MRC/NB's Bozell Comments on CNN's Misquoting National Review to Slam Gov. Palin

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Spreading the Word

On yesterday's Situation Room, CNN's Drew Griffin completely mischaracterized the nature of a "quote" from National Review's Byron York during his interview with Alaskan Republican Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Griffin said to Gov. Palin: "Governor, you've been mocked in the press, the press has been pretty hard on you, the Democrats have been pretty hard on you, but also some conservatives have been pretty hard on you as well. The National Review had a story saying that, you know, ‘I can't tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.'"

This is a complete distortion, a falsehood. The full quote from the National Review's Byron York shows he was in fact dressing down the media, NOT Gov. Palin. "Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it's sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or - or, well, all of the above."

MRC President and Newsbusters.org Publisher L. Brent Bozell, III issued the following statement in response:

"CNN ripped the National Review's Byron York's quote completely out of context and stood its meaning on its head, all so they could dishonestly bash Gov. Palin with it. This is the lowest form of sub-tabloid journalism. CNN's distortion simply proves York to be correct: the media are out to destroy Sarah Palin.

"York's quote, properly cited, assails the media for its horrible misrepresentations of Gov. Palin. And CNN reinforces his assessment of their tactics by misrepresenting what he wrote so they could again bash Gov. Palin.

"CNN clearly knows they did something wrong, as evidenced by their removing the question from their online video. But that's not enough. CNN should immediately correct the record, and apologize to Gov. Palin, Byron York and National Review and their viewers who were again subjected to their special form of journalistic malpractice."