MRC/NB News

"When the Tea Party came up, immediately the reports from [NBC Nightly News anchor] Brian Williams on down" were that "they were dangerous, that they were fanatics, that they were racist," but now that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is on the scene the media are hailing the movement as a liberal answer to the Tea Party with a message that's "resonating," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Wall Street Journal's James Freeman yesterday.

In truth the OWS movement is just a "bunch of spoiled punks" who "don't even know what they're for," Bozell quipped in the October 18 Opinion Journal Live interview [video embedded below page break]

Editor's Note: What follows is a statement NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell released this afternoon reacting to the findings of a Media Research Center study on the media's Solyndra coverage.

ABC, CBS and NBC are aiding and abetting in the cover-up of an outrageous scandal linked directly to Obama and his failed economic policies. Even the uber liberal New York Times could not ignore this outrage, spotlighting it on their front page this weekend. Yet these networks are intentionally minimizing coverage to avoid reporting the failure and scandal that resulted under Obama’s watch for the same stimulus package they hailed in 2009.

What further compounds the hypocrisy of ignoring this scandal is the excessive, glowing coverage these same networks are giving the Occupy Wall Street protests. While they gather to oppose "corporate greed," the media quietly dismiss the most outrageous scandal in years – and financed by their taxpaying dollars.

A seat on the MRC Board of Directors opened in 1991 and the late Bill Rusher was quick to recommend to me his friend Ambassador Leon J. Weil – “Lee” to his friends. On the appointed day, we met in New York City at the City Athletic Club where, he proudly announced, at age 64 he’d just finished a grueling round of squash, that being just another sport for the man who, he proudly told me, at age 54 had been named by Ronald Reagan to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports – along with some other guy called Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bragging? No, celebrating. He was enjoying life, and he was proud he could. This man with that crooked Clark-Gable mischievous smile and the Reaganesque winsome, innocent fascination with the world around him, this was a man you liked immediately. It took only a couple of minutes’ conversation to appreciate he was equally sharp as nails, and equally tough if need be. Lee agreed to join the MRC Board of Directors that day, and when the MRC spun off the Parents Television Council in 2001, he agreed to chair that newly-formed board as well. Lee led both groups until his passing on October 4 at age 84.

"It’s an outrage that federal money has been an enabler for NPR and PBS since 1967 in their efforts to undermine conservatives and Christians," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained in a statement released this morning that accompanies the release of a new Media Research Center (MRC) study detailing a comprehensive compilation of the 20 most memorable leftist excesses of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.

"In this current era of huge deficits, surely this is the most non-essential spending. The pattern of bias from PBS hosts and contributors is more than severe. Now is the time for Congress to finally put an end to it," the MRC founder argued.

Some of the 20 instances in the MRC’s report on NPR & PBS include:

In the weekly take-down of the liberal media on Fox News Channel's "Hannity" on Thursday, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell condemned efforts to "demonize the Tea Party, to marginalize the Tea Party, to suggest that the Tea Party's extremist" simply because GOP debate audiences voiced support for the death penalty. [Audio available here]

Following a clip of CNN's Jack Cafferty asking viewers to tell him whether or not Republican primary voters were "bloodthirsty," Bozell pointed out, "...the vast majority of Americans support the death penalty for convicted murderers and terrorists. That's the reality....Only CNN finds something radically strange about somebody expressing this support."

View video after the jump

Update: Click here to make your voice heard!

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell has issued a letter  to the heads of NBC, CBS, and ABC television networks calling on them to end their bias against GOP presidential hopefuls in their reporting and interviewing.

The MRC recently released an analysis of 53 weekday morning show interviews with either potential or declared Republican candidates from January 1 through September 15, and compared the results with our study of the same programs’ treatment of the Democratic candidates during the same time period from four years ago. The analysis revealed, among other things, that by a 5-to-1 margin, ABC, CBS and NBC morning show hosts employed an adversarial liberal agenda when questioning this year’s Republican candidates.

This latest proof of blatant bias has prompted a letter from Bozell to each of the network heads which reads in part:

"We counted, in the Republican debate [hosted by MSNBC at the Reagan Library], we counted 26 ideological questions.... Out 26 questions, how many do you think came with a left-wing ideological bent?" NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell asked Fox News host Sean Hannity on his eponymous program last night.

"Twenty-five out of 26" Bozell informed a stumped Hannity, referring to a study released Tuesday by Media Research Center (MRC) deputy research director Geoff Dickens.

"Now, that's perfectly fine if you're going to play devil's advocate... but that's not what these questions are," MRC founder Bozell added, noting that the media don't hit Obama from the right on policy questions in interviews.

For the full "Media Mash" segment, watch the video in the embed below or click here for MP3 audio.

"To the degree" that the jump in the poverty rate in the United States is being reported, it "is being reported as a problem for Obama" and "not a problem caused by Obama," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox Business Network's David Asman on the September 13 edition of "Nightly Scoreboard."

"His policies have nothing to do with the effect," in the minds of liberal journalists, the Media Research Center founder argued.

You can watch the full segment below the page break (video credit: MRCTV.org video producer Bob Parks):

"If Rush Limbaugh or you on your radio show said we have to take out Obama, you know darn well that tomorrow morning every editorial in America would be accusing you of inciting violence," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell said to Fox News host Sean Hannity last night. Yet when  James Hoffa said the same thing about Tea Party conservatives, liberal journalists at MSNBC actually defended the Teamsters president.

"MSNBC is aiding and abetting on this character assassination campaign against some very good people," the Media Research Center founder argued on the September 7 "Media Mash" segment.

For the full segment's video, watch the embed below or listen to the MP3 audio here.

Tim Graham, the Media Research Center's Director of Media Analysis, appeared on the Fox Business Channel, Monday, to discuss the media's hyperbolic coverage of "Hurricane" Irene.
   
Graham asserted, "Well, I don't think there's any doubt that the media are interested in trying to cover this 24/7 and it's a little hard to sell it as tropical storm coverage for hours and hours." Speaking of Al Sharpton's political hyping of the storm, Graham quipped, "He is not a meteorologist."

[See video below.]

Attacks on Republicans like Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Sarah Palin that compare them to the Three Stooges are just a sign that the liberal media is getting worried that their champion Barack Obama stands a good shot of losing next year's election. What's more, any Republican who gets attacked as an intellectual lightweight should "wear it as a badge of honor."

That's what NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued during the "Media Mash" segment on the August 25 "Hannity," after watching a clip of CNN's Jack Cafferty dismissing not just Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin but also their supporters, whom he said were "allergic to brains."

Watch the full "Media Mash" segment embedded below or listen to the MP3 audio here.

Editor's Note: What follows is a statement Mr. Bozell released earlier today regarding the FCC's decision yesterday to remove the so-called Fairness Doctrine from the regulation books.

The FCC deserves a one-handed round of applause for this move. Years ago, striking the Censorship Doctrine – and that's exactly what the Fairness Doctrine was – would have actually meant something.

But since the FCC started playing with policies of ‘localism,’ ‘media diversity’ and a nebulous requirement to ‘serve the public interest,’ with yet another unelected and unconfirmed "Diversity Czar" to implement these proposed regulations, the spirit of the Censorship Doctrine has remained very much alive. The path to censor radio airwaves is being paved through the back door.

George Soros is arguably the most influential liberal financier in the United States, donating more than $8 billion just to his Open Society Foundations. In 2004, he spent more than $27 million to defeat President George W. Bush and has given away millions more since to promote the left-wing agenda. But what goes almost without notice is Soros' extensive influence on and involvement with the media.

Since 2003, Soros has donated more than $52 million to all kinds of media outlets - liberal news organizations, investigative reporting and even smaller blogs. He has also been involved in funding the infrastructure of supposedly "neutral" news, from education to even the industry ombudsman association. Many other operations Soros supports also have a media component to what they do.

"I don't know what's worse," Tina Brown's selection of the wild-eyed Michele Bachmann cover photo for Newsweek or her "bold-faced lie" defending the choice, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on his program last night.

"There's not a person in the face of this Earth that looks at that picture and says, 'she looks more presidential,' which is what Tina Brown" insisted on the August 10 edition of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

[video follows page break; MP3 audio is available here]

John Kerry is on a crusade to destroy the Tea Party. To blame the Tea Party for the S&P downgrade is like blaming the Betty Ford Clinic for alcoholism. The entire existence of the Tea Party movement has been based on an attempt to stop the runaway spending of Washington – by the likes of John Kerry. Any media outlet that features his outrageous blame game remarks without challenging his serial dishonesty is giving aid and comfort to the crusade to vilify and extinguish conservative thought.

If this is the ‘Tea Party downgrade’ then I’m the fairy godmother. No, this is a well-coordinated effort by the left-wing to deflect bad news – very bad news – away from their very left-wing President Obama.

"During the Clinton years, there was great discipline in the Democratic ranks where they could all speak on-message. There continues to be the same great discipline in liberal ranks, but they've just torqued it up ten degrees now," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News viewers on the August 4 "Hannity."

The Media Research Center founder made that argument after host Sean Hannity played a montage of liberal media reporters and pundits compared Tea Party conservatives in the House of Representatives to suicide bombers for their principled stand on the debt ceiling debate.

"I think this is going to backfire big-time on them," Bozell concluded.

Hannity and Bozell also discussed Chris Matthews arguing that Republicans hate Obama and want to kill him, "politically," that is.

For the full segment's video, watch the embedded video that appears below the page break or click here for MP3 audio.

The media’s unwillingness to release all the facts concerning the debt ceiling debate is nothing short of censorship. In their enthusiasm as cheerleaders for this President, the media are deliberately hiding and distorting the truth to further their own ideologically driven, leftist agenda.

These so-called 'news' outlets are ignoring the voice of the American people.

It is a tragedy that we even have to demand this: Tell the truth, the whole truth. Report the news.

Editor's Note: For the full press release, click here. Click here for the MRCAction.org petition to stand up to the media's distortion of the national debt issue.

Andy Barr is just the latest political reporter to go through the revolving door into the realm of partisan politics.

Oddly enough Barr is leaving the inside-the-Beltway tabloid Politico just as a former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) staffer is joining the paper.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell discussed the MSM-Democratic politics nexus in an interview on "Fox & Friends" on Friday.

You can watch the full segment in a video embedded below the page break:

"You know, in Journalism 101, if you're going to ask a question of someone like the president, what you do is, you take, respectfully, you take the opposition's best argument and you play devil's advocate," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued on the July 14 edition of "Hannity."

But instead of taking that approach -- which, Bozell noted, the famous liberal reporter Sam Donaldson took both with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton -- the media have been actively working with Obama to forward the Democratic narrative regarding the debt ceiling negotiations.

[Video follows page break]

While the media have been using fact-checker PolitiFact to bash Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for her gaffes and misstatements of fact, the MSM have been silent about the same organization counting 39 "barely true" statements from Barack Obama and 49 that were outright "false."

"In 29 months, you know how many network stories have been done on Barack Obama and his falsehoods?" NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell asked Fox News host Sean Hannity on the June 29 "Hannity."

Just one, Bozell noted, from the ABC network.

[see the "Media Mash" segment in the video embedded below]

As much as liberals might complain the Anthony Weiner scandal was some sort of feeding frenzy, the networks did not attack it, especially the evening news. They seemed to agree with just-departed CBS anchor Katie Couric, who asked on Twitter: “I’m curious if anybody thinks this Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal is a legit news story or just fodder for late-night comedians.”

That’s not the way the networks acted in the fall of 2006, when the MRC demonstrated a real feeding frenzy in the case of Republican Rep. Mark Foley, who quickly resigned after ABC’s Brian Ross reported he’d sent lewd AOL instant messages to former congressional pages. In the first 12 days of that story, the networks “flooded the zone” with 152 stories (55 evening stories and 97 morning stories or segments).

By contrast, Democrat Weiner’s weeks of trying to avoid resignation didn’t draw a similar flood. In the first 12 days of the Weiner scandal (from May 29 through June 9), the networks filed only 56 stories (just 11 in the evening, 45 in the morning).

In Tuesday night’s “Grapevine” segment, the Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier picked up on an observation about the NBC Nightly News detailed in a Tuesday morning NewsBusters post: “NBC News Twists Its Network’s Pledge Censorship Into Slam at Rick Perry’s Intolerance.”

Baier informed viewers of how, in NBC’s look at the reaction to the NBC Sports “omission of ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance during the U.S. Open golf coverage,” reporter Mike Taibbi “went on to reference the Obama impersonator who was pulled off stage early” during a GOP event “and Jon Stewart’s appearance on Fox News Sunday.” With the quoted words on screen credited to NewsBusters, Baier noted:

One conservative media watchdog said NBC was, quote: “Trying to submerge its own network’s ‘under God’ censorship into a greater narrative.”

NBC has unquestionably committed an act of religious bigotry designed to offend Christians. Removing ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance in a piece they aired yesterday during the U.S. Open – not once, but twice – was absolutely not accidental.

It was brazenly deliberate.

MRC Director of Media Analysis and NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham appeared on the June 10 edition of FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor to document the broadcast networks’ double-standard on congressional sleaze stories. When the story first broke, ABC, CBS and NBC refused to cover the Weiner “sexting” scandal, and their overall weekday evening news coverage had amounted to less than a dozen stories as of last Friday.

But back in 2006, Graham noted, the networks pounced right away on the similarly sleazy actions of a congressional Republican, Mark Foley, which were a focus of five times as many evening news stories (55) in the first 12 days, even though Foley had quit Congress almost immediately.

(Video and a partial transcript below the fold)

An hour before the disastrous June jobs report was released yesterday morning, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell chatted with "Fox & Friends" anchor Brian Kilmeade about the media's spin job on the Obama economy.

[See video of the segment embedded below the page break]

Sarah Palin is "running against the press, mocking them," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued on the June 2 edition of "Hannity," pointing to the media's consternation over the former Alaska governor's bus tour.

"She's having a field day running against them" and "knows exactly what she's doing," the Media Research Center founder added, pointing to polls showing Americans largely distrust liberal media outlets like the broadcast networks.

On Saturday night (May 28) C-SPAN twice ran the Media Research Center’s “DisHonors Awards,” and presentation of the “William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence,” which took place May 7 at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

Before each airing, C-SPAN’s announcer warned: “This event contains language and comments that some viewers may find offensive.” I’d call that a good reason to watch.

C-SPAN’s “DisHonors Awards Ceremony” page now has video you can watch which matches what the network carried. It lasts one hour and forty minutes.

If the media are so worried about Medicare cuts, "why don't [they] look at ObamaCare, which takes it away?" NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell asked on the May 27 "Fox & Friends."

Instead, the media have been busy furthering Democratic talking points about the Republican-proposed budget plan by Paul Ryan.

[Watch the full video below the page break]

Liberal radio host Ed Schultz's May 23rd attack on conservative talker Laura Ingraham as a "slut" was "reprehensible" and "could not have been more vile," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told viewers of the May 26 "Hannity."

That said, Bozell added, he should be commended for owning up to his transgression and offering a "man's apology" Wednesday night on his MSNBC "Ed Show" program.

Fareed Zakaria has privately advised President Barack Obama on foreign policy. So it's no surprise the CNN anchor approved of the president's foreign policy speech yesterday.

Unfortunately, however, he never informed his viewers of his private consultations with Obama.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell discussed Zakaria's cozy arrangement with the White House on the May 19 "Hannity" program's "Media Mash"

[See video of the segment below the page break]