MRC Fawns Some More Over Fox News' Right-Wing Late-Night Host Topic: Media Research Center
A subgenre of the Media Research Center's "Mean Girls"act in gloating over Fox News' ratings while sneering at the lower ratings of other non-right-wing news channels is its love for Grag Gutfeld's recently launched, right-wing-hack-filled nighttime show on Fox News. Curtis Houck has been the early leader in Gutfeld sycophancy at the MRC, as he has been as the chief ratings Mean Girl, but right-wing film critic Christian Toto has decided he wants in on that sweet sycophancy action too.
In an Aug. 28 post, Toto touted that The Fox News program Gutfeld!, a cable show with zero A-list stars and a modest budget, just beat Colbert’s “Late Show” in the ratings for the first time," adding: "The fact that it happened while Colbert ran defense for what might be the biggest foreign policy blunder of the modern age may not be coincidental. Chances are more than a few viewers were curious what a right-leaning comic had to say about President Joe Biden’s blunder as opposed to Colbert’s typical fawning."
In dismissing Colbert as a "far-left propagandist," it's clear Toto prefers the stylings of a far-right propagandist like Gutfeld. So he served up a full-throated love letter to Gutfeld -- whom he describes only as a "comic provocateur" -- in a Sept. 18 post:
The right-leaning outlet unleashed Gutfeld! earlier this year. The news-driven comedy show offered exactly what’s missing on late night TV, albeit without A-list stars and broadcast-level cash:
Jokes aimed at progressives.
A few weeks ago Gutfeld! rose to the top of the ratings heap. The moment came after President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan debacle, suggesting audiences would rather hear someone snark about it than play defense for the indefensible.
Toto was referring to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, but Fox News reflexively defended Trump for four years no matter how indefensible his actions were and Toto never criticized that. He called Colbert a "liberal hack" in his headline, but he didn't explain why Gutfield shouldn't be considered a right-wing hack. Nevertheless, he went on to huff:
Will audiences eventually tire of Gutfeld! and restore Colbert to his late night throne?
Perhaps. Here’s what’s clear, though.
Consumers finally have a late night alternative, a program willing to call out politicians on both sides of the aisle. And since Netflix, Hulu, ABC and the rest have no interest in telling jokes that might hurt Democrats, there’s a good chance Gutfeld! will remain on top for some time.
Of course, Toto can't even admit Gutfeld is at least as biased as the "far-left" late-night hosts he loves to attack. He simply an't see any bias when it comes from his ideological fellow travelers.
MRC Cheers Ex-Editor Going On CNN To Describe How She's Being Silenced By The Media Topic: Media Research Center
Bari Weiss has been a cause celebre ever since she made a big public show of resigning as a New York Times columnist because of criticism of her work from outside and inside the paper -- though, as one observer noted, Weiss was actually "literally asking the Times to prevent people at the paper from criticizing her, on the grounds that she dislikes the criticism, and thinks it is wrong. That doesn’t sound like free speech." Nevertheless, at the time of her resignation, Nicholas Fondacaro gushed that Weiss "has been one of the scant few voices of fairness" and that she was criticized "because she didn’t toe the liberal line. Fondacaro followed up a few days later by weirdly depicting Weiss as having been "abused" and touting the idea that "she had the requisite receipts needed to bring serious legal litigation against the paper."
So when Weiss popped up last month on CNN, Kristine Marsh was on it to do some serious Weiss stenography in an Oct. 18 post:
Despite hosting a show that supposedly scrutinizes the media, Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter is pretty sensitive to any media criticism not aimed at Fox News. So naturally, he couldn’t understand why his guest, Bari Weiss, claimed the media self-censored stories that didn’t fit a certain political framework.
Weiss, a former opinion editor and writer for the New York Times famously left behind her career at the prestigious outlet in 2020 because of the paper’s intolerance to any view but the far left’s. She now publishes a popular newsletter on Substack called “Common Sense.” On Stelter’s Sunday show, Weiss argued the world had “gone mad” and the media was complicit:
Marsh then regurgitated Weiss' right-wing-friendly interpretation of "the truth the media doesn't want to admit":
When you're not able to say out loud and in public that there are differences between men and women, the world has gone mad.
When we're not allowed to acknowledge that rioting is rioting, and it is bad, and that silence is not violence, but violence is violence, the world has gone mad.
When we're not able to say that Hunter Biden's laptop is a story worth pursuing, the world has gone mad. When in the name of progress, young school children, as young as kindergarten, are being separated in public schools because of their race, and that is called progress rather than segregation, the world has gone mad.
Marsh then added, "That sure hits close to home for CNN" -- though it probably hit closer for Marsh because she gets to invoke Weiss to push right-wing narratives. But as Wonkette responded to Weiss' talking points:
What? Is she planning on issuing a new version of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus sometime soon?
[...]
Oh yeah, nowhere did we hear anything in the summer of 2020 about how rioting is bad. Not once, ever.
Of course, the vast majority of Black Lives Matter protests were entirely peaceful, but the media focus was primarily on the ones that briefly turned violent (sometimes due to Trump supporters and other right-wing agitators).
[...]
Where? I searched and searched and was able to find exactly two examples somewhere in the ballpark of this story. One involved seventh and eighth grade students who, for one year, at one private school in New York City with about 80 students, were separated by race for part of the day, so that the few Black children attending the school did not always have to be the only Black person in their class. Another involved a couple of diversity meetings at one magnet school in Jacksonville to discuss recent issues that had come up at the school. Both made headlines everywhere, so clearly people were "allowed" to talk about them.
Marsh continued:
Stelter feigned confusion. “Who’s the people stopping the conversation?” he asked, puzzled. Weiss suggested, “People let work at networks, frankly, like the one I'm speaking on right now who try and claim that you know, it was -- it was racist to investigate the lab leak theory. It was, I mean, let's just pick an example.”
The CNN host pretended he had no idea what Weiss was talking about. “[Y]ou say -- you say we're not allowed to talk about these things. But they're all over the internet.”I can Google them and I can find them everywhere. I've heard about every story you mentioned.”
Ironically, Stelter just made Weiss’s case for her.
Not so ironically, Marsh was trying to avoid pointing out the fact that Weiss was complaining about not being about to talk about these things on CNN during an interview on CNN -- which certainly doesn't make Weiss' case for herself.And as we've seen, the MRC must always twist things in order to make Stelter the bad guy.
All we see is Weiss desperately trying to play the victimhood card, which is a narrative Marsh and the MRC are certainly down with.
MRC Distorts Segment Exposing OAN In Order To Attack CNN's Stelter Topic: Media Research Center
Lydia Switzer does a lot of playing dumb in an Oct. 8 post:
Brian Stelter, host of the ironically titled “Reliable Sources” on CNN, was a guest on New DayThursday morning to talk about other news networks that he wishes would be taken off the air.
While normally Stelter focuses his vitriol and contempt at Fox News, which leads the nation in cable news viewership, this time he targeted One America News, or OAN: “OAN makes Fox News look liberal…It’s some of the worst of the worst content out there…Even saying the word News with One America doesn’t really seem fair. This is a opinion channel with extremist content.”
However, rather than actually address the disagreements he has with specific OAN segments, Stelter bashed AT&T (CNN’s parent company) for covering the network and for paying its carriage fees – which AT&T does for CNN as well.
AT&T responded to the original reporting from Reuters by explaining that it does not fund OAN and does pay carriage fees for OAN, along with numerous other channels.
That's a completely dishonest framing of the segment by Switzer. Note that Switzer does not mention the Reuters report on OAN that formed the basis of this discussion until the fourth paragraph; she did not link to the article itself at all, let alone reference the article's contents. She also liked in claiming that Stelter did not address "specific OAN segements," the tightly edited clip that accompanied her post -- eliminating most context and discussion from the full segment -- starts off with Stelter calling OAN "conspiracy-laden, in denial about the riot, sometimes pretending that Trump is still president." Switzer did not dispute any of that OAN content or even the way Stelter presented it.
Instead, Switzer cherry-picked a quote to complain about: "'There is a difference between real news and conspiracy crap,' he said. Undoubtedly, Stelter would consider his own show to be 'real news,' while calling for the deplatforming of news on the other side of the aisle." But at no point does Switzer provide any evidence that OANengages in "real news" or dispute Stelter's contention that OAN is "conspiracy crap."
Switzer may know that that there's no defense for OAN and that there's nothing wrong with the Reuters article -- which may be why she felt the need to distort and twist this segment into an attack on Stelter, which always plays well at the MRC.
It's also worth noting that this is the only MRC post that even references the Reuters article on OAN; no other attempt is made to attack or even discuss it. Sounds like a backhanded vote of confidence -- though the MRC would never, ever admit that.
MRC Writer Lashes Out At James Murdoch's Donations To Non-Right-Wing Media Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez has been on a kick lately of attacking James Murdoch for the sin of not following in the footsteps of his father, Fox News financier Rupert Murdoch, by funding non-right-wing causes. (even though the MRC loves to complain when right-wingers' political donations are exposed). The assaults continued in an Oct. 6 post that began by claiming "The ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows ignored climate activist James Murdoch using his company to invest millions of dollars in leftist media this year that promote grotesque content."
That's a non sequitur, since Vazquez gave us no reason why Murdoch's donations to "leftist" media warrant are singularly important news events that trump things ike, say, crime and genocide and natural disasters.Oneoutlet that received Murdoch investment is Vice News,and Vazquez listed as part of its "grotesque" content a video that refused to hate transgender people as much as he apparently does:
The type of media that Vice News pushes is extremely abhorrent, which makes the Murdoch investment into its parent company all the more egregious.
Vice News released a grotesque video in 2018 promoting how “Trans Kids And Their Parents Are Deciding When To Start Medical Transition.” The description for the pro-child abuse video was just as disgusting. It propagandized how“[a]s the debate continues over which bathroom transgender people should use, a more complex question is emerging about how early the medical transition begins for trans kids.” It continued: “Families and doctors are rewriting the rules as they decide when and how to start medical intervention before transgender youth hit puberty.”
Vazquez similarly hated on Brut, a French-based outlet that also received Murdoch money, for also refusing to spew hate at transgender people:
The Hollywood Reporter released a story June 29 that the estranged son of News Corporation Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch was part of a whopping $75 million fundraising haul by the leftist digital media firm Brut. The French company, which reportedly makes “‘socially conscious’ news,” posts leftist extremist videos that range from attempting to redefine language like the word “racism” to promoting the defunding of police. It even pushed the condemnation of the U.S. Constitution as racist and sexist.
[...]
Brut has been just as leftist. Brut America’s documentary filmmaker Eléonore Hamelin released a documentary earlier this year headlined, “House of Grace: Meet the Trans Youth of Puerto Rico.” Brut America’s Twitter account promoted a bonkers quote in its tweet of the video: “'You can have facial hair, a mustache, a beard, and still be very feminine. You can be a hairy femme queen.'" In the video description, the video promoted a “a collective of trans and non-binary youth of color in Puerto Rico, that has built a safe haven from the scourge of anti-LGBTQ+ violence with art, mutual aid, and healing.”
Catering to Murdoch’s more climate-obsessed bona fides, Brut also released a video condemning America’s “environmental racism.”
Promoting sex transitions for children and whining about “environmental racism” seem to be content that Murdoch endorses, but this wasn’t worth any coverage by the Big Three. Perhaps it's time the evening networks start giving his activism in leftist media the airtime it deserves.
Strangely, Vazquez does not demand that Fox News expose James Murdoch's "leftist media" investments. Wonder why that is.
Vazquez ranted about another Murdoch media investment in an Oct. 20 post:
Climate activist James Murdoch is set to make a multimillion-dollar investment in the Associated Press climate journalism as if AP didn’t already have a big enough left-wing bias.
The Murdoch investment is going toward “the formation of a new climate reporting hub at the Associated Press,” according to an Axios scoop. The hub will reportedly employ 20 journalists backed by multiple donors. This is a stunning development, given the leftist causes that Murdoch — the estranged son of News Corporation Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch — currently funds.
Vazquez provided no evidence to back up his claim that the AP is "left-wing" beyond his claim that it "published a pro-Biden puff piece Oct. 15 headlined, 'White House targeting economic risks from climate change,'" but even then he can't be bothered to explain what, exactly, is explicitly "left-wing" about reporting on the White House's policy initiatives.
Instead, he whined some more about Murdoch's other donations. He claimed that "Murdoch has funded the anti-Trump group Defending Democracy Together," which "was at one point reported as the top “dark money” spender of the 2020 election cycle." Yet Vazquez has yet to express any similar concerns about dark money funding right-wing causes.
MRC Defends Anti-Vaxxer Rock Legend Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center justloves it when musicians start spouting right-wing talking points -- so much for "shut up and sing." It normally sticks to the washed-up old ones, but it has found a bona fide guitar legend to spout those narratives in Eric Clapton.
In November 2020, Gabriel Hays touted a song ranting against COVID-related lockdowns that he made with legendarily cranky musician Van Morrison:
Ok so maybe Clapton isn’t actually “god,” but neither is big government during the height of the Chinese plague. The English blues guitar virtuoso teamed up with legendary songwriter and vocalist Van Morrison to write an anti-lockdown song and provided some words on how the next wave of COVID lockdowns in the U.K. will be terrible for his industry.
[...]
Not only providing his talent to Van Morrison’s track, Clapton has united his political perspective to that of Van Morrison, telling Variety that Britain’s lockdown measures have been “deeply upsetting” to him as well.
In addition to praising the “Moondance” singer’s political stance as a source for “inspiration,” Clapton urged his fellow British citizens to fight to get out “of this mess.” He claimed, “We must stand up and be counted because we need to find a way out of this mess. The alternative is not worth thinking about. Live music might never recover.”
[...]
“Stand and Deliver” will be available for download and streaming on all major platforms by December 2. To hear that one of the all time greats is anti-big government, as opposed to all the useful idiots in his industry, makes his new song essential listening.
In a May 17 post, Hay promoted Clapton's screed against vaccines:
A recent bout with extreme COVID vaccine side effects has inspired another searing rebuke of government pandemic mandates from the guitar legend Eric Clapton.
In a lengthy missive reposted by multiple users across social media, the 76 year-old “Layla” singer spoke of dealing with western governments’ handling of coronavirus as the “greatest dilemma of his life,” one which he claimed has been worse than him overcoming “addiction and alcoholism.”
[...]
After all these years, it’s clear that Clapton hasn’t sold out. The same can’t be said for most famous musicians relevant today.
But when Rolling Stone called out Clapton for his anti-vaxx nuttiness, Matt Philbin rushed to his defense in an Oct. 11 post:
For Eric Clapton, all it took to go from rock legend to canceled was to rebel against the establishment. And the establishment’s enforcer is Rolling Stone magazine.
When it’s not publishing lies about college rapes and hicks swallowing horse medicine the once-cooler than you’ll ever be chronicle of counterculture is cracking heads for Biden and Boris. Clapton had a bad experience with one of the vaccines, and he’s using his platform to warn people about it.
Bad idea. Rolling Stone has archives, and they’re not afraid to use them. In an article titled, “Eric Clapton Isn't Just Spouting Vaccine Nonsense—He's Bankrolling It,” Rolling Stone couldn’t simply disagree with Slowhand, explain why he’s wrong and that his fans should be skeptical about his claims. No, the Blues Breakers, Cream, Derek & the Dominoes guitarist must be punished.
Despite the fact that the MRC has never stopped bashing Ted Kennedy over Chappaquiddick, Philbin whined that Rolling Stone brought up some xenophobic things Clapton said back in the day, then sought to give him a pass for them:
During a 1976 concert in England, Clapton said some impolitic things about immigration to Britain and used what Rolling Stone calls “offensive slurs.” Did I mention this was back in 1976?
Clapton long ago apologized and blamed it on his drinking. Which seems kind of reasonable, and given that the incident was in 1976 … Hah! Rolling Stone anticipated your weak-willed forgiveness and found somebody who was at that concert 46 years ago to tell you what a bad guy EC really is. “Drink just makes you tell the truth too loud at the wrong time to the wrong people,” according to English Beat founder Dave Wakeling, who was there in 1976.
[...]
Anybody who’s read rock journalism from the 60s and 70s knows musicians and the people interviewing them spoke very differently than they do today.
But that doesn’t matter to the current gang of propagandists at Rolling Stone. All they know is Clapton stepped out of the vaccine line and their job is to make sure everyone knows he’s one of those MAGA-hatted, science-denying racists.
Would Philbin still be giving Clapton this pass if he wasn't being useful to right-wing narratives through his anti-vaxx rantings? Doubtful. But then, the MRC has no problem defending terrible people as long as they remain useful to its agenda.
MRC's Houck Takes More Petty Potshots At CNN, Lionizes Fox News' Ratings Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center wants to be taken seriously as "media researchers," but any casual observer knows that its sloppiness, viciousness and m=immaturity makes that impossible. One example of that final attribute is the way it goes all Mean Girls on non-right-wing news outlets by gloating about how much better Fox News' ratings are (as if popularity equated quality or accuracy). Curtis Houck indulged in that juvenile trait in a Sept. 2 post:
In a hilariously epic fail for the liberal media, Fox News finished the month of August with 94 of the top 100 cable telecasts in total viewers amidst a monumental month of news with Gutfeld! scoring its first-ever victories over CBS’s The Late Show while, at the other end of the spectrum, MSNBC scored its lowest total day and primetime in the 25-54 demo since December 2015.
And despite the attempts from Jeff Zucker PR flunkie Brian Stelter, CNN also had a difficult month with its worst month in weekday primetime total viewers since June 2019. It’s safe to say they desperately miss Donald Trump.
According to an FNC press release, they “notch[ed] 94 of the top 100 cable telecasts for the month and 13 of the top 14 cable news programs in overall viewers and the younger A25-54 demo, according to Nielsen Media Research.” Not surprisingly, this also included a sweep of the top five spots.
Fox’s successes stood head and shoulders above MSNBC, which had not only the worst demo month since December 2015, but its worst in total viewers since 2017 and has experienced a drop of 40 percent from last year across all measuring sticks.
Note that Houck is literally regurgitating a Fox News press release, showing how much of a slave he is to right-wing narratives.
In what might be one of the least shocking developments to be published on NewsBusters, CNN carnival barker Jim Acosta’s tenure as late weekend afternoonCNN Newsroomhost has gone less than swimmingly as, since he took over April 3, the timeslot has lost almost half its viewership.
Nielsen Media Research measured the three months prior to Acosta taking over (December 28, 2020 to March 28, 2021) versus Acosta’s tenure thus far (up through August 28) and found that there was a whopping 42 percent loss in total viewers (1.151 million to 668,000) and an equally astounding 46 percent hemorrhage in the 25-54 demographic (249,000 to 135,000).
Houck was up for moregloating in a Sept. 29 post, again sourced from a Fox News press release:
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Such was the case with this week’s ratings release for the third quarter of 2021 as, to the shock of no one, the Fox News Channel was victorious with its 79th straight quarter as the top cable news channel while CNN and MSNBC saw numbers tank to levels not seen since Barack Obama’s second term as President.
Of course, Zuckerville (otherwise known as CNN) and MSNBC will see zero reason to change their divisive and poisonous yet tiresome business models.
According to an FNC press release from Tuesday, the ratings win coincided with its 25th anniversary as it was also “the most-watched network in all of basic cable with total day and primetime viewers” and “its highest-rated quarter of the year in both total viewers and the coveted 25-54 demo.”
[...]
As for CNN, Zuckerville had its worst quarter in the 25-54 demo since 2014 with year-over-year total day ratings tanking 36 percent for all viewers and 41 percent in primetime via the same metric.
We've noted Houck's weird -- and vaguely anti-Semitic -- obsession with depicting CNN president Jeff Zucker as a "puppet master," though we don't recall anyone at the MRC portray Fox News as "Ailesville."
Houck had a fit of Stelter Derangement Syndrome as well in an Oct. 20 post:
On the latest edition of CNN’s lead Fox hatefest known as Reliable Sources, the Brian Stelter-helmed show suffered another pitiful showing in the ratings as, amongst all viewers in the 25-54 demographic (and not just those inside his elitist, far-left bubble), Stelter fetched only 85,000 viewers.
And when examining a variety of other shows that aired on Sunday before, during, and after Stelter, the results weren’t pretty as, according to Nielsen Media Research, he drew fewer people than the likes of Nick Jr.’s Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig, Bravo’s Below Deck: Mediterranean and syndicated reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Golden Girls to name a few.
Before going any further, it should be noted that Stelter’s audience grew to 706,000 if you add in total viewers, which still lost to CNN’s documentary on the late Princess Diana and 13 Fox News Channel shows. This included a head-to-head thrashing against FNC’s MediaBuzz, which pulled in, as per our friend RoadMN on Twitter, 1.473 million total viewers.
[...]
No matter how Stelter and his boss Jeffrey Zucker slice it, his niche show will continue to bear little to no control over how the American people view the news media. And for that, America is far greater place.
And if there's ever a remake of "Mean Girls" focused on media criticism, Houck would have a starring role, as someone who has nothing better or more productive with his life than to take petty potshots at people he's paid to hate -- and believes that this is substantive "media research."
MRC's Graham Agonizes Over Whether To Be A Decent Person Topic: Media Research Center
We've documented how Media Research Center executive Tim Graham hates actor Alec Baldwin so much that he was eager to be a jerk in the face of Baldwin accidentally killing a crew member with a prop gun on the set of a movie he was filming. Graham went on to devote an entire column to agonizing about whether to be a decent person in the face of Baldwin's tragedy, an Oct. 27 piece that was literally headlined "Does Alec Baldwin Deserve Decency?":
It was probably the worst day of Alec Baldwin’s life when he accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust on October 21. It’s a time to feel terrible about a 42-year-old woman with a husband and a young son.
Then CNN’s Jake Tapper used it in one of his commentaries to denounce the entire Republican Party for making this tragedy an occasion for jokes. “There's something about our politics right now that is driving people away from our shared humanity.”
Tapper was upset that Rep. Lauren Boebert recalled a tweet from December 5, 2014 where Baldwin wrote “I’m going to make bright, banana yellow t-shirts that read ‘My hands are up. Please don't shoot me.’ Who wants one?” This was about the false claim that Michael Brown said “Hands up, don’t shoot” in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, when in reality, Brown was reaching into a car for a policeman’s gun.
Yes, Graham is mad that the cruelty of his fellow Republicans in the face of Baldwin's tragedy was called out.The whining continued:
In our decency, we would hope Baldwin doesn’t have to go to court for this shooting. But the title of Baldwin’s 2006 opus was “Will Cheney and Whittington go to court? I would imagine if a guy with a few beers in him shoots you in the face...”
This isn’t the only Cheney-and-death “humor” Baldwin composed for Arianna Huffington. On the Fourth of July, 2006, Baldwin cooked up a double-murder fantasy, in which he dispatched Osama bin Laden with a box-cutter and “I gather up the body of the world’s most notorious terrorist and hurl it over the balcony. Then, in the final stroke of luck, bin Laden lands on Dick Cheney. God bless America.”
[...]
Jake Tapper made almost no attempt to factor in Baldwin’s well-known penchant for hate speech beyond this: “Baldwin, is, of course, not only a progressive but very aggressive and outspoken about liberal issues, including gun control.”
He even brought up Liz Cheney as the example of the Decency Republican in contrast to bomb-throwing Marjorie Taylor Greene. But he couldn’t recall 2006!
Of course, in today's Trumpified Republican Party -- and even in Graham's MRC, where his boss maliciously labeled Barack Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead" -- decency is not a value to be honored, it is one to be mocked as a sign of weakness. Yet Graham referred to "our decency," as if he still has some. He's petty too, which is why he's mad Tapper didn't nitpick something Baldwin wrote 15 years ago as justification to be nasty to him now, as Graham wants.
By the end of his column, Graham is still fighting to reconcile the Trumpified hateful partisanship with the religious faith he wants us to think he still has: "Does Alec Baldwin deserve decency now? In the spirit of Christian charity or “shared humanity,” yes. But armed with the memory of Baldwin’s long record of indecency, that would be extremely kind and merciful."
It's clear that Graham does not possess that kindness and mercy.
NEW ARTICLE -- The MRC's War on Jen Psaki (And Man-Crush On Peter Doocy): September 2021 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck keeps up his biased schtick of lashing out at the White House press secretary and fawning over a Fox News reporter. Read more >>
MRC's Sports Blogger Keeps Up Anti-Vaxxer Rants Topic: Media Research Center
Mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson just can't stop using his MRC platform to peddle anti-vaxxer activism and rage against COVID vaccine mandates.
In an Oct. 5 post, Maxson got upset that NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (whose name he misspelled as "Kareen") "managed to link coronavirus vaccinations with race, particularly Black Lives Matter" in an NPR interview, huffing in response:
Kyrie Irving and other non-vaccinated players who fully supported BLM beg to differ. The two issues are not conjoined at the hip. These players are showing this by their actions, by their personal discernment.
[...]
What’s also not fair is that in this NPR interview, A Martinez never broached the subject of adverse reactions to vaccines, which were fast-tracked through to federal approval. If everyone thought vaccines were safe to use, it wouldn’t be such a big issue, but that’s not the case. Oh, that’s right, leftists are doing diligent research through so-called reputable sources like Dr. Anthony Fauci and MSNBC. And unlike the unvaccinated rubes, they have all the correct information.
Two days later, Maxson got upset that Canada was enforcing vaccine mandates and didn't exclude pro basketball players, invoking Kyrie Irving again:
There is no point in unvaccinated NBA players making the road trip to Toronto. That Canadian city can sentence them to jail time and fine them $750,000 for leaving their hotel, according to a report in The Athletic. Other NBA cities will prevent such players from playing in games and also from attending practices. Yes, it’s one big, tangled web of freedom-dousing nonsense gripping the league.
[...]
Irving calls the limitations “oppressive.” The city of Toronto calls them “criminal.” Brooklyn, the Bay Area and New York haven’t yet gotten the memo about the land of the free.
ESPN’s blog, The Undefeated, jumped down LeBron James’ throat for not calling on all NBA players to submit to COVID-19 vaccinations. The coronavirus pandemic is actually an act of social justice and a fight for equality rivaling opposition to police brutality, says The Undefeated’s senior writer David Dennis Jr.
[...]
The ESPN Undefeated writer also says that Kyrie Irving and other vaccination resisters are perpetuating the possible spread of an epidemic ravaging black folks and this contradicts every statement they’ve ever made about standing for black folks in America. They can no longer be trusted when they speak of how black lives matter.
The dictatorial Democrats could not have stated this anti-freedom, race-baiting sentiment any better than Dennis.
Maxson was perversely happy in an Oct. 17 post cheering how turning thousands of college football fans into guinea pigs ended up working out better than people expected:
Have a plate of crow, fear-mongers Dr. Anthony Fauci and Joy Reid. Your expectations of huge college football stadiums packed with thousands of fans serving as super-spreaders of COVID-19 have been disproven.
College football has reached the mid-season point, and COVID-19 outbreaks are on the decline in many of the states with the largest stadiums. Through weeks of mostly unmasked fans sitting side by side at college football games in huge stadiums, the dire predictions of the doomsday crowd have fallen flat on their face.
“As soon as I saw it (the opening of college football stadiums to fans in September), I thought COVID’s about to have a feast,” Reid told Dr. Fauci on NBC Today. “What did you think?” Fauci said, “I thought the same thing. I think it’s really unfortunate.”
What’s that? Dr. Fauci wrong? Again? He seems to keep failing upward, in the view of those on the Left who have all but bestowed sainthood on him despite his sorry track record.
This partisan Fauci-bashing was an echo of a post Tim Graham had written the day before.
Of course, just because there was no spike in COVID cases during that period does not mean that COVID did not spread at stadiums.
In an Oct. 21 post, Maxson cheered that Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich, who was fired for refusing to get vaccinated, was contemplating legal action against the university. Maxson went on to complain that other media outlets pointed out that Rolovich's attempt to claim a religious exemption becauseof his Catholic faith was shot down because "Pope Francis and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have stated that 'all Covid-19 vaccines are morally acceptable and that Catholics have a duty, responsibility or obligation to be vaccinated.'"
MRC Now Denies Jan. 6 Insurrection Was An 'Insurrection' Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is getting in line with its right-wing, pro-Trump contemporaries who want to downplay the events of Jan. 6. It's now in revisionism mode, insisting that it wasn't an "insurretion."
An Aug. 28 column by right-wing movie reviewer devoted to attacking Stephen Colbert declaring that the Afghanistan withdrawal was "the first of several body blows against the far-left propagandist. This week also saw a damning report saying the Jan. 6 Capitol riot weren’t an insurrection, nor were they egged on by President Donald Trump or any other body." Toto linked to a Reuters article about an FBI report claiming there was little evidence the Jan.6 riot was "the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result." The word "insurrection" appears nowhere in the article, and Toto didn't explain why there has to be an "organized plot" for it to be called an "insurrection." But the article also noted that "FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol," though they allegedly lacked "serious plans about what to do if they made it inside."
On the basis of that report -- even though it showed there was some level of coordination happening -- the MRC began downplaying the events of Jan. 6 were an "insurrection," mostly by putting scare quotes around the word:
In his Sept. 25 column, Jeffrey Lord complained that the media was "suppressing footage that shows the actual events on the 'insurrection' story"; Lord did not back up his claim.
Catherine Salgado wrote in an Oct. 5 post that in a Senate hearing about Facebook, Sen. Amy Klobuchar "claimed that lack of censorship by Facebook during the 2020 election process facilitated the 'Jan. 6 insurrection' at the Capitol."
Kristine Marsh wrote in an Oct. 11 post about Hillary Clinton appearing on "The View" that "Co-host Sara Haines started out worrying that Trump’s attempts to 'delegitimize President Biden’s win,' caused the 'insurrection on January 6.'"
An Oct. 24 post by Marsh repeated the false narrative that parents who merely speak out at school board meetings are being portrayed "as radical rioters who were like the January 6 'insurrectionists.'"
Jay Maxson took his (or her) own approach in an Oct. 13 post featuring Donald Trump whining that a New York City borough is ending its management deal with the Trump Organization of a local golf course stated that one writer said "the golf course seizure stems from the events of the Jan. 6 'insurrection' at the U.S. Capitol." In fact, there is no "seizure"; the city owns the course and is seeking to end the management deal because the riots associated with the Trump name have tainted the course.
Maxson then declared that "The FBI has previously declared there was no insurrection in D.C. that day, but news filters slowly through the mayor’s office and Mediate." Maxson linked to a right-wing Washington Examiner summary of the Reuters article on the FBI, prefaced by a dictionary definition of "insurrection," which claims "an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence." Again, the FBI never used the word "insurrection" let alone specifically denied that's what happened on Jan. 6, and the FBI has shown that there was some level of organization happening.
But neither the Examiner nor Maxson define the prcecise level of coordination they're using to avoid calling Jan. 6 an "insurrection." It looks like right-wingers are playing games with language to downplay what happened.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Culture War Toy Box Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center melts down over Muppets (repeatedly), Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head and Legos for committing the offense of not not hating certain people enough. Read more >>
MRC Censors Inconvenient Details Of School Assault It Has Fearmongered About Topic: Media Research Center
We'vedocumented how the Media Research Center spent weeks hyping an alleged sexual assault by a student in a school in Loudoun County, Va., on another student for two reasons: to advance its anti-transgender agenda (since the alleged assaulter was described as "a boy in a skirt") and to help get a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, elected Virginia governor. But it turns out that the MRC has been effectively censoring the full truth about the alleged assault. Katelyn Burns wrote at MSNBC:
The Youngkin campaign has taken an incident at a Loudoun County school that involved a student sexually assaulting a classmate in a girl’s bathroom and twisted it into an effective campaign talking point. This, Youngkin and his supporters in right-wing media have trumpeted, is the mythical unicorn of the trans bathroom panic. The one case, they thought, that would finally help sway the public on the trans bathroom issue they’ve been unsuccessfully pushing since 2015.
But the facts of the case don’t match up with the trans stranger danger happening that they have painted it to be. The sexual assaulter didn’t lie secretly in wait for his victim to unknowingly enter the stall next to him. Instead the meetup was arranged beforehand. The attacker and victim had had sex in the same bathroom before. This time, however, the girl said no, and the boy didn’t stop. The crime is no less awful, and should be outright condemned. But it was not the attack facilitated by a trans-friendly bathroom policy as conservatives claimed it was.
Of the numerous articles the MRC has published referencing the assault, we could find only two that referenced the fact that the students previously had consenual sexual relations and that the incident in which the assault allegely occurred started out as consensual.
An Oct. 25 item by Nicholas Fondacaro complained that a Washington Post article on the case was "stealth-edited" to remove the claim that the assaulting student was "gender-fluid," further complaining that the article "seemed to hint that the girl wasn’t really a victim because “the 15-year-old victim in the first case testified she had consensual sexual encounters with the defendant on two occasions in a girls’ bathroom…” In fact, the edit reflects the reality of the case and that it's much more complicated than the "depraved transsexual" narrative Fondacaro and the MRC would like to impose on it for political reasons.
(Of course, Fondacaro didn't mention the MRC's own record of stealth-editing articles, making his complaint more than a tad hypocritical.)
THe only other instance was an Oct. 29 post by Clay Waters, who quoted the facts of the case as reported in a New York Times article in an attempt to accuse the Times of trying to "neutralize the story." Waters didn't comment on the part of the article he excerpted stating that "testified that she’d previously had two consensual sexual encounters with her attacker in the school bathroom. On the day of her assault, they’d agreed to meet up again…." but he was ultimately forced to admit that the incident happened months before the school board voted on "trans bathroom policies" -- which undermines a key attack line right-wingers have been using.
Still, Waters insisted on whining: "The Loudoun County school board’s shameful silence; the possibility the assault was hushed up to avoid the wrath of trans activists; the gross irresponsibility of allowing boys free access to girl’s safe spaces in the first place….all these points Goldberg studiously ignored in the name of chipping away at a story that may prove devastating to the election hopes of Terry McAuliffe." Waters didn't mention how he and his fellow right-wing activists were hyping the story in an attempt to boost the election hopes of Youngkin.
As Waters continued to huff about the Times calling the right-wing narrative abaout the assault a "big lie," he is certainly not going to concede that the MRC's near-complete refusal to tell its readers the full facts of the case is a lie by omission.
Censoring information that interferes with a political narrative is not exactly a hallmark of credible "media research," is it?
MRC's Weird Takes On Clinton Impeachment Miniseries Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center apparently wasn't too happy with FX's recent miniseries about President Clinton's impeachment and the events that led up to it -- perhaps because it was a little too evenhanded and called out people it didn't want called out. Kyle Drennen complained in a Sept. 7 post:
On Tuesday, NBC’s Today show promoted the upcoming FX series on Bill Clinton’s impeachment following his affair with Monica Lewinsky by painting one of his sexual harassment victims, the late Linda Tripp, as a “treacherous” villain who was guilty of “betrayal.” In addition, the broadcast featured a live exclusive interview with Lewinsky, who was a producer for the mini-series set to premiere that evening.
“Monica Lewinsky is back in the spotlight this morning with a highly anticipated new series premiering on FX tonight, Impeachment: American Crime Story,” co-host Savannah Guthrie announced as the segment began. Before talking to Lewinsky, a brief taped report ran reminding viewers of the scandal that swirled around President Clinton in 1998.
“An affair...And a betrayal,” Guthrie narrated as clips from the dramatized series played on screen with actress Beanie Feldstein depicting Lewinsky and actress Sarah Paulson depicting Tripp. Moments later, Guthrie made it clear the “betrayal” she referred to was an attack on Tripp, not Clinton:
[...]
During her lengthy chat with Lewinsky, Guthrie noted: “It’s not a documentary. It’s a dramatic series.” The anchor then eagerly asked: The host even chuckled as mentioned the insult of Tripp.
Chuckling as well, Lewinsky responded:“Yes....People will understand when they see the series why.”
The treatment of Tripp by Clinton defenders in the liberal media was similarly atrocious at the time.
Drennen concluded by huffing: "Even after two decades and the #MeToo movement, the media are still eager to blame others like Tripp – one of his victims – for the scandal that Clinton caused through his own sleazy behavior."
But Tripp did, in fact, betray Lewinsky. Tripp pretended to be her confidant regarding her affair with Clinton, then worked with book agent Lucianne Goldberg to expose the affair. Drennen doesn't even bother to argue that she wasn't, only desperately trying to reframe her somehow as a "victim" of Clinton.This desire to defend Tripp over Lewinsky (who, again, served as a producer on the miniseries so "the media" is not the one laying blame here) shows us that the anti-Clinton right cared nothing for Lewinsky as a person (and still don't), only as a tool to destroy Clinton by any means possible.
It took both Karen Townsend and Alexa Moutevelis to write an Oct. 6 post about a later episode in the miniseries because it "appeared to work in a hit against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh," who was working for independent counsel Kenneth Starr at the time:
Perhaps as a nod to liberal obsessions with sexual assault allegations at Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the script has Kavanaugh (Alan Starzinski) saying, “I never like to take 'no' for an answer...” It was an odd turn of phrase that stuck out like a sore thumb.
[...]
Were the writers hoping the audience thought of the smear campaign against Kavanaugh and the attempt made by liberals to paint him as a serial rapist by using that line?
[...]
That is a lame attempt to keep the false narrative alive that Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. The unproven allegations against Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings paled in comparison to those that were proven against Bill Clinton.
The MRC does know how to defend its ideological cronies.
It's Another Context-Related Fact-Check Fail for MRC's Graham Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center executive Tim Graham. it seems, justcan'tstopwhining about context -- namely that fact-checkers point out when right-wingers like him omit it in their false attacks on Democrats (while demanding that conservatives always be put in full context). He was at it again in his Sept. 22 column in which he once again complains that fact-checkers busted right-wing activists for taking President Biden out of context, then willfully promoted that lack of context:
Twitter makes it easy to realize that the purpose of “fact-checkers” is most commonly rushing to defend Joe Biden from misinterpretation...and mockery.
On September 20, Twitter warned “A video of President Biden discussing hurricane preparedness has been edited out of context, according to fact-checkers.”
Tweets aired this clip of Biden from August 10: "Let me be clear: If you're in a state where hurricanes often strike — like Florida or the Gulf Coast or into Texas — a vital part of preparing for hurricane season is to get vaccinated now.”
It’s easy to see his point: you might not want to be stuck in a shelter and unvaccinated. But it does sound a little funny that your “vital preparations” would be: board up the house, or batten down the hatches, and then get the shot. It sounds like “insert a plea for vaccination in every public statement.”
This message was later mocked with humor and sarcasm, and the protective “fact-checkers” are very sensitive about viral hot takes against Biden. Twitter cited “fact checks” from Snopes, and AP, and PolitiFact. Line them up!
[...]
They added “Biden’s remarks echo hurricane preparedness tips published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Twitter wants us to understand all the experts and facts inevitably line up for Biden.
It had an “all hands on deck” sound to it. Everyone leapt on defense. The defense was plausible, but the energy felt very personal.
Yet Graham offered no evidence that the "experts and facts" were wrong -- indeed, it appears that Biden did the responsible thing by relying on experts to make his statement. Graham didn't explain why this was somehow a bad thing.
Instead, Graham pretended the real issue is that right-wingers were fact-checked:" "It’s always interesting when the media complain that presidential statements and actions are edited to 'remove key portions.' They’ll pretend this never happens in media coverage of Republicans." Funny, we had no problem finding a fact-check finding that images of Donald Trump were misleading or photoshopped. It seems Graham wants to pretend that fact-checkers have it out for conservatives -- it feeds his and the MRC's victimhood narrative about fact-checking, after all.
Nevertheless, Graham continued to complain:
PolitiFact also jumped on the TikTok video: “The video takes Biden of context and misleadingly captions his remarks.” Just in the last year, Twitter has pounced on nine TikTok videos critical of Biden. On Election Day, they protested a Biden bumble: “Biden says he doesn’t need voters to get elected.” That’s the way words actually came out of his mouth – “I don’t need you to get me elected” – but they were upset it was mocked.
Their headline read “Video misrepresents Biden’s speech in Michigan.” No, the video shows it’s what came out of his mouth, but their energy was “You know what he meant!”
But Biden didn't say that. The PolitiFact fact-check pointed out that Biden actually said "I don’t only need you to get me elected, I need you once I’m elected," but that the word "only" was not enunciated clearly. Once again, context and the full facts are not Graham's friend.
MRC Hypocritically Attacks Candidiate For Deleting Tweets Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth wrote in an Oct. 4 post:
On Monday's New Day, frequent CNN and MSNBC guest-turned Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas, Matthew Dowd received more of a challenge from co-host Brianna Keilar than he usually gets on the liberal news network.
After spending the first few minutes cueing up Dowd to make his typical attacks on his home state's Republican leaders as he runs for lieutenant governor, Keilar then turned to question him on why he deleted about 270,000 tweets before launching his campaign, pressing him with several followups.
She also hit Dowd from the left by hinting that he was being hypocritical in running for office after he previously argued that white men should step aside and let minorities acquire more power.
By contrast, the MRC gave one of its favorite right-wingers a pass when he deletedold tweets prior to launching a politial campaign.
J.D. Vance is a venture capitalist who got attention in right-wing circles for writing a book called "Hillbilly Elegy," a memoir in which he largely blamed liberal welfare culture for creating a lack of work ethic among the poor Appialachian white culture he came from. The MRC cheered Vance' move further right touting, for example, his investment in the right-wing video platform Rumble (where, as it so happens, the MRC has a space). He even got to be a player in the MRC's bogus "big tech" victimhood narrative when Twitter briefly suspended the Twitter account for Vance's campaign for the Repuvblican nomination for a Ohio Senate seat.
Vance has been saying all the right things as far as the MRC is concerned. In July, Alexander Hall promoted how Vance "accused Google of 'conspiring' with China" and "suggested that the conservative movement needs to get out of its own way" and embrace using power. In August, Clay Waters defended Vance from a New York Times profile of him that pointed how Trumpy Vance has become.
But the MRC wants to bury the fact that Vance, like Dowd, deleted tweets befor declaring for political office -- in this case, tweets from 2016 that criticized Trump, whose supporters Vance is now trying to court for his Senate bid, and proclaimed that he would be voting for Evan McMullin instead. Vance even went on an apology tour of sorts, delcaring that "I regret being wrong" about Trump.
You'll read none of that at the MRC. Instead, the only reference to it is in passing in Waters' piece defending Vance, copying an excerpt from the Times article noting that Vance "has deleted inconvenient tweets" but calling no additional attention to it.
Selective, partisan-driven criticism is not "media research." The MRC has not figured that out yet.
A subgenre of the Media Research Center's "Mean Girls" act in gloating over Fox News' ratings while sneering at the lower ratings of other non-right-wing news channels is its love for Grag Gutfeld's recently launched, right-wing-hack-filled nighttime show on Fox News. Curtis Houck has been the early leader in Gutfeld sycophancy at the MRC, as he has been as the chief ratings Mean Girl, but right-wing film critic Christian Toto has decided he wants in on that sweet sycophancy action too.
Bari Weiss has been a cause celebre ever since she made a big public show of resigning as a New York Times columnist because of criticism of her work from outside and inside the paper -- though, as one observer 
Lydia Switzer does a lot of playing dumb in an Oct. 8 
The Media Research Center's Joseph Vazquez 
The Media Research Center 
The Media Research Center wants to be taken seriously as "media researchers," but any casual observer knows that its sloppiness, viciousness and m=immaturity makes that impossible. One example of that final attribute is the way it 
We've 
Mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson 
The Media Research Center is getting in line with its right-wing, pro-Trump contemporaries who want to downplay the events of Jan. 6. It's now in revisionism mode, insisting that it wasn't an "insurretion."
We've
The Media Research Center apparently wasn't too happy with FX's recent miniseries about President Clinton's impeachment and the events that led up to it -- perhaps because it was a little too evenhanded and called out people it didn't want called out. Kyle Drennen complained in a Sept. 7 
Media Research Center executive Tim Graham. it seems, 
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth wrote in an Oct. 4 
