Brent Bozell

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.

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

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 reviewed - and laughed vociferously - at a few select examples culled therefrom.

The video of said discussion can be found at right.

And be forewarned - ABC's Bill Weir is the Seagull Whisperer.

 

Yesterday, Media Research Center (MRC) President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell sat down with Breitbart.tv's Liz Stephans and Scott Baker to go over the MRC's Notable Quotables of 2009.

The Notable Quotables are the most outrageous biased and/or hilarious quotes of the year from the liberal media. 

Following the interview (around time stamp 23:35), Baker and Stephans also aired for their viewers the end-of-year NQ comedy show on their program.

Yesterday in a speech for the Media Access Project, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd claimed to refute numerous what he called “exaggerations and distortions” of a wide range of his thoughts, positions and policy prescriptions from what he called a “right-wing smear campaign.”  What Lloyd did was offer numerous falsehoods and denials about things that are undeniably true. 

For example, Lloyd has insisted that a "right-wing smear campaign" was "distorting [his] views about the First Amendment" when in fact, in his 2006 book "Prologue to a Farce," Lloyd plainly made clear his view that the freedoms of speech and press were "all too often an exaggeration" and that "the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."

In response to Lloyd's lies, Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell released a statement today [click here for the full press release]:

Perhaps there is something obstructing the view overlooking Rockefeller Plaza, where MSNBC broadcasts "Countdown" nightly because the show's host, Keith Olbermann fails to see the existence of a news media with a liberal bias.

On MSNBC's Dec. 14 broadcast of "Countdown," Olbermann came to the defense of NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" executive producer and noted left-winger Dick Wolf. The Dec. 9 episode of Wolf's program featured a killer who targeted the children of illegal immigrants and in that episode, one of the characters, played by John Larroquette, blamed conservatives "like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck" for inciting violence against immigrants. That prompted O'Reilly on Dec. 10, the next broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," to fire back at Wolf.

And that led Olbermann to respond to O'Reilly, five days later, which deteriorated into Olbermann making the seemingly laughable assertion there is no such thing as the liberal media. Olbermann began his tirade by attacking Andrew Breitbart, who is launching a Web site called "Big Journalism," which will take on "the Democratic-media complex."

To coincide with the many changes at ABC News that begin today with George Stephanopoulos accepting the offer to replace Diane Sawyer as co-host of Good Morning America, NewsBusters's parent organization the Media Research Center (MRC) has unveiled their freshly updated Profiles in Bias of both left wing icons, as Sawyer will step into the World News anchor shoes of Charles Gibson later this month.

These profiles document the 12 years that Stephanopoulos has dedicated to left wing advocacy and more than 10 years Sawyer has delivered on-camera at ABC. From lavishing praise to liberals like Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons and President Obama to undermining conservatives and pushing their personal policy agendas, both anchors have provided endless of examples to cite. These Profiles in Bias also include more than a dozen videos of on-camera lowlights.

"This is nothing more than a pathetic game of lefty musical chairs," MRC President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell scoffed. "The All Barack Channel has managed to keep all their liberal blood in the family, rotating anchor chairs and ensuring the same left-wing cheerleading and conservative bashing will continue in their network morning and evening hours for years to come."

"Well, NBC, ABC and CBS finally got around to reporting on ClimateGate" but it "wasn’t worth the wait," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell said in a statement today. [Click here for the full press release]

"NBC and ABC’s reports were so biased, they left their audiences as ill-informed afterwards as they were before.  And CBS came about as close to blacking out their own coverage as possible," Bozell added, referring to how the network reported the story on a program blacked out in much of the country in favor of college football.

ABC finally reported on ClimateGate on Sunday.  But they provided no specifics from the reams of emails and data from East Anglia University that caused the scandal, and concluded their report with the flatly incorrect assertion: “The science is solid, according to a vast majority of researchers, with hotter temperatures, melting glaciers, and rising sea level providing the proof.” 

For 14 straight days, the three broadcast networks have failed to report on the great and growing ClimateGate scandal on their weekday morning or evening news programs.  How to explain this?

Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, despite two weeks of non-stop reporting on and discussion of ClimateGate in a whole host of media outlets.

Perhaps the broadcast networks only trust their fellow liberal press outlets, like the New York Times.  Perhaps they don’t realize the Times exhibited journalistic diligence on ClimateGate, with a front page story the day the story broke.  

In the event that ABC News, NBC News and CBS News missed the news, the Media Research Center (MRC) is today rushing each of them a copy of the Times story, in the hopes that armed with this new information, they will finally report a story that has been roiling nearly everywhere else for a fortnight.

So as not to offend the networks’ pro-global warming sensibilities, MRC President Brent Bozell is looking to have the stories delivered by bicycle messenger.

Said Mr. Bozell in a statement today:

Yesterday at noon, Media Research Center President Bozell hosted the first in a new series of Webcasts entitled "MRC Live! with Brent Bozell," in which the NewsBusters publisher answers questions submitted by members of the MRC Action Team. We expect to hold the next Webcast sometime in mid-January. We'll bring you more details when we have the date nailed down.

[Click here for information on how to join the MRC Action Team. You can view yesterday's Webcast in the video embed at right.]

Among other questions fielded, Bozell addressed the "why" in the perennial question, why are the mainstream media so liberal:

ABC, CBS and NBC’s collective silence on “ClimateGate” has reached ridiculous levels as the broadcast networks continued to ignore the great and growing scandal. The bias by omission has now become scandalous.

“The networks’ silence on ClimateGate is deafening. Scandal, cover-ups and conspiracy are the bread and butter of the media. Yet they have selectively and deliberately decided not to report this bombshell – or any of the incriminating details surrounding the scandal – because it goes against their left-wing agenda," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell complained in a statement released today.

Phil Jones announced yesterday that he is temporarily leaving his post as head of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) pending the investigation into the controversial e-mails and documents that started ClimateGate.

Yet none of the broadcast network weekday morning and evening news shows addressed ClimateGate or the incriminating Jones development since the news broke yesterday. This marked 12 days since the information was first uncovered that they have ignored this global scandal.

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell will appear on a live 20 to 30-minute-long Web cast starting at noon EST. You can submit a comment or question in the comments field below the video window there.

Be sure to catch the Webcast, hosted by Heritage New Media Partners, live at live.mrc.org.

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell appeared on "Hannity" last night and talked about the Fort Hood shooting as well as the conservative rally at the Capitol yesterday which drew thousands on short notice. [see video embedded at right]

Regarding the latter Bozell quipped, "Spontaneous combustion! This wasn't an instant tea party. This was a coffee urn exploding."

"There's something huge going on out there.  And if people on Capitol Hill don't want to pay attention to them, fine, they'll become private citizens just like I am," Bozell added.

As to the Fort Hood shooting, Bozell noted that the attack reminds us "that we're up against some pretty awful stuff in this world today, some pretty evil stuff."

This morning, Bozell returned to Fox News's New York headquarters to chat with the hosts of "Fox & Friends."

You can watch the entire interview in the embedded video below the page break:

 

"Last night was a triumph for the conservative movement and repudiation to those who said Republicans had to move away from the conservative ideology to achieve victory," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell declared today.

"I hereby grant the Dewey Defeats Truman Awards for the most incompetent political reporting of the year to the following journalists for their impeccably inept coverage," Bozell noted in a press release earlier today before listing Politico's Mike Allen, CBS's Katie Couric, National Journal's Ron Brownstein, and the entire New York Times editorial board as the recipients of the (dis)honor.

"Congratulations for embarrassing yourselves, your news organizations and the industry for a backfire that only President Truman himself could truly appreciate," proclaimed Bozell.

For the full press release, including the quotes that were the catalysts for the Deweys, click here.

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz lamely went after Media Research Center President (and NewsBusters publisher) Brent Bozell on his Tuesday night program, trying to mock Bozell’s statement that the Obama White House’s crusade against Fox News was baseless. “You can’t point a finger to anything that Fox News had done incorrectly,” Bozell had said Monday on Lou Dobbs’ radio show.

Ha, ha, ha, Schultz stage-laughed into MSNBC’s cameras. He then ran six clips of pundits and opinion hosts on Fox saying various things about Barack Obama, most of which could be categorized as personal opinion (such as a clip from Bill Sammon referring to “Obama’s agenda towards socialism”). Here we go again. As is so typical with these attacks on Fox News, Schultz was unable to come up with a single instance of a Fox News correspondent or news anchor saying anything incorrect — certainly nothing that would justify the Executive Branch going to war against the network — thus proving Bozell’s point for him.

Even Schultz’s NBC/MSNBC colleagues have stood up against the Obama White House's effort to block Fox News reporters from participating in a pool event last week, which shows how far out Schultz has to be if he’s still defending Obama's efforts at media intimidation.

Here's the transcript of Schultz's rant from last night (video below the jump):

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell today applauded ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN for uniting with Fox News in response to the Obama White House excluding Fox from an interview with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg. The networks said none of them would speak with Feinberg if Fox was excluded, and the White House subsequently reversed its decision.

"Not even Richard Nixon would have dared try this. This was a White House attempt at censorship and brass-knuckle intimidation. But it backfired.

"This was more than a strike at Fox News. It was a calculated and frightening declaration of war on our First Amendment right to a free and unfettered press. And it might have been successful had ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC caved to the pressures of the White House.

"But they did not yield and for that, they should be commended. These networks recognized this as a direct assault on free speech. I applaud their dedication to operating on the vital truth that freedom of the press trumps everything, including ratings and market share.

"I urge these networks to remain vigilant in demanding that this Administration take our American rights to free speech seriously, as this is surely not the last attempt by a radically left-wing White House to bully the press."

Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell took to the MRC studio Saturday morning for an interview with "Fox & Friends" about how the media latched onto phony quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh, helping to scuttle his St. Louis Rams ownership bid.

Bozell also commented on how NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell insisted his quarrel with the radio talk show host was his "polarizing comments" about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb back in 2003.

"Nine out of ten people have no idea what Roger Goodell is talking about" and those who do know what Goodell was referencing know that "again, Rush Limbaugh was right," that some sports journalists hyped an overrated McNabb because of politically correct considerations [MP3 audio available here]:

"CNN and MSNBC were given ample opportunity to come clean, but both are continuing to masquerade malicious lies [against Rush Limbaugh] as credible," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell said in a statement today.

Yesterday, Bozell promised to report back publicly with how CNN and MSNBC responded to his challenge to put up – or shut up – proof that Rush Limbaugh actually stated the racist quote that both cable networks attributed to him as fact, or to immediately retract and apologize for their participation in spreading an outlandish lie. 

Talk show giant Limbaugh denied having ever stated, “Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.” Further, it has been established that this was a fabrication pushed through the Internet, intentionally designed to destroy Mr. Limbaugh’s reputation at a time he is attempting to purchase a professional football team.

In addition to this public call to action, Mr. Bozell overnighted letters to CNN President Jonathan Klein and MSNBC President Phil Griffin to ensure both took the matter seriously. Both CNN and MSNBC failed to respond appropriately.

On Tuesday’s Newsroom, CNN’s Rick Sanchez read Rush Limbaugh’s denial that he ever made a quote attributed to him in which he praised antebellum slavery, but added that the denial “that does not take away...that there are other quotes...which many people in...minority communities do find offensive” [audio available here]. Sanchez broadcast the quote yesterday without any source, and made no retraction of it.

Sanchez first indicated during a promo for a segment about the Limbaugh controversy that the talk show host is “now setting us straight on a remark that’s been wildly publicized about what he has said in the past.” The segment came just before the bottom of the 3 pm Eastern hour, and after giving a brief synopsis of the controversy, read the dubious quote attributed to the conservative: “One of the quotes that has been attributed to Rush Limbaugh is the one about him saying that ‘slavery built the South, and I’m not saying that we should bring it back.. I’m just saying that it had it’s merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell today demanded that CNN and MSNBC prove that radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh uttered a racist quote they have attributed to him as fact after Limbaugh publicly denied having ever said, “Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark” on his nationally syndicated airwaves. 

"CNN and MSNBC must immediately and publicly source when Limbaugh uttered this phrase. He has unequivocally denied it. Now it is up to the same news media that reported it as fact to prove that it was, indeed, stated," NewsBusters Publisher Bozell insisted in a statement, arguing that if the charges are undocumentable, the offending networks are "100% guilty of character assassination."

The accusations against Limbaugh came in the wake of reports the radio talk show host is part of a group bidding for ownership of the St. Louis Rams NFL franchise. The full Bozell statement is appended below the page break:

MRC's Brent Bozell appeared on this morning's "Fox & Friends" to discuss reporting by NewsBusters.org's sister site CNSNews.com that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning to hitch a health care reform bill on to an unrelated tax bill which passed out of the House of Representatives earlier this year.

[MP3 audio here, view embedded video at right]

Explained Bozell :

Instead of having a debate in the House and the Senate and giving a bill to the president, you're going to get Harry Reid's bill, passed by the Senate, by the Democrats... immediately rubber-stamping it, no debate, no House-Senate conference, no Republican discussion, and it goes right to the president for his signature, and oh, by the way, no one knows what's in it. 

You can check out the October 7 story by CNSNews.com's Nicholas Ballasy here, an excerpt appears below the page break:

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell appeared on this morning's edition of "Fox & Friends" to discuss how the mainstream media is downplaying or ignoring ACORN's history of legal trouble over voter fraud, all while casting the liberal community organizer as the victim of conservatives and Republicans.

Fox News anchor Steve Doocy had Mr. Bozell explain the inaccuracies in a September 23 USA Today article.

You can watch the video by clicking the play button in the embed at the right. A transcript appears below the page break:

Appearing on the September 28 "Fox & Friends," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher mocked the New York Times's admission that it was "slow off the mark" in reporting on the recent ACORN prostitution sting video scandal (audio available here):

It's just like [ABC's] Charlie Gibson days after the fact saying in an interview that he has no idea what ACORN is all about, that he was out yachting. These people just don't get it. When we say that they live in their little world somewhere between the corridors of Washington, D.C., and New York City, it's true.... When they see the real world, they see it through the lens of those right-wing zealots up to no good on Fox television.

"Fox & Friends" co-host Gretchen Carlson asked Bozell how the Times, which most certainly monitors cable news networks for breaking news, "how could they not be aware of those undercover videos?" Bozell answered:

"The liberal media claim to champion free speech, but if they continue to turn a blind eye to this offense, we can only assume they approve of government censorship," Media Research Center President Brent Bozell argued in a statement released today.

Mr. Bozell was reacting to news of the federal Department of Health and Human Services placing a gag order on private health insurance companies communicating to their Medicare Advantage customers their concerns about Democratic health care reform proposals. The gag order is backed by a threat of federal prosecution.

Even so, this flagrant abuse of power by the Obama administration has been underreported in the mainstream media. The Washington Post has not printed one word about the violation, and while ABC News aired a segment on its September 22 broadcast, their rivals at the CBS "Evening News" and NBC "Nightly News" have ignored the transgression.

Mr. Bozell's full statement appears below the page break:

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell appeared this morning on the only major network President Obama neglected in Sunday's morning show press blitz, the Fox News Channel. During his appearance, Bozell argued that President Obama is "lying with disturbing regularity," that the media are not calling him on it, and that Obama's press strategy is not working in building support for his policies, despite a media biased in his favor.

Asked by "Fox & Friends" co-host Steve Doocy if the president's Sunday morning show blitz was fruitful, Bozell answered in the negative, arguing that Obama is turning off the audience he's trying to win over:

What's settling in is Obama fatigue. The man is giving the same speech over and over and over and over again, and now he has to go on five networks to find an audience, cumulative audience, because the audience just isn't there. And the audience that is listening is being turned off.

As to why Obama refused to go on Fox, Bozell argued that it was because unlike the other networks with those networks' generally softball questions, "he's going to get a serious question or two" on Fox.

Bozell also noted a major contrast with "The Great Communicator," President Ronald Reagan:

Video of Baltimore ACORN activists willing to help a pimp and prostitute work out a tax shelter for a brothel is a "devastating" indictment of the liberal activist group, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell pronounced on the September 11 "Hannity." [MP3 audio available here]

"It shows the power of the Internet. It doesn't matter anymore that [Big Three broadcast networks] ABC and NBC and CBS aren't covering it. The world now knows about it because people go in there and show them the truth," Bozell noted, adding that it proves what conservatives have been saying that ACORN "is a suspect organization [subsidized] with millions of taxpayer dollars."

Bozell also discussed the controversy involving Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who yelled "You lie!" at President Obama during last Wednesday's speech before Congress:

Update (16:35 EDT): Thanks for watching and be sure to tune into "Hannity" on Fox News tomorrow night around 9:30 p.m. EDT. Mr. Bozell is scheduled to be on for two segments.

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell will appear on the Breitbart.tv's "The B-Cast" via Skype today at 4:15 EDT. He will be discussing last night's speech by President Obama to the Congress.

You can watch by clicking the link here or by watching the embedded video feed below the page break:

 

"The media must expose Obama's calculated scare tactics and lying on 'reform.' Failing to do so gives him a green light to lie and cry wolf about whatever he wants, whenever he wants," Media Research Center President Brent Bozell asserted in a statement released today.

The NewsBusters publisher explained:

Last night Obama told a litany of lies. He said the total cost of his health reform would be $900 billion over ten years, but even the government-run Congressional Budget Office found it would cost $1.6 trillion. He claimed his reform would not cover illegal immigrants or abortions, but nothing in any of the Democrat bills requires citizen verification and several organizations including the National Right to Life Committee have shown exactly how federal funds would be used to pay for abortion-on-demand. He knows these are lies and he tells them because he is confident the left wing ‘news' media will let him get away with it.

Just as soon as "average Americans practice their First Amendment free speech rights to protest another outrageous liberal proposal," the liberal media "immediately go into full-on attack mode - against the American people" Media Research Center President Brent Bozell argued in a statement released this morning.

"Just as with the tea party protesters, and the socialized health care town hall protesters, the media are again attacking the American people for having the temerity to speak up," the NewsBusters publisher complained.

Mr. Bozell was addressing the vicious personal attacks members of the media have been making on parents objecting to the proposed Obama administration "lesson plan," which was to accompany a speech President Obama is delivering today to American children.

President Obama is still addressing the children, but in response to public outrage has withdrawn the Department of Education "lesson plan" which recommended among other things that teachers have their students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President." As the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol has pointed out, it is against the law for the Department of Education to hand down any sort of teaching materials. But rather than report on this, the leftist media are attacking parents. 

Reacting to the Associated Press's decision to publish -- against a grieving father's wishes -- a photo of a mortally-wounded Marine, MRC President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell blasted the news wire in a statement today:

The Associated Press should be ashamed for even thinking something as preposterous as this. This photo will do nothing but cause great sorrow for the family of a hero. As the father of a Marine, I cannot imagine the pain they will endure because of its publication and the damage it will cause in their grief.

Way to go, AP. On the eve of the federal holiday dedicated to the American worker, you are causing pain for the family of a hero that has given the ultimate sacrifice of his life in labor for his country.

The AP defended its decision by insisting the decision came "after a period of reflection" and was done to convey "the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it."

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also slammed the AP's decision, reports Mike Allen of The Politico:

Today Media Research Center (MRC) president and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell denounced the Obama administration for its plans to delve into the private sector for the purposes of researching and regulating the national news media.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced plans for a two-day workshop in December to examine the state of the news industry - which could lead to recommendations for legislation to regulate print, television, and even online media on everything from changes in anti-trust land copyright law to media tax breaks. Some of the proposals being pushed by opinion leaders include direct government funding of media outlets, while other ideas like relaxing anti-trust regulations would still need government approval.

Mr. Bozell issued the following statement in response: