The Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes appeared on Fox Business Network’s Risk and Reward on Tuesday and called the media out for playing games with terrorist attacks. “So they have to stop trying to play games with this and definitional games and deal with this,” he explained to host Liz MacDonald, “You know, put all 78 together, and you got yourself a major terrorist threat that has been going on. It looks like an attack pretty much every other week for the last two-plus years.”
He also noted that even though the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) dedicated large amounts of time to the San Bernardino and Orlando attacks they spent a lot of that air time pushing liberal cause:
The spin of that coverage was very much about things the liberal press wanted to push. So San Bernardino. Remember, it was about gun control. The New York Daily News, “God isn’t fixing this.” It was not a push for more action against ISIS. It was a push for more action against gun owners in America … Same with Orlando it was gun control and, sort of, things on the Obama agenda. Not the ISIS threat. And I think what the President Trump is saying let's talk about the ISIS threat about these attacks.
As for how they play “definitional games,” Noyes recalled how the media held off on admitting the Orlando terrorist was killing in the name of ISIS. “Omar Mateen before he killed himself called in and basically said, you know, “I'm doing this on behalf of ISIS” and gave a lengthy statement,” Noyes recollected, “And it took hours and hours before they would admit that, yes, in fact, he's doing this in the name of ISIS. It is one of those lone wolf attacks. No way of getting around it.”
MacDonald seemed to agree and described the media’s reaction to the attack at on a university. “Remember the attack at the university in Ohio where the Somalia refugee took a knife and a car, and he mowed people down? That too appeared to be initially downplayed as not being terrorist related; right? Initially,” she said.
Transcript below:
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Risk and Reward
February 7, 2017
5:27:39 PM EasternLIZ MACDONALD: The White House now getting criticized by the media. Journalists now say that yes, they have been covering terrorist attacks. White House released a list of more than six dozen attacks between 2014 and 2016 saying you know what? Media not doing enough to cover these attacks. After they went through the list, White House reporters and the networks were quick to point out that some of the attacks on the list did, in fact, get extensive media coverage. Media also attacking the White House for misspelling the word attack. A-t-t-a-k. It was on there more than a dozen times.
…
MACDONALD: Joining me now Media Research Center director. Look who's here, it’s Rich Noyes. Rich, you now, the list does include attacks that were covered. But I think doctor Gorka has a point that basically the last eight years the Obama administration had pushed this narrative, right. So does -- does any of this negate what President Trump is saying? That there are many attacks that are not reported?
RICH NOYES: Well, no, there's actually many attacks that aren't reported. I went back to the list. One of the more recent was a terrible terrorist attack in Jordan in December. Ten people were killed at a tourist attraction there. And that got 18 seconds on the ABC evening news that night. Nothing on CBS. Nothing on NBC. And, you know, so that would be a major attack that's not being covered. The ones in the United States do get a lot of coverage. San Bernardino was more than 90 percent of the news whole for the three days that followed. Same for Orlando. But as the talking head was saying, the spin of that coverage was very much about things the liberal press wanted to push. So San Bernardino. Remember, it was about gun control. The New York Daily News, “God isn’t fixing this.” It was not a push for more action against ISIS. It was a push for more action against gun owners in America.
MACDONALD: Yeah, good point.
NOYES: Same with Orlando it was gun control and, sort of, things on the Obama agenda. Not the ISIS threat. And I think what the President Trump is saying let's talk about the ISIS threat about these attacks.
MACDONALD: Yeah, and just do a 30,000 foot broad perspective on what is going on around the world and here in the United States. Remember the attack at the university in Ohio where the Somalia refugee took a knife and a car, and he mowed people down? That too appeared to be initially downplayed as not being terrorist related; right? Initially.
NOYES: Yeah. They take some time to try to figure out is it really -- do we have to say that it is? And eventually they do come around. Orlando was probably the most shocking in that sense in that Omar Mateen before he killed himself called in and basically said, you know, “I'm doing this on behalf of ISIS” and gave a lengthy statement. And it took hours and hours before they would admit that, yes, in fact, he's doing this in the name of ISIS. It is one of those lone wolf attacks. No way of getting around it.
So they have to stop trying to play games with this and definitional games and deal with this. You know, put all 78 together, and you got yourself a major terrorist threat that has been going on. It looks like an attack pretty much every other week for the last two plus years.
…
