MRC/NB News

Equal Time for Equal Minds

Last Thursday, on his unwatched and unwatchable MSNBC television program, Equine Ed Schultz stepped into his Leftist Wayback Machine for a little retro-censorship. With the intent of bringing it back to the future.

Having first called for a reimposition of the alleged "Fairness" Doctrine the week prior on his unlistened to and unlistenable radio show, Schultz took his censorious intentions to his tens of viewers on the tube. (He is doing all of this after making fun of us in 2008 for concerning ourselves with the Doctrine's return.)

Schultz made his latest call for "fairness" by citing the patently absurd 2007 "report" The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Which was co-published by the George Soros-funded Leftist "think" tanks Center for American Progress and (the Marxist-founded) Free Press.

We have in fact dismantled this "report"for its deep-seated and inherent fraudulence. It asserts that talk radio is too conservative - and that we need oppressive government regulations aplenty to remedy the situation.

However, it cooked the books from the outset - excluding uber-liberal National Public Radio (NPR) from their analysis pool and then drawing their fraudulent conclusion.

It was co-authored by the Hugo Chavez-loving, "white people" need to be forced to "step down" "so someone else can have power" asserting Mark Lloyd - who is now the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s first ever "Chief Diversity Officer." Just one of the many honest brokers involved in this wholly dishonest endeavor.

Embedded at right is NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's March 31 appearance on Sean Hannity's radio program. [audio MP3 for download here; click embed at right to listen to interview here]

Bozell debated Democratic strategist Bob Beckel about, among other things, charges of racism at the Tea Party rally held the day before the vote for final passage of ObamaCare:

BRENT BOZELL:  Three separate videos of [Rep.] John Lewis, three separate videos, and it isn't picked up. Andrew Breitbart has offered $10,000 to anyone who can confirm the use of the N-word. No one has come forward to say this. Only this one congressman has said this. Nobody's come forward [with evidence proving the charge].

Editor's Note: In a statement released today, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell denounced CNN for relying on bigoted anti-Catholic singer Sinead O'Connor as a credible source to discuss recent allegations brought against the Catholic Church in the cable network's repeated interviews with her. Those comments are posted below.

Sinead O’Connor is a despicable, hate-filled person who has no business being portrayed as a reasonable voice to discuss the Catholic Church that she has disgraced for the past twenty years.        

CNN’s decision to have her on as a credible source to bash and criticize the Pope and the Catholic Church is like having the KKK on to criticize President Obama, or Nazis on to criticize Jews.  It’s disgusting, unacceptable, and disgraceful.

When CNN decides to have legitimate, non-bigoted guests on, perhaps Americans will begin to trust them again as a viable news source.

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell appeared by phone on this morning's "Grandy & Andy Morning Show" program on Washington, D.C.'s WMAL (630 AM).

The whole chat lasted about seven minutes, with topics ranging from the media's bias against the Tea Party movement to liberals' affinity for resurrecting the free speech-abriding "Fairness Doctrine."

Here's the exchange on the latter (2:32 into the MP3 recording):

Two Useful Idiots and the Man Who's Using Them In light of our recent look at Venezuelan thug dictator Hugo Chavez and the FCC Diversity Czar Lloyds who love him, we now bring you this. 

The intrepid Steve Forbes took last Wednesday to FoxNews.com to analyze Chavez vis a vis a report by the Organization for the American States (OAS).  Forbes writes about:

(A) new and discouraging, but not unsurprising (OAS) report about the troubling anti-democratic trend in Venezuela, as Hugo Chavez continues to crack down on those who oppose him - be they in the judiciary, opposition parties or the media. The OAS's 300 page report by jurists and civil rights activists from Antigua, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the United States points out the increasing role that violence and murder have played in Chavez's consolidation of his power, including the documented killing of journalists.

Again, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd has praised Chavez for taking "very seriously the media in his country." Again we ask, is the above what Lloyd has in mind?

More from Forbes:

Is this what Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd meant when he said (on camera) Venezuelan thug dictator Hugo Chavez (take that, Sean Penn) had begun "to take very seriously the media in his country"- while praising Chavez's "incredible...democratic revolution?"

The Associated Press (AP) late Friday night reported "Chavez criticizes US as arrests stir concern."  Which plays down the lede in the headline, but gets right into it in the story itself.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday defended the arrest of a major TV channel owner, calling him a criminal and denying the government is carrying out an assault on press freedom.

The back-to-back arrests this week of two government opponents - including the owner of Venezuela's only remaining anti-Chavez TV channel - have drawn accusations that Chavez is growing increasingly intolerant and authoritarian as his popular support has slipped.

Opposition leaders and human rights groups condemned Thursday's arrest of Globovision's owner Guillermo Zuloaga, who was detained at an airport and released hours later after a judge issued an order barring him from leaving the country.

Zuloaga is accused of spreading false information and insulting the president at an Inter American Press Association meeting in Aruba last weekend, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said.

As the piece indicates, this is but the latest example of Chavez taking "very seriously the media in his country," in Lloyd parlance.  Which is woefully at odds with freedoms of speech and the press.  Which is fine with Lloyd, because so's he.

They Know Nuh-Think It was the 2008 Talkers magazine New Media Seminar - June 6 and 7 in New York City.  I was there to hob nob with the elite of talk radio. 

And Ed Schultz.

I was there also to curry support for our then latest effort to keep the radio airwaves free from tyrannical and censorious government regulation.  At that time it was against a return of the ridiculously mis-named "Fairness" Doctrine.  Given the talent pool in which I was swimming - those whose livelihoods would be destroyed by it's reinstatement - many were graciously willing to assist.

Not Ed Schultz.  

Word of my efforts made its way to him.  And he sought me out and approached me so as to ridicule us for fighting the good fight.  He rigidly insisted that no Democrat - no one in fact - was seeking a return of the Censorship Doctrine.

"Who talks to Nancy Pelosi more - you or me?" he angrily asked.  I replied "Have you talked to Nancy Pelosi - ever?"  Because if he had, once, ever, he had done so more than me.  (And more's the pity for him.)

He responded "Well I just spoke to her, and no one wants to see (the alleged "Fairness" Doctrine) brought back."

I tried to persuade him that there were plans in the works but he remained, as always, impervious to facts.

Rosie O'Donnell made two things clear yesterday: an article written by the Culture & Media Institute's Colleen Raezler got under her skin, and Rosie is clueless about NewsBusters. [Audio available here.]

Raezler penned a piece on O'Donnell's recent comments on the "QuiverFull" movement, in which the radio host called the movement "even scarier" because it is made up of conservative Christians. O'Donnell noticed the article, and had this to say on her March 18 XM "Rosie Radio" show:

There's a lot of posts about the QuiverFull movement. Remember ... I was saying how [girlfriend] Tracy loves the Duggars? ...This is this crazy woman, Colleen Razier [sic], some Christian something. [Rosie reads from the NewsBusters post.] Oh, God ... I just wanna say, Colleen, why don't you come on the show and chat with me face to face, little Colleen Razier [sic] from the NewsBusters evangelical Christian media blog [sic] ... Those people are weird.  

NewsBusters is evangelical Christian? Who knew?

Filling in for Mark Levin on his national radio talk show on Thursday, Houston radio host Michael Berry picked up on MRC’s recently-released “Media Bias 101” report detailing dozens of polls since 1981 showing journalists liberal attitudes and strongly pro-Democratic voting record. “I'm sitting on a great study done by the Media Research Center, Media Bias 101,” Berry enthused. “It's one of the best reports I've ever seen.” [audio excerpt here]

Berry was making the point that new media technologies such as Facebook lets citizens inform each other and mobilize to affect public policy without being dependent on a relatively few unrepresentative journalists: “The ability for people to communicate and to interact in the way that Facebook allows is an absolute game changer....People that can’t get hired at big newspapers or big TV stations [are now] changing public policy in profound ways.”

Here’s some of what Berry had to say near the beginning of the first hour of the March 4 Mark Levin Show (Levin was off that night getting ready for his Friday night speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.)

Stand-up comedian and Big Hollywood contributor Evan Sayet found some time to escape the Left Coast and visit CPAC last week and the Media Research Center studio today.

Sayet sat down to deliver some jokes for the next edition of the Notable Quotables (NQ) Show, which will be posted to NewsBusters later this week.

But beyond being a successful comedian, Sayet -- who calls himself a "9/13 Republican" -- has a very serious, thoughtful side as witnessed by a lecture he delivered at the Heritage Foundation in March 2007 wherein he drilled down to the heart of leftist thinking on Western civilization in general and America in particular.

Excerpted below is a key passage from that lecture (the full video via YouTube is also embedded below):

Surveys over the past 30 years have consistently found top journalists are much more liberal than the rest of America. At the same time, public opinion polls show Americans see the media as politically biased, inaccurate and an obstacle to solving society’s problems. The numbers document a credibility crisis for journalism that only a swift move towards professionalism and fairness can fix.

The MRC has now created a one-stop online resource, “Media Bias 101,” detailing more than 40 surveys revealing journalists’ liberal opinions and the public’s attitudes about bias. The report also contains page after page of quotes from top reporters discussing media bias — most denying the problem, but some admitting it.

Key findings:

Managing Editor's Note: Mr. Bozell released the following remarks this morning prior to his attendance this afternoon at the Mount Vernon Statement signing. The Statement encapsulates a vision of Constitutional Conservatism for the 21st century. You can add your name to the petition at the Statement's Web page here.

[UPDATE, 2/18: FNC's Carl Cameron reported on the signing on Wednesday's Special Report with Bret Baier. Video at Eyeblast.TV]

If there is a silver lining to the policies the Obama administration has tried to shove down the throats of Americans, it’s that more and more of them don’t want any part of it.

Conservatives are in an excellent position to make the case for Constitutional Conservatism. It’s only taken one year for Americans to see that nothing good comes from Big Government and radically liberal policies, especially at a time when our nation needs economic growth and family values.

The Mount Vernon Statement solidifies the conservative movement as vibrant and energized, ready to lead America into a renewed era of liberty and self government. Conservatives must reinstitute the great principles that defined us by our nation’s founders.  Conservatives must work to fight the radical agenda that threatens our jobs, our security, our values and our security.  And conservatives must do it together.

I don’t know when or where or even if Joe Scarborough’s radio show airs in my area, nor do I care. The other night a friend caught this clip from his radio show and sent it to me. It’s about a blog which is published by the organization I head.

"NewsBusters, which just loves writing negative articles about me, I don’t know why, a lot of really false ones and I don’t know what’s actually gotten into Brent Bozell, but he actually goes out of his way to write false articles about me now…They just distort the news for their own purposes."

Now I know why MSNBC hired Joe Scarborough. He’s about as accurate and honest as everyone else there.

False articles? Here’s something Joe knows, because he and I have had this conversation privately already: I’ve never written a bloody article about him. Ever.

As for conservative bloggers at NewsBusters writing false articles about him, that is equally untrue. Have they sometimes been negative? Guilty as charged – and for good reason. Increasingly he’s making statements that are stupid, or reckless, or provocative, or insulting, or a combination of all the above.

Anti-Catholic bigot and Obama faith-based initiative advisor Harry Knox must be fired, Media Research Center's Brent Bozell and numerous other conservative signatories demanded in an open letter to President Barack Obama.

Picking up on the story, "Hannity" substitute host Tucker Carlson had Bozell and fellow signatory American Papist blogger Thomas Peters on the Friday, February 5 show to discuss Knox's record of anti-Catholic rhetoric, including his refusal to apologize for saying that the Pope's opposition to condoms was "hurting people in the name of Jesus."

Said Bozell [audio available here]:

On February 2nd, NBC correspondent Pete Williams announced Breaking News during the 5 PM ET edition of Hardball: the Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Abdul Mutallab, was giving fresh, actionable information to the FBI which the United States was in turn "aggressively chasing down."

Less than an hour later, this NewsBuster blogged on the matter, wondering whether by leaking the news, "the Obama administration compromised national security," in an attempt to deflect the criticism it had been receiving for mirandizing Mutallab rather than treating him like the enemy combatant he is.

On today's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim Pinkerton gave a "hats off" to this NewsBuster for being first to raise the issue.

MRC president Brent Bozell offered a radio rebuttal on Thursday morning defending Rush Limbaugh against a nasty January 21 commentary on D.C. NPR station WAMU. Regular commentator and longtime WAMU host Fred Fiske denounced Rush's show as "Excrement in Broadcasting."

After I blogged about that outrage, our request for a rebuttal was granted, so Brent recorded one, and it was scheduled for today. [Click here for mp3 audio.]

Here's what Brent had to say:

Public radio listeners are told during pledge drives that stations like WAMU are a civil space for information. Since public radio isn’t driven by ratings, they don’t have to shout and be partisan and mean-spirited.

[Originally posted January 28; reposted Feb. 2, 2010. Visit TVTownhall.com to register]

At 8 p.m. Eastern next Tuesday, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell will unite with seven of the nation's top conservative organizations - collectively representing more than 15 million Americans - to hold their own State of the Union Address in a live webcast expected to draw one of the largest viewerships in webcast history.

The February 2 "Voice of the People" event -- to be hosted by Herman Cain at http://www.tvtownhall.com -- is designed to give the American people a chance to respond to the President's address and declare their views and concerns of where the country is headed.

"The President made it clear last night that he is not interested in the will of the people, who are sick and tired of being ignored by their elected officials and lied to by the ‘news' media," Bozell argued in a statement released today.

For more information, click here or read more after the page break:

Yesterday evening before the State of the Union address, CNSNews.com editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey sat down with NewsBusters Publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell for another edition of "MRC Live!", a live webcast taking questions from friends and fans of MRC and NewsBusters.

If you missed it, you're in luck.

We recorded the whole thing and uploaded it to EyeBlast.tv, our video sharing service, here. You can also view it in the embedded video at right by click the play button.

Tonight at 7 p.m. EST, MRC President Brent Bozell will answer questions from a live Web cast audience at live.mrc.org.

CNSNews.com editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey will read your questions to Mr. Bozell.

The link above should at or a few minutes before 7 p.m., and you can submit your question for Mr. Bozell in advance by emailing: MRCAction@mediaresearch.org.

A poll conducted last week by Public Policy Polling found that among 1,151 registered voters surveyed, Fox News Channel crushed the other networks in trust, with 49 percent of respondents saying they trusted FNC. That's 10 percentage points more than CNN, and 14 points more than MSNBC, the home of Obama-boosting or leftist personalities such as Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz.

Reacting to the news, Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell issued the following statement today:

The proof is in the pudding. Americans want balanced news, not liberal advocacy. Fox offered them ‘fair and balanced' journalism, and America has embraced them.

Yesterday, Media Research Center (MRC) President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell sat down in the MRC studio for a Skype interview with Breitbart.tv's "B-cast." [see video embed below the page break]

The topic: the latest MRC special report, "Omitting for Obama," which is a study of four stories --- Van Jones, Anita Dunn, ACORN, and ClimateGate -- "highlighted by the New Media in 2009 that were damaging to the Obama 'brand'" but were avoided like the plague by the old guard mainstream media.

 

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell called on the CBS television network to stay the course in planning to air a life-affirming Super Bowl commercial featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, who was pressured to abort him during her pregnancy, after a bout of opposition has arisen among left-wing activist groups:

Radical leftist groups like the National Organization for Women have the gall to claim that this life-affirming ad is "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." I have to wonder, what is so offensive about celebrating the decision of a mother to have her baby?

Bozell added that "CBS has the opportunity to make this a game-changer for network television," an "opportunity to show balance and fairness -- and simple decency" and "to stand against liberal liberal political censorship."

Three days ago, NewsBusters contributor Candance Moore wrote about pro-Obama letter-to-the-editor spammer "Ellie Light" who had duped some 40+ papers (the number stands at 68 now), into publishing nearly identical letters that praised the president. In each case, the writer claimed to hail from cities or towns served by the local newspaper's print circulation.

Today, Fox News Channel's "America's Newsroom" had Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell on for comment. 

Write-the-editor campaigns are a classic tactic of political campaigning, Bozell noted, saying he couldn't blame pro-Obama organizers for attempting it. The real problem is with sloppy newspapers that failed to verify the authenticity of the letter writer's identity and residence (audio available here). Said Bozell:

Brand new at MRC.org today: a new Special Report titled "Omitting for Obama: How the Old Media Deliberately Censored New Media Scoops in 2009."

A few weeks of digging into just how little the Old Media covered these stories -- and how they often tried to explain them away as distractions caused by Obama's enemies -- showed me that conservatives who are very well-versed in New Media scoops might fail to understand just how little these stories may not have penetrated into the news seen by less politically committed Americans who rely on "objective" Old Media.

The converse may also be true: that Old Media bosses assume that if they haven't covered a New Media story damaging to their liberal heroes, it hasn't really penetrated into the political culture in a way they cannot manipulate. 

Here's a quick summary of the report's findings: 

Don't forget to mark your calendars to join our MRC Live discussion with MRC founder and president Brent Bozell and CNSNews.com editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey this Wednesday, January 27 at 7:00 PM ET.

To participate, just go to http://live.mrc.org a few minutes before 7 PM on Wednesday. We hope you can join us for this informative session. Please mark this date on your calendar.

UPDATE (below the fold): Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity referenced the video from this post on his January 20th show.

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The Word of the Day is: Context.

First, as to the video at right.  Its context is the May 9, 2009 White House Correspondents Association Dinner.  At which White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel uttered the following:

"When you think about the First Amendment...you think it's highly overrated."

Emanuel said this to an unidentified entertainment reporter (I did not toil too strenuously to ascertain his identity).  But said scribe seemed a little bewildered by Emanuel's assertion, despite the obvious mirth in Rahm's face as he delivers the line - at the Correspondents' Dinner.  The irony appears to escape the man with the microphone.

But given how the Administration has gone on to handle all things First Amendment, perhaps this journalist is not humor-addled, but prescient.  Let us now place Emanuel's remark into the proper Administrative context. 

The controversy over Harry Reid's crack about Barack Obama's lack of a "Negro dialect" is apparently over, at least according to the broadcast networks. Although the story only broke Saturday afternoon, the last network news story aired Tuesday night on Nightline.

An MRC analysis found that from Saturday to Tuesday the networks ran a combined 37 items on Reid's "Negro" remark, including interviews and panel discussions. Broadcast opinions were heavily skewed in Reid's favor: 71% of interview guests, soundbites or quoted sources were supportive of the Democrat, vs. 29% who were critical of Reid.

It's an excellent case study in how the liberal media aid in Democratic scandal control. Over four days, the networks morphed the story from one of an embarrassing racial gaffe by the Senate's top Democrat into one about Republican over-reach in going after Reid, with some journalists even crediting the Senator with keen insight on race relations:

Fox News Channel and radio talk show host Glenn Beck has quickly risen to be one the most prominent targets of the Left.  Radio Talk King Rush Limbaugh is Liberal Enemy #1; there's a strong case to be made that Beck is now running second.

One of the myriad feeble way's the Left attempts to deal with Beck - or any conservative - is to dismiss him or her as a liar, without any facts to back up said claim and often in the face of overwhelming evidence provided by the conservative in question.

Beck is spending this week on his FNC show revisiting the copious reams of evidence he compiled over the course of the last year - as he laid waste to one liberal nostrum and public official (Czar, if you will) after another. 

And who did Beck choose to have bat lead off in his "Let's Hammer Home the Truth" week?

On this last day of 2009, a quick rundown of the Media Research Center's quote compilations and assessments, issued over the past couple of weeks, on the worst of the media during the year:

♦ From the MRC's News Analysis Division: “Best Notable Quotables of 2009: The 22nd Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting” (thread on NB) as determined in 16 categories (with dozens of videos) by a judging panel of 48 expert conservative media observers. Check the sidebar for links to Fox News segments about the worst quotes. Also, year-end NQ Video Show with MRC staff ridiculing the worst journalists. (Separate public/online ballot results; thread on NB with those winners)

♦ From MRC's Times Watch: “Top Ten Lowlights of the New York Times in 2009.” (Thread on NB)

♦ From MRC's Times Watch: “Quotes of Note 2009, the Worst NY Times Quotes of the Year.” (thread on NB)

♦ From MRC's Business & Media Institute: “Media's Top 10 Worst Economic Myths of 2009.” (thread on NB)

The Founder and President of the Media Research Center (MRC) and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell again appeared on the Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends to discuss some more of the very many examples of poor reporting culled from Year 2009. 

As we stated on Monday when Bozell first went on the air to discuss same, the MRC's year-end extravaganza - the Best of Notable Quotables - is filled to the brim with the ridiculous and sublime bias of the traditional media from the past annum. 

Bozell and his hosts again reviewed - and laughed vociferously at - a few select examples culled therefrom.

The video of said second discussion can be found at right.