin-Rose, that's not how being transgender works.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC vs. Twitter, Part 2
Topic: Media Research Center
After Twitter suspended President Trump for his repeated violations of the company's terms of service, the Media Research Center couldn't wait to portray Trump as an innocent victim -- and Twitter as irredeemably evil. Read more >>

MRC Changes Its Victimization Narrative On Extremist GOP Rep.
Topic: Media Research Center

The last time we checked in, the Media Research Center was still aggressively portraying Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a victim of "censorship" by social media over her extreme and crazy views -- all while censoring any mention of what those extreme and crazy views are to its readers. But when Greene's views became so extreme (and so publicized in non-right-wing media) that the couldn't be ignored, the MRC switched tactics.

Alex Christy firmly threw Greene under the bus in a Jan. 30 post demonstrating the MRC's new narrative, insisting that Greene's views don't represent Republicans and conservatives as a whole:

Are you opposed to massive job killing climate regulations? Do you believe that the Laffer Curve has some basis in reality? If so, CNN's John Harwood said on Friday that the rise of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her history of insane and bigoted conspiracy theory beliefsthat include 9/11 trutherism, Parkland trutherism, and anti-Semitic claims that Jewish space lasers caused California's wildfires in 2018 is the logical conclusion of your beliefs.

Harwood's remarks came after days of the media trying to make Greene the face of the Republican Party. CNN Tonight host Don Lemon asked, "John, President Biden is trying to get Republicans on board with the COVID relief deal but how is he suppose work with a party standing by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene?"

[...]

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a blot on the Republican Party, but if the media truly wants to see her marginalized, blaming people who just want lower taxes is not going to bring about those results.

Unsurprisingly, Christy failed to discuss the issue of why the MRC spent months defending Greene if her views were "extreme and crazy" and she "is a blot on the Republican Party."

In a Feb. 2 post, Scott Whitlock echoed the under-bus-throwing by noting "the repellant actions and comments from freshman Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene," making sure to add that "Mitch McConnell has condemned her conspiracy theories."In his Feb. 3 column, Tim Graham referenced "nutty extremists like new Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene," then attacked a "liberal" New York Times columnist who he claimed wanted to "shut down the opposition’s media outlets" in order to stanch such extremism.

Mark Finkelstein didn't take it well when MSNBC's Joe Scarborough shot down efforts by Republicans to pretend that Greene is simply the Republican version of GOP-loathed Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by pointing out that unlike Greene, AOC "never actually threatened to kill" anyone:

Scarborough made his remark for purposes of contrasting Ocasio-Cortez with unhinged, bizarre conspiracy-supporting Marjorie Taylor Greene. Scarborough noted that Greene liked a tweet calling for the assassination of Nany Pelosi, and spoke of strategies for hanging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That's when Scarborough offered his backhanded compliment about AOC never having actually threatened to kill a Republican.

According to Scarborough, it was unfair of Republicans to try to attach Ocasio-Cortez's politics to Pelosi and Biden. Scarborough cited the fact that, soon after AOC was elected, Pelosi mocked her and her Squad on 60 Minutes, saying "your caucus is like five people."

But, argued Scarborough, it is fair to stick the Republican House with Greene, since they "won’t criticize her, won’t take away her committee assignments, won’t rebuke her."

That remains to be seen. And on the Senate side a number of Republicans have voiced forceful condemnations of Taylor Greene.

Kristine Marsh, meanwhile, defended comparisons of "nutty, fringe" Greene to another Democratic House member right-wingers loathe, Ilhan Omar, declaring her to be a "radical Democrat" and attacking NBC's Seth Meyers because he "left out every similarly offensive comment made by the Democrat rep. He constructs a straw man, scoffing that “Medicare for All” is what Omar’s biggest controversy is; not her repeated patterns of anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, anti-Israel hate or her sick comments downplaying 9/11."

Nicholas Fondacaro whined on Feb. 4 that "The liberal media were making a full-court press in an effort to try to make freshman Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her loony conspiracy theories the face of the entire Republican Party," allegedly ignoring "a new government report detailing excessive levels of toxins and heavy metals found in multiple baby food brands" to do so. He concluded, "It’s a shame that ABC and NBC were willing to put toxic baby food in the backseat as they accelerated their efforts to divide America further." In another post the same day, Fondacaro complained that CNN's Chris Cuomo "was desperately trying to use the craziness of freshman Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to smear the entire Republican Party."

Christy returned to labor once more to turn the spotlight away from Greene, complaining that Omar appeared on CNN "to attempt to debunk Republican comparisons between her and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene," adding that "And while the media has spent the past week trying to make Greene and her crazy conspiracy theories the face of the Republican Party, despite three separate polls showing a majority of Republicans do not even have an opinion of her, back then the media covered for Omar, either ignoring her comments or even defending her.

Christy came back once more to huff that a former Republican congressman "pleased CNN by trying to portray conspiracy theorist and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as& more popular than she really is." Christy ignored the inconvenient fact that she was obviously popular enough to get elected in the first place.

And, again, Christy -- like his fellow MRC writers -- failed to mention that Greene was the same person they had been painting as a victim because that very same extremism they now admit is "nutty" and "fringe" got her "censored" by social media, which feeds into a separate (and bogus) MRC narrative.

The MRC has to always forward a victim narrative, and the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene shows how cynical and calculated that strategy is.

MRC Defends Trump's Barely Existent COVID Vaccine Distribution Plan
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center -- in apparent excersing of its pro-Trump defense reflex -- strangely went all in on defending the Trump administration's coronavirus vaccine distribution plan, even though there really wasn't much of one.

Curtis Houck ranted in a Jan. 21 post:

On Thursday morning, CNN White House correspondent MJ Lee filed an anonymously-sourced story on behalf of her fellow lefties that set the agenda for Zuckerville and like-minded outlets (which our friend Drew Holden chronicled in another legendary thread): “Biden inheriting nonexistent coronavirus vaccine distribution plan and must start ‘from scratch,’ sources say.”

But as we would learn hours later from Dr. Tony Fauci of NIH, the Biden administration “certainly [is] not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in the distribution.”

Huh. So, in other words, Lee’s story was nothing more than pants-on-fire fake news. Trump should ask Bernie Sanders how it felt to be on the receiving end of Lee’s propaganda.

[...]

If the plan was nonexistent, how come there have been 18.4 million shots given, according to Bloomberg?

Because, as others have pointed out, the plan, such as it was, wasn't a very good one -- it was concerned only with shipping the vaccines to states, which were then on their own in figuring out distribution. PolitiFact summarized: "There are many criticisms of this process, including that it took too long to give states money to implement their plans and a lack of communication from the top about how the rollout would work. But that was the plan they drew up." The Biden administration has said it will help the states much more closely than the Trump administration did.

But the MRC had its narrative -- Trump had a rock-solid plan, CNN was lying -- and it was running with it.

Tim Graham huffed in his Jan. 22 column:

Nonexistent? If the Trump administration had a “nonexistent” vaccine strategy, how was the vaccine distributed across the country? This is self-evidently false. CNN somehow didn’t have the talent or intelligence to Google the 11-page HHS document on their Operation Warp Speed vaccine strategy. Instead, CNN reporter MJ Lee was relying on anonymous Trump-trashing sources for her dishonest spin.

[...]

Trump is easily portrayed as saying any strategy he unveiled was the best strategy ever. The CNN/Biden approach is the exact opposite, a wild and boastful exaggeration that there was zero planning, zip, nothing. You could argue Trump’s plans were insufficient. But that wasn’t enough: they had to lie for effect.

MRC chief Brent Bozell ranted in a Fox Business appearance: "The plan called, had it all set up for distribution in every state, in every territory, tribal distribution, even local distribution. You're entitled to your opinion. You're not entitled to lie. And CNN flat-out lied to its viewers. Its viewers need to understand it is not biased, they're not spinning it, they're flat out lying. That just wasn't true.”

Graham returned to complain on Feb. 15:

Isn't it fascinating that the liberal media lecture us about all the dangers of misinformation about the coronavirus, but now the Biden-Harris team just keeps repeating nonsense about how they had to start "from scratch" on the vaccine? That there was "no plan"? 

Even after CNN fell on its face running this claim from an anonymous source, only to be corrected by media darling Anthony Fauci, Vice President Kamala Harris said it out loud to Axios reporter and co-founder Mike Allen for the website's HBO show. Allen just accepted this garbage.

[...]

Can we expect ANY "independent fact-checkers" to locate this obvious misinformation, just lying there?

Of course, we can't expect Graham to tell his readers that whatever plan Trump had was wholly inadequate to the task. 

On Feb. 17, Joseph Vazquez cheered how Fox Business host Larry Kudlow was eager to rip apart a lie Vice President Kamala Harris told Axios about the vaccine rollout effort of former President Donald Trump’s administration," even happier that "Kudlow shot back over a hot mic: 'Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!'"

The same day, Kristine Marsh accused Fauci of "backtracking from his own prior statements so he could defend Vice President Kamala Harris’s “starting from scratch” lie" by saying (accurately, not that Marsh or the MRC will admit it) that "the actual plan of getting the vaccine doses into people's arms was really rather vague."

Kyle Drennen groused that a later interviewer of Harris "ignored Harris lying in a recent interview about the Biden administration having to 'start from scratch' in its COVID response after President Trump left office," claiming that the questions that were asked "conveniently took the place of any attempt to hold Harris accountable for lying in a recent Axios interview about the Biden administration supposedly having to 'start from scratch' in its COVID response, as if the Trump administration had not done anything to combat the pandemic. Something even Dr. Anthony Fauci said was false."

Graham harped on it again in a Feb. 20 post, pretending to be outraged that the Washington Post gave Harris only two Pinocchios for Harris' statement, trying to split hairs in offering a defense:

In this case, Kessler thinks it's fair game to say there was "no national strategy" since it was "state-centric." You can't have a "state-centric national strategy"? He did think it was "trouble" to say "starting from stratch," even though he elastically allowed they have "fill in the blanks" a bit. 

[...]

"Starting from scratch" is not "trouble." It's non-factual. There is no evidence of such a claim, if we may use the liberal-media argot. For people who lecture about the importance of facts and truth, they seem to be extremely willing to sculpt falsehoods into all kinds of puzzling shapes and then pronounce they're well, half-true.

Remember: For the MRC, narrative is everything. The truth -- that Trump's plan was apparently only marginally better than no plan at all when it came to the end goal of vaccines in people's arms -- is secondary.

MRC Censors News Of Bozell's Son Getting Arrested For Capitol Riot
Topic: Media Research Center

Last week, it was revealed that Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell's son, Leo Brent Bozell IV, was arrested for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The youinger Bozell has apparently worked as a girls' basketball coach in Pennsylvania, and he was identified in part because he was wearing a sweatshirt from a school in the town where he coached (though, apparently, not one that employed him).

You will not be surprised to learn that the MRC doesn't want you to know about Bozell IV's arrest. We could find no mention of it on any MRC-operated website, including its "news" division, CNSNews.com. Bozell has made no comment about it on his personal Twitter account, and the MRC has issued no statement from Bozell regarding it. It appears that the MRC wants it to blow over quietly through censorship and radio silence. (ConWebWatch even requested comment from the MRC on Bozell IV; we have heard nothing back.)

Interestingly, Bozell kinda-sorta endorsed the riot his son was arrested for being involved in. While he claimed to deplore the violence and was worried about its effect on the conservative movement, he justified the violence because "they are furious that they believe this election was stolen. I agree with them." Bozell has continued to cling to his conspiracy theory that pre-election polls showing Joe Biden with a huge lead were deliberately faked by the media, and that the election was "stolen" because the media didn't sufficiently parrot pro-Trump talking points.

Bozell is not going to admit that he was wrong, or that his son was wrong, because he has a very Trumpian impulse not to admit his mistakes. Just like no apology ever came when it was revealed in 2014 that Tim Graham ghost-wrote Bozell's syndicated column (Graham was simply added to Bozell's byline, and he was granted sole credit for the column last year), and just like when Bozell asserted that President Obama looked like a "skinny ghetto crackhead."

As Bill Clinton has said, it can be better to be strong and wrong than weak and right. Bozell has decided to live that -- even though it may harm the credibility of the MRC.

NEW ARTICLE: The MRC vs. Twitter, Part 1
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center repeatedly claimed that President Trump was being "censored" on Twitter (in fact, his lies were merely labeled as such), and it falsely portrayed political donations by Twitter employees as coming from the company. Read more >>

MRC Sneers At Tom Brokaw's Retirement
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's reason for existence is to hate anyone who doesn't peddle right-wing talking points in the media and to brand those people as "liberal" (even though the MRC's worldview is so far to the right that it brands objective reporters as "liberal"). So when legendary anchor Tom Brokaw announced his full retirement from NBC, Geoffrey Dickens offered nothing but sneering and derision:

On Friday, Tom Brokaw formally retired from NBC News. If you are confused, it’s because he already had one retirement when he vacated the NBC Nightly Newsanchor chair for Brian Williams back in 2004. But like a college professor who awkwardly still hung out with kids decades younger than him, he hung around the NBC offices in an Anchor Emeritus role. Some of those “kids” like Chuck Todd, Peter Alexander and Willie Geist said their goodbyes over the weekend. 

Newspaper headlines touted Brokaw as a “broadcasting legend,” while he was toasted on Twitter as a “national treasure.” On Monday’s Today, Hoda Kotb boasted her colleague was “a titan in journalism, an icon here at NBC.” New York Times critic James Poniewozik wistfully remembered the era when Brokaw, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings had huge influence over the public: “They were in a way like world luminaries in themselves.”

Occasionally we’d hear from Mr. Brokaw at the MRC. Like that one time at a July 25, 2004 forum at Harvard University’s School of Government where he complained: “There are organized interest groups out there. There’s a guy by the name of Brent Bozell, who makes a living at, you know, taking us on every night. He’s well-organized, he’s got a constituency, he’s got a newsletter. He can hit a button and we’ll hear from him.”

And, while Brokaw was never as obnoxious as today’s outspoken liberal hosts (think: CNN’s Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo, or MSNBC’s Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow), he certainly used his perch at NBC to promote a liberal view of politics.

So Dickens is mad that Brokaw called out the MRC for what it is -- a right-wing outrage machine.

Dickens went on to attack Brokaw for expressing "liberal" opinions he didn't agree with from the past 16 years, when he was not acting as a reporter or anchor and thus should have had no problem expressing opinions. But they were deemed to be "liberal" opinions, which Dickens and the MRC are trying to eradicate from the media landscape.

The MRC has long hated Brokaw, even though he has Republican leanings (indeed, Tim Graham had no problem with Brokaw serving as a liaison between John McCain and NBC during his 2008 presidential campaign). It also praised a 2009 book by anti-liberal ex-reporter Bernard Goldberg that included a doctored coversation involving Brokaw. In 2012, MRC chief Brent Bozell ridiculously attacked Brokaw for complaining he was put into an for then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

MRC Still Spreading Lies About Margaret Sanger
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has long spewed hate at Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, much of it factually incorrect (good thing for the MRC that it's not against the law to libel the dead). And it hasn't stopped.

In a Dec. 2 post, Elise Ehrhard attacked the ABC show "Black-ish" for having a character who donated to Planned Parenthood instead of to church. Ehrhard huffed in response: "Why would a show that is supposed to promote an empowering image of black Americans promote an organization that kills thousands of black babies every year? Are the writers of Black-ish not aware that Planned Parenthood was founded in part to 'eliminate the Negro population?' Its founder Margaret Sanger considered black Americans, as well as other minority populations, to be 'human weeds.'"

The "human weeds" quote is a lie. Ehrhard's source is the rabidly anti-abortion LifeSite News, which falsely claims that  Sanger called blacks "human weeds" in a publication called "The Pivot of Civilization." But the phrase "human weeds" is nowhere to be found in the copy of "The Pivot of Civilization" to which LifeSite links. And the "eliminate the Negro population" phrase is plucked out of context from a letter regarding a project to bring birth controlto black communities; in full context, Sanger was seeking to recruit black leaders for the effort to allay suspicions blacks might have had about whites like Sanger being involved.

In a Jan. 15 post attacking Time magazine for interviewing the head of Planned Parenthood, Tim Graham claimed that the interviewer "very carefully avoids the trap of Planned Parenthood's founder Margaret Sanger being a eugenicist who wanted to abort minorities." Graham's support for this claim was a column from July in which he twice asserted that Sanger was a "racist and eugenicist" but the only evidence he offered to back up the claim was that she once spoke to a Ku Klux Klan women's auxiliary.

While Sanger was unquestionably a eugenicist -- as were many people of her time --  but there's no evidence she was especially racist. As we've documented, the KKK women's auxiliary was not the Klan itself (anyway, the Klan of the 1920s was actually not that different from conservative groups of today, with as much focus on fundamentalism and patriotism as racism and anti-Catholicism, and it was arguably something of a mainstream group), Sanger would speak to anyone who would let her, and she later called the speech "one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing."

Yep, the MRC should be very glad that it's OK to libel the dead.

MRC Makes MyPillow Guy A Victim To Own The Libs
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's record of embracing fringe-right extremists who get banned on social media as a way to own the libs continues with its attempt to turn MyPillow buy Mike Lindell into a victim over his spreading of false election fraud conspiracies. Kayla Sargent lamented in a Jan. 26 post:

Perhaps Twitter was losing sleep over the fact that it’s been a whole three days since it censored a prominent conservative.

Twitter banned MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, making him only the latest conservative censored on the platform this month alone. 

“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended due to repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told MRC TechWatch. However, Twitter did not respond to an inquiry about which specific tweets led to Lindell’s ban. Lindell has been an avid supporter of former President Donald Trump, a fact that many media outlets despise.

Sargent is lying when she suggests that Lindell was banned merely for being a Trump supporter. In addition to Lindell's election fraud lies, Lindell has also falsely claimed that Antifa sparked the violence at the Capitol riot.

Jeffrey Lord ramped up the victimization narrative in a Jan. 30 post:

What was Mike Lindell’s offense? Why, the man had the audacity --- the nerve!! --- to support former President Trump and to say what he thinks about the 2020 election results.  And with Twitter going out of its way to cancel the ex-president himself, how tough is it to cancel one of his most prominent supporters?

On top of this, corporate America has piled on. Companies run by leftist executives have abruptly pulled the My Pillow products from their stores.

[...]

But it is time --- more than time --- to stand up and bring a full stop to this craziness. On Friday, Sean Hannity reported on his radio show that Lindell boycotter Bed Bath and Beyond had its stock collapse by a stunning 36% as a direct result of BBB’s ostentatious boycott of My Pillow. This is not about pillows or how to take care of babies or Fox News or building presidential libraries. This is about free speech. And if this fascist cancel culture is not protested and stopped in its tracks, it will only get worse.

Actually, Hannity was lying: The drop in Bed Bath & Beyond stock that day had everything to do with it being turned into a bit player in the GameStop stock short-selling craziness and nothing to do with MyPillow.

Lord's item appeared under the provocative headline  "The Twitter Censors Come for Mike Lindell; Are You Next?" Unless you're spreading repeatedly debunked lies like Lindell did, the answer is no -- not that Lord will tell you that, of course.

When Lindell's crazy video filled with bogus election fraud conspiracy theories was removed from YouTube and Vimeo, Sargent was there to paint Lindell as a victim again:

The self-proclaimed truth overlords have struck again, lest anyone raise questions about possible election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. 

[...]

Lindell claimed in Absolute Proof that he had obtained “a print [of] inside of the machine of a timestamp that showed another country, other countries attacking us, hacking into our election through these machines. And it showed the votes flipped.” Lindell was referencing voting machines used in the November 2020 presidential election. Dominion Voting Systems has reportedly threatened “litigation” against Lindell for accusations he has made against the company, according to The Washington Examiner.

“Per our presidential election integrity policy, we remove content uploaded after the safe harbor deadline that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” YouTube spokesperson Alex Joseph told The Washington Times (The Times). “We removed this video and its reuploads in accordance with this policy.” 

Video-sharing platform Vimeo similarly removed the documentary for allegedly “violating Vimeo‘s policies on posting content that claims that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent or stolen or otherwise illegitimate,” the platform told The Times.

[...]

The Times referred to Lindell as “an unwavering supporter of former President Donald Trump.” In January 2021, Twitter banned Lindell from the platform “due to repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy,” a spokesperson told MRC TechWatch. The platform also went so far as to ban the MyPillow account after Lindell used it to “circumvent his own ban,” according to Forbes.  

Sargent didn't mention the pertinent fact that fact-checkers found Lindell's video to be filled with lies -- so much so that when Lindell bought time on One America News to repeatedly air the video, OAN added a massive disclaimer stating that it doesn't endorse the video's claims in general or regarding specific people and companies like Dominion and Smartmatic, which have not been shy about suing right-wingers who lie about them.The disclaimer also added that the video is "not intended to be taken or interpreted by the viewer as established fact."

But telling the truth is not Sargent's job here; keeping the narrative alive is.

UPDATE: The MRC loves Lindell's victimhood. Last April, it twice touted his unproven claim that Twitter was "shadowbanning" him, gushing over the number of followers he had and his engagement rate. In June, Joseph Vazquez praised Lindell for refusing to pull MyPillow ads from the increasingly extreme and hateful content on Fox News: "In a country where corporate liberal pandering to violent mobs is the new trend in business, one CEO decided to stand on principle and go against the tide."

MRC's Houck Cheers Right-Wing Fox News Reporter's Perfomance At WH Press Briefings
Topic: Media Research Center

Curtis Houck has become the Media Research Center's designated hater of Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki. It's a bit of a change given his previous job as the MRC's designated worshipper of Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany -- for one, he has to work harder, given that Psaki is giving briefings every weekday whereas McEnany held them only sporadically.

But Houck still has to adhere to the MRC's narrative, which is that all reporters for non-right-wing outlets are evili while all right-wing reporters are virtuous beings who can do no wrong. Thus, Houck has switched his worship instinct to Fox News reporter and nepotism hire Peter Doocy. Houck gushed over Doocy in a Jan. 25 post:

With liberal reporters continuing to act as no more than lapdogs for the Biden administration or attack dogs from the left, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy has continued to separate himself from the pack (as he did during the campaign) by asking tough but respectful questions of Press Secretary Jen Psaki and President Joe Biden himself. 

On Monday, Doocy did just that with questions about the coronavirus vaccine, left-wing violence in Portland and Seattle, and a shifting of the goal-posts on how much control Americans had over the virus.

Doocy had two rounds with Psaki and, in the first, he had three questions.

[...]

Unlike the belligerence and condescension we saw with the press corps under Donald Trump, Doocy has been able to ask tough but respectful questions of Biden and his team. What a novel concept.

Unsurprisingly, Houck absolutely refuses to award any credit to Psaki for letting a hostile reporter asks three rounds of questions -- something his beloved McEnany would never have let a "liberal" reporter do. While Houck was cheering Doocy for asking hostile questions of Psaki, he attacked reporters who dared to ask even slightly challenging questions of McEnany.

The next day, Houck was slobbering over Doocy again:

With former National Security Adviser-turned-Domestic Policy Council head Susan Rice appearing at Tuesday’s White House press briefing, the mood was one of ebullience as the liberal press corps felt at home with key allies, as Rice and Press Secretary Jen Psaki talked about creating an America based on “equity” to atone for its life of sin. 

But amidst all the softballs, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy came with actual questions, ranging from FEMA funding to the impeachment trial to left-wing violence (and then later question about the Olympics).

Doocy wasn’t granted a question for Rice, but he got the third spot in Psaki’s pecking order.

Again, Psaki received no credit for taking questions from a hostile reporter.

On Jan. 28, Houck was sad that Fox News was "out of the rotation for White House Briefing Room seats," but he claimed that "Thursday’s briefing left plenty of space for reporters from the liberal media to step up and commit random acts of journalism. Thankfully, some did with pointed questions calling out President Biden’s plethora of executive orders and the reality that the administration had sided with teachers' unions over “science” when it came to keeping schools closed." Then he added: "Unfortunately, there were still reporters that were far more casual and friendly, lobbing either bland or outright softballs."

We don't recall Houck ever criticizing right-wing reporters who asked softball questions of McEnany.

Houck offered a summary in a Jan. 29 post:

Friday concluded the first full week of Biden White House press briefings and, by this point, we’ve noticed a few trends. Aside from Press Secretary Jen Psaki refusing to answer any number of questions, two takeaways are the lack of condescension and hostility from reporters and biting responses from the press secretary. Instead, we’ve seen plenty of softballs, reverence for administration officials, bland questioning, and on Friday, the end of Brian Karem’s charade.

Whether it be FNC’s Peter Doocy or surprise entries from liberal outlets, there have been plenty of tough questions. 

Houck didn't mention that McEnany was the one supplying all the  condescension and hostility during her tenure. Instead, he sighed fondly "whenever Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Sanders, or Sean Spicer schooled a reporter."

Houck couldn't be bothered to offer such a granular analysis of McEnany's performance -- he was too busy crushing on her.

NEW ARTICLE: How The MRC Embraced Trump's Bogus Election Fraud Conspiracy
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center took Donald Trump's election loss almost as badly as Trump himself did, and it helped Trump by promoting his never-proven claims that the election was "stolen." Read more >>

MRC Gets The Vapors Over AOC Talking About Capitol Riot
Topic: Media Research Center

When Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz "almost had me murdered" through his embrace of President Trump's election fraud conspiracy theories and attempts to overturn the election that that played a major role in inciting the Capitol riot, the Media Research Center went on the attack.

"AOC Lies! Ted Cruz ‘Almost Had Me Murdered’ While Twitter Yawns" screamed the headline of Corinne Weaver's Jan. 28 post, further ranting, "Twitter censored 668 tweets from former President Donald Trump before banning his account, claiming his tweets were inaccurate and that some were a 'risk of violence.' But when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) falsely accused a U.S. Senator of attempted murder, Twitter did nothing at all." Weaver delcared AOC's claim to be false while censoring any mention of the bogus conspiracy theories Cruz embraced.

Thus, the MRC's dishonest narrative was established:

• The next day, Scott Whitlock huffed that "far-left Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dripped venom as she accused Ted Cruz of “almost having me murdered” and actively “trying to get me killed.”
• Kayla Sargent cheered that "A sitting congressman and senator have called to condemn Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for falsely accusing Senator Ted Cruz(R-TX) of attempted murder. " She called Ocasio-Cortez's statement a "wild lie" while, like Weaver, censoring any mention of the conspiracy theories he embraced.
• Whitlock returned to grumble that "Despite a combined six hours of air time, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today on Friday censored Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s slime that Ted Cruz was trying to get the Democrat 'killed.'"He called AOC's claim "blatantly false" without mentioning Cruz's conspiracy theories.
• Krstine Marsh asserted: "Democratic socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed she has little interest in uniting the country let alone being a decent human being, by her tweet reply to Senator Ted Cruz on Thursday, accusing her colleague of trying to have her “murdered." 

When Ocasio-Cortez told her story in an Instagram of hiding in her office from rioters, the MRC attacked her for that too by nitpicking her story. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed on Feb. 2:

You could feel the unity surging on Tuesday's CBS Evening News as the network gave a boost to the vile smears from Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), suggesting the Republican Party was just a bunch of domestic and sexual abusers. On top of that, there was also incredibly lazy reporting from congressional correspondent Kris Van Cleave, who failed to tell viewers that the person banging on Ocasio-Cortez’s door during the Capitol riot was a Capitol Police officer.

[...]

According to his report, a simple bathroom door was all that stood between the mob of insurrectionists and the Congresswoman. But he left out a key detail: the person banging on her door was a Capitol Police officer looking to protect her.

But in the next paragraph, Fondacaro added the context that undermined his attack,  while accusing the reporter of leaving context out: 'Now, the officer allegedly didn’t announce who he was. So, it would be understandable for Ocasio-Cortez to fear who was outside. But we now know who it was, thus CBS should have included it in the report to give the full context."

But this dishonesty became part of the already dishonest MRC narrative. Alexa Moutevelis accused AOC of giving a "performance" in her video, as if she was lying about what happened to her, then sneered that it was too long:

It’s only Wednesday and the Left’s favorite rising socialist star has already gotten rave reviews for her Monday night Instagram Live performance telling the tale of the January 6 Capitol riot from the likes of Variety and Rolling Stone.

The Instagram Live presentation on her account was a 90-minute stemwinder that saw Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stare into the camera and claim to have been sexually assaulted in the past as a way to explain her current “trauma,” compare Republican reaction to the riot to “the same tactics of abusers,” and dramatically recount being terrified she “was going to die” when a man pounding on her office doors came looking for her (he turned out to be Capitol police).

Moutevelis even baselessly suggested that AOC was lying about a sexual assault that happened to her that was mentioned in her video: "It's almost as if, by refusing to deal with any claims other than the unprovable sexual assault, they don't have to face all the holes in the rest of her story."

Whitlock complained that CBS "played the congresswoman's Instagram recounting of the attack, failing to mention that the person who came to find her was a police officer, not a member of the mob. " He also tried to revive the MRC's manufactured outrage over Tara Reade's never-proven accusation of sexual misconduct against Joe Biden, saying of AOC that "Of course anyone recounting such trauma must be painful, but Reade’s retelling didn’t get similar sympathy."

Tim Graham, meanwhile, got mad at Snopes pointing out that right-wingers like him were engaging in "bad-faith smears" portraying AOC as a liar because the office she was hiding in was in a separate building from the Capitol, which the rioters never made it to (though Graham offered no evidence that AOC knew it at the time). He went on to whine, "Decrying a 'right-wing disinformation machine' guilty of 'minimizing' AOC's January 6 story isn't "fact-checking." It's left-wing blogging."

Graham followed that up with a column that did more whining that AOC wasn't being nitpicked by the media the way he was doing it: "Everyone should understand the fear and trauma of the riot. But is everything based on emotion here? Did anyone contemplate asking AOC for more details? Apparently it’s rude after a traumatic event to check. No one used the phrase 'claimed without evidence.'"

Graham continued to play his dishonest "fact-check the fact-checkers" game in a Feb. 6 post: "Snopes went first among liberal "fact checkers" in defending Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez against conservative critics of her Instagram Live testimony about the trauma of the Capitol riot, but other aggressive defenders followed, at AP and PolitiFact and The Washington Post. Only CNN decided to flag AOC for saying some unproven things."

But it was time to push the narrative again. Kayla sargent declared that AOC "apparently expects her supporters to cover for her lying." Sargent later ranted that AOC "lied and falsely accused Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) of “trying to get [her] killed”, and has now refused to apologize for her lie. Twitter still has not taken any action against the tweet or against Ocasio-Cortez. ... Apparently, the left can accuse a sitting U.S. senator of attempted murder with no repercussions." In neither post did Sargent prove that AOC "lied."

Graham couldn't give up his AOC obsession, devoting his weekly podcast to "explor[ing] the depths of the "Ocasio-Cortex" and how the socialist Congresswoman from New York has told an engrossing tale of how frightened she was during the Capitol riot on January 6," whining yet again that "The "independent fact-checkers" as a pack surrounded AOC in a defensive crouch, denouncing 'bad-faith smears' by conservative websites like RedState and the Daily Wire."

Sore Losers: MRC Frowns On Biden's Inauguration
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center was still acting like sore losers when President Biden's inauguration rolled around, so it was bound and determined to not celebrate the event as much of America was doing.

Lindsay Kornick was already whining about it on Jan. 13 regarding the Tom Hanks-hosted special that would substitute for normal inauguration events canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic:

Pro-tip to celebrities and politicians: saying the word “united” several times doesn’t actually unite people. And neither will this celebrity-filled salute to Joe Biden’s inauguration, even if it’s hosted by “America’s Dad” Tom Hanks.

On January 13, the Presidential Inauguration Committee announced a new program titled “CELEBRATING AMERICA.” According to the press release, this program will “welcome a new era of leadership” and “showcase the American people’s resilience, heroism, and unified commitment to coming together as a nation to heal and rebuild.”

This special is supposed to celebrate “America United” and our “connection” with all Americans, yet it’s filled to the brim with Trump-hating leftist celebrities including Justin Timberlake, Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber, and even host Tom Hanks. If the special really wanted to aim for unity, it could have attempted to include at least one Republican. Or at least not treat Biden’s inauguration like one big elitist gloatfest. I guess it should really be called “America United...except for conservatives.”

Kornick concluded by sneering, "While I definitely mourn the people who cannot see the inauguration, the same can’t be said for this special.

A companion post by Kyle Drennen complained that "the Democratic Party’s compliant media allies at ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN would all happily air the 90-minute event." But he never pointed out that by his definiton this means that Fox News, which refused to air the event, is a compliant media ally of the Republican Party.

On Jan. 19, Geoffrey Dickens cranked out a compilation post of allegedly "over-the-top adulation for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris dating back to when Biden first announced he was running for President" made by "the libs in the media." Of course, there are compilation posts to be made about the MRC's over-the-top adulation for Donald Trump, but Dickens didn't mention that.

Scott Whitlock was in a complaining mood on Inauguration Day:

It begins. Good Morning America on Inauguration Day opened the show with what can only be described as a movie trailer-style montage. The excitement was palpable as George Stephanopoulos cheered Joe Biden’s goal of “uniting and healing the nation.” Viewers were told that we’re about to enter a new era of hope and action.”

[...]

Stephanopoulos declared hope is scheduled to return at 12 noon: “How he plans to usher in a new era of hope and the action he's promising the minute he takes office.” So much for democracy dying in darkness. Expect journalist watchdogs to turn into administration lapdogs for the next four years.

Is that like how the MRC's Curtis Houck's press secretary predeliction flipped from slobbering over Kayleigh McEnany to taking shots at Jen Psaki?

MRC writer went on to rant that people said nice things about Biden and not-so-good things about the guy who instigated a riot, Donald Trump:

• ABC's Inauguration Day Hate Fest: 'Anarchist' President Trump 'Vandalized' Country
• Everything Is Wonderful! CBS: ‘Priest’ Biden’s Speech Like ‘Reading From the Bible!’
• Embarrassing ABC: Our ‘Papa-in-Chief’ Biden Is Like Lincoln, Healing the Country by ‘Reclaiming Facts, Truth!'
• VIDEO: TV Journalists See Sunshine and Rainbows Throughout Biden's Inauguration
• BIDENGASM: MSNBC Gets Weak Knees Over Biden’s Inauguration
• Chuck Todd Hails Biden as ‘Better Angel President,’ ‘Never Cynical’
• NEW NewsBusters Podcast: Inauguration Sugar High with Tim Graham and Scott Whitlock
• PBS White House Reporter Warmly Welcomes Truth-Telling, Press-Respecting Biden
• A FAR CRY FROM FOUR YEARS AGO: ‘Poetic’ Biden Gives Journalists ‘Chills’
• NY Times Loves ‘Centrist’ Biden’s Unity, Using ‘Truth as a Guiding Light’
• Biden Inaugural Special Celebrates America With Songs of...Booty

It sure looks like the MRC is not interested at all in any for of "unity" with Biden even though their guy soundly lost the election -- after all, viciously attacking Democrats and anyone who supports them is the entire reason the MRC exists. It's also not surprising given that MRC chief Brent Bozell is still clinging to the lie that the election was stolen from Triump.