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” for all of 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.)
> For 2019 “Liberal Media Scream” posts. “Mainstream Media Screams” for:
> July-December 2017 posts; 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 compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)
■ December 31, 2018 Liberal Media Scream: ‘No such thing as an illegal immigrant’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the fight over the caravan of illegal immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Only this time the battle on TV wasn’t over laws or President Trump’s border wall but over what to call them and the liberal refrain that nobody can be “illegal” despite how the government refers to unauthorized aliens.
Sunday morning on MSNBC’s "Up" with David Gura (with substitute host Yasmin Vossoughian), Maria Hinojosa, anchor of NPR’s Latino USA, condemned outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly for referring to “illegal immigrants.”
Picking up on an interview Kelly did with the Los Angeles Times, Hinojosa scolded: “In that interview he immediately says — first of all he calls them ‘illegal immigrants.’ There’s no such thing as an illegal immigrant, sir, no illegal human being in the planet ... General Kelly, there’s no such thing as an illegal human being. How many times do we have to say this? Get your grammar correct, okay?”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Talk about a disconnect between the public and the very liberal media elite of National Public Radio where, apparently, reality cannot intrude upon politically correct thinking. If you enter the United States illegally you are an ‘illegal’ immigrant, no matter what Hinojosa wishes were true.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ December 17 Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s never-ending ‘Worse than Watergate’ chant
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features another guest on CNN declaring that the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president was the “biggest” election conspiracy in history and “worse than Watergate.”
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch said on CNN Sunday that independent counsel Robert Mueller has uncovered the “biggest electoral conspiracy in American history” with “dramatic evidence of collusion.” Appearing on "Reliable Sources," Bunch insisted that far from “fizzling out,” thanks to Mueller’s investigation, “we have all the proof we need of a scandal that’s arguably worse than Watergate.”
Bunch, on the Dec. 16 episode of "Reliable Sources" on CNN:
“The last couple of weeks, I think the tone of a lot of the coverage I’ve seen on TV has been, you know, we’re waiting for the Cohen plea, we’re waiting for another memo on Manafort, and we’re waiting on new developments. And people, I think, were expecting a big bombshell. And there really weren’t that many big bombshells in the last couple weeks. They basically confirmed things we already know. And I think the Trump administration and I think some people in the media — I saw an NPR piece this weekend, are going to spin this as a question of whether the Mueller probe is fizzling out or something. I would argue just the opposite.
“I think the biggest electoral conspiracy in American history has already been laid out there. It’s hiding in plain sight. I think the bombshell is the details that we already know. You know, in terms of the quids and the quos. There’s been a lot of great investigative reporting over the last two years. And that’s why we know some of the things that came out in court. But I think all the evidence of, you know CNN reported on the 15 Trump campaign officials and their meetings with 15 Russian officials. We have dramatic evidence of collusion, of quids in terms of the Russian hacking, quos in terms of the promises of sanctions relief. We have a motive with the Trump Tower Moscow deliberations that were going on. I think we have all the proof we need of a scandal that’s arguably worse than Watergate.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “‘Worse than Watergate.’ That’s the most overused and tired media trope. Bunch has combined it with the worst paranoia about ‘the biggest electoral conspiracy in American history’ as he’s an enthusiastic believer in presuming the worst possible interpretations of revelations, putting his personal agenda against Trump ahead of reality.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ December 10 Liberal Media Scream: Together now, networks preach 'impeachment’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the media jumping on the impeachment bandwagon, with CBS and ABC leading the way, even in their intros.
Displaying identical news judgments, the ABC and CBS evening newscasts on Sunday night offered a matching way to frame the day’s news as both used the very same phrasing for their on-screen teases, with corresponding narration from the anchors: “Impeachable Offenses?”
Anchor Tom Llamas on ABC’s "World News Tonight": “Impeachable offenses? Top Democrats taking aim at President Trump. Prosecutors implicating him in criminal acts linked to the campaign. And a key Republican senator with a warning for the president.”
Anchor Elaine Quijano on the "CBS Weekend News": “The incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee says federal prosecutors have outlined impeachable offenses against President Trump.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A fine example of how major national media outlets see the world through the same prism. No conspiracy, but the journalists at two networks forwarded the identical terminology to frame what they saw as the day’s top political news story. So much for ‘diversity’ of viewpoints within the national press corps.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ December 3 Liberal Media Scream: Off honeymoon, Mika Brzezinski resumes anti-Trump ranting, fears next 2 years
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the returning and angry voices of MSNBC’s newest married couple, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, after their honeymoon.
If President Trump didn’t think he had it so good while they were gone, all he has to do is cue Monday’s return screed against him.
Brzezinski opened Monday’s "Morning Joe" by using the passing of former President George H.W. Bush to denigrate the current president. “This morning we remember his life and his tremendous legacy, and how his approach to leadership stands in stark contrast with the politics and the news and the policies of today.”
She contrasted Bush’s half century of accomplishments in the military and politics with how “over the last two years deviancy has continued being defined down by this current president.”
She concluded: “The presidency does not shape character, it reveals it in a raw fashion and that is why we celebrate George H.W. Bush’s legacy and fear the next two years of Mr. Trump’s wild White House ride.”
Brzezinski began her harangue after running, at the top of the show, this clip from Bush addressing Congress in January of 1991:
“What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea, a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind, peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle and worthy of our children’s future.”
Brzezinski then intoned, over video of glad-handing between Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman:
“Twenty-seven years after President Bush called for international order, the strong men of Saudi Arabia and Russia celebrated the lack of it as America pulls back under Donald Trump. Friday marked that sharp split as the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, died at the age of 94. This morning we remember his life and his tremendous legacy, and how his approach to leadership stands in stark contrast with the politics and the news and the policies of today. Welcome to Morning Joe...”
She soon added:
“What becomes undeniably obvious with every bio run about Bush 41 is that stark contrast between these two men. Bush served in the military, treated people with respect and dignity and put country ahead of party and self time and time again over his half century in public service. Half century. Over the last two years deviancy has continued being defined down by this current president, his cronies, his supporters, who love telling reporters that they don’t care how deviant his behavior becomes....
“As is always the case, the presidency does not shape character, it reveals it in a raw fashion and that is why we celebrate George H.W. Bush’s legacy and fear the next two years of Mr. Trump’s wild White House ride.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Brzezinski’s week-long honeymoon with Joe Scarborough seems to have left her in a sour mood, unable to restrain herself from using the passing of a president as a hook to express her anger and grievances against President Trump. It’s sad MSNBC and Morning Joe are so obsessed with Trump that they see all events through a prism of disgust toward him and couldn’t even a allow a few hours to just honor the late President George H.W. Bush.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ November 26 Liberal Media Scream: Trump accused of seeking border violence
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the media hype around thousands of illegal immigrants trying to storm the U.S. border and claims that President Trump is using it for some political advantage.
Our two examples come from Monday’s "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, where guests Donny Deutsch and John Heilemann mocked the administration.
Deutsch held up the cover of the New York Post with a photo of a mother and kids fleeing tear gas, as he slammed Trump’s threat to use of force on the border. Minutes later, Heilemann charged that, for political advantage, Trump wants to “provoke” a violent confrontation with the caravan in which “one of the troops” has “to shoot someone.”
From the Monday, November 26 Morning Joe on MSNBC:
Donny Deutsch, mockingly, as he held up the New York Post with picture of a scared mother and her kids:
“There are a lot of dangerous people, starting fist fights. This is really important, look at the lethal force that our armed forces are going to have to use against this mom and her two little kids. I think it’s really important that Trump initiated the lethal force against these kids.”
John Heilemann soon asserted:
“I think what he’s trying to do, more likely, is to actually provoke a confrontation. You pointed at that picture on the front of the New York Post and say these people are not a threat. What a lot of people saw on television last night was the breach in the fence and people pouring through it. I’m not endorsing this, I’m just telling you what Donald Trump is saying. What Donald Trump is saying is that image and a lethal confrontation, he thinks that image will work for him politically. He’s happy to have a situation that’s incendiary, that might lead to the juxtaposition of that image with a military — a United States military — one of the troops having to shoot someone if he can provoke one violent confrontation in which someone who is a migrant looks as though they’re engaging in violence against our troops, he thinks that works for him.”
Media Research Center vice president of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “After spending months ridiculing Trump’s warnings about the dangers posed by the impending arrival of a caravan of immigrants, when they arrive and some use violent means to get into the U.S., these cable news panelists don’t admit their error. No, they double-down in mocking Trump and impugn him as the one who wants to use violence to kill innocent immigrants.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ New on November 19 Liberal Media Scream: CNN analyst declares supporting Trump ‘Makes you racist’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a show that regularly beats up President Trump, "CNN Tonight" with Don Lemon. This time it was one of his guests who lashed out not only at Trump but also his supporters, especially women, calling them racists.
At the top of a Friday night discussion about why many white women support Trump, CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers declared their preference for Trump over former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton means, de facto, they are “racist.”
Noting how women will say they “just voted” for Trump because they didn’t like Clinton, Powers said, “[T]hat doesn’t make you not racist. It actually makes you racist. If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist. So I just want to establish that.”
Powers on the Friday "CNN Tonight" with Don Lemon:
People will say that they support him for reasons other than his racist language, which we don’t have time to go through, but there’s all sorts of things, starting from the launch of his campaign all the way up until the latest campaign, the way he demonized people trying to come to our country on the caravan. And they’ll say, ‘Well, I’m not racist. I just voted for him because, you know, I didn’t like Hillary Clinton.’ And I just want to say that’s not — that doesn’t make you not racist. It actually makes you racist. If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist. So I just want to establish that.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “How arrogant. Powers makes herself judge and jury on whether Trump is a racist, then declares anyone who supports him is therefore racist and thus lacks any credibility to not favor the Democratic candidate. I’m sure her moral preening pleased Lemon and the smug staff of CNN who are so sure they are better than anyone who voted for Trump.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ November 12 Liberal Media Scream: Sarah Silverman says Trump sponsors ‘domestic terrorism’
(Washington Examiner post)
They won the House, but liberal pundits didn’t take a week off from squealing at President Trump, as this week’s Liberal Media Scream focus on left-wing comic Sarah Silverman shows.
Appearing on the anti-Trump "Real Time with Bill Maher," she compared the president to a Nazi and said he is fanning “domestic terrorism."
On the Friday night HBO show, she called Trump anti-Semitic as she asserted, “It is not lost on me that I am very lucky that I get a star and I don’t have to sew it on my clothes.” A few minutes later, she charged Trump’s rhetoric has fueled violence: “He knows he can start a fight and he doesn’t have to finish it because someone else will finish it for him, and that’s his role in domestic terrorism.”
Silverman, host of Hulu’s "I Love You, America," pivoted from Maher, noting she had been awarded a star on Hollywood’s “Walk of Fame,” to an ugly quip about Trump:
“In a time, Bill, where anti-Semitic crime is up 57 percent since this douchebag has taken office, it is not lost on me that I am very lucky that I get a star and I don’t have to sew it on my clothes.”
Minutes later, she said:
“It’s been exactly two weeks since he announced he was a nationalist, and in that time, there’s been two mass shootings and 14 bombs sent to every single person that he targets in his speeches, his rhetoric, over and over again. He knows he can start a fight and he doesn’t have to finish it because someone else will finish it for him, and that’s his role in domestic terrorism.”
Both lines earned audience applause.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Silverman tries to disguise vile commentary and name-calling as humorous quips, but she isn’t fooling anyone — or making anyone laugh who doesn’t already hate Trump. She puts her left-wing political agenda and disgust for Trump ahead of being funny.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ November 5 Liberal Media Scream: Morning Joe frets about Trump-loving cab driver
(Washington Examiner post)
In this week’s Liberal Media Scream we could have gone with over a dozen rants from the media but since most of us are ready for the hot-headed election season to end, we chose a fun though concerning comment from Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough about his Trump-loving cab driver.
On Monday’s show, he lamented how many people he comes across who still support President Trump and plan to vote for Republicans in the midterm elections. He then lightheartedly recounted how he had been forced to endure a cab ride with a pro-Trump driver to get to “30 Rock,” shorthand for Rockefeller Center, the Manhattan building which houses NBC.
Scarborough on the November 5 Morning Joe:
“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me, that surprise me, that say, ‘hey, I know you’ve got problems with the direction the country is going, but I’m voting Republican. I’m a Republican, he does crazy things, I’m still voting Republican.’ I was coming in here, cab driver, immigrant. ‘Why do you give Trump so much trouble? I listen to Rush every day. I’m voting Republican.’ I said, ‘that is fantastic. How long til we get to 30 Rock?’”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A fun, joking moment of some self-reflection, but Scarborough’s humorous anecdote also conveys an underlying truth for those in the media disgusted by President Trump: They don’t comprehend how anyone could not share their disdain for Trump and are appalled whenever they encounter such a person.”
Rating: Two out of five screams.
■ October 22 and 29: Scream takes a break.
■ October 15 Liberal Media Scream: Morning Joe Mika’s ‘baby’ slap at Trump proves him right
(Washington Examiner post)
In this week’s Liberal Media Scream we double up to show President Trump on 60 Minutes decrying the “dishonest” media and Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski helping the president’s case by ripping him as a “big baby."
We combined two segments for this video. First is the reaction on Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC to Trump’s 60 Minutes interview from the night before, with Brzezinski deriding him as a “big baby...unfit to lead this country.”
Second, from the CBS interview, is Trump expressing how “I never knew how dishonest the media was and I really mean it. I’m not saying that as a soundbite. I never knew how dishonest.” At that point interviewer Lesley Stahl cut him off: “I’m going to change the subject again.”
After some back and forth about the media’s bias, Trump soon zinged her: “In the meantime, I’m president and you’re not.”
From the top of the October 15 Morning Joe:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: What did you think about the president last night?
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Seems like a baby. Big baby. And really, really ill-equipped and unfit to lead this country.
SCARBOROUGH: More than one or two references about the emperor not having any clothes, John Heilemann, parading around.
BRZEZINSKI: But he doesn’t realize it.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Like a naked baby. A clothed-free baby. That’s how babies are, they generally don’t have much in the way of clothing.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Joe and Mika could not have done a better job proving President Trump’s point about a ‘dishonest media’ as they went straight to denigrating him with insults. Meanwhile, Trump himself showed what so endears him to his supporters as he put a journalist in her place, giving as good as he got from a hostile interviewer.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ October 8 Liberal Media Scream: NYT editor pushed Trump income tax story to thwart tax cuts
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the top editor of the New York Times on a Showtime episode eager to use a negative story about President Trump’s taxes to undermine the tax cuts pushed by the president and GOP leaders.
On The Family Business: Trump and Taxes, a half hour documentary aired Sunday night on Showtime about the unfolding of the recent New York Times story about how President Trump supposedly committed tax fraud, the paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, pushed to release the story during the fall of 2017 in order to thwart the then-pending tax cut bill.
Baquet expressed his “fear” that “you’re going to miss an amazing news window to write about Donald Trump and his taxes.” He hoped: “It might even influence the debate over tax reform if people got a sense of how one wealthy family over generations were able the use America’s tax laws to avoid paying taxes, enrich themselves. That’s going to be such a powerful moment in the debate.”
Sitting with reporters at the New York Times’ Manhattan headquarters, sometime in the fall of 2017, Baquet reacted to news about Trump pushing his tax cut proposal:
“He’s actually sort of flirting with an examination of his tax history and how they used the tax laws because the things he said in the last couple of weeks. So if there’s a way to accelerate the completion, I think it would be, because my fear is you’re going to miss an amazing news window to write about Donald Trump and his taxes. It might even influence the debate over tax reform if people got a sense of how one wealthy family over generations were able the use America’s tax laws to avoid paying taxes, enrich themselves. That’s going to be such a powerful moment in the debate.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A little peek behind the scenes confirms what Trump supporters have assumed, that the New York Times has an agenda beyond just putting out good stories. They want to “influence” policy. In this case, an effort to time a story in order to hinder passage of a tax cut bill promoted by Trump, but opposed by liberals.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ October 1 Liberal Media Scream: Showtime host rips ‘lunatic’ Sen. Graham over Kavanaugh
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Showtime’s John Heilemann ripping Sen. Lindsey Graham for calling out the partisan attacks on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
On his weekly Showtime program, The Circus, Heilemann regretted the possibility that the Senate Judiciary Committee, by “turning it into a giant partisan food fight and, by Lindsey Graham acting like a f---ing lunatic,” were caving into President Trump’s wishes.
From the Sept. 30 edition of the show, in a segment recorded Thursday night at Washington’s renowned Capitol Hill pub, the Tune Inn, Heilemann said:
“All of them have talked a big anti-Trump game at various times, but in the end, normally when the chips are down, they end up voting with Donald Trump. If I’m being cynical, I look at this and go: ‘Maybe by turning it into a giant partisan food fight and, by Lindsey Graham acting like a fucking lunatic and all that, maybe it’s enough and they fold to Donald Trump again.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Heilemann colorfully illustrated the ire of the Washington press corps toward Sen. Lindsey Graham for taking a position most journalists find abhorrent. They act like jilted lovers lashing out at him for betraying what they saw as their shared disdain for conservatives.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 24 Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd hypes book comparing Trump to McCarthy era
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd talking up a media book that finds similarities between the Trump administration and GOP reaction to it to the dark McCarthy era.
Todd brought aboard as a guest panelist Marvin Kalb, a one-time host of the same show, to talk about his new book, “Enemy of the People: Trump's War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy.”
Todd introduced the final panel segment on Sunday’s Meet the Press:
“Back now with End Game. And joining us with the panel is Marvin Kalb. He’s, of course, a former moderator of this esteemed program. And he’s author of a new book called Enemy of the People: Trump’s War on the Press, the New McCarthyism and the Threat to American Democracy. Marvin, always an honor, sir....
“Let me just read a quick excerpt from your book because you basically connect the Trump and McCarthy eras this way. ‘How stunningly similar,’ you write, ‘spineless Republicans cowering before McCarthy in the early ‘50s and today’s senior Republican leadership turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated accusations. The parallels are powerful and disturbing.’”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Todd’s friendly recitation of Kalb’s main theme shows Todd likes the premise of Kalb’s derogatory thesis about feckless Republicans failing to stand up to the awful President Trump. Todd however, didn’t provide such a welcoming venue for a book favorable to Trump. Last year, when Todd interviewed Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie about their book, ‘Let Trump Be Trump,’ he introduced them by listing a ‘stream of outbursts’ made by Trump and then demanded they explain what he saw as an ‘omission’ in the book.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ September 17: Liberal Media Scream: Donny Deutsch envisions ‘noose’ on Trump, Kavanaugh ‘dead’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC talker Donny Deutsch imagining a noose around President Trump’s neck as Republicans run for cover on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination he called “dead.”
In the wake of an assault allegation against Kavanaugh, on Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC, Deutsch argued “this is a moment in time” for Republicans to be “brave” enough to stand up to Trump. Later in the show Deutsch suggested Paul Manafort’s cooperation with prosecutors, combined with the news about Kavanaugh, means “you really feel the noose tightening around Trump.”
MSNBC analyst Donny Deutsch on the Monday, September 17 Morning Joe:
“The Republicans, the cowardice of them – if they’re smart – they’re going to have to kind of pull up their big boy or girl pants at this point, understand they will be branded forever. All of the chickens are going to come to roost and all of these people who have been quiet, who have stood by, they are going to pay for it. This is a moment in time and if they hide at this moment in time the rest of their political careers will pay. I hope there is Republicans listening, this is not a gray issue, this is a black and white. At the very least you need to say, no, we’re not going to not hear evil. We need to listen. I believe Kavanaugh is dead at this point. I would be shocked if he’s ever a Supreme Court justice....
“Obviously with Corker and Flake, they’ve been the brave ones. They’re retiring and Murkowski and Collins, obviously, with an extra sensitivity to women. It might be a matter of time, particularly if you connect the dots to Manafort turning and you really feel the noose tightening around Trump. You just feel it, you see it, you know it’s happening, that some other Republicans may start to act brave even if it’s just simple selfish interests. It might be -- I was asking Senator Durbin this, ‘are you getting the feeling some senators are feeling it’s okay to come out from under the rock right now? What was unthinkable a few months ago, kind of really going against the president?’ When you kind of bring these two things together, might be a moment in time.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Deutsch tried to fool viewers into seeing his commentary as astute political analysis when it was nothing more than another iteration of his long-time personal yearning for Republicans to turn against Trump. And can you imagine the reaction if any conservative had ever suggested feeling ‘the noose tightening around’ Obama?”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ September 10: Liberal Media Scream: Hulu’s Sarah Silverman foresees devil taking Brett Kavanaugh soul
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Hulu’s Sarah Silverman fretting that as a Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh will hurt the vulnerable “until the devil comes to collect his soul.”
On last Thursday’s fall premiere of Hulu’s I Love, You America, a weekly show touted as meant to “connect with people who may not agree with her personal opinions,” she charged that if Kavanaugh is confirmed, “it’s going to affect every vulnerable person in America negatively until the day he dies, until the devil comes to collect his soul.”
Though Silverman opened her show with a long diatribe deriding President Trump and Kavanaugh, Hulu claims on its page for the show that Silverman is “looking to connect with people who may not agree with her personal opinions through honesty, humor, genuine interest in others, and not taking herself too seriously. While it’s great to connect with like-minded people, Silverman feels it’s crucial, now more than ever, to connect with un-like-minded people.”
She added this about Kavanaugh getting on the court: "That will give every anti-choice Republican a giant boner." Unifying, right?
Full text of what’s in the video in which she’s referencing how the new Bob Woodward anti-Trump book and anonymous New York Times op-ed are distractions that benefit getting Kavanaugh confirmed:
“But make no mistake, the Trump administration is thrilled about this distraction right now because they’re going to get to confirm Kavanaugh and that will give every anti-choice Republican a giant boner. This is a position for life, y’all. They want to push it through, and if it goes through, it’s going to affect every vulnerable person in America negatively until the day he dies, until the Devil comes to collect his soul.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Silverman is emblematic of the intolerant left, particularly in Hollywood. In her case, made worse by her vacuous promise of a show that would respect the views of conservatives. Instead of ‘connecting’ to those with differing views, she delivered a diatribe demonizing Kavanaugh for not holding the correct view on abortion.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 4: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Mika calls the Trump presidency ‘over’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski declaring the Trump presidency over, and that was before the Washington Post began writing on editor Bob Woodward’s critical look at the president in “Fear.”
She was reacting to President Trump staying away from the funeral for the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. “For me, I kind of move on knowing, this presidency, in many ways is over. And we’re just getting through it, and goodness will prevail,” she said.
Twenty minutes later she compared the late singer Aretha Franklin to McCain and then to Trump: “Queen of soul versus the soul of America versus some sophomoric joke that pretends to be president. We got to cover it, but it’s over.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Five months ago the New Yorker magazine ran an article titled, ‘Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency. That story, like Brzezinski today, was based on hope, and disdain for President Trump, over any real journalism.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ August 27: Liberal Media Scream: TV’s Todd says anti-Trump media bias is fake news
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a fight between Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody over the existence of anti-Trump bias in the media.
During Sunday’s show, Brody said that “one of the best things going in Donald Trump’s favor...is the mainstream media” since “62 percent think the media is biased.”
Todd wouldn’t buy it. “The conservative echo chamber created that environment,” Todd said, dismissing the perception of media bias as a result of “a tactic and a tool of the Roger Ailes-created echo chamber, so let’s not pretend it’s not anything other than that.”
The exchange on the Sunday, August 26 Meet the Press:
DAVID BRODY: I think one of the best things going in Donald Trump’s favor — we know this — is the mainstream media. I hate to say it. I know I’m sitting on a Meet the Press roundtable, but the truth of the matter is 62 percent think the media is biased. So in other words, if you look at the approval ratings of Donald Trump versus the approval rating of the media-
CHUCK TODD: The conservative echo chamber created that environment. It’s not — no, no, no. I mean, it has been a tactic and a tool of the Roger Ailes-created echo chamber, so let’s not pretend it’s not anything other than that.
BRODY: Well, hang on. Yes and no. Because remember, the independents are part of Donald Trump’s base. And I think that is very important. A lot of times we say, “Republicans are Donald Trump’s base.” Not really. They’re-
TODD: No, it’s a separate Trump — it is a different version of the Republican Party.
BRODY: But those independents also distrust the media. This is not just Republicans. It is many Americans across-
TODD: Oh, no, no, no. I take your point. I’m just saying it was a creation — it was a campaign tactic. It’s not based in much fact.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “How disappointing that someone like Todd, with a reputation as an insightful political analyst, buys into paranoia about how most people see the media as biased only because of nefarious political operators have duped so many into believing it. Todd should put the overwhelming evidence ahead of a cheap cop-out which enables him to avoid confronting why Trump’s denunciations of ‘fake news’ are so widely accepted.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ August 20: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC expert calls US a ‘white supremacist country’
(Washington Examiner post)
It was just a few years back when experts featured on MSNBC were praising the unity of blacks and whites to elect former President Obama. That was then.
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features former MSNBC host Toure Neblett on Saturday’s AM Joy calling the nation a “white supremacist country" as he discussed whether President Donald Trump is a racist.
It came during a discussion with fill-in host Al Sharpton and Virginia Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart. Neblett also declared that President Donald Trump "stands on black people's necks."
From Saturday’s AM Joy:
Toure on Trump:
“We don't need to hear him say the ‘n’ word to know he's racist. He has one of the longest resumes of racist behavior and rhetoric of anyone in this entire country."
He then added:
“This is the king of birtherism. This is the man who's attacking the NFL constantly. This is a man that stands on black people's necks so that he can appear taller to white people. White nationalism and white entitlement were at the basis of his campaign. We don't need anymore evidence -- the jury is in.”
And a bit later, as he reacted to Stewart downplaying the issue of racism as a societal problem, Toure said:
“In Corey's presentation, part of what I hear is part of why black people are not dealing with the GOP at this point. He is talking about that we are obsessed with race, right? And he has this color blind approach that everybody will rise. And that's not the case, right?
“We know that this is a white supremacist country, and we have to deal with that every day in how we relate to the police, in how we relate to jobs, in how we relate to the criminal justice system and everything.”
Rich Noyes, the research director the Media Research Center explains our weekly pick: “Even as polls from sources as varied as Rasmussen Reports and the NAACP show Donald Trump's approval rating has significantly increased among African Americans since the 2016 election, MSNBC is not only slamming the president as a ‘racist,’ but condemning the entire United States as a ‘white supremacist country.’ But it was only a few years ago that MSNBC celebrated the historic racial progress signified by the election, and re-election, of an African American president -- hardly the act of a ‘white supremacist’ country. Trashing the United States as a nest of racists is untrue on its face, and the mark of a radical blame-America-first leftist.”
Rating: Four out of five screams
■ August 6: Liberal Media Scream: Analyst suggests Trump’s media feud could lead to murder
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Mainstream Scream features the former editor of Newsweek drawing a connection between the anti-Kennedy hate before JFK was assassinated and President Trump's criticism of the press.
Jon Meacham suggested on MSNBC that Trump’s attacks on the media could lead to murder, claiming instances of right wing hostility were part of “an inevitable progression.”
His comments came after MSNBC host Brian Williams on Friday played clips of Trump trashing the media and relayed how New York Times columnist Bret Stephens warned that “we are approaching a day when blood on the newsroom floor will be blood on the president’s hands” -- an assessment of which Williams declared: “I don’t think that’s an overstatement.
Joh Meacham, on the August 3 The 11th Hour on MSNBC:
“And one of the things about history is when we look back, we often see things in an inevitable progression. When we look back at Dallas, 1963, we remember that the Johnsons were jostled, people spit at Lady Bird from the John Birch Society, from the right in Texas. We see that Adlai Stevenson, then the ambassador to the United Nations was attacked with placards at a rally. We can see in retrospect all leading up to the tragedy of Dealey Plaza. I fear, and I pray that I’m wrong, that you could be playing the tape you just played a moment ago, the sequence, when in fact something terrible happens. And words have consequences. And words from the very top have the most far reaching consequences.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Meacham has reached a new low in journalistic absurdity, going to an assassination in order to blame President Trump for a potential future murder. But Meacham put his infatuation with finding an historic analogy with which to discredit Trump ahead of basic facts. Despite the ‘fake news’ which animated coverage at the time, a left wing communist, not anyone tied to right wingers in Dallas, assassinated JFK.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 30: Media Scream: NYT picked conservative columnist because he is ‘a Never-Trumper’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Mainstream Scream features a little peek into the New York Times and why it brought on noted conservative columnist Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal.
As he said on MSNBC Friday, “One of the Reasons I’m at the New York Times is I’m a Never-Trumper.”
And he hopes President Trump loses reelection.
Speaking on Live with Katy Tur, he gave advice to Democrats resisting Trump:
Bret Stephens: “Donald Trump may be doing what I – doing his greatest disservice, which is he may be making Democrats lose their marbles. If Democrats are gonna win, they need message focus, they need an optimistic strategy for the American people, and they want – they need to show that they’re not just interested in humiliating Trump, they’re interested in making things better for Americans.”
Katy Tur: “Why would a Democrat listen to Bret Stephens, conservative columnist?”
Stephens: “Well, I know how conservatives think and I’ve seen many of these elections before. Look, one of the reasons I’m at the New York Times is I’m a never-Trumper. I want to see Donald Trump, I do not want to see Donald Trump re-elected. I want to make America sane again. I want a president that I can respect. And I’m offering genuinely friendly advice.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Some refreshing honesty from inside the New York Times, conceding that his disdain for Trump allowed career advancement. Just another example of how media institutions enforce a narrow ideological range within their profession.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ July 23: Liberal Media Scream: New York Times columnist calls Trump a ‘con man’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Mainstream Scream features New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg fuming at President Trump’s relationship with Russia, calling him a “con man” and “third tier failed businessman whose fortunes were rescued by Russian oligarchs.”
Her comments came Sunday during the roundtable on This Week on ABC:
“I think that increasingly to believe that the president isn’t compromised requires such a leap of faith, that requires so many coincidences and kind of inexplicable behavioral choices. I think that the truth is probably what is right in front of us, which is that Donald Trump was a kind of a con man, a third tier failed businessman whose fortunes were rescued by Russian oligarchs. He presented himself as a kind of titan of industry, which everybody who knows anything about him knew was ridiculous. He became president with the direct intervention of Putin. He sees his fortunes as inseparable from Putin’s. We don’t know I think if Putin is his handler, his hero or his co-conspirator, but that’s obviously where his loyalty lies as opposed to lying with the American people.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Lots of innuendo, speculation and conspiracy-mongering, but not much fact from Goldberg. So much for the New York Times’ promise of ‘all the news that’s fit to print.’”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ July 16: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Acosta says Trump, Putin, were ‘playmates’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Mainstream Scream could have gone to many members of the media so anguished over President Trump’s embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday in Helsinki. For the record, Trump did not scold Putin on any number of issues and he hit his own intelligence agencies while on foreign soil, a big no-no.
And the media went wild, as represented by CNN reporter Jim Acosta, the president’s press room foil, who said the duo “came across as playmates on a soccer field more than they did international rivals.”
Jim Acosta, from Helsinki Monday:
“It was astonishing, just astonishing, to be in room with the U.S president and with the Russian president on this critical question of election interference and to hear the president of the United States retreat back to these talking points about DNC servers and Hillary Clinton’s emails when he had a chance, right there in front of us, right there in front of the world to confront Vladimir Putin and tell him to stay the hell out of American democracy, and he just didn’t do it.
“It was one of those moments, I think, obviously we all think this is a very big deal right now and sometimes these sorts of things can fade away. But I don’t think this is one of those moments. This is one of those moments, Anderson, I think really crystallizes a very critical problem for the United States right now in that you have the president, the leader of the free world, taking the word of Vladimir Putin who, from all accounts inside the U.S. government, the U.S. intelligence community, the law enforcement community, attacked American democracy in 2016.
“You know, when Vladimir Putin was asked whether he wanted Trump to win, that might have been the only honest moment of this news conference when Vladimir Putin said yes, he did want President Trump to win. And then, shortly after that, handed him that soccer ball. They came across as playmates on a soccer field more than they did international rivals, Anderson. The president of the United States very much yielding the field on this day to Vladimir Putin.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Nice to see a member of the news media so concerned about not being tough enough on a Russian leader after spending the Cold War decrying Reagan and others for being too tough. Acosta perfectly encapsulated the disdain for Trump held by the press corps as he scolded Trump for daring to again depart from what reporters wanted him to say.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ July 10: Liberal Media Scream: Joy Behar rants ‘how dare’ Trump pick a Supreme Court justice
(Washington Examiner post)
There were a lot of warnings from left-leaning pundits that President Trump’s pick of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh could mean the end of America, but The View’s Joy Behar stood out and is our Liberal Media Scream of the week.
Today, on the ABC show the day after Trump announced his pick of the conservative judge and Bush ally, she said that the president should not have been allowed to name a court nominee because he is being investigated by the special Russia counsel. She somehow linked the pick to people “who will still be alive and need abortions.”
To applause, Behar said:
“He’s under investigation. We’re going to have Alan Dershowitz on today and we'll ask him. Why would a president, who is under investigation by the FBI for obstruction of justice and collusion, be allowed to pick a Supreme Court justice who will be there -- I'll be dead. There are many people in this room who will still be alive and need abortions and what have you, need health care. How dare he be allowed to do this when he is under investigation! [Cheers and applause]”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Behar was more unhinged than normal this morning. We only have one president at a time, so if President Trump can’t nominate a justice, because she’s concerned that after she’s dead ‘many people’ will ‘need abortions,’ how will the position ever be filled? Her mind works in mysterious ways. Presumably, if Trump picked a pro-Roe v Wade judge, her indignation about investigations of Trump would quickly fade.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 2: Liberal Media Scream: Hollywood’s Michael Moore to fight Supreme Court pick
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s winner of the Liberal Media Scream goes to Hollywood activist Michael Moore who wants to surround the U.S. Capitol to stop the Senate’s consideration of President Trump’s eventual pick to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
In the just the latest promise by the left wing to block the pick, still unknown and only because it will come from Trump. Moore said on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO Friday, “I'll join a million other people surrounding the United States Capitol." Moore was on the show to promote his upcoming anti-Trump movie, Fahrenheit 11/9.
MICHAEL MOORE: We first have to find ways to stop that vote from happening.
BILL MAHER: Find ways? What does that mean?
MOORE: Well, I'll join a million other people surrounding the United States Capitol. I will stand there, I will put my -- Bill, let me tell you something, if this judge goes through, for the rest of our lives it's a right court. That's it, it's over.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Moore claims Trump is a fascist, suggesting he'll never leave office, yet it is the ever-outrageous Moore who, when he doesn't get his way, has contempt for the American Constitutional system."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ June 25: Liberal Media Scream: Hollywood couple compare border to Auschwitz, Trump ‘evil’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s winner of the Liberal Media Scream goes to Hollywood's Rob Reiner, and his wife Michele, who have spun the border crisis into America’s Holocaust.
Both appeared on Sunday’s AM Joy on MSNBC, ground zero for Trump hating.
Rob Reiner: “Let's cut to the chase -- this is about racism. This is pure and simple racism -- that's all this is. He’s hoping that the people who support him will be ginned up and running to the polls to make sure that brown people don’t come into America. That’s exactly what’s going on here.”...
Michele Reiner: “And I have to tell you, my mother was in Auschwitz. She got separated from her entire family -- lost her entire family. I never thought I would live to see something like that, particularly in this country, ever again in my lifetime. It’s hideous. And by the way, as a fellow Jew, I’d like to hear Ivanka speak up. Where is Ivanka?..
“They follow the exact pattern Hitler has, I hate to say it with the propaganda, even down to the Red Cross went into Auschwitz, they cleaned it up for two day, it looked fine, they went back they said everything seems fine there.”
Rob: “It’s a fascist playbook....It’s shocking there are 40 percent as you say, or 46 percent, those people who are supporting what he’s doing here are racists, period.”....
Michele: “To quote that new book that just came out, he is evil. He is evil. And the thing is, I thought, ‘He’ll come in and he won’t really know because he's not that smart smart, and he’ll just do a showmanship thing,’ but he’s evil.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Auschwitz in Austin? Where are the ovens? MSNBC should be ashamed for showcasing such ridiculous, over the top, Hitler rhetoric over how to best handle an influx of migrants at the border. And the charge that all Trump supporters are racists just shows, once again, how much disdain Hollywood has for many of the people buying tickets to see their movies.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ June 18: Liberal Media Scream: CNN analyst is ‘sorry’ for holding his anger at Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s winner of the Liberal Media Scream goes to CNN political analyst Brian Karem who said that the Trump administration has repeatedly lied to him and that he his sorry for not blasting them until now.
Asked about his outburst at the June 14 White House press briefing, where he spoke out of turn and lectured press secretary Sarah Sanders about the detention policy for illegal immigrants, Karem apologized – but only for not being more anti-Trump sooner.
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, Karem asserted that “I’m sorry to those people for waiting so long and holding my temper” and “I’m sorry that I am extremely angry with this administration that has lied to me.”
Karem, a CNN political analyst who also writes for Playboy and the Sentinel Newspapers in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., had this exchange with CNN host Brian Stelter:
BRIAN STELTER: Well Brian, this brings us to your outburst at Thursday’s briefing. I don’t know if you’d call it an outburst, but I would. Here’s part of what happened there.”
KAREM, AT WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING: Come on, Sarah! You’re a parent! Don’t you have any empathy for what these people are going through? They have less than you do.
SARAH SANDERS: Brian! Guys, settle down!
KAREM: Seriously! Seriously!
SANDERS: I’m trying to be serious, but I’m not going to have you yell out of turn.
STELTER: Do you regret losing your cool, Brian?
KAREM: I have an apology to make. I apologize to every human being who’s had to suffer, who have less -- who has less than I do and I did not come to the table sooner. I’m sorry to those people for waiting so long and holding my temper. I’m sorry that I am extremely angry with this administration that has lied to me, continues to lie to me. I’m sorry as a reporter that for so long I thought that the idea was to -- I was struggling so hard to do my job, I forgot that my job is to comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable and ask questions for those who have no voice.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “If you were to create a caricature of an out of touch, obnoxious liberal journalist who brings discredit to the profession, you couldn’t do better than what Karem already delivers. He embarrassed himself at the White House briefing by using it to grandstand, but instead of backtracking he doubled down, boasting of how he’s an aggressive advocate more than a journalist.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ June 11: Liberal Media Scream: Trump is ‘punishment’ for being lazy citizens
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features veteran “conservative” writer David Frum, now with The Atlantic, who declared on CNN that, “in many ways, we got Donald Trump in the first place as a punishment for not being good enough citizens.”
His slap came during a discussion about a Pew Research Center poll which found 68 percent of Americans have “news fatigue.”
“The job of the press is to tell you the truth as it is, whether it’s good news or not. And then it’s your responsibility as a patriot and a citizen to accept it and to internalize it and to act on it. You know, in many ways, we got Donald Trump in the first place as a punishment for not being good enough citizens and our ability to mitigate the harm he’s going to do to institutions, to alliances, to the security of the world will depend on our, as individuals, willingness to do better citizens in the future, and that means being informed citizens. And that’s on us, not on the press.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “No better example of media arrogance on display: You didn’t vote the way I preferred, so you were misinformed and must be re-educated into the correct way of thinking. Very totalitarian. And how does Frum want the wayward public to learn? By consuming even more of the biased news which led so many to reject the establishment and choose Trump.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ June 4: Mainstream Media Scream: MSNBC’s O’Donnell dubs Obama’s ‘mind too supple, too complex’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the gushing of MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell over the brain of former President Barack Obama.
In his new book, The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, the deputy national security adviser for the Obama administration, quoted Barack Obama as wondering if he may have become president “10 or 20 years too early.”
Reacting to that, MSNBC prime time host Lawrence O’Donnell was in awe: “I cannot possibly fill in the paragraph that that is the first sentence of, if it is spoken by Barack Obama because his mind is too supple, too complex, too rich compared to my own to fill out what the rest of that thought is.”
O’Donnell, on Saturday’s AM Joy on MSNBC:
“When I hear a statement like that -- or read a statement like that from Barack Obama -- who is, as we’ve said, an introspective and thoughtful and very wise man -- and a brilliant writer. And he says something like ‘maybe I came along 20 years too soon,’ my reaction to that is: What do you mean? Which is to say, I cannot possibly fill in the paragraph that that is the first sentence of, if it is spoken by Barack Obama because his mind is too supple, too complex, too rich compared to my own to fill out what the rest of that thought is.”
“And I think he’s got a really interesting thought there and when you hear him, in an extended interview like he most recently did with David Letterman, you understand that wherever that first line began is not -- did not tell you where that answer was going to go 75 or 200 words later.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “You can’t make this stuff up. Liberal pontificators like O’Donnell still have so much reverence for Barack Obama that they become so overwhelmed – what journalist have you ever heard describe anyone as ‘supple’? – that they cannot even offer a comment about what he said. A brief rekindling of a love suppressed under their equally passionate hatred of the man who succeeded Obama.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ May 21 and May 28: No screams.
■ May 14: Mainstream Media Scream: CNN’s Amanpour cheers ‘necessary activism’ against Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features CNN’s Christiane Amanpour calling President Trump a “threat” to journalism that has sparked “necessary activism” against Trump.
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, Amanpour repeated her earlier claim that Donald Trump is “a grave and existential threat” to journalism. The CNN International anchor, who now has a half-hour PBS shows and is soon to get a new hour-long one, Amanpour & Company, proceeded to hail “one of the great things of the Trump administration is how it has caused a huge rise in necessary activism.”
She cited how “women” and “black people have come out,” along with the press, to defend “their right to exist under the Constitution.”
Her comments came during a discussion about a Trump tweet: “Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?”
From the Sunday, May 13 Reliable Sources on CNN:
“I have been talking about this ever since the President was elected, even before he was inaugurated, I made a big speech at the Committee to Protect Journalism in November of 2016, warning American journalists that there was now a grave and existential threat to their work....
“But I think one of the great things of the Trump administration is how it has caused a huge rise in necessary activism. You know, everybody was getting a little lazy, everyone was taking everything for granted, particularly in the United States. And I think women of have come out, you know, black people have come out. The press have come out. Everybody is coming out to defend their profession and their right to exist under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Nice to hear a liberal journalist see something good from Trump. Naturally, it’s how he’s fueling liberal activism. Funny, I don’t recall Amanpour ever thanking Obama for prompting a resurgence of conservative activism.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ May 7: Mainstream Media Scream: Jon Meacham says Trump’s doom is coming
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features historian and former Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham forecasting certain doom for President Trump and declaring that the Constitution is designed to protect against demagogues.
“It took three years to get Andrew Johnson,” Meacham declared on Sunday’s Meet the Press of the impeached president in predicting how the political system will catch up with Trump and oust him from office over his supposed misdeeds.
The author of a new book, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, recalled how “the presidents who get in trouble in the fullness of time are those who think they can put a fast one past the people,” and thus Trump’s dishonesty “will have a cumulative effect.”
Trump is the worst president ever, Meacham maintained “the Founders would have been stunned that it took this long to get a president like this. They designed this document for demagogues.”
From the May 6 Meet the Press on NBC, picking up after the Boston Herald’s Kimberly Atkins rued how “a lot of people” believe the FBI and other institutions are improperly taking on the president and Trump is not losing support because “people are getting tired of this” narrative hostile to Trump:
JON MEACHAM: It took four years to get McCarthy. It took three years to get Andrew Johnson. It’s a dark moment. But I really do think at a certain point, you’re right, people are not thinking as much about this as the political class. The reason he’s president is a lot of people didn’t believe what even more conventional presidents have said recently, right?
He’s president because, of the ten national tickets, eight had a Clinton or a Bush on them. They were basically saying to Washington, ‘If you’re going to act like a reality TV show, I guess we'll send you, we’ll send you a real one.’ And so, I think the polls, I’m skeptical of. I do know this, historically. And I think we all know it intuitively. The presidents who get in trouble in the fullness of time are those who think they can put a fast one past the people. And I think this will have a cumulative effect.
......
CHUCK TODD, referring to Meacham’ book: I have to say, Jon, every moment in here is infused with race, actually.
JON MEACHAM: Absolutely.
CHUCK TODD: Every moment, every rough moment we’ve had, and in some ways it’s some version of race.
JON MEACHAM: Unquestionably. Because it’s our original sin. The Constitution itself, which is otherwise the document that has sort of saved us, because it’s a human document. It recognizes that appetite and ambition. The Founders would have been stunned that it took this long to get a president like this. They designed this document for demagogues. If you said 2016, they would have thought, ‘Hey, pretty good.’ Doesn’t mean that it’s easy. But I think the most important–
CHUCK TODD: Someone might have thought Andrew Jackson had qualified for that, but that‘s okay.
JON MEACHAM: Well, that’s a different story for a different Sunday. But remember, what the document says is that we are on a journey to a more perfect Union, not a perfect one.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A perfect example of media arrogance on display: We know Trump is an arrogant, incompetent demagogue and the people who support him will realize our prescience. But, sadly for the country, it will take years for them to recognize what’s so obvious to us smart journalists.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ April 30: Mainstream Media Scream: CNN blames Trump for ‘comic’s’ press dinner attack
(Washington Examiner post)
Remember when the ills of the world used to be George W. Bush’s fault? Well now blame President Trump.
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features two CNN big shots blaming Trump for the slam on Sarah Sanders and Kellyanne Conway by TV comic Michelle Wolf at Saturday’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
“Trump has changed this entire conversation,” rued CNN media anchor Brian Stelter this morning before Julie Pace, Washington Bureau chief for the Associated Press agreed Wolf took a “cheap shot” at Sanders. But, she added, “I think that a lot of people have felt the same way when the president has made cracks about people’s looks as well.”
Co-anchor Chris Cuomo echoed: “That’s the irony is that people are complaining, Trump backers, that she went over the line, when he goes over the line all the time and they say nothing to him, say nothing about it.”
Stelter soon proposed: “Maybe it’s a good thing people in that room were uncomfortable.”
From CNN’s New Day on Monday, April 30:
BRIAN STELTER: I do think, as with everything else, Trump has changed this entire conversation. Everything is political now. And even raunchy jokes told at a fun dinner is now political.
CHRIS CUOMO: Right. But it wasn’t fun for Sarah Sanders. We talked about this before on the show with Saturday Night Live.
STELTER: It wasn’t fun for George W. Bush. It wasn’t fun for Barack Obama. He sat there.
....
CUOMO: But I thought that that was a clear line that was passed here with this comedian as she went after Sarah for her looks and she had to sit there and take it. I thought that, you know, that sucked.
JULIE PACE, AP: It’s a cheap shot. And I think that a lot of people have felt the same way when the president has made cracks about people’s looks as well.
CUOMO: Yes. That’s the irony is that people are complaining, Trump backers, that she went over the line, when he goes over the line all the time and they say nothing to him, say nothing about it.
STELTER: That’s why so many viewers are listening to this thinking, wait a second, why do you all care what a young comedian said? The president has changed all these conversations.
CUOMO: She’s joking. He’s actually telling the, he's telling his truth when he says these things.
STELTER: And Wolf’s argument is, she wasn’t talking about Michelle -- she wasn't talking about Sarah Sanders looks. Michelle Wolf's argument is, I was talking about her, quote, despicable behavior that, you know, everything’s upside down and, frankly, comedy’s supposed to be uncomfortable. Maybe it’s a good thing people in that room were uncomfortable.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “When has Trump ever disparaged someone’s physical appearance in front of them? Wolf displayed a new low for public discourse, yet after three years of decrying Trump’s caustic comments, these journalists rationalize bad behavior by their profession’s chosen dinner entertainer by reflexively lashing out at Trump instead of holding accountable those who chose Wolf. That illustrates so well why Trump supporters have such disdain for journalists.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ April 23: Mainstream Media Scream: ABC’s Karl complains Trump investigative reporting ‘too late’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the Trump-obsessed media complaining that there wasn’t enough reporting on Donald Trump.
In the midst of a discussion with New York Times reporter Amy Chozick, author of the new book Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling, This Week moderator George Stephanopoulos fretted how Hillary Clinton’s campaign was supposedly harmed by the media’s fealty to giving equal time to “wrongdoing” on both sides.
“If you point out a wrongdoing on one side,” he said, “you have to point at a wrongdoing on the other and they automatically become equivalent and that isn’t always fair.”
ABC’s chief White House correspondent, Jon Karl, jumped in to regret how there was “not enough investigative reporting” on Trump “until it was too late.”
Exchange on the April 22 This Week on ABC:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s a big question for all of us. You look back and say, listen, there were things done wrong. No question about that. But there’s something structurally in the media where we have to equalize everything. If you point out a wrongdoing on one side, you have to point at a wrongdoing on the other and they automatically become equivalent and that isn’t always fair.
JON KARL: I think the problem though may have been not enough equalization. I don’t think it’s a problem how much we covered or how much the press covered the e-mails. How much investigative work was done on Donald Trump. Particularly during the primaries.
STEPHANIE CUTTER, DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR OBAMA: Not enough.
KARL: He was portrayed more as a phenomenon, the excitement, the attacks, the latest, you know, outrageous thing he said, or whatever. There wasn’t much investigative reporting going, frankly, until it was too late.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “This one could use a laugh track. More than a year into the most hostile coverage any modern president has had to endure following very negative coverage during the final campaign season, ABC’s top political correspondents are concerned the press corps were too tough on their favorite and not tough enough on Trump. Well, they’ve certainly made up for any break, real or imagined, they gave Trump in 2016.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ April 16: Mainstream Media Scream: Stephanopoulos, who’s boss was impeached, targets Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the James Comey interview by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, whose one-time boss, former President Bill Clinton, was impeached. Stephanopoulos, who helped to politicize the FBI during the Travelgate scandal, pushed Comey in his Sunday interview to recommend impeachment of President Trump.
In the interview, Comey was pushing his book, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.”
The beginning of the final segment:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Almost a year has passed since James Comey was fired by President Trump. Since then, he’s come to some stark conclusions about the use of power and moral leadership.
STEPHANOPOULOS TO COMEY: You write that President Trump is unethical, untethered to the truth. Is Donald Trump unfit to be president?
JAMES COMEY: Yes. But not in the way I often hear people talk about it. I don’t buy this stuff about him being mentally incompetent or early stages of dementia. He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who’s tracking conversations and knows what’s going on. I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president....
STEPHANOPOULOS: If you are right, what is the remedy? Should Donald Trump be impeached?
COMEY: Impeachment is a question of law and fact and politics.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You’re a citizen. You have a judgment.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “What an orchestrated sham and an example of what makes so many have disdain for the mainstream media. Get a political operative for the other party, who is now working as a journalist, cue up an avowed enemy of the president with provocative talking points the opponent wants to make in order to sell books. And give it an atmosphere of importance by putting it all in prime time.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ Mainstream Media Scream: NYT editor rips ‘out of control’ Trump, says Fox and Friends not ‘serious journalism’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the executive editor of the New York Times, Dean Baquet, ripping President Trump as “out of control.”
It came during a live segment on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday.
Decrying Trump’s criticisms of the media, Baquet rued: “If he creates a culture where Fox and Friends and Jesse Watters are regarded as serious journalism, and the New York Times and the Washington Post are not, he will have done longstanding, harmful effect on the country.”
Host Brian Stelter asked if Trump’s attacks on the media are “out of control?” Baquet agreed with the characterization.
BRIAN STELTER: What do you think is the cumulative effect of more than a year of these attacks?
DEAN BAQUET: It’s bad. I mean, it hurts the media – I think the president missed the part of high school civics where the First Amendment was explained, and where the role of a free and independent press was explained. And I think this is debilitating. I think that the press will keep doing what it does, but a president has two roles. One role, of course, is to pursue his agenda. The other role is to sort of build an understanding of the culture and to sort of create a culture.
And if he creates a culture where Fox and Friends and Jesse Watters are regarded as serious journalism, and the New York Times and the Washington Post are not, he will have done longstanding, harmful effect on the country.
STELTER: Is it out of control?
BAQUET: It’s out of control. It’s out of control and his advisors should tell him to stop, because it's actually affecting the civic life and debate of the country. It started -- when I first heard it, I thought, okay, a year ago, it felt like an exaggerated version of what we’ve heard from presidents forever. But it’s out of control.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “What arrogance. If a significant portion of the public believe Fox News shows and their on-air personalities more than they do the New York Times, whose fault is that? Baquet and Stelter are in their own bubble, unable to recognize that decades of biased and distorted journalism is what, for many, gives credibility to Trump’s efforts to discredit old media institutions and point toward new voices.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
April 2: Mainstream Media Scream: Morning Joe crew denounces Sinclair, ‘chilling’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features a regular, the MSNBC Morning Joe crew, this time feigning outrage at the growing Sinclair TV group and the commentary warning of "one sided news stories plaguing our country” they had local anchors read.
Joe Scarborough cited “all of the false information coming out of the White House” and how he saw “an ally of the president using a lot of local news stations to run a propaganda clip.” Co-host Mika Brzezinski called it “frightening” before guest Jon Meacham, the former editor of the once thriving Newsweek, denounced it as “beyond chilling.”
Scarborough tarred Sinclair as “America’s new Pravda.”
From the Monday, April 2, 2018 Morning Joe on MSNBC:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “This weekend I was struck by all of the false information coming out of the White House, it seemed like a more steady pace. And then, on top of that, I actually saw an ally of the president using a lot of local news stations to run a propaganda clip. So here you have an entire broadcasting system running a propaganda clip.”
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It’s pretty frightening.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Attacking news agencies while the president himself was running a lot of fake news stories.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Well, and I find the anchors to be frightening, too, that they did this....The broadcaster is known for pushing a conservative platform and mandating must-run commentary. Over the past week or so, anchors nationwide were required to read from the script, not their own commentary, the commentary of their company as this mash-up from Deadspin illustrates the results are chilling.”
BRZEZINSKI, picking up on line from the Sinclair anchor video: : “This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
SCARBOROUGH: “A national broadcasting system that is shoving propaganda down local anchor’s throats, straight from the pen of somebody who’s a Trump acolyte is really, really chilling.”
JON MEACHAM: “It’s kind of beyond chilling, right? It’s state media, essentially....”
.....
SCARBOROUGH: “You combine this with Donald Trump attacking actually respectable news outlets that actually fight hard everyday to get it right, while Donald Trump in his White House and his allies are churning up their own fake news. They’re lying to the American people throughout the weekend, over the past year, year and a half. But they’re trying to discredit those who are actually calling them out on their lies and now they’re using an entire broadcast system, and I’m not sure who advertises on these stations, but they’re basically advertising for America’s new Pravda.”
AdvertisementMedia Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Pot, meet kettle. What clueless chutzpah. ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS all reach near 100 percent of American households and MSNBC can be seen in just about every home with cable. They all deliver uniform messages while Sinclair reaches only 40 percent of households, and yet it is Sinclair which so frightens Joe and Mika? Why are they so afraid of journalists wanting to eliminate fake news?”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ March 26: Mainstream Media Scream: Journalism cheered as ‘a form of activism’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the co-editor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, site of the Florida mass slaying, telling her truth on the media that it is a “form of activism.”
Appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources during the weekend of anti-gun protests in Washington, Rebecca Schneid, co-editor-in-chief of the Eagle Eye, said the purpose of journalism is to be a change agent.
Host Brian Stelter interviewed her the day after she participated in the “March for Our Lives.”
The exchange on the March 25 edition of Reliable Sources on CNN:
Brian Stelter: Rebecca, I wonder what yesterday felt like for you because I see a lot of Parkland students becoming activists, but you all were there as journalists. Do you see a difference right now between journalism and activism and what you're doing?
Rebecca Schneid: I think that for me, the purpose of journalism is to raise, you know, the voices of people that maybe don’t have a voice and so, I think that in its own right journalism is a form of activism. And I think that there is distinctions for me, you know as a journalist and also as someone that wants to demand change, but I think that the partnership of the two is the only reason that we are able to make a change.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “The press corps have enthusiastically embraced the anti-gun rights sentiments of the high schoolers behind the ‘March for Our Lives’ while maintaining they are just covering the facts. High school journalist Rebecca Schneid, however, has shown the next generation of journalists may be more astute than their elders, recognizing how many members of the media really are activists using journalism to advance a political agenda.”
■ March 19: Mainstream Media Scream: Carl Bernstein hails ‘Greatest reporting...in 50 years’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features an icon of investigative journalism declaring that reporting on President Trump and his administration has marked a high-point in the industry.
While the mainstream media is always critical when other industries police and evaluate themselves, the press loves it when it comes to them, and there are few held in higher esteem than Bernstein of the famed Washington Post Watergate team.
He appeared on Sunday’s CNN Reliable Sources to rue an “authoritarian, demagogic president appealing to a base that has the Republican Party, so far, held hostage.” Yet he then insisted the press must be “rigidly reportorial, not go beyond what we know” and not be “provocative.”
And he celebrated how “we have seen, in the last year, the greatest reporting on the presidency of the United States, by a great number of news organizations that we’ve seen in the last 50, 60 years.”
From the Sunday, March 18 Reliable Sources on CNN:
CARL BERNSTEIN: But in this cultural civil war, in this cold civil war, there is real question as Jeff Greenfield has said today, of whether or not it’s possible for a legitimate investigation to prevail as opposed to an authoritarian, demagogic president appealing to a base that has the Republican Party, so far, held hostage.
HOST BRIAN STELTER: So, Carl, what is the role of the press as you see it in this difficult moment?
BERNSTEIN: To stay reportorial, to be really rigidly reportorial, not to go beyond what we know, and it’s very difficult because when you say that the president of the United States lies and lies repeatedly, that’s very difficult to listen to, particularly if you are a supporter of the president and at the same time, it is a reportorial, demonstrable fact that everyone has to deal with here, and it’s true of this whole story. But I think that the less we show ourselves as provocative, if we can keep our tone to being as reportorial as we can, and at the same time, be strict in terms of pointing out what we know, what is fact, what is speculation.
We have seen, in the last year, the greatest reporting on the presidency of the United States, by a great number of news organizations that we’ve seen in the last 50, 60 years in this country, by the New York Times, by the Washington Post, by the Wall Street Journal whose owner, Rupert Murdoch, is a supporter of the president, by some right wing outfits as well.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Bernstein’s comments explain a lot about the media’s lack of balance or fairness when it comes to Trump. In Bernstein’s mind, calling Trump an ‘authoritarian’ is not ‘provocative’ and is just plain simple reporting of the facts. Meanwhile, such hostility toward Trump represents ‘the greatest reporting on the presidency’ in decades. I guess he’s inadvertently admitting they weren’t so tough on Obama.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ March 12: Mainstream Media Scream: Chuck Todd insists media not the ‘opposition’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd at a media dinner pledging that the press isn’t the opposition, but “simply a voice of truth.”
At the Radio Television Digital News Foundation’s “2018 First Amendment Awards” held Thursday night, at D.C.’s Marriott Marquis Hotel, Todd was presented with the group’s First Amendment Award.
Two days later, President Trump campaigning in Pittsburgh called Todd, “a sleeping son of a bitch. I’ll tell you.”
NBC’s Chuck Todd at the March 8 dinner:
“One thing we’re not is the opposition. We’ve never tried to be part of the political debate, but people want to drag us into it. We shouldn’t take the bait. We’re simply a voice of truth. There’s no balance, there’s just fairness and truth. And a true voice and the truth is what we all need to be hearing right now. A voice that no matter how many disparaging tweets or calls of fake news, we can’t let it be silenced....
“There’s plenty of people trying to undermine what we do for a living. There’s plenty of people that motivated to undermine us for their own gain – political, financial, or whatever. Just keep that in mind. We just need to be fair, credible, honest, and most importantly, transparent. Because I believe in the 21st century, transparency is the new objectivity.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Todd’s ludicrous arrogance, about how journalists are ‘dragged’ into the political world and are only after ‘the truth,’ no doubt is part of what fueled President Trump’s ‘sleeping eyes’ slam of him. A year ago, barely two months after Trump took office, Todd asked of the Trump presidency: ‘Is it on the brink of collapse?’ Was that part delivering ‘fairness and truth’?”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ March 5: Mainstream Media Scream: Classless media tries to trip Dolly Parton up over Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features a classless effort by ABC to trap “9 to 5” star Dolly Parton into saying something bad about President Trump, even after she said “I don’t do politics.”
In the end Parton won and kept true to her policy of keeping “your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business.”
It occurred Thursday on Nightline when ABC’s David Wright tried to get Parton to denounce Trump in an interview, an episode devoted to “Icons of Change” and pegged to Parton’s “Imagination Library” providing children’s books to the Library of Congress.
Wright played video of Lilly Tomlin and Jane Fonda, who co-starred with Parton in “9 to 5,” denouncing President Trump at the Emmy Awards.
(Fonda: “Back in 1980, that movie, we refused to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.”
(Tomlin: “And in 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.”)
ABC then showed Parton cautioning Wright: “I’m not being political. I don’t do politics. I’m not getting into any of that. Because I have a lot of fans out there and I don’t want to offend anybody. And besides, I don’t get into that. And so, if you are deciding, you may want to ask me something more serious, don’t. Because I’m not going to answer it.
Wright, lightheartedly: “Fair warning. Okay. I’m duly warned, I might still ask.”
Parton: “Well, you can ask, but I might still tell you where to put it if I don’t like where you got it.”
Clip of Jane Fonda in the 9 to 5 movie: “You’re a sexist, egotistical lying hypocritical bigot.”
Wright pursued the sentiment: “The sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot portrayed so effectively in that movie by actor Dabney Coleman hasn’t exactly disappeared from the culture.”
Wright zeroed in on Trump, asking Parton: “We have a president of the United States who said those things on that bus.”
Parton resisted: “I’m not addressing that. I do not get into that. Of course I have my opinion about everybody and everything. But I learned a long time ago, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business. I’m not in politics. I’m an entertainer.”
Wright gently pressed: “And yet, you’re also a role model.”
Parton: “Yes, I am. That’s why I don’t talk about people.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Wright recognized he was going where Parton didn’t want to go, and took Parton’s warning with good humor, but he, nonetheless, couldn’t help himself from using a segment about a good cause – free books for little kids – to try to get a celebrity to denounce President Trump. Parton showed true class in demurring.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ February 26: Mainstream Media Scream: CNN, Dan Rather challenge Trump’s ‘fantasyland’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features two of the media’s self-appointed fact police who feel their role is to call out President Trump.
Says Dan Rather, “if journalists cower, then how long can we sing we’re ‘The home of the brave’?”
And CNN’s Brian Stelter added, “this ridiculous rhetoric has to stop.”
It all went down on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday when the talk turned to arming teachers, as is done to some degree in eight states already.
Brian Stelter: “He’s promoting this idea of arming more and more teachers. Let’s look at how he framed this discussion at CPAC.”
President Trump at CPAC: “The teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened.”
Stelter: “This ridiculous rhetoric has to stop. This is part of Trump’s fantasyland....We’ve got to provide the proper context for these ridiculous quotes that are out there. Even if President Trump prefers to live in a fantasyland, journalists have to at least try to help him see the reality. Joining me now is Dan Rather, former anchor of the CBS Evening News. He currently anchors The News with Dan Rather on The Young Turks streaming network....”
Stelter, given that Trump’s false claims are so well established: “Do you think there’s less use then in journalists trying to check the false claims?”
Dan Rather: “Not only do I think it’s useful, I think it’s imperative now more than ever is when the press needs to be a kind of truth squad for this and every other president. It’s perhaps more important with President Trump because there are more untruths to set record straight. But if journalists cower, as many in Congress – both some Republicans and some Democrats in Congress – are cowering with the NRA, if journalists cower, then how long can we sing we’re ‘the home of the brave’?”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Not sure which is more ridiculous: CNN putting up Dan Rather as an expert on truth or Rather presuming that, after his ‘memogate’ hit job on former President George W. Bush, anyone would take him seriously as a barometer of truth. But I guess Stelter and Rather live in their own ‘fantasyland,’ where attacking those already much-demonized by the media, represents some sort of bravery.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ February 19: Mainstream Media Scream: MSNBC sees anti-GOP black vote the ‘hope for the country’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe show suggesting that the “hope” for the future of the country is with black voter turnout for Democrats.
On Friday’s show, the host, Joe Scarborough, cited the recent high black voter turnout in the Alabama Senate race and said Republicans should be scared going into the 2018 midterms.
Joe Scarborough: “The coalition of the ascendant, energized, all you have to do is look at what happened in Alabama, black turnout higher in Doug Jones’ off-year special election race than it was for Barack Obama. That remains the most remarkable statistic of this year and the reason why Republicans should be shaking in their boots right now.”
Co-host Mika Brzezinski: “It also remains our hope for the future of this country.”
Scarborough: “Yeah, hope.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “What’s remarkable is that anyone could consider these two to be any sort of independent journalists when they so obviously have, to borrow one of Haley Barbour’s favorite phrases, a dog in the fight.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ February 12: Mainstream Scream: DHS pushes back on NBC, ‘no evidence’ Russians ‘manipulated’ elections
(Washington Examiner post)
The Department of Homeland Security made the rare move Monday to officially discredit an NBC News report that claimed a top Trump official found that “Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election.”
In a statement, DHS said the “breaking news” report was not only wrong and hyped but is also being ripped by other media.
In the report, NBC interviewed Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, who said, “We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated.”
In the statement, Manfra said, “let me be clear: we have no evidence – old or new - that any votes in the 2016 elections were manipulated by Russian hackers.”
She added, “NBC News continues to falsely report my recent comments on attempted election hacking – which clearly mirror my testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last summer – as some kind of ‘breaking news,’ incorrectly claiming a shift in the administration’s position on cyber threats. As I said eight months ago, a number of states were the target of Russian government cyber actors seeking vulnerabilities and access to U.S. election infrastructure. In the majority of cases, only preparatory activity like scanning was observed, while in a small number of cases, actors were able to access the system but we have no evidence votes were changed or otherwise impacted.”
The NBC headline on one story was, “Russians penetrated U.S. voter systems, top U.S. official says.”
Here is Manfra’s full statement:
DHS Statement On NBC News Coverage Of Election Hacking
WASHINGTON - Today, Jeanette Manfra, National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) Assistant Secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications, released the following statement regarding the recent NBC news coverage on the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to combat election hacking.
“Recent NBC reporting has misrepresented facts and confused the public with regard to Department of Homeland Security and state and local government efforts to combat election hacking. First off, let me be clear: we have no evidence – old or new - that any votes in the 2016 elections were manipulated by Russian hackers. NBC News continues to falsely report my recent comments on attempted election hacking – which clearly mirror my testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last summer – as some kind of “breaking news,” incorrectly claiming a shift in the administration’s position on cyber threats. As I said eight months ago, a number of states were the target of Russian government cyber actors seeking vulnerabilities and access to U.S. election infrastructure. In the majority of cases, only preparatory activity like scanning was observed, while in a small number of cases, actors were able to access the system but we have no evidence votes were changed or otherwise impacted.
"NBC’s irresponsible reporting, which is being roundly criticized elsewhere in the media and by security experts alike, undermines the ability of the Department of Homeland Security, our partners at the Election Assistance Commission, and state and local officials across the nation to do our incredibly important jobs. While we’ll continue our part to educate NBC and others on the threat, more importantly, the Department of Homeland Security and our state and local partners will continue our mission to secure the nation’s election systems.
"To our state and local partners in the election community: there’s no question we’re making real and meaningful progress together. States will do their part in how they responsibly manage and implement secure voting processes. For our part, we’re going to continue to support with risk and vulnerability assessments, offer cyber hygiene scans, provide real-time threat intel feeds, issue security clearances to state officials, partner on incident response planning, and deliver cybersecurity training. The list goes on of how we’re leaning forward and helping our partners in the election community. We will not stop, and will stand by our partners to protect our nation’s election infrastructure and ensure that all Americans can have confidence in our democratic elections.”
Secrets nominates this clash as our Weekly Mainstream Media Scream.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Looks like a pretty clear case of NBC News letting its interest in furthering its anti-Trump agenda get ahead of the facts. In a sure sign of how much credibility the story had, much of the rest of the media, which are just as interested in nailing Trump with a ‘gotcha’ Russian hacking story and all of which quickly picked up NBC’s report, quickly dropped it.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ February 5: Mainstream Media Scream: Jimmy Fallon plays Bob Dylan to hit Trump, laud NFL protests
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features Tonight Show Host Jimmy Fallon, in his post-Super Bowl show, singing an anti-Trump, pro-NFL protest version of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin.”
Showing off his talents for showmanship and impersonations, the video done in black and white puts a liberal 2018 spin on the classic. His lyrics:
Come gather round people wherever you roam
And admit that our country don't feel like our home
And that silence speaks louder than those who condone
If a tweet to you is worth favin'
Then lift up your voices and put down your phones
For the times they are a-changin'
Come women and men who hashtag Me Too
And believe me when I say that we believe you
For weak is the man who calls truth "fake news"
Time’s up, our silence we’re breaking
And even though Mel Gibson was in Daddy's Home 2
Well the times they are a-changin'
Come athletes with platforms throughout the land
Who by taking a knee are taking a stand
And before you shout out that they should be banned
Listen to what they are saying
Perhaps they'd stand up if you reached out your hand
Well the times they are a-changing
Come journalists, writers who report the facts
And brandish your pen to fend off his attacks
Look past what he says and look at how he acts
The fire and fury is raging
For his words can hurt, but your words can fight back
New York Times, they aren't a-failin'
Come leaders who bully like Internet trolls
We'll curse you with four-letter words 'love' and 'hope'
For we will go high even when you go low
The order is re-arranging
For you have the power, but we have the vote
The times they are a-changin'
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Fallon is a talented impersonator with a very good tribute to Dylan. But it’s disappointing to see the one late night host, who had yet succumb to Trump Derangement Syndrome, seemingly ease toward his competitors in seeing a quick laugh in mocking President Trump and the values espoused by his supporters.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ January 29: Mainstream Scream: CNN banana says ‘Only a matter of time until someone gets hurt’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features CNN turning to a banana to preach “Facts First.”
It hit Twitter last week and some fans of the president saw it as criticism of President Trump who regularly claims the cable network is producing “fake news.”
It features a banana peel and the narrator saying:
“Some people might try to tell you that this is an apple. It might even start as a joke. But when they say it over and over and over again, and people start to believe it, it’s only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.”
Then on screen “Facts First” flashes.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “CNN doth protest too much? Maybe if CNN put a little more effort into fair, balanced and factual coverage they wouldn’t have the need to create these silly ads which only prove President Trump has them rattled.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ January 22, 2018: Mainstream Media Scream: Morning Joe creates anti-Trump #Resist music video
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough singing his way into the #Resist movement with a new music video built around the anti-Trump movement and the weekend’s protests.
It started with a Saturday tweet that said, “My new single is out. Inspired by the Women’s March and dedicated to those who #Resist. Mika and I salute you”
On Monday’s show, co-host Mika Brzezinski set up a video montage to accompany the new song, “Stand,” sung by Scarborough. She said, “We go to break with some of the powerful images from over the weekend as millions of Americans gathered in cities and streets across the nation for the 2018 Women’s March.”
Viewers then saw images and video clips of protesters, as well as “Impeach Trump” signs, interspersed with politicians talking about the shutdown. The music video ended with a sign declaring “RESIST.”
Some of the lyrics:
“Once in your life, you may get the chance to stand against a column of tanks”
“And once in your life, you may get the chance to say words like deep within your heart that change the outcome of the day”
“And how the world turns violently, we’re battered by the savagery but we will not wake not on bended knees, we will not go down quietly, will not go down silently”
“And though the world turns violently, we’re battered by the savagery, but we will not wake, not on bended knee, we will not go down quietly”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “This one blows away the one to five scream rating. Five screams not nearly enough. Joe Scarborough has become a parody of himself, abandoning any pretense of being taken seriously as a journalist as he tries to be a modern day James Taylor, but without any of the talent.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ New on January 15, 2018: Mainstream Media Scream: MSNBC questions Paul Ryan’s motives, ‘pathetic’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features two regular MSNBC Republican haters pressing their boots onto the neck of House Speaker Paul Ryan, suggesting that his agenda is for himself and not the middle and underclass he has fought for in his career.
Both Chris Matthews and Joy Reid denounced Ryan for not speaking out more forcefully against President Trump with Reid making this amazing statement: “I think it’s one of the darkest sort of chapters in the Trump era is Paul Ryan revealing himself.”
From Friday’s Hardball:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me go to Joy on this. I think everything Paul Ryan hears or thinks about has to do with his agenda. He’s not very personal. It’s all about this sort of Ayn Rand, objectivist goals he has. Less taxes, less government, you know, less entitlement programs.
You know, that’s his goal in life and anything that advances that is fortunate. And anything that doesn’t advance that is unfortunate.
JOY REID: It’s unfortunate.
MATTHEWS: He doesn’t care about these moral questions or these issues of how we should talk as Americans.
REID: I agree with you. There has never been a more single-minded politician than Paul Ryan. He cares only about eviscerating the social safety net, repealing the 20th century, all of the New Deal, the Great Society, he wants that gone and it is true. He is pathetic. I think it’s one of the darkest, sort of chapters in the Trump era is Paul Ryan revealing himself.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: ‘‘He doesn’t care about these moral questions,’ he’s ‘pathetic’ and represents ‘the darkest chapter’ of the Trump era. Those are astonishing slurs on the character of an elected leader by two media figures who are so quick to condemn personal attacks by President Trump. The hypocrisy is ripe.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ January 8, 2018: Mainstream Media Scream: ‘Fire and Fury’ author claims ‘no political agenda’
(Washington Examiner post)
He’s predicted that his new anti-Trump book “Fire and Fury” will bring down President Trump, but author Michael Wolff swears he has “no political agenda.” Seriously.
His comments on CBS This Morning and Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC won this week’s Mainstream Media Scream by a country mile.
On CBS This Morning, he contended: “The important point I want to make is this book is not about my impression of the president. I came into this with no agenda. I continue to have no political agenda.”
A half hour later, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, he asserted: “You can remove the politics from this, and I went into this literally with no political agenda at all, and there’s really not much politics per se in this book.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Quite some howlers from a veteran New York City writer who, just over the weekend, told BBC radio ‘it’s not ideal’ that Trump is in the White House and boasted the revelations in his book ‘will end this presidency.’ That sounds very much like a man proud of his political agenda.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ January 2, 2018: Mainstream Scream: CBS compares Trump’s border wall to Berlin Wall ‘Death Zone’
(Washington Examiner post)
The CBS Evening News began the New Year last night with a new hit on President Trump, this one comparing his promise to build a border wall to keep illegals out to East Germany’s Berlin Wall put up to keep its citizens from escaping communism.
“Do walls really work? Mark Phillips went to Berlin to find out,” said anchor Jericka Duncan in our Mainstream Media Scream of the week.
ANCHOR JERICKA DUNCAN: President Trump has signaled he’s willing to extend protections for young immigrants brought into this country illegally, but on one condition. Last week he tweeted: “There can be no DACA without the desperately needed wall at the southern border.” But do walls really work? Mark Phillips went to Berlin to find out.
MARK PHILLIPS: If anybody knows anything about walls, it’s probably Hans-Peter Spitzner.
PHILLIPS TO SPTIZNER: So you would have approached Check Point Charlie.
SPITZNER: The first time Spitzner was at Check Point Charlie was when he and his daughter Peggy would be the last people to escape across the Berlin Wall before it fell.
SPITZNER: It was a great danger for us, and I thought a thousand things were in my head.
PHILLIPS: It’s the tourist attraction now, but from its building by the old East German regime in 1961, the wall was a death zone for almost three decades.
....
While around 5,000 people escaped across, through, over, or under it, at least 139 died trying. Some death estimates run to well over 1,000. But Hans-Peter was desperate.
SPITZNER: And this is the car I crossed the border.
PHILLIPS: The car was owned by American G.I. Eric Yaw (sp?), now a family friend. With Spitzner’s wife Ingrid already in the west, allowed out for an aging aunt’s birthday, and with Peggy just seven years old at the time, Hans-Peter asked dozens of G.I.s with access to East Germany to smuggle them out. Only Eric Yaw agreed to hide them in his trunk.
SPITZNER: I said to him, “you are now a member of my family.”
....
PHILLIPS: The Spitzners have strong views about walls, not just the Berlin example, now a living history lesson. Whether it’s here or the security barrier the Israelis have built between them and the Palestinians or going back to the Great Wall of China, they see all walls as monuments to political failure. The Berlin Wall, of course, was different than all the others. The others were designed to people out, and this one designed to keep them in. There is one thing they all have in common, though, critics will tell you that when governments build walls, it’s a sign that something else isn’t working.
PEGGY SPITZNER: It’s always to keep someone in, to keep someone out, to keep someone from doing something, so it’s always a bad thing really, and it’s always a monument of a problem.
PHILLIPS, over a video of people in 1989 using pickaxes on the Berlin Wall: A monument that with a will can always be overcome.
HAN-PETER SPITZNER: I say never again, never again. Please.
PHILLIPS: Mark Phillips, CBS News, Berlin.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “What an inane comparison. Deep into his report Phillips acknowledged the obvious, that Trump’s wall would keep people out while the Berlin Wall was ‘designed to keep them in,’ but that only proves the idiocy of the premise of the whole story. There is no rational comparison between a communist regime, which murdered its own citizens trying to escape, and a democracy trying to stem the flow of those trying to illegally enter.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
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