Brent Bozell's blog

The broadcast networks stubbornly pushed ahead, logging another 24 hours -- now we're at four straight days --  ignoring the Catholic lawsuits against the Obama administration. And once again on Thursday night, instead of covering this historic lawsuit championing religious freedom,  the CBS Evening News offered another two and a half minutes to a “massive coverup” of Catholic sex abuse in Philadelphia. That’s five minutes on Catholic abuse charges to 19 seconds on Catholic religious freedom. ABC and NBC are still silent, completely silent.

Taxpayer-funded NPR, which has ignored Catholic religious freedom on its morning and evening newscasts all week, covered the Philadelphia trial for four and a half minutes on the show they call “All Things Considered.” The only Catholic news story worthy of consideration for these outlets seem to be dated stories on what CBS calls “predator priests.”

You’d think the largest legal action in American history in defense of religious liberty would be a major news story. But ABC, CBS, and NBC don’t judge news events by their inherent importance as relates to the future of our freedoms. They deliver the news according to a simple formula: Does it, or doesn’t it, advance the re-election of Barack Obama?

If it doesn’t, it isn’t news. 

The evening news broadcasts all but spiked the largest legal action in history to defend our constitutionally protected religious freedom. The May 21 editions of ABC’s World News and NBC’s Nightly News refused to report the fact that 43 Catholic dioceses and organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Obama administration. CBS Evening News gave this historic news a mere 19 seconds of air time.

This is the worst bias by omission I have seen in the quarter century history of the Media Research Center. Every American knows about the Chinese communists withholding for 20 years the news that the US had landed on the moon, because it reflected poorly on the government. Our US media today are no different. They are now withholding news from the American people if it is harmful to the re-election of Barack Obama.

Howard Stern has not been missed since he took his smutty schtick off the airwaves and onto unregulated Sirius satellite radio. His superfans – the brainiacs still playing their VHS tapes of a Stern show called “Butt Bongo Fiesta” – have made the satellite radio chiefs happy, but Stern has almost vanished as an “icon” of pop culture. He even scaled back his radio schedule to three days a week, semi-retiring.

So why in blazes would NBC make the decision to revive his career by bringing him on as a judge of their summer talent show “America’s Got Talent,” a family show watched by millions of children? They knew exactly what they were buying. They just never stop believing that shock will sell.

When it comes to opposition research, there is often only one difference between a candidate’s vicious negative ad and an “investigative” news report: the undeserved patina of media “objectivity” and respectability.

Take the Washington Post’s Jason Horowitz 5,400-word “expose” on how Mitt Romney may have pinned a boy down and cut his hair, in 1965. 1965. That’s almost a half-century ago. Even if every detail were accurate – and they weren’t – a journalist could pull a muscle in the hyper-aggressive attempt to make it somehow relevant to the present moment, or even the recent past.

So Barack Obama declared he’s all for “gay marriage.” Really, was anyone surprised? Did anyone doubt it? Still, it’s official, and Obama is now the rental property of Hollywood. Obama’s doing all sorts of fundraisers with Hollywood and Manhattan millionaires and billionaires to get re-elected, the latest at George Clooney’s mansion. One of every six of his “bundlers” is openly homosexual.

At the start of this drama, Vice President Biden openly declared (accidentally or not) he was entirely comfortable with men marrying men and women marrying women, and credited Hollywood. “When things really began to change is when the social culture changes,” Biden syntax-garbled on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Today NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell applauded Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) for calling for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB) to be permanently defunded of taxpayer subsidies.

Said Bozell in a statement released today:

The New York Times really loathes Rupert Murdoch. The Gray Lady almost achieved Nirvana on the front page the other day when a group of Laborites in the British Parliament asserted in a “damning report” that Murdoch was “not fit” for major media ownership. Bill Keller, recently the paper’s Executive Editor, devoted his latest column to Fox News with the headline “Murdoch’s Pride Is America’s Poison.”

The man who edited the New York Times is blunt: “I would argue that — at least for Americans — Fox News is Murdoch’s most toxic legacy.” If that’s not ridiculous enough, try this: he claims the problem is not that Fox is conservative, but because...wait for it...Fox pretends to be objective instead of openly admitting it’s partisan. Unlike, say, The New York Times.

The new frontier just keeps arriving. New York magazine reports NBC programming chief Robert Greenblatt has given the go-ahead for a new sitcom called “The New Normal.” NBC’s new normal is about two gay men who start a family using a surrogate. Greenblatt is apparently so enamored with the concept that he’s strongly considering having the 20th Century Fox TV–produced sitcom launch by August, following NBC's broadcast of the Summer Olympics.

The show comes from Ryan Murphy, the gay creator of “Glee,” “American Horror Story,” and “Nip/Tuck.” This is only part of a growing Comcast/NBC Universal campaign promoting homosexuality.

Another head has rolled behind NBC’s iron curtain as the troubled, so-called "news" network continues to drop the guillotine on those responsible for the deliberately misleading edits to Zimmerman’s 9-1-1 call.

NBC has now fired three people from two different offices over at least two different edits of George Zimmerman’s now infamous 9-1-1 call prior to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Both edits were clearly designed to portray Zimmerman as a racist while raising tensions in an already volatile situation.  This latest firing from NBC once again goes unexplained.  NBC’s actions vindicate the Media Research Center’s original point that NBC's two-sentence (non)apology was an insult, and that this is a network out of control.

The general-election campaign for president is not yet under way, but clearly some in media have entered the Utterly Ridiculous Zone. On CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” host Howard Kurtz hailed an “eye-opener: the candidate with the best coverage during the presidential primaries was Mitt Romney. And the worst? Barack Obama.”

That’s not eye-opening. It’s a declaration that you’re blind. And deaf. And your olfactory glands are shot to pieces. When something smells as bad as this, odds are it’s rotten.

It was a very special disco-themed episode of “Glee” on Fox the other night. A new character named Wade from a different high school shared that he was born in the wrong body. He was black, but he said he felt he was born white, and decided to go out on stage at Regionals painted over as a white man. Everyone adored and applauded him as he sang “Boogie Shoes” looking just like the lead singer of K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

If you actually watch “Glee” or just know Hollywood liberals, you know I’m kidding. Of course, he wasn’t a white kid trapped in a black body. Wade was an unfortunate boy “trapped” in a male body. It was Transgender Is Cool night. Everyone must adore and applaud. A new wall is down.

Once upon a time, it meant something for a reporter to be called a “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.” The prestige of this designation is quickly eroding. The 2012 Pulitzer Prizes looked lesslike an excellence-in-media competition and more like an exercise in leftist self-affirmation. No prize established this more strongly than the coveted National Reporting prize going to...The Huffington Post.

The Pulitzer judges who would rather swallow rat poison than give an award to a conservative outlet like The Washington Times are bestowing kudos on a site that thrives on celebrity dreck like “Miley Shows Off Legs in Lacy Shorts” and “Kim Wears Kanye’s Initials on Her Ears.”

Ten years ago, perky actress Jennifer Love Hewitt tried to jump-start a music career with a song titled “Bare Naked.” Now she’s trying that attention-grabbing tactic again with a sleazy new Lifetime series called “The Client List.”  She plays a massage therapist who turns tricks.

That network has adopted a new slogan: “This is not your mother’s Lifetime.” That’s appropriate for a new drama with a single-mother whore at its sympathetic center. We learn she was forced into being a sex worker when her husband mysteriously left her – you know, the way of the world for single moms.

Editor's Note: Today NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell publicly dared The Daily Show host Jon Stewart to desecrate either the Koran or the Torah on national television in the same manner he offended millions of American Christians by portraying the Nativity as an accessory for female genitals. Bozell makes the challenge well aware that Stewart’s brand of "comedy" applies only to liberal-approved anti-Christian bigotry [screen capture of that image follows page break; viewer discretion advised]:

Come on, Jon. We dare you to prove you are an equal opportunity bigot. Your grotesque stunt displaying a Nativity scene in a vulgar manner to take a jab at Fox News is but the latest in a long line of unacceptable behavior and hypocrisy when it comes to the media’s treatment of traditional Christianity. Doing something similar with the Koran or the Torah is equally offensive. Since you’re so brave to offend Christians, are you equally brave to offend Muslims and Jews? We dare you.

Republican strategists should generally be wary of campaign advice from liberals – and when it’s from the media, generally becomes definitely. Washington Post political writer Chris Cillizza recently suggested Mitt Romney’s general-election strategy should start with getting a “positive first introduction” to voters through the liberal media because “only the national media can provide that megaphone and serve as a sort of validator for him.”

How hard did he laugh after he wrote that?

The poobahs of our popular culture never seem happy unless they’re taking entertainment down to the “next level” of deviancy. When they undertake remakes of Hollywood classics – especially the comedies – that’s when you see how far we’ve fallen.

The forthcoming modern-day adaptation of “The Three Stooges” isn’t going to be a celebration of that iconic family comedy. The trailer features Moe poking the eyes of “Snooki” Polizzi of the uber-sleazy MTV show “Jersey Shore.” But that’s nothing compared to the real absurdity of 19-year-old Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kate Upton playing a nun at the orphanage where the Stooges grew up.

The news is stuffed with “studies” in which “experts” tell us how we should behave. One recently found that conservatives have lost their trust in science over the last 40 years. That’s probably because the very political academics of “Science” are routinely summoned to prove the right-wingers are not only wrong, but dangerously wrong, andnot just dangerously wrong, but evil, too.

These “studies” are laughable. First, there was the study purporting to prove that conservatism appeals to low-intelligence racists “who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world.” Then there was the “scientific” study that parents should be allowed to kill their newborn babies because they were “morally irrelevant."

MTV is now trying to lure young viewers with a saucy sex show in the “advice” category. They didn’t reach for Dr. Drew or God forbid, Dr. Ruth, or an actual doctor of anything. They turned to filthy sex columnist and gay activist Dan Savage.

The new show is called “Savage U,” and it documents Savage touring college campuses to offer snarky/smutty advice to college students. This is MTV’s libertine ideology pitched right at children, and Savage is blunt about how he’ll be going around the parents.

Editor's Note: Last week, NBC’s Today show doctored George Zimmerman’s 9-1-1 call so that his motive for shooting Trayvon Martin appeared racial. Over the weekend, NBC reported to The Washington Post that an investigation would be forthcoming after the Media Research Center (MRC) exposed their fraud. It appears NBC’s investigation has been completed.

Last night, NBC issued a two sentence explanation on it. NewsBusters publisher and MRC president Brent Bozell argues that the network's "apology" is as dishonest as the original piece and that Comcast, which owns NBC and MSNBC, needs to clean house at the network:

We reject this fraudulent apology. We're not surprised. After all, NBC "investigated" itself. We again call on Comcast, not NBC, to investigate this matter -- thoroughly, honestly, and professionally.

Anyone who clicks around on the website of National Public Radio is often bombarded with ads for MSNBC, since naturally if you love one hard-left network, you’ll love the other. But the promotion isn’t just in advertisements. 

Yes, conservatives: You’re being forced to underwrite with your tax dollars what you’re about to read; and yes, you’re not going to like it.

It's more than a little shocking when someone makes a movie that deals harshly with abortion. This is Hollywood after all. Abortion is a feminist sacrament. The movie "October Baby" just debuted on 390 screens and registered in eighth place for the weekend, with an estimated $1.7 million gross.

"October Baby" is a drama loosely based on the real-life story of Gianna Jessen, born with cerebral palsy after she survived a failed abortion procedure and now a celebrated pro-life speaker. In the film, the lead character, Hannah, discovers her adoptive parents hid from her that she was never meant to be born.

What if the atheists declared they were about to throw “the largest atheist event in world history” on a Saturday in Washington and few people showed up? “Reason Rally” organizer David Silverman estimated that "99 percent of all atheists are closeted.” The closet must still be full, because they sure weren’t in Washington.

The Washington Post story on Sunday guessed there were “several thousand” people in the intermittent rain. But Paul Fidalgo of the Center for Inquiry told the Post "We have the  numbers to be taken seriously…We're not just a tiny fringe group."

In 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) effectively nationalized the movie industry’s rating system to guide parents and the wider public about the content of films before purchasing tickets. A year doesn’t go by since then that the Beautiful People don’t throw their artistic temper tantrums when they receive a harsher rating than they want.

The latest example is a documentary named “Bully,” which investigates the lives of five bullied students during the 2009-2010 school year in five states – Georgia, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas, and Oklahoma. Two of the five committed suicide. The filmmaker is basing his whole publicity campaign on shock and outrage for receiving an “R” rating for six uses of the F-bomb, as well as other vulgar threats.

A few nights back, Mark Levin made a powerful point on his radio show: Fox News boss Roger Ailes is a well-known and infamous name in media circles, like some sort of cable-news Voldemort or Darth Vader. Meanwhile, MSNBC boss – quick, can you name him? – Phil Griffin is unknown and not the least bit controversial even after hiring, as Mark unforgettably put it, a “conga line of morons.”

NBC News used to be the channel for sober, boring Huntley-Brinkley journalism. Liberal, to be sure. But serious.  It wasn’t always objective, but it had a reputation for professionalism. Think Tim Russert. But in today’s era, Brian Williams going on saucer-eyed burger runs with President Obama is a refreshing improvement over MSNBC’s lineup, chock-full of vicious, uncivil, shamelessly partisan left-wing hacks.

Editor's Note: What follows is a letter sent by Mr. Bozell to Comcast Chairman Brian L. Roberts earlier today.

Dear Mr. Roberts,

By now, you are well aware of the Media Research Center’s (MRC) concerns with MSNBC.  Last week, I wrote letters to both you and Mr. Griffin asking for Ed Schultz’s termination because of highly controversial and deplorable comments he routinely makes about women and conservatives. Yesterday, I posted an open letter to Mr. Griffin about equally controversial and appalling comments made by Al Sharpton; comments that are blatantly racist and xenophobic, and which in one instance led to the death of an innocent bystander.

Because of these well documented instances of unacceptable comments made by both Sharpton and Schultz, I have called for their termination.  I have also called for Mr. Griffin to resign as president of MSNBC.  In my March 15 letter I called on you to clean house at MSNBC.

Editor's Note: What follows is a letter that NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell sent to MSNBC President Phil Griffin early today.

Dear Mr. Griffin,

Last week, in my open letter to you I called for Ed Schultz’s termination.  I also called for you to resign as President of MSNBC because you hired Ed Schultz.  Today, I have yet another reason you should step down - one which some might argue is even more compelling than Schultz. His name is Al Sharpton.

You know it’s election season when Republican candidates get angry phone calls from liberal musicians telling them not to use their old music (like Survivor whacking Newt Gingrich for using “Eye of the Tiger” from 1982). Meanwhile, Democrats are handed new anthems on a silver platter written with their re-elections in mind.

Bruce Springsteen’s new album has been hailed as a soundtrack for Obama’s re-election, especially the song “We Take Care of Our Own” (“wherever this flag’s flown”). Springsteen is lauded for going on “a tear to raze Wall Street and raise Main Street.” This is where author Jason Mattera comes in to laugh and point with the facts in his new book “Hollywood Hypocrites.”

Last night, Bill O’Reilly had some very nice things to say about the Media Research Center and for that I’m grateful.  But he made a major criticism of this organization, and rather than have me on to respond to it, he brought on two other guests to discuss it. So I’ll respond here.

Bill O’Reilly is wrong.

Dear Mr. Roberts,

As the chairman of Comcast, you have a responsibility to your shareholders and the public to produce programs which follow a basic standard of civility.

Unfortunately, MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz regularly doles out hate-filled, venomous rhetoric which has reached a boiling point. MSNBC should not give Mr. Schultz a platform to spew such hate.