Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five).
This post contains the “Mainstream Media Screams” from July through December 2017. Newer posts, starting in January 2018, are here. “Mainstream Media Screams” for:
> January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013, when the Washington Examiner was both online and a printed daily newspaper distributed around the Washington, DC area.)
Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week.
(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the MRC's Notable Quotables with an every other week compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)
■ December 18: Mainstream Scream: Epic CNN rant on Fox ‘propagandists,’ Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features CNN “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter on Sunday denouncing Fox News Channel for giving so much time to the political agenda revelations of those on special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff.
“This isn’t just an alternate reality. This is a reversal of reality,” said Stelter, who’s own network has been slapped as the lead anti-Trump outlet. “They’re talking like propagandists. This sounds like propaganda and it sounds dangerous,” he added. “The conservative media choir is telling Trump,” Stelter complained, that “Mueller is out to get you, trying to reverse the outcome of the election. It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.”
Stelter introduced his lead segment with a clip of Kellyanne Conway on FNC saying “the fix was in against Donald Trump from the beginning and they were pro-Hillary.”
BRIAN STELTER: This is the feedback loop in action. I want you to see it over and over again. Fox, Trump, his aides, GOP lawmakers, all of them, they’re taking a legitimate issue, which is the discovery of a Mueller team member who expressed his hatred of Trump in text messages, and then they’re blowing it up, trying to discredit the entire probe.
Now, remember, that team member was removed from the probe when the text messages were found. But everyday, it’s something new, some reason to claim that special counsel is illegitimate. So, as you watch the coverage, try to notice how this works. Notice how right wing commentators and GOP lawmakers are echoing each other and pay close attention to the banners on the bottom of Fox’s screen.
Last night – I can’t believe this -- Fox is asking if the FBI has engaged in a coup. This morning, the banner said the investigators are in the hot seat.
This isn’t just an alternate reality. This is a reversal of reality. Obviously, it’s Trump world that is on the hot seat. Four Trump associates have been charged with crimes. Two of the four have pled guilty. Mueller is investigating a massive fire. And everyone can see and smell the smoke.
But this, instead, is what the president’s hearing (he starts the following clip).
JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS HOST: The only thing that remains is whether we have the fortitude to not just fire these people immediately, but to take them out in cuffs.
STELTER: That is Jeanine Pirro, one of Trump’s informal advisers, not just calling for firings but arrests.
Look, I don't say this lightly, but these FOTs, these friends of Trumps, they are -- they’re talking like propagandists. This sounds like propaganda and it sounds dangerous. Pirro is demanding a cleansing of the FBI. Sean Hannity is calling Mueller the head of the snake. Other Fox hosts are calling the FBI corrupt and out of control. Rush Limbaugh is describing it as a coup and guests on these programs are comparing the FBI to the KGB.
The conservative media choir is telling Trump that Mueller is out to get you, trying to reverse the outcome of the election. It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “After two years of CNN leading incessant attacks on Donald Trump, sometimes allocating the entirety of prime time to panel after panel speculating wildly about supposed Russian collusion and on other nights talking about allegations against Trump they must later retract, it takes chutzpah to denounce another network for ‘talking like propagandists.’”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ December 15: Mainstream Scream: Carl Bernstein says media makes fewer errors than most
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein claiming that by comparison to other institutions, the media is pretty error free.
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, Bernstein denounced as “demagogues” those critical of the media and insisted “mainstream media makes far fewer errors than most institutions in our culture.”
From the December 10 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources:
“We are in a hot house cold civil war atmosphere and the press and attacking the press is the basic element that too many demagogues in our culture have used to whip up this cold civil war and especially to appeal to the base of the President of the United States....
“The media, generally speaking, the mainstream media makes far fewer errors than most institutions in our culture, because we indeed are in the business of trying not to make errors. And we have all kinds of procedures in place to keep us from making those errors. Compare us to Wall Street. Compare us to banking. Compare us to the Congress of the United States. Compare us to almost any institution and we make fewer errors.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Classic media arrogance and deflection — they make it their business to criticize all other institutions in society, but can’t handle it when their own wrongdoings are pointed out. In the past ten days, ABC News, CNN and a Washington Post reporter have all had to retract baseless stories about the Trump campaign and Russia, yet Bernstein lashed out at ‘demagogues’ for daring to point out the obvious anti-Trump hostility amongst journalists. If these were all just innocent errors, why were none ones that benefited Trump?”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ December 4: Mainstream Scream: ‘The View’ cheers false story on Trump, ‘Lock him up!’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features The View cheering a false ABC New story about President Trump and the Russia probe, the latest in the media’s toasting of the investigation.
On Friday’s The View, Joy Behar burst into celebration after she read what turned about to be a false report by ABC’s Brian Ross that Donald Trump, as a candidate, had directed Michael Flynn to contact the Russian government.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, prompting loud and sustained cheers from the audience inside the New York City studio. “Like Christmas!” chimed in CNN analyst Ana Navarro before Behar chanted “Lock him up!” and suggested it’s “like treasonous?” She asserted: “Richard Nixon stepped down and so should Donald Trump.”
From the December 1 The View on ABC:
Joy Behar, after staffer tells her “breaking news” as he hands her a card: “ABC News’ Brian Ross is reporting Michael Flynn promised full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify, that as a candidate, Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians! Yes!”
Sustained and loud audience cheers.
CNN’s Ana Navarro: “It’s beginning to look a lot of like Christmas and it’s beginning to look a lot like collusion.”
Behar, pounding the table: “He goes to jail. He goes to jail. He goes to jail. Lock him up!...You know what this is for me? This is the antithesis of election night....On election night I had to wear a veil. I was in mourning. So this is like the antithesis of that hideous night and that’s why I’m happy.”
Sunny Hostin: “This is so significant. You’re talking about someone’s national security advisor, someone with a military background who pled guilty to lying to the FBI, to the federal government and now is going to testify that not as president, as a candidate, the candidate Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians. I mean does everybody understand how significant that is?...”
Behar: “Isn’t it kind of like treasonous?...It should lead to resignations. I remember Richard Nixon and Richard Nixon stepped down and so should Donald Trump.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “It doesn’t get much worse or embarrassing than this: Giddy celebration over a story damaging to President Trump but which, it turns out, was baseless. Not that all that many see The View as a serious show, but if Ross got suspended for a month, maybe ABC could at least take Behar off her show for a week.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ November 27: Mainstream Scream: MSNBC features pollster calling GOP ‘domestic terror group’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC’s AM Joy show giving airtime to a Democratic, pro-Clinton consultant and pollster that called the Republican Party “pro-pedophilia,” “anti-children,” and ultimately a “domestic terror group.”
The trifecta of hate on the GOP came from Fernand Amandi who was on Saturday’s AM Joy reacting to supposed Republican resistance to extending a health insurance program for children.
Amandi:
“Is it any surprise that the party that is pro-pay-for-play, pro-Putin, and now with Roy Moore, pro-pedophilia, the fact that they’re anti-children, is that any surprise? I don’t think it is. And I think, Joy, this is emblematic — this CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] scenario where you mentioned nine million children -- children -- without health insurance.
“I think if you take a step back, one has to ask themselves -- and I think the American people should ask themselves the broader question: What has the Republican party, in the last ten years, done to help the American people? What have they done? This is not a political party -- this is a domestic terror group. And I think what the American people should consider when they ask themselves that question -- with a party that has done nothing to help the American people -- is to vote them out and consider possibly afterwards locking them up, Joy.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “MSNBC has outdone itself, allowing a guest, whom host Joy Reid did not challenge, to characterize the political party in power as a ‘terror group.’ That’s just plain revolting and one more piece of evidence MSNBC is more of a left-wing political operation than any kind of journalistic enterprise.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ November 20: Mainstream Scream: Andrea Mitchell, ‘I Have No Political Axe to Grind’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, hosting Sunday’s Meet the Press, and insisting that she has “no political axe to grind” during contentious questioning of White House budget director Mick Mulvaney over the tax reform package and Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore.
Mulvaney challenged her bias, and she said “we’re not taking a political point of view here” and “I have no political axe to grind.”
Excerpt 1
Mick Mulvaney: “So I laugh every time I come on networks like this, they accuse us of cutting taxes on the rich. Every time I go on different networks, and you may understand who those are, they accuse us of raising taxes on the rich. So I think it looks — depends on how you want to look at it.”
Andrea Mitchell: “We’re not taking a political point of view here. We are actually going by nonpartisan groups like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, all the impact on the exploding deficit which will impact future generations.”
Excerpt 2
Mitchell: “Do you believe that the women who’ve come out against Roy Moore are credible?”
Mulvaney: “I believe they’re credible. I don’t know who to believe. Again, I'm at the Office of Management and Budget–”
Mitchell: “You don’t believe them?”
Mulvaney: “No, I said they’re credible. I don’t know who to believe. And I do think, as the president said, that voters should decide.”
Mitchell: “If they’re credible. Why wouldn’t you believe them?”
Mulvaney: “Andrea, I run the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, D.C. You work for NBC News in Washington, D.C. My guess is we’ve not spent that much time looking at the specifics of these allegations. You’ve arrived at a certain conclusion because of a certain political persuasion. We’re simply–”
Mitchell: “Not because of a political persuasion at all. I’m -- I am simply asking whether you believe that they are credible. They have been out in public. They have spoken on the record. Some were brought, some stories were brought out by Alabama journalists in the local newspapers down there, not just by the Washington Post. And I have no political axe to grind here other than to ask you whether you believe they are credible.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “No one is buying Mitchell’s denials. She’s just upset that a guest called her out on her obvious political agenda, with her questioning exactly matching Democratic talking points. Score one for the Trump team in highlighting an all too typical media misdeed.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ November 14: Mainstream Scream: CBS says ‘saving the world’ harder under Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features a CBS anchor and reporter blaming President Trump, in office for a little over seven months, for destroying the earth with his environmental plans.
From the top of a story on Monday’s CBS Evening News:
Anchor Anthony Mason: “At a U.N. climate conference in Germany today, the Trump administration talked up fossil fuels, including coal. That puts the U.S. at odds with 194 other nations, but some American entrepreneurs and politicians want to make sure the administration does not have the final word. Mark Phillips reports.”
Video of a group of kids: “Save the world! Save the World!”
Reporter Mark Phillips: “Despite the kids’ demonstration, saving the world has been harder since the Trump administration announced its pullout from the Paris climate deal. There is an enthusiastic American delegation at this U.N. conference, but Washington didn’t send it. State and city governments and businessmen like Michael Bloomberg did....”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “As if the world must really be ‘saved’ and one action by Trump impedes that. This kind of story makes it much harder to take journalists seriously, with such an over the top fear-mongering about an unenforced international deal instead of a little skepticism directed at the presumptions of liberal scaremongers.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ November 6: Mainstream Scream: Brokaw frets Donna Brazile’s expose ‘beyond counterproductive’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream was probably pretty easy to predict after former Democratic Party Chair Donna Brazile spilled the beans on the the party’s disfunction and 2016 rigging for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
On cue, the mainstream media, especially on network TV, portrayed the long-time Democratic strategist and former Al Gore campaign manager as hurting the party.
Leading the charge was NBC News journalist Tom Brokaw who fretted over how the “internecine fight” would hurt Democrats. He tried to discredit Brazile as someone known for “ready, fire, aim” attacks and, noting how Democrats are “trying to win congressional races,” he called her timing “beyond counterproductive.”
Brokaw on the Sunday, November 5 Meet the Press hosted by Chuck Todd:
“I think this is a manifestation of all that is wrong with the Democratic Party, frankly. I mean, this is a time they ought to be talking about the future and they ought to be organizing themselves about what they want to do for the country. Except we go back and we’ve got this internecine fight going on about something that happened some time ago. Donna is well-known, as you all know, for kind of ‘ready, fire, aim’ on a lot of the stuff that she does. [Chuck Todd laughs] But to go back over this now when they’re trying to win congressional races and trying to get ready for ‘18 seems, to me, to be beyond counterproductive.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Brokaw has demonstrated once again how he’s more of a Democratic partisan than any kind of independent journalist. When Senator Bob Corker condemned President Trump I don’t recall Brokaw lamenting how that could hurt the Republican agenda.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 30: Mainstream Scream: CNN raises the Trump Media Conspiracy Theory
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features CNN spelling out a Trump administration “campaign of confusion” to obscure misdeeds.
From the Sunday, October 29 Reliable Sources on CNN.
Host Brian Stelter:
“Defending President Trump can be hard to do, so some of his allies in the media don't even bother trying. Instead, they just change the subject. This is a campaign of confusion. It is one of the most important things happening in American politics today. I mean, if you watched the opinion shows on Fox News this week, you might have thought Hillary Clinton was president, not Trump, Clinton.
“Here is how the campaign of confusion works: First, The Hill newspaper revived a relatively old story about Russian efforts to gain influence in the American uranium industry during the Obama administration. Fox became fixated on this story and the messaging was clear, the Russian investigations were recast as a scandal for Clinton and the Dems....
“Finally, Fox has found the real Russia scandal. That’s how it’s portrayed. Uranium, uranium, uranium. Now, Fox got help from Republicans on Capitol Hill who announced fresh investigations into the uranium issue. And then President Trump picked up on it. But Clinton is overall a convenient boogie man.
“Look, there may be something newsworthy here. I will leave that to the experts.
“But in right-wing media, this uranium story blotted out the sun! And it fit a pattern we’ve seen before. Trump's media allies downplay, deflect and deny stories that are trouble for the White House. Instead, they tell viewers and readers to hate Hillary Clinton.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “‘Look, there may be something newsworthy here. I will leave that to the experts.’ That’s quite an admission from Stelter. But, apparently, if the investigative reporting doesn’t match CNN’s narrow, anti-Trump agenda, it’s a ‘campaign of confusion’? This from a network which spends entire prime times obsessed with every minor news blip about Trump. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 23: Mainstream Scream: ABC analyst claims Reagan’s party ‘is gone’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features a top ABC analyst who believes that the Republican Party would no longer welcome its iconic leaders, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan.
Despite so many Republicans wrapping themselves in the legacy of Reagan, ABC's Matthew Dowd said on Sunday's This Week that the party is gone.
After we posted, Dowd tweeted us that it's the same on the other side. "More than two years ago I said Dems wouldn't nominate JFK."
Dowd on This Week:
"I think that what has to be recognized now, by Republicans and many conservatives who have resisted Donald Trump, is that the Republican Party as they know it is gone. This is a party that would never nominate Lincoln again, would never nominate Teddy Roosevelt. Certainly wouldn't nominate Ronald Reagan in this. And that party is gone. They might as well get H.G. Wells on the line, get back in a time machine, and find the party that they think still exists. It's gone."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "As if all political parties don't change over time. Would today's Democratic Party nominate John F. Kennedy, who was well to the right of today's party? As for Reagan, he won as a vocal conservative willing to take on his opponents and with the help of ‘Reagan Democrats,' both precursors of how Trump won."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ October 16: Mainstream Scream: CNN’s Cuomo dubs Trump ‘emperor’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features CNN morning host Chris Cuomo pressing a top Republican to say that President Trump is acting like "an emperor" with his executive actions on Obamacare.
Noting that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, once suggested that Obama was an emperor for his actions, Cuomo demanded the lawmaker to make the same claim about Trump.
He said on his Friday show: "Jim, why aren't you saying that the president is acting like an emperor and that his job is to execute laws that are passed, not write his own and that Congress must hold him to account for doing so?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Cuomo seems oblivious to the obvious difference between Obama imposing an unconstitutional order, which appropriated money without congressional approval, and Trump undoing that improper action. If anyone acted like an emperor, it was Obama."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 9: Mainstream Scream: WaPo boss says media not ‘cozy’ with Obama
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, October 8 decrying the "very hostile atmosphere" with the Trump administration.
But he also argued that that the media's relationship with the Obama administration wasn't "cozy" either.
"They've created a very hostile atmosphere. It's not that we had such a wonderful relationship with the previous administration. There's sometimes an assumption that the press had a warm, cozy relationship with the Obama administration. That wasn't the case.
"We had a lot of conflicts with the Obama administration. And you may recall that they had more leak investigations against -- involving the press than all previous administrations combined. So, there wasn't a warm relationship. But it' been, there's been a hostility, I think, fomented by the administration over the course of the campaign, and certainly during the course of the administration. That makes it difficult."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "So, per Baron, the Obama administration was hostile to journalists and the Trump team is too, but in his alternate universe the media didn't have a ‘warm relationship' with Obama. Yet, it's the Trump team's hostility to the press corps which has caused the media's antagonism toward Trump. That's some jujitsu."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 2: Mainstream Scream: Hardball Matthews’ delights in Sally Quinn’s hexes
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews delighting in the revelation from Washington Post's Sally Quinn in her new book, Finding Magic: A Spiritual Memoir, that she put hexes on people.
Interviewing Quinn, the former wife of the late Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, and now a blogger on religion for the newspaper, Matthews cackled: "What I liked is the hexes of course. How can I not like the fact you knocked off some people just by wishing them evil?"
Matthews on the Friday, September 29 Hardball:
"Sally Quinn has always been one of the most frightening people in Washington. Glamorous, yes, I'll give you that -- but when you wrote for the Washington Post, when you went after people like Steve Martindale or what's-his-name, Hamilton Jordan -- they died. You wrote these huge -- I used to read them on the bus, these gigantic takeout pieces in the Washington Post -- when your husband was running the paper, which is a hugely successful paper -- the Washington Post, it crackled with excitement.
"And now you write a book where you say, ‘If you think I was scary as a reporter, I can put a hex on you.' Talk about the spiritual power of wishing someone to die. How's that work? This is a book you got to read because it's the only book I've read about D.C. and the spiritual power that comes alive with a really smart person with strong focus...
"But the parts I liked to read -- I got them in galley form -- what I liked is the hexes of course. How can I not like the fact you knocked off some people just by wishing them evil?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "No matter how lighthearted Matthews treated the topic, in a time of such political vitriol, how wise is it to laugh about a journalist who boasts about putting deadly hexes on political leaders? Matthews would have been better advised to have played a little hardball with her on Hardball."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ September 25: Mainstream Scream: NBC guest calls National Anthem ‘white supremacist’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features the Trump-inspired debate over the National Anthem and NFL players taking a knee to protest it.
It came Sunday on Meet the Press during an exchange over President Trump's comments between National Review editor Rich Lowry and Detroit Free Press editorial page editor Stephen Henderson:
Rich Lowry of National Review: "He's not randomly attacking these players. He is attacking them because they're kneeling during the national anthem. And the national anthem is not a white supremacist symbol. And the President has become-"
Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press: "Some of the words of the national anthem are white supremacist."
Lowry: "You think the national anthem is racist?"
Henderson: "I think this is a country whose history is racist, whose history is steeped in white supremacy, and the anthem reflects that in its very words, in verses we don't sing anymore."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Henderson well reflects the racial obsession of those given such prominence in the media, who see the bad in America before the good, and see everything through a racial prism. They have disdain for the millions, for whom Trump speaks, who are angry millionaire players would disrespect the national anthem of a nation which has provided such opportunities."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ New on September 18: Mainstream Scream: CNN’s Stelter sees victim in ESPN not Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter suggesting that ESPN and host Jemele Hill, who tweeted "white supremacist" at Donald Trump were a victim of rivals.
On his Sunday show, he said:
"The world's biggest sports network, ESPN, is in the crosshairs after SportsCenter host Jemele Hill tweeted that President Trump is a white supremacist. Hill prompted new conversations about whether the U.S. president is a racist. So, why did this particular tweet back on Monday, made on Hill's personal account, catch fire and become a week-long story?
"After all, she's not the first to call Trump a racist or white supremacist. And this is far from the first time members of the media or news outlets have questioned Trump's complicated relationship with white supremacy. You can see these recent magazine covers all published in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"There's a couple things going on here that we should be honest about. Number one: This controversy gave conservative media like rival Fox Sports -- ESPN's wanna-be rival Fox Sports – the opportunity to cast ESPN as the liberal enemy. We also saw President Trump and his White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders addressing this controversy, being asked about it. It seemed the White House embraced this fight. Perhaps another example of media bashing.
"So, there's a lot of dynamics at play here, including ESPN's social media policies. And we're going to get into that with two top newsroom leaders. But maybe we should call this was what it is: It's media bashing of another color....”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Stelter holds himself as some sort of independent media critic, but in framing ESPN and Hill as the victims of unfair attacks from conservatives, he placed himself clearly with those on the left who presume an illegitimacy to media criticism from those on the right. Looking at ESPN's liberal political correctness, and hypocrisy in how they treat political comments from staff, would have been the main focus for a true media critic."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 11: Mainstream Scream: Whoopi Goldberg asks if Clinton’s loss was ‘fair and square’
(Washington Examiner post)
2016 presidential runner-up Hillary Rodham Clinton still can't get over losing to President Trump, and apparently neither can her fans.
Whoopi Goldberg is first among them and is this week's Mainstream Media Scream featured example of the alternative thinking by the Left's media stars.
Ahead of the release of Hillary Clinton's book about why she lost the 2016 presidential election, on ABC's The View on Friday, Goldberg blamed Clinton's loss on Fox News Channel attacks on former President Barack Obama and offered a very confused history of when candidates have succeeded a two-term president of their own party.
She then suggested nefarious things occurred as she asserted "if this election happened in any other country the way it happened here, we would have sent people to go and check to see what was going on" before declaring: "We don't know that she did lose fair and square."
Goldberg on ABC's The View on September 8:
"She's not the president. But let's be realistic. Do you really think she was going to win? Based on everything that the Democrats did when they let Obama -- left him out there floating and the flotsam and jetsam and all this stuff that Fox News did and all those folks. You know, there have been very few eight years of one party and eight years of the same party. It doesn't generally go back to back. The last time I think was Nixon and whoever came in after him was the last. Ford. And he pardoned. That was the last time we had a long stretch when it wasn't Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican. So given all the crap that Obama had to sort of eat from his own party, I don't think Bernie was going to -- I don't think any Democrat was going to – people were going to vote...
"The truth of the matter is, if this election happened in any other country the way it happened here, we would have sent people to go and check to see what was going on. We will never know. We'll never know. We'll never know....
"But we don't know that she did lose fair and square. See that's the thing. That's what I'm saying."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: If Goldberg wants to convince anybody there's anything to her unusual analysis about how ‘we'll never know' if Hillary really lost – blaming Fox News attacks on Obama, for instance, for somehow leading to Trump's victory – she should first bone up on recent American history. Her big film, Sister Act, was released during the presidency of Republican George H.W. Bush who had succeeded two-term Republican President Ronald Reagan."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 5: Mainstream Scream: MSNBC guest hits Trump’s ‘white supremacy agenda’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features an MSNBC guest slapping President Trump's decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
During Labor Day's MSNBC Live, frequent MSNBC guest Karine Jean-Pierre, a lecturer at Columbia University, national spokesman for MoveOn.org and ex-deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama, tried to discredit repealing DACA by charging:
"We're hearing tomorrow that he might, he might do away with DACA, which is another moral line that he would be crossing, which is something that would be enforcing -- advancing a white supremacy agenda, and also against what the majority of Americans want."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "‘White supremacy agenda' is the new way to smear those holding views contrary to the liberal/media narrowly-defined ‘diversity' agenda. Sad that MSNBC welcomes those so eager to silence opposition through baseless claims of racism instead of addressing the specifics of the policy."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ August 29: Mainstream Scream: Hurricane Harvey was Trump’s fault
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features a New York Times reporter who concludes that Hurricane Harvey, storming through the Gulf Coast, is hurting President Trump's supporters and that he isn't helping them in avoiding climate change policies.
On MSNBC Monday, Times reporter Yamiche Alcindor discussed her story where she wrote, for example, that the "unleashing of the fossil energy sector that Mr. Trump has championed could have repercussions more immediate than the global climate. In Houston, predominantly African-American neighborhoods like Sunnyside and Pleasantville have been dealing with pollution from the energy sector for years."
On TV Monday, she added:
"I should say I just was reporting in Galveston, Texas, and my story was focused on climate change and on the idea that middle class and poor people would be some of the first people hurt by climate change and there's this idea that these storms, these hurricanes are getting worse and worse, scientists say, and that working class and poor people, poor people that voted for Donald Trump, that are excited about his presidency, that thought his presidency was going to improve their lives, that these are the same people who can't afford to get in their car and drive four or five hours or can't afford a hotel room to try to escape these floods."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Alcindor reminds me of the old headline mocking the New York Times: ‘World to End Tomorrow, Minorities and Poor Hardest Hit.' Her real article could be headlined: ‘Climate Change to End the World, Trump Voters Hardest Hit.' As if a Hillary Clinton presidency, or different policies from Trump, would have prevented Hurricane Harvey or would really impact hurricane formation in the foreseeable future."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ August 21: Mainstream Scream: CNN doubts Trump’s fitness, ‘crazy, unhinged’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features CNN's media analyst wondering aloud if President Trump has an illness that makes him unfit for office, crazy even.
Brian Stelter, host of CNN's Reliable Sources, opened Sunday's show by maintaining "this is not a normal week so this is not a normal show. President Trump's actions and inactions in the wake of Charlottesville are provoking some uncomfortable conversations, mostly off the air if we're being honest."
He then contended:
"In discussions among friends and family and debates on social media, people are questioning the president's fitness. But these conversations are happening in newsrooms and TV studios as well. It's usually after the microphones are off, of after the stories been filed, after the paper has been put to bed, people's concerns and fears and questions come out. Questions that often feel out of bounds, off limits, too hot for TV. Questions like these:
"Is the president of the United States a racist? Is he suffering from some kind of illness? Is he fit for office? [long pause] And if he's unfit, then what?
"These are upsetting, polarizing questions that are uncomfortable to ask. But we in the national news media can't pretend like our readers have viewers aren't already asking. They are asking. This is how deep the country's divide has really become.
"My impression is that since President Trump's inauguration, there's been a lot of tiptoeing going on. His actions have been described as unpresidential, as unhinged, and sometimes even crazy."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Can you say ‘projection'? The media have hardly been ‘tiptoeing' around their condemnation of the Trump presidency, but he's still in office so, it seems, activist journalists like Stelter think they've failed and must prod their colleagues to step it up by calling Trump ill and unfit. They're just alienating themselves further from much of America."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ August 14: Mainstream Scream: ABC’s Cokie Roberts blames Trump, Sessions for violence
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream could have picked any of dozens of media figures decrying President Trump's words and his administration's actions for what happened in Charlottesville, Va. But only one, ABC's Cokie Roberts pointed the blame at the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
On the Sunday after Saturday's deadly clash, she claimed that Trump "has to share responsibility." She also blamed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for going "backward" on race issues, charging: "He's saying ‘let's keep voting rights suppressed.' He's doing a lot of things that send signals to these white supremacists."
During the roundtable on the August 13 This Week on ABC:
"The president has to share responsibility. The fact is that through that campaign, he blew all kind of whistles that those of us who grew up in the Jim Crow south, like I did, recognized immediately. It was just calling out to these white supremacists who then felt empowered by it. And the President now not calling them out....
"This is also a really watershed moment for the Justice Department. Because it's not just categorizing these hate crimes. Jeff Sessions has gone backwards on a lot of these things having to do with race. Taking a look at the Obama federal investigations of how police treat people of color. He's saying, ‘let's not do that anymore.' He's saying ‘let's keep voting rights suppressed.' He's doing a lot of things that send signals to these white supremacists."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Journalists, who are so anathema to tying Democrats to far left violence, are all too eager to blame Republicans for far right violence, at least partly absolving those who have committed the violent acts. In this case, Roberts smeared Sessions for promoting standard conservative policies, thus trying to discredit them as somehow racist."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ August 7: Mainstream Scream: Hardball’s Matthews frets lack of Trump-Russia news
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews worried that non urban America, where big city liberal newspapers are AWOL, is missing out on the Russia scandal because small local papers cover, well, local news.
While all polls showing that most people get their news from TV, where the Russia story is hot and heavy, Matthews told of traveling out west where the newspapers are thin on national news. That, he explained, is a reason why Trump voters still support the president.
On his Thursday show, and after New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters pointed out Republicans stuck with former President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, so no surprise Trump's base is sticking with him, Matthews opined:
"I think part of that is the loss of newspapers in many parts of the country. I was out — no, I was just out in the west with my wife. We were driving around, you know, in Colorado and Utah and Wyoming. There's no local big serious newspaper in the — the Denver papers, they're — you don't pick it up in the morning when you go down the driveway or whatever, the mailbox — there's not a newspaper that tells you what's going to nationally. There are local newspapers that are okay but the days where people had a pretty good newspaper to read. So, how are you going to keep up with Russia? Even if you're slightly interested it there's no story to read. That's a fact."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "It took until 2017 for Matthews to notice the decline in newspaper circulation which has led to fewer and smaller printed newspapers? And hasn't he heard of the Internet? There's more news available than ever to the people of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, so say nothing of channels like CNN and MSNBC which are obsessed withe the supposed Russia ‘scandal.' I guess he realizes, correctly, few watch his program."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ August 1: Mainstream Scream: Brian Williams hails GOP ‘courage’ to keep Obamacare
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC host Brian Williams as the example of the media cooing over Sen. John McCain and the other GOP senators who killed the party's promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
After the defeat early Friday morning of the final opportunity in the Senate to move toward repealing Obamacare, Williams hailed McCain as a "profile in courage" for voting no, despite the fact the Arizona senator campaigned on a promise to repeal the law.
Later in the day, he touted McCain's "moment of moral courage," and also praised the "courage" of the two other Republican senators who voted no, wondering with some hope: "Is that kind of courage, for people cheering them on, going to be contagious?"
Williams on MSNBC at 2 AM EDT Friday morning, just after the vote:
"We'll leave this hour quoting Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, saying ‘I ran into John McCain as we walked underground to the Senate for the final vote. Someday, I'll get to tell my grandkids what he said to me.' The words of John McCain, who was indeed a profile in courage tonight, along with two women in the Republican caucus, Senator from Maine, Murkowski — Senator from Alaska, Murkowski — Senator from Maine, Collins."
Then, about 21 hours later, on MSNBC's The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, he offered a dramatic recounting of McCain's vote:
"In the well of the Senate, it came down to one very dramatic moment. Senator John McCain walks in, asks to be recognized, raises that right arm broken three different places in North Vietnam, a quick indicator with a thumbs down. The Democrats briefly react, Senator Schumer waives off any verbal reaction. But with that, it was done. Seven years of talk about repeal and replace done in one hand gesture.
"Our panel remains with us and we'll go to Charlie Sykes. Charlie, much was made of that moment, a moment of moral courage, a man staring down his own mortality yet again, not the first time in his life. But let's also talk about the courage of Murkowski of Alaska and Collins of Maine, because without those two women, there is no moment like that for John McCain. My question to you: Is that kind of courage, for people cheering them on, going to be contagious?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "The very definition of outrageous liberal bias. Can you imagine Williams heaping such praise on McCain if his vote was the one which enabled the Senate to repeal Obamacare? Of course not. But betray a promise made to your constituents in order to advance a liberal goal and you earn the media's adoration."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 24: Mainstream Scream: Now CNN says Trump’s ‘rhetoric’ is a scandal
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features a classic TV duel between CNN "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter and senior Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Called out by presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway to name the "big scandals" of the Trump administration, Stelter, on Sunday's Reliable Sources, cited President Trump's "demagogic behavior when it comes to the media." The CNN host insisted that when Trump "calls real news outlets fake news, he poisons our public discourse" and "makes it harder for us to trust each other."
From the July 23 Reliable Sources on CNN, after Conway complained about the media's obsession with Russia as they undercover other important administration achievements:
BRIAN STELTER: But journalists also recognize there are big scandals going on.
KELLYANNE CONWAY: What scandals are going on? Brian, name them. Go ahead, I'll sit here, I want to hear about. No, you can't get away with that. What are the, quote, "big scandals" going on? Please, name them for me.
STELTER: When you look at this president's rhetoric, his demagogic behavior when it comes to the media–
CONWAY: His rhetoric is a scandal?
STELTER: Yes, it actually is. But the more important scandals–
CONWAY: It is? His rhetoric is a scandal?
STELTER: –are what happened before -- you don't think that his words against the media are poison, Kellyanne, actually hurting the country on a daily basis?
CONWAY: Wait, his rhetoric is a scandal?
STELTER: When he calls real news outlets fake, when he calls real news outlets fake news, he poisons our public discourse. It makes it harder for us to communicate as a country, it makes it harder for us to trust each other.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Talk about a lack of self-awareness. CNN, and the MSM, long ago lost the trust of much of the public because they so obviously favored liberals and denigrated conservatives. Trump is not the cause of distrust in the media or a poisoning of discourse, but someone who successfully exploited the table set by too many politically-driven journalists."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 17: Mainstream Scream: WaPo vet hits scandal-shunning ‘competing press’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features Len Downie, former executive editor of the Washington Post and an editor during the Watergate era, bemoaning how the proliferation in media outlets means that now, unlike during Watergate, coverage of supposed Trump scandals is being undermined because there's a "right wing press that is not concerned about facts."
He appeared on Sunday's Reliable Sources show on CNN to hit the media that isn't onboard with all the Post's "scandal" reporting on President Trump.
Downie:
"There's so much more media now than there was then. For a long time, the Post was alone on the Watergate story. There were — it was a whole string of editors, including myself, who vetted all the stories, who would challenge Bob and Carl on whether or not the conclusions they were drawing were the right conclusions to draw from the facts.
"And we were able to do that without — without other things going on. And there was no Internet then. There was no cable television. And there was no — there was no competing press of the kind that there is now. There's a sort of a right wing press that is not concerned about facts. It constantly attacks the legitimate reporting that's going on. None of that was present then."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Ah yes, the good old days when we few media oligarchs controlled the news agenda without those meddlesome conservatives having any voice. What chutzpah. Incredibly, Downie really seems to believe the challenge to media credibility does not come from any of the major media outlets which distort news to the left, but from a few conservative one which arose to counter them."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ July 10: Mainstream Scream: Lupica says McConnell more a threat than Putin
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features New York Daily News and MSNBC regular Mike Lupica blasting the GOP Obamacare repeal plan, claiming that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is more dangerous than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On MSNBC Monday, he referenced his column in which he wrote:
"To the 22 million Americans who will be without health insurance by 2026 if this bill passes, it actually makes McConnell and all the 12 other angry men in the room who helped him draft this bill a lot more dangerous than even a bum like Vladimir Putin."
He repeated that while on MSNBC's Live with Stephanie Ruhle on Monday morning July 10:
"I think it is, and I actually wrote about this today. If you are an at-risk American, if you are the poor or the elderly or somebody with a pre-existing condition or somebody who relies on a rural hospital, Mitch McConnell is more of a danger to your life right now than Vladimir Putin is. If he gets this thing through, it attacks so many people in this country who will end up, eventually, without health care and without health insurance."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Lupica is a ‘sports' columnist in name only, putting politics ahead of sports. In this case, enabled by MSNBC to espouse the all-too-common left-wing pretense that Republican policies will kill people. He should stick to sports."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
> Mainstream Media Screams for January through June 2017.
> For July through December 2016.
> For January through June 2016.
> For July to December 2015.
