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 January through June 2017. Newer posts starting in July 2017 are here. “Mainstream Media Screams” for July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013, when the Washington Examiner was both online and a printed daily newspaper distributed around the Washington, DC area.)
Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week.
(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the MRC's Notable Quotables with an every other week compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)
■ June 26, 2017: Mainstream Scream: MSNBC Mika Brzezinski warns Trump ‘developing dictatorship'
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski suggesting that President Trump is developing a "dictatorship" while co-host Joe Scarborough suggests it's closer to "Hogan's Heroes."
On Friday's Morning Joe, Brzezinski rambled about Trump after she said, "It does feel like a developing dictatorship."
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: This is unprecedented, to have a president who behaves this way. Can anyone go back in history–
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, you asked Jon Meacham yesterday.
BRZEZINSKI: I tried
SCARBOROUGH: He went back to Thor.
BRZEZINSKI: He stretched as best he could to Nixon, and then we had to move outside the United States of America to find a parallel, and I believe it was North Korea.
SCARBOROUGH: I can't wait to hear what Kasie Hunt has to say, once we read the news on health care.
BRZEZINSKI: It does feel like a developing dictatorship. Anyhow, Senate Republicans rolled out their healthcare bill yesterday, and it took little time before they were met with internal resistance.
SCARBOROUGH: See, that's the sort of thing – that's an inside voice saying what you just said.
BRZEZINSKI: No, it's not.
SCARBOROUGH: You say you want to be like Greta [Van Susteren], who's like – Greta pulls back before she says things like that.
BRZEZINSKI: I'm going to actually channel Greta, and have an even tone. But I will say you can do some work reading history, and reading books about how dictatorships happen, the development of very negative forces taking over. And what you are seeing is either this, happening right now, or someone who's not well. There's very few options.
SCARBOROUGH: I think it's actually more like Hogan's Heroes, you know, than anything else. Oh, we have a Sergeant Schultz, and we have a Klink.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Nothing like some illogical free association in the morning to confirm Brzezinski's deep antipathy toward President Donald Trump, comparing him to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, only to be topped by her fiancé making condescending comparisons to a sit-com about dummkopfs. Both should follow the advice they've offered about Trump's tweets. Take a breath before spouting your inner id."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ June 19: Mainstream Scream: Brokaw sees only far right ‘hate’ in internet violence
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features NBC News dean Tom Brokaw discussing "common threats" but mentioning only far right examples when talking about internet driven violence like last week's shooting on GOP lawmakers, staff, and police by a left-wing 2016 Bernie Sander's volunteer.
The NBC News veteran delivered a commentary about hate speech in which he never mentioned the left.
On the June 18 edition of Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, during which she earlier interviewed far-right conspiracy promoter Alex Jones, she cited the recent incident on a baseball field as she introduced Brokaw's piece about "hate speech." He denounced "the seizure on the internet by hate groups of all kinds spreading their cancer of wholesale racism and violence" and the "reach and the poisonous claims of Alex Jones and others like him, and even establishment public figures."
From the June 18 Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly on NBC:
Megyn Kelly: "This past week there's been a lot of conversation about our toxic political culture, largely driven by the shooting of a congressman and others on a baseball field in Virginia. Tom Brokaw joins us to share some of his thoughts about hate speech and the internet in these challenging times. Tom?"
Tom Brokaw: "Thank you, Megyn. This is not an easy assignment for a journalist, a father, a grandfather, a citizen to try to understand the deep, dark hate that's coursing through our country and the instruments that spread it with a keystroke.
"When the internet first arrived, like everyone else, I was bedazzled by its possibilities for good and those qualities have only become so much more effective and pervasive.
"But I was also quickly aware of the underside, the seizure on the net by hate groups of all kinds spreading their cancer of wholesale racism and violence. I did two documentaries at the turn of the century called The Web of Hate hoping to slow that trend.
"But the reach and the poisonous claims of Alex Jones and others like him, and even establishment public figures, would not be slowed. We cannot disrupt the irrational spread of hate and division by instantly blindly blaming the other side or by looking away.
The parents of Newtown, it is not enough to say I cannot imagine because unless we're the parents, we can never, ever share the unremitting pain, the lifelong loss and anger, nor should they have to hear the cruel claim that it was a lie. No parent or grandparent in America today can escape the fear, the fear that it could happen again.
"We cannot allow the agents of hate to go unchallenged and become the imprint of our time. We'll always have differences, of course, but in our finest moments, we're a republic that thrives when it recognizes common threats and takes them on. That time is now again. This is a time of common threats requiring uncommon courage. It is a time to step up."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Did Brokaw record this before the the Scalise shooting? If so, why air something so obviously out of sync with events? If not, Brokaw is so blind to hate on the left that he cannot bring himself to even mention it when it is part of what led to the shooting of a congressman, a momentous incident. Apparently, all the hate is on the right no matter the evidence in Brokaw's face of strewn in bullets around a baseball field."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ June 12: Mainstream Scream: Tonys cheer Colbert’s suggestion of Trump’s early exit
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features the speakers at Sunday night's Tony Awards, which included actress Cynthia Nixon and Late Show host Stephen Colbert ridiculing President Trump.
Nixon and Colbert used appearances during the 2017 Tony Awards, broadcast Sunday night, June 11 on CBS, to hail those opposed to Trump and ridicule him. Both earned hearty applause from the audience inside New York City's Radio City Music Hall.
Accepting the award for Featured Actress in a Play for her role in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, Nixon extolled:
"It is a privilege to appear in Lillian Hellman's eerily prescient play, at this specific moment in history. Eighty years ago, she wrote, ‘There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it, and other people who just stand around and watch them do it.' My love, my gratitude and my undying respect go out to all the people in 2017 who are refusing to just stand and watch them do it."
A couple of hours later, Colbert jeered to cheers:
"And it is my honor to be here presenting the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. And it's been a great year for revivals in general, especially that one they revived down in Washington D.C. It started off-Broadway in the ‘80s, way off Broadway, over on 5th Avenue. Huge production values, but a couple problems -- the main character is totally unbelievable, and the hair and makeup, yeesh. No, no. This D.C. production is supposed to have a four-year run, but reviews have not been kind -- could close early, we don't know, best of luck to everyone involved."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Nothing better shows the elite disdain for middle America. First, an actress earns applause, from a New York City audience, for suggesting Trump and his supporters are evil people out to destroy everything good. Second, a supposed comedian gets more applause for a punch line in which he hopes Trump is forced out of office early. Forget any idealism about artists challenging orthodoxy. These two revel in liberal orthodoxy."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ June 5: Mainstream Scream: MSNBC asks if Trump wants domestic terror attack
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts on Sunday suggesting that tweets from President Trump on the London killings were meant to provoke a domestic terror attack.
Roberts, in the noon hour Sunday to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed:
"One of the tweets from five hours ago was: ‘We must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people. If we don't get smart, it will only get worse.' Again, I also mentioned he went on a Twitter rant about the travel ban and having that re-instituted, you know, saying: ‘We need be smart, vigilant and tough.' I just want to ask you, you know, the President doesn't want us to be politically correct, right? So let's not be PC about this. Is the president trying to provoke a domestic terrorist attack with this Twitter rant, because only to prove himself right?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Ludicrous. How deep must Thomas' animus toward President Trump go for the MSNBC anchor to even hint at such an evil desire? This is the kind of hatred which led Kathy Griffin to consider it amusing to hold a mock up of Trump's severed head."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ May 30: Mainstream Media Scream: Trump blamed for assault on reporter
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features the stars of MSNBC's Morning Joe -- Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle -- blaming President Trump for last week's assault by new Rep. Greg Gianforte on the Guardian's Ben Jacobs.
From the May 25 Morning Joe on MSNBC:
Joe Scarborough: "You can draw a straight line from Republican candidates thinking that sort of behavior is okay when you have Donald Trump berating reporters, throughout the entire campaign, suggesting terrible things, calling them – using the Stalinist term ‘enemy of the people.' A term so offensive even in the Soviet Union that Khrushchev outlawed it after Stalin died...This is not a big leap from what the head of the Republican Party is saying every day and what happened last night in Montana."
Mike Barnicle: "On that straight line, Joe, I mean, you can track all of the candidates' prior statements about the media, the media is against us, the media is against you the people and it leads inevitably to something like this."
Scarborough: "The fish rots, again, from the head and at what point do Republicans start criticizing Donald Trump for attacking federal judges? At what point do Republicans start criticizing Donald Trump for using a Stalinist trick calling the press enemies of the people? At what point – are Republicans going to come out today and distance themselves from a candidate they endorsed and gave money to that beat up a reporter? At what point does our party say enough? Because I will tell you this is not the party I grew up in and I'm not just talking about now, I'm talking about the brutish behavior from the top."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Greg Gianforte's behavior is inexcusable, but to blame President Donald Trump's rhetoric for Gianforte's physical attack on a journalist shows just how deranged about Trump too many cable stars remain, eager to fault him for all things bad which happen. Were any so eager to hold anti-police rhetoric of left-wingers for ambush murders of police officers?"
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ May 15: Mainstream Scream: ‘Worse than Watergate,’ says Carl Bernstein
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features legendary reporter Carl Bernstein comparing the firing of FBI Director James Comey to Watergate. It is, he said, "more dangerous" than the scandal that brought down former President Richard Nixon.
Bernstein:
"I think this is a potentially more dangerous situation than Watergate and we're at a very dangerous moment. And that's because we are looking at the possibility that the President of the United States and those around him during an election campaign colluded with a hostile foreign power to undermine the basis of our democracy: free elections.
"We don't know the facts, but what we do know is that the President of the United States seems to be doing everything in his power to keep us from knowing the facts, including firing the director of the FBI because, says the President of the United States, of, quote, 'this Russia thing.' So the question of a cover-up seems to me to have been answered a while ago.
"There is a cover-up going on to keep us from knowing what happened here. Whether that means the President of the United States obstructed justice or not or those around him did, we don't know. But what we see is that at every turn this President is impeding the ability of those who were chosen to investigate to do so, including the House and Senate committees. So it's truly a dangerous moment. It's different than Watergate."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Leave it to Bernstein to take the already overwrought media narrative – that Trump firing Comey is analogous to Watergate – and take it one more step to the extreme: No, it's not Watergate, it's worse than Watergate! Notice that though he admitted 'we don't know the facts,' he didn't let that stand in the way of putting pontificating ahead of basic journalism."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ May 8: Mainstream Scream: Hillary ‘Always the smartest woman in the room’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features more positive spin on Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who failed twice to win the presidency and lately has been listing the reasons she lost to first-time candidate Donald Trump.
During an appearance on Charlie Rose's PBS show Wednesday, Amie Parnes of The Hill, co-author of the well-received book Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign, talked about Clinton's brilliance.
Rose asked about what's ahead for Clinton, wondering: "Could she become a university president or something like that?"
Parnes insisted: "She could do anything. She's one of the smartest people – she will always be the smartest woman in the room, I think."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Hard to resist asking how she lost if she's always 'the smartest woman in the room?' Journalists like Parnes remain convinced of Hillary's brilliance, unable to comprehend how more Americans don't see what they see and how she could have been outmaneuvered by a man they consider a buffoon."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ May 1: Mainstream Scream: On CNN, Gergen hits ‘deeply disturbing’ Trump speech
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features longtime presidential advisor, media figure, editor and educator David Gergen declaring President Trump's weekend speech as "deeply disturbing."
Trump was in Harrisburg, Pa., at the famed Farm Show Complex, to herald his first 100 days and rap the media, which was holding the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, which the president snubbed.
Gergen, on CNN following Trump's speech, said:
"To bring your campaign speech into the presidency is something presidents rarely do. This was, this was the most divisive speech I've ever heard from a sitting American president. Others may disagree about that. He played to his base and he treated his other listeners — the rest of the people who have been disturbed about him or oppose him – he treated them basically as I don't care, I don't give a damn what you think because you're frankly like the enemy. You're like the enemy with the press. I thought it was a deeply disturbing speech in that regard."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "You can always count on Gergen to relay the conventional, inside the Beltway, liberal Washington 'conventional wisdom.' The more Trump's critiques of the establishment excite his base the more disdainful the media elite become."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ April 24: Mainstream Scream: Bill Maher likens Syrian gassing to U.S. pollution
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features HBO's Bill Maher making one of the strangest ties to Syria's gassing of its citizens and pollution in American cities.
From April 21's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
"The Syrian problem started with climate change. It did – 75 percent of Syrian farms failed. A million and a half people migrated to the cities. That's where it began. And, by the way, these people who are starving, which is, you know, whether you're bombed or you're sarin-gassed or you're starving, death is death. But, I mean, we talk about Assad gassing people, we're gassing them, too. We're just doing it slower with CO2."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Maher disdains religion, but 'climate change' is his religion, spiraling him into crazy moral equivalence contortions to somehow equate murderous war crimes with the industrial state which has brought prosperity and longer lifespans to any nation that has adopted free enterprise."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ April 17: Mainstream Scream: CNN’s Acosta, ‘We’re not the opposition’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features regular White House target Jim Acosta, CNN's senior White House correspondent, knocking the criticism by claiming, "We're not the opposition party. We are just trying to get at the truth."
During the "Press and the Presidency" forum last Wednesday at the Newseum, he said:
And the president, to some extent, has an unhealthy attitude towards the news media and I think I'm being diplomatic when I say this. I was out on the campaign trail time and again when he referred to the news media as the dishonest news media, the disgusting news media. He called us liars and crooks and thieves and I can't think of all of the other names that he called us.
There were chants of, you know, going after CNN that he would pause for and allow the crowd to continue those chants and, you know, I did ask him during that news conference where he did take my question, are you concerned that you are undermining American confidence in the news media? Because, at the end of the day, when he leaves office, we need Republicans to believe what's being said in the mainstream news media, just as much as we need Democrats to and I think that the president has to understand that he is doing real damage to what we do. He's doing real damage to the First Amendment in this country when he refers to the news media as the enemies of the people. Now, I know some of that is production, it's the, you know, he's from Fifth Avenue, so there is a little bit of Broadway there, I guess or something like that...
I was with Steve Bannon the other day where he referred to us as the opposition party once again. We're not the opposition party. We are just trying to get at the truth and when you have a side of the news media that just insists time and again that, you know, that CNN is out to get the president or out to get certain people in this country, I think it just does a tremendous disservice to all Americans. I don't think it is American to go after a segment of the news media.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Trump's lack of respect for much of the news media is just giving voice to the way many Americans feel, a view well-earned by journalists like Acosta who condescendingly proclaim an allegiance to 'the truth' but refuse to acknowledge the years of anti-conservative bias at CNN and elsewhere. If Acosta wants to know why Trump's attacks resonate, he should look in the mirror."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ April 10: Mainstream Scream: CNN talker compares Assad to Cheney
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features one of the strangest comparisons between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a top Republican the media loves to hate, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
It came from Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill who was on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday talking about Assad's use of poison gas and the media coverage of the U.S. military strike. He ripped the media, even CNN talking heads, then ended with this:
"Bashar al-Assad was a brutal thug when he was torturing prisoners on behalf of the CIA. Saddam Hussein was America's friend when he was using chemical weapons. We need to have more than just the immediate crisis memory. We need to understand the historical context of how a butcher like Assad actually has more in common with someone like Dick Cheney than he does with the average Syrian or the people that are on these airwaves as brave reporters."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Talk about 'fake news.' CNN did fine job of spreading it by giving a platform to a far-left journalist to spew hate speech equating an elected U.S. official with a dictator who had, days before, deployed poison gas to kill children. Liberals may like to compare Cheney to Darth Vader, but I don't remember him ever issuing an order to drop poison gas on kids."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ April 3: Mainstream Scream: Chuck Todd says Trump has the world ‘panicked’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features one of President Trump's favorite targets, NBC political guru Chuck Todd, and his comments on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC show that the world "must be panicked" by the president because he is "on the brink" of … something.
His comments came Friday on Andrea Mitchell Reports and before Trump tweeted about Todd.
From Todd:
"You have a presidency right now that I think is, it's beyond saying it's in crisis mode. It is, you know, it's on the brink. The question is on the brink of what? Is it on the brink of collapse? Is it on the brink of becoming a temporarily lame duck presidency? And maybe it feels like it's lame duck-ish temporarily right now. You've got a stalled agenda...
"You've got a president who cannot accept the fact that Russia interfered in this election. And until he accepts that fact, this story is going to consume him. And my fear, Andrea my question to you is this: The world must be panicked that if this president is tested right now, if western alliances are tested by a Putin in the Baltics, by North Korea, is the United States prepared to lead in a crisis right now for the world?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "As exemplified by Todd, the Washington press corps certainly are quick to assume the worst about the Trump presidency. A bit of wish fulfillment by journalists with little respect for him? How else to explain seeing such a catastrophic state in just the third month of the new administration?"
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ March 27: Mainstream Media Scream: Carl Bernstein calls presidency ‘a bodyguard of lies’
(Washington Examiner post)
In the wake of the failure of the House to pass the bill to replace Obamacare, this week's Mainstream Media Scream features Washington Post and Time magazine veteran Carl Bernstein ripping a "lying" administration.
Appearing Sunday on CNN's Reliable Sources, he let loose on President Trump's Obamacare repeal loss to host Brian Stelter:
"It's more than a blow because in addition to the line that has surrounded his presidency and his incessant lying, which Republicans even have now become terribly alarmed at, it shows the level of his incompetence, which is something that was known to many people who had done business with the Trump Organization. It was known to people who worked on The Apprentice with him when he would show up on the set without having done his homework, having done no preparation, having no idea of where the script was going.
"There's nothing new about this. Read the Trump biographies. He is not a competent leader. And on top of that, as you have indicated at the beginning of this program, his presidency is a bodyguard of lies. And that is undermining his presidency at the same time that his closest aides in the campaign are under serious investigation in a possible conspiracy that may extend in some way to himself."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "No matter what happens, the default position for Bernstein is to blame Trump, deride him as incompetent and impugn him as a liar. It seems to be a reflexive response fueled by hatred of the new president, not any independent journalistic assessment."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ March 20: Mainstream Media Scream: Hardball Matthews calls Trump ‘weirdo in the basement’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features Chris Matthews, on his MSNBC show Hardball, mocking President Trump and his supporters for believing in alternative reality. Trump, he said, is "no better than the weirdo in the basement who calls in the fire alarm just to hear the sirens going past."
From his Thursday show:
"Well, tomorrow is Friday. If the president were to rise at dawn and say 'it's Saturday,' what would be the meaning of that statement? Would his people, those who back him no matter what, check their calendars and convince themselves the calendar they'd been using is wrong and the leader they adore is right?
"Would they say he didn't mean exactly that it was Saturday but that he was really saying that as President of the United States, he was declaring Friday simply the beginning of a long weekend? Would they say something like that if only to get him and therefore his fight-to-the-end-supporters off the hook? Would they? You tell me.
"How would they reconcile the man they look up to saying something their brains told them wasn't true, but still wanting to believe every word he speaks? Again, you tell me...
"Here we are, back to the troubling Trump reality. The man in the White House is demonstrably capable of making up claims that have no reality. He's no better than the weirdo in the basement who calls in the fire alarm just to hear the sirens going past."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "It's pretty rich for a 'journalist,' who exclaimed a 'thrill going up my leg' when he heard Barack Obama speak, to ridicule people who are enamored of another president."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ March 13: Mainstream Media Scream: Morning Mika rips, bans Kellyanne Conway
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features the latest hit on the Trump administration by MSNBC's popular Morning Joe show, this time from co-host Mika Brzezinski who called top White House advisor Kellyanne Conway "awful," and reaffirmed her ban from the show.
It came Monday when Brzezinski said, "I absolutely will not have her live on the show." However, she played two soundbites of Conway in order to condemn her and President Trump.
In the first clip, when asked about surveillance of Trump Tower, Conway cited Wikileaks revelations about how the CIA can turn TVs and microwave ovens into listening devices. In a second clip, asked on ABC about the insinuation the CIA techniques were used to monitor people inside Trump Tower, Conway contended she didn't mean any such insinuation.
Following the two clips, Brzezinski charged:
"That was awful. She's really. It speaks for itself, America. Come on now....It's really awful. It's very, very, very sad what's happening. Everybody has to sort of let the story speak for itself and understand the story as time goes by. I just hope not too much time goes by....
"I'm just letting it hang out there, just like I'll let that hang because there's nothing I want to attach to it. I just want to stay as far away as possible from trying engage with someone who seems to have an audience of one who may not have the country's best interests in mind, we'll put it that way."
(Also on set: Former Obama OMB Director Peter Orszag and his wife Yahoo news and finance editor Bianna Golodryga.)
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Brzezinski has quite a bugaboo when it comes to Kellyanne Conway and has left any pretense of journalism behind. Brzezinski's clearly now an angry, arrogant and condemnatory judge of Trump's team."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ March 6: Mainstream Media Scream: NYT’s Friedman hits ‘juvenile’ Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features a representative of the type of media criticism President Trump faced following his Saturday morning Twitter rant against former President Obama.
The reaction of New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, on Meet the Press, was that Trump is a "juvenile."
Friedman on the March 5 Meet the Press:
"Waking up at 6 AM in the morning, tweeting out one of the most damning accusations one president could make after another, and then, as Danielle [Pletka] said, then talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger, that is non-presidential behavior. That is not adult behavior. That is juvenile behavior. And the fact that we have a president who engages in that is, to me, deeply disturbing. Because think about this. Now he's going to have to go to Europe very soon and interact with other European leaders, other world leaders. What would you think if you're a world leader going into a meeting with – 'What do I say to this guy?' 'What might he say about this meeting?'
"He is everywhere we look. And we talked about this before. I quoted my friend, Dov Seidman, who makes the point there's a big difference between formal authority and moral authority. This president has formal authority. But every day you see him eroding his moral authority. And in the end, that is really going to hurt us....
"A few more mornings like this of 6:00 AM tweets, and people are not going to be talking about taking away his twitter, they're going to be talking about taking away his football. And I mean the nuclear codes."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "So, in accusing President Trump of juvenile behavior, Friedman tells a juvenile joke. As for Trump losing his 'moral authority,' when did Friedman, or any of his New York Times colleagues, ever bestow 'moral authority' onto Trump?"
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ February 27: Mainstream Media Scream: Bush doesn’t take blame Trump bait
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features former President George W. Bush brushing aside Today show co-host Matt Lauer's suggestion that President Trump has failed to unite the country.
Instead Bush said that it's harder to punch through the media to do his job.
From Monday's show:
MATT LAUER: But there's enormous division right now. And although President Trump has said he hopes to unify the country, have you, in the first month, seen him do or say anything that, in your opinion, would be an attempt to heal the wounds of the election?
FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, first of all, there's only been one month in office. And so it's a – you know, he's got four years. Secondly, I think you have to take the man for his word that he wants to unify the country and we'll see whether he's able to do so. It's hard to unify the country, though, with the news media being so split up. When I was president, you know, you mattered a lot more because there was like three of you and now there's all kinds of information being bombarded out and people can say things anonymously. It's just a different world.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Of course, Lauer presumes the nation's divisions are President Trump's fault. It's nice that the former president pointed out the obvious role of the news media, but I'm sure Lauer wasn't pleased Bush asserted the media doesn't matter as much now as it used to matter."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ February 20: Mainstream Media Scream: ABC’s Jonathan Karl rips Trump ‘crash’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features ABC White House correspondent Jonathan Karl taking on President Trump as he filled in as host of This Week Sunday.
In his commentary he ripped Trump's attack on the media last week and separately asked if the new administration is "careening out of control."
Karl:
We've never seen anything like it. We're used to watching new presidents take office with choreographed policy plans, rolled out with carefully chosen words. But this? A machine gun blast of big promises, the rhetoric loud, aggressive, chaotic. The question: is this a fine-tuned machine delivering promise after promise at a record pace? Or, an administration careening out of control? And if it is, how bad will the crash be?
Media Research Center Research Director Rich Noyes explains our weekly pick: "Normally, a new president is given a 'honeymoon' by the news media, but journalists have treated President Trump to non-stop hostility since the day he took office. Now with his administration barely a month old, some in the media seem ready to declare it a failure. It's no wonder Trump slams them as 'fake news'" when their bias against him and his agenda is so obvious."
Rating: Four of five screams.
■ February 13: Mainstream Media Scream: Smeared ‘Tea Party’ name OK when it’s liberal
(Washington Examiner post)
When it comes to the "Tea Party," the left and its mainstream media have made no secret that they consider it a home for the GOP's backward, racist, clan of dumbos.
But now as they try to find a name for their own mini-rebellion against GOP domination in Washington, they have found that using the "Tea Party" description for their effort is A-OK.
On several news shows last week, CNN, MSNBC and others sounded like Chris Matthews when he asked if the sporadic protests were the "birthing of the left's version of the Tea Party."
We couldn't let the coincidence pass as our Mainstream Media Scream of the week.
Media Research Center Research Director Rich Noyes explains the pick: "Back in 2009, the news media tried to ignore the Tea Party, ridiculed it with filthy jokes about tea-bagging, then smeared it as a racist reaction to America's first black president. But now many of those same journalists are hyping the idea of a left-wing Tea Party, treating the Left's disruptive demonstrations as a righteous reaction to Donald Trump. It's a complete double-standard, and shows how much of the media's so-called 'news' coverage is based on wishful thinking versus honest analysis."
Rating: Four of five screams.
■ February 6: Mainstream Media Scream: CNN reporter hails ‘White Lies Matter’
(Washington Examiner post)
It would be former President Reagan's 106th birthday today, so to honor that let's roll out one of his famous "they're you go again" to introduce this week's Mainstream Media Scream.
Of course, it's a CNN rant against President Trump, this time from an overseas correspondent.
CNN's Diana Magnay was reporting on an anti-Trump protest in London on Saturday morning when she said on CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield:
"I'm standing now outside Downing Street at the tail end of this protest. I'll just show you some of the banners that have been left for Theresa May: 'Theresa the Appeaser.' Just down here: 'Trump: Making America Hate Again.' Just some of the banners that people have had. One of my favorites today is 'White Lies Matter,' obviously a reference to Donald Trump and Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative facts.'"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Is it any wonder President Trump has such well-earned contempt for CNN when their correspondents so casually praise the supposed wittiness of a derogatory attack on administration officials by a bunch of leftists overseas. Did a CNN reporter ever hail a 'favorite' Tea Party sign ridiculing Barack Obama? Of course not."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ January 30, 2017: Mainstream Media Scream: CNN’s Amanpour calls Bannon ‘Totalitarian’
(Washington Examiner post)
With so many in the media running around with the hair on fire over President Trump's first week in office it was hard to pick a top Mainstream Media Scream of the week. So we settled on one that represents the media's view of the administration, from CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
It came during Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360 when he read a quote from top Trump adviser Stephen Bannon out of the New York Times: "The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a awhile."
Amanpour replied: "Steve Bannon is playing the role that he set out for himself. There is obviously some kind of strategy here, although it's hard for me to comprehend it because, you know, I operate in the truth and the fact-based universe. But he's playing a strategy which involves creating straw men and women, creating an enemy out of the press, and then, you know, dividing, diverting, obfuscating while other things are going on. That's the only thing I can imagine. Obviously, there are many other — I want to say — totalitarian regimes in the past which used this same kind of strategy.
"And, I mean, if I was going to be funny, I'd say that he's angling for an order of merit from Presidents Sisi, Putin, Erdogan, and all the others. That is how they treat their press. That is what they believe the press should be — a pliant, state propaganda unit in the service of the president. It is not the tradition of the American press."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "First, Amanpour is quite the comedian with her insistence she 'operates in the truth and the fact-based universe.' Second, journalists can sure dish out criticism, but Amanpour shows they can't take it. In her case, quite the hysterical overreaction about Bannon and President Trump acting like a 'totalitarian regime.' That analogy worked better in the years of the previous presidency when CNN was fully in the tank for the Obama administration."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ January 23, 2017: Mainstream Media Scream: ABC says Trump’s ‘America First’ is Nazi-like
(Washington Examiner post)
Donald Trump's completion of his long-time bid for the White House has Washington's Mainstream Media in breathless overdrive as they rip the president and his new team and especially his inaugural address.
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features one of those hits, from ABC's Terry Moran, who said that the president's "America First" theme reminds him of Nazi sympathizers.
On Friday after the inaugural address, ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos said, "Students of history will take note of that slogan, 'America First.'"
ABC News correspondent Terry Moran agreed: "It's a loaded term in American history. Now, he defined it here as total allegiance to the United States of America, and it is something, as Cecilia said, this is why he was sent here by people who want to hear that message of America first. However, it carries with it overtones from the 1930s when an anti-Semitic movement saying, 'We don't want to get involved in Europe's war. It's the Jews' fault in Germany.' Charles Lindbergh led them. It is a term, as he defined it his way, but the words themselves carry very ugly echoOKs in our history."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Trump's impassioned defense of America's superiority sure annoyed journalists. Such historical silliness from Moran, trying to impugn Trump's speech with 'ugly echoes of history,' just proves Trump's belief the news media are out to delegitimize him. As if anyone voted for Trump, a man with a trusted adviser who is Jewish, Jared Kushner, because they yearned for the return of Charles Lindbergh-like antipathy to Jews."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ January 16, 2017: Mainstream Media Scream: Matt Lauer cried over Biden’s medal
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's mainstream media scream is a tearful one, at least for the Today show's Matt Lauer.
On Friday, after Andrea Mitchell reported on Vice President Joe Biden receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in an emotional surprise by President Obama, Lauer said that he burst out in tears as Biden also teared up.
Said Lauer, "I'm glad there were no cameras in my apartment yesterday because I was sitting there just weeping."
Co-host Meredith Vieira added, "Oh, crying, right. So beautiful."
Lauer: "I just burst out crying when I saw that moment. It was incredible. Andrea, thank you very much."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Really? A grown man, a media veteran of decades of covering deadly tragedies, admitted to bursting into tears when one politician gave an award to another politician? The elite media may well be more emotionally invested in Obama and his team than anyone imagined."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ January 10, 2017: Mainstream Media Scream: Whoopie says liberals are Hollywood’s victims
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream shows an unusual take on Golden Globe winner Meryl Streep's slap at President-elect Trump. In it, Whoopie Goldberg, on her show The View, makes Hollywood liberals out to be the victims of the right.
From Monday's The View:
"Stop using Hollywood as this bad word. Let me remind everybody that in the '70s, and prior to that, Hollywood was really sort of run by the right-leaning groups. That's how we ended up with McCarthyism and all of these so-called lefties being rounded up and eaten, basically, for their beliefs.
"Secondly, a lot of actors have always come from real life, so they have a different thing, a different way of looking at stuff. So, stop painting this idea. Because, you know, harking back to the conversation we had, I've been thinking about it, and I remember that I can't name one right-leaning person who has ever lost their job for being a right-leaning person, but I can name you at least 15, 20 people who lost their ability to make a living, including myself, because of right-leaning folks saying, oh, you said that, you shouldn't be saying that.
"So my point is, it's not a Hollywood thing. This is people talking about people. Nobody's afraid, as you can see, to say what they want. But Danny Glover ate a lot of poop during the Bush administration, as did Sean Penn."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Yes, the problem today is that Hollywood is run by conservatives who supposedly suppressed liberals decades ago and still do today. Donald Trump and those disturbed by Meryl Streep's lecture have a lot better grip on reality."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
> Mainstream Media Screams for July through December 2016.
> For January through June 2016.
> For July to December 2015.
