Washington Examiner’s ‘Mainstream Media Scream’ with the MRC’s Assessment
This post contains the “Mainstream Media Screams” starting in July 2017. “Mainstream Media Screams” for:
> January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013, when the Washington Examiner was both online and a printed daily newspaper distributed around the Washington, DC area.)
(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.)
■ New on April 2: Mainstream Media Scream: Morning Joe crew denounces Sinclair, ‘chilling’
I’ll add text and video here next week, but so the Washington Examiner gets the traffic for their post when it’s fresh, please read Paul Bedard’s post on their site where you can watch the video and read the full quote.
■ 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.
■ December 18: Mainstream Scream: Epic CNN rant on Fox ‘propagandists,’ Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features CNN “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter on Sunday denouncing Fox News Channel for giving so much time to the political agenda revelations of those on special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff.
“This isn’t just an alternate reality. This is a reversal of reality,” said Stelter, who’s own network has been slapped as the lead anti-Trump outlet. “They’re talking like propagandists. This sounds like propaganda and it sounds dangerous,” he added. “The conservative media choir is telling Trump,” Stelter complained, that “Mueller is out to get you, trying to reverse the outcome of the election. It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.”
Stelter introduced his lead segment with a clip of Kellyanne Conway on FNC saying “the fix was in against Donald Trump from the beginning and they were pro-Hillary.”
BRIAN STELTER: This is the feedback loop in action. I want you to see it over and over again. Fox, Trump, his aides, GOP lawmakers, all of them, they’re taking a legitimate issue, which is the discovery of a Mueller team member who expressed his hatred of Trump in text messages, and then they’re blowing it up, trying to discredit the entire probe.
Now, remember, that team member was removed from the probe when the text messages were found. But everyday, it’s something new, some reason to claim that special counsel is illegitimate. So, as you watch the coverage, try to notice how this works. Notice how right wing commentators and GOP lawmakers are echoing each other and pay close attention to the banners on the bottom of Fox’s screen.
Last night – I can’t believe this -- Fox is asking if the FBI has engaged in a coup. This morning, the banner said the investigators are in the hot seat.
This isn’t just an alternate reality. This is a reversal of reality. Obviously, it’s Trump world that is on the hot seat. Four Trump associates have been charged with crimes. Two of the four have pled guilty. Mueller is investigating a massive fire. And everyone can see and smell the smoke.
But this, instead, is what the president’s hearing (he starts the following clip).
JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS HOST: The only thing that remains is whether we have the fortitude to not just fire these people immediately, but to take them out in cuffs.
STELTER: That is Jeanine Pirro, one of Trump’s informal advisers, not just calling for firings but arrests.
Look, I don't say this lightly, but these FOTs, these friends of Trumps, they are -- they’re talking like propagandists. This sounds like propaganda and it sounds dangerous. Pirro is demanding a cleansing of the FBI. Sean Hannity is calling Mueller the head of the snake. Other Fox hosts are calling the FBI corrupt and out of control. Rush Limbaugh is describing it as a coup and guests on these programs are comparing the FBI to the KGB.
The conservative media choir is telling Trump that Mueller is out to get you, trying to reverse the outcome of the election. It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “After two years of CNN leading incessant attacks on Donald Trump, sometimes allocating the entirety of prime time to panel after panel speculating wildly about supposed Russian collusion and on other nights talking about allegations against Trump they must later retract, it takes chutzpah to denounce another network for ‘talking like propagandists.’”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ December 15: Mainstream Scream: Carl Bernstein says media makes fewer errors than most
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein claiming that by comparison to other institutions, the media is pretty error free.
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, Bernstein denounced as “demagogues” those critical of the media and insisted “mainstream media makes far fewer errors than most institutions in our culture.”
From the December 10 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources:
“We are in a hot house cold civil war atmosphere and the press and attacking the press is the basic element that too many demagogues in our culture have used to whip up this cold civil war and especially to appeal to the base of the President of the United States....
“The media, generally speaking, the mainstream media makes far fewer errors than most institutions in our culture, because we indeed are in the business of trying not to make errors. And we have all kinds of procedures in place to keep us from making those errors. Compare us to Wall Street. Compare us to banking. Compare us to the Congress of the United States. Compare us to almost any institution and we make fewer errors.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Classic media arrogance and deflection — they make it their business to criticize all other institutions in society, but can’t handle it when their own wrongdoings are pointed out. In the past ten days, ABC News, CNN and a Washington Post reporter have all had to retract baseless stories about the Trump campaign and Russia, yet Bernstein lashed out at ‘demagogues’ for daring to point out the obvious anti-Trump hostility amongst journalists. If these were all just innocent errors, why were none ones that benefited Trump?”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ December 4: Mainstream Scream: ‘The View’ cheers false story on Trump, ‘Lock him up!’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features The View cheering a false ABC New story about President Trump and the Russia probe, the latest in the media’s toasting of the investigation.
On Friday’s The View, Joy Behar burst into celebration after she read what turned about to be a false report by ABC’s Brian Ross that Donald Trump, as a candidate, had directed Michael Flynn to contact the Russian government.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, prompting loud and sustained cheers from the audience inside the New York City studio. “Like Christmas!” chimed in CNN analyst Ana Navarro before Behar chanted “Lock him up!” and suggested it’s “like treasonous?” She asserted: “Richard Nixon stepped down and so should Donald Trump.”
From the December 1 The View on ABC:
Joy Behar, after staffer tells her “breaking news” as he hands her a card: “ABC News’ Brian Ross is reporting Michael Flynn promised full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify, that as a candidate, Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians! Yes!”
Sustained and loud audience cheers.
CNN’s Ana Navarro: “It’s beginning to look a lot of like Christmas and it’s beginning to look a lot like collusion.”
Behar, pounding the table: “He goes to jail. He goes to jail. He goes to jail. Lock him up!...You know what this is for me? This is the antithesis of election night....On election night I had to wear a veil. I was in mourning. So this is like the antithesis of that hideous night and that’s why I’m happy.”
Sunny Hostin: “This is so significant. You’re talking about someone’s national security advisor, someone with a military background who pled guilty to lying to the FBI, to the federal government and now is going to testify that not as president, as a candidate, the candidate Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians. I mean does everybody understand how significant that is?...”
Behar: “Isn’t it kind of like treasonous?...It should lead to resignations. I remember Richard Nixon and Richard Nixon stepped down and so should Donald Trump.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “It doesn’t get much worse or embarrassing than this: Giddy celebration over a story damaging to President Trump but which, it turns out, was baseless. Not that all that many see The View as a serious show, but if Ross got suspended for a month, maybe ABC could at least take Behar off her show for a week.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ November 27: Mainstream Scream: MSNBC features pollster calling GOP ‘domestic terror group’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC’s AM Joy show giving airtime to a Democratic, pro-Clinton consultant and pollster that called the Republican Party “pro-pedophilia,” “anti-children,” and ultimately a “domestic terror group.”
The trifecta of hate on the GOP came from Fernand Amandi who was on Saturday’s AM Joy reacting to supposed Republican resistance to extending a health insurance program for children.
Amandi:
“Is it any surprise that the party that is pro-pay-for-play, pro-Putin, and now with Roy Moore, pro-pedophilia, the fact that they’re anti-children, is that any surprise? I don’t think it is. And I think, Joy, this is emblematic — this CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] scenario where you mentioned nine million children -- children -- without health insurance.
“I think if you take a step back, one has to ask themselves -- and I think the American people should ask themselves the broader question: What has the Republican party, in the last ten years, done to help the American people? What have they done? This is not a political party -- this is a domestic terror group. And I think what the American people should consider when they ask themselves that question -- with a party that has done nothing to help the American people -- is to vote them out and consider possibly afterwards locking them up, Joy.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “MSNBC has outdone itself, allowing a guest, whom host Joy Reid did not challenge, to characterize the political party in power as a ‘terror group.’ That’s just plain revolting and one more piece of evidence MSNBC is more of a left-wing political operation than any kind of journalistic enterprise.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ November 20: Mainstream Scream: Andrea Mitchell, ‘I Have No Political Axe to Grind’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, hosting Sunday’s Meet the Press, and insisting that she has “no political axe to grind” during contentious questioning of White House budget director Mick Mulvaney over the tax reform package and Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore.
Mulvaney challenged her bias, and she said “we’re not taking a political point of view here” and “I have no political axe to grind.”
Excerpt 1
Mick Mulvaney: “So I laugh every time I come on networks like this, they accuse us of cutting taxes on the rich. Every time I go on different networks, and you may understand who those are, they accuse us of raising taxes on the rich. So I think it looks — depends on how you want to look at it.”
Andrea Mitchell: “We’re not taking a political point of view here. We are actually going by nonpartisan groups like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, all the impact on the exploding deficit which will impact future generations.”
Excerpt 2
Mitchell: “Do you believe that the women who’ve come out against Roy Moore are credible?”
Mulvaney: “I believe they’re credible. I don’t know who to believe. Again, I'm at the Office of Management and Budget–”
Mitchell: “You don’t believe them?”
Mulvaney: “No, I said they’re credible. I don’t know who to believe. And I do think, as the president said, that voters should decide.”
Mitchell: “If they’re credible. Why wouldn’t you believe them?”
Mulvaney: “Andrea, I run the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, D.C. You work for NBC News in Washington, D.C. My guess is we’ve not spent that much time looking at the specifics of these allegations. You’ve arrived at a certain conclusion because of a certain political persuasion. We’re simply–”
Mitchell: “Not because of a political persuasion at all. I’m -- I am simply asking whether you believe that they are credible. They have been out in public. They have spoken on the record. Some were brought, some stories were brought out by Alabama journalists in the local newspapers down there, not just by the Washington Post. And I have no political axe to grind here other than to ask you whether you believe they are credible.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “No one is buying Mitchell’s denials. She’s just upset that a guest called her out on her obvious political agenda, with her questioning exactly matching Democratic talking points. Score one for the Trump team in highlighting an all too typical media misdeed.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ November 14: Mainstream Scream: CBS says ‘saving the world’ harder under Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features a CBS anchor and reporter blaming President Trump, in office for a little over seven months, for destroying the earth with his environmental plans.
From the top of a story on Monday’s CBS Evening News:
Anchor Anthony Mason: “At a U.N. climate conference in Germany today, the Trump administration talked up fossil fuels, including coal. That puts the U.S. at odds with 194 other nations, but some American entrepreneurs and politicians want to make sure the administration does not have the final word. Mark Phillips reports.”
Video of a group of kids: “Save the world! Save the World!”
Reporter Mark Phillips: “Despite the kids’ demonstration, saving the world has been harder since the Trump administration announced its pullout from the Paris climate deal. There is an enthusiastic American delegation at this U.N. conference, but Washington didn’t send it. State and city governments and businessmen like Michael Bloomberg did....”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “As if the world must really be ‘saved’ and one action by Trump impedes that. This kind of story makes it much harder to take journalists seriously, with such an over the top fear-mongering about an unenforced international deal instead of a little skepticism directed at the presumptions of liberal scaremongers.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ November 6: Mainstream Scream: Brokaw frets Donna Brazile’s expose ‘beyond counterproductive’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream was probably pretty easy to predict after former Democratic Party Chair Donna Brazile spilled the beans on the the party’s disfunction and 2016 rigging for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
On cue, the mainstream media, especially on network TV, portrayed the long-time Democratic strategist and former Al Gore campaign manager as hurting the party.
Leading the charge was NBC News journalist Tom Brokaw who fretted over how the “internecine fight” would hurt Democrats. He tried to discredit Brazile as someone known for “ready, fire, aim” attacks and, noting how Democrats are “trying to win congressional races,” he called her timing “beyond counterproductive.”
Brokaw on the Sunday, November 5 Meet the Press hosted by Chuck Todd:
“I think this is a manifestation of all that is wrong with the Democratic Party, frankly. I mean, this is a time they ought to be talking about the future and they ought to be organizing themselves about what they want to do for the country. Except we go back and we’ve got this internecine fight going on about something that happened some time ago. Donna is well-known, as you all know, for kind of ‘ready, fire, aim’ on a lot of the stuff that she does. [Chuck Todd laughs] But to go back over this now when they’re trying to win congressional races and trying to get ready for ‘18 seems, to me, to be beyond counterproductive.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Brokaw has demonstrated once again how he’s more of a Democratic partisan than any kind of independent journalist. When Senator Bob Corker condemned President Trump I don’t recall Brokaw lamenting how that could hurt the Republican agenda.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 30: Mainstream Scream: CNN raises the Trump Media Conspiracy Theory
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features CNN spelling out a Trump administration “campaign of confusion” to obscure misdeeds.
From the Sunday, October 29 Reliable Sources on CNN.
Host Brian Stelter:
“Defending President Trump can be hard to do, so some of his allies in the media don't even bother trying. Instead, they just change the subject. This is a campaign of confusion. It is one of the most important things happening in American politics today. I mean, if you watched the opinion shows on Fox News this week, you might have thought Hillary Clinton was president, not Trump, Clinton.
“Here is how the campaign of confusion works: First, The Hill newspaper revived a relatively old story about Russian efforts to gain influence in the American uranium industry during the Obama administration. Fox became fixated on this story and the messaging was clear, the Russian investigations were recast as a scandal for Clinton and the Dems....
“Finally, Fox has found the real Russia scandal. That’s how it’s portrayed. Uranium, uranium, uranium. Now, Fox got help from Republicans on Capitol Hill who announced fresh investigations into the uranium issue. And then President Trump picked up on it. But Clinton is overall a convenient boogie man.
“Look, there may be something newsworthy here. I will leave that to the experts.
“But in right-wing media, this uranium story blotted out the sun! And it fit a pattern we’ve seen before. Trump's media allies downplay, deflect and deny stories that are trouble for the White House. Instead, they tell viewers and readers to hate Hillary Clinton.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “‘Look, there may be something newsworthy here. I will leave that to the experts.’ That’s quite an admission from Stelter. But, apparently, if the investigative reporting doesn’t match CNN’s narrow, anti-Trump agenda, it’s a ‘campaign of confusion’? This from a network which spends entire prime times obsessed with every minor news blip about Trump. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 23: Mainstream Scream: ABC analyst claims Reagan’s party ‘is gone’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features a top ABC analyst who believes that the Republican Party would no longer welcome its iconic leaders, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan.
Despite so many Republicans wrapping themselves in the legacy of Reagan, ABC's Matthew Dowd said on Sunday's This Week that the party is gone.
After we posted, Dowd tweeted us that it's the same on the other side. "More than two years ago I said Dems wouldn't nominate JFK."
Dowd on This Week:
"I think that what has to be recognized now, by Republicans and many conservatives who have resisted Donald Trump, is that the Republican Party as they know it is gone. This is a party that would never nominate Lincoln again, would never nominate Teddy Roosevelt. Certainly wouldn't nominate Ronald Reagan in this. And that party is gone. They might as well get H.G. Wells on the line, get back in a time machine, and find the party that they think still exists. It's gone."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "As if all political parties don't change over time. Would today's Democratic Party nominate John F. Kennedy, who was well to the right of today's party? As for Reagan, he won as a vocal conservative willing to take on his opponents and with the help of ‘Reagan Democrats,' both precursors of how Trump won."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ October 16: Mainstream Scream: CNN’s Cuomo dubs Trump ‘emperor’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features CNN morning host Chris Cuomo pressing a top Republican to say that President Trump is acting like "an emperor" with his executive actions on Obamacare.
Noting that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, once suggested that Obama was an emperor for his actions, Cuomo demanded the lawmaker to make the same claim about Trump.
He said on his Friday show: "Jim, why aren't you saying that the president is acting like an emperor and that his job is to execute laws that are passed, not write his own and that Congress must hold him to account for doing so?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Cuomo seems oblivious to the obvious difference between Obama imposing an unconstitutional order, which appropriated money without congressional approval, and Trump undoing that improper action. If anyone acted like an emperor, it was Obama."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 9: Mainstream Scream: WaPo boss says media not ‘cozy’ with Obama
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, October 8 decrying the "very hostile atmosphere" with the Trump administration.
But he also argued that that the media's relationship with the Obama administration wasn't "cozy" either.
"They've created a very hostile atmosphere. It's not that we had such a wonderful relationship with the previous administration. There's sometimes an assumption that the press had a warm, cozy relationship with the Obama administration. That wasn't the case.
"We had a lot of conflicts with the Obama administration. And you may recall that they had more leak investigations against -- involving the press than all previous administrations combined. So, there wasn't a warm relationship. But it' been, there's been a hostility, I think, fomented by the administration over the course of the campaign, and certainly during the course of the administration. That makes it difficult."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "So, per Baron, the Obama administration was hostile to journalists and the Trump team is too, but in his alternate universe the media didn't have a ‘warm relationship' with Obama. Yet, it's the Trump team's hostility to the press corps which has caused the media's antagonism toward Trump. That's some jujitsu."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ October 2: Mainstream Scream: Hardball Matthews’ delights in Sally Quinn’s hexes
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews delighting in the revelation from Washington Post's Sally Quinn in her new book, Finding Magic: A Spiritual Memoir, that she put hexes on people.
Interviewing Quinn, the former wife of the late Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, and now a blogger on religion for the newspaper, Matthews cackled: "What I liked is the hexes of course. How can I not like the fact you knocked off some people just by wishing them evil?"
Matthews on the Friday, September 29 Hardball:
"Sally Quinn has always been one of the most frightening people in Washington. Glamorous, yes, I'll give you that -- but when you wrote for the Washington Post, when you went after people like Steve Martindale or what's-his-name, Hamilton Jordan -- they died. You wrote these huge -- I used to read them on the bus, these gigantic takeout pieces in the Washington Post -- when your husband was running the paper, which is a hugely successful paper -- the Washington Post, it crackled with excitement.
"And now you write a book where you say, ‘If you think I was scary as a reporter, I can put a hex on you.' Talk about the spiritual power of wishing someone to die. How's that work? This is a book you got to read because it's the only book I've read about D.C. and the spiritual power that comes alive with a really smart person with strong focus...
"But the parts I liked to read -- I got them in galley form -- what I liked is the hexes of course. How can I not like the fact you knocked off some people just by wishing them evil?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "No matter how lighthearted Matthews treated the topic, in a time of such political vitriol, how wise is it to laugh about a journalist who boasts about putting deadly hexes on political leaders? Matthews would have been better advised to have played a little hardball with her on Hardball."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ September 25: Mainstream Scream: NBC guest calls National Anthem ‘white supremacist’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features the Trump-inspired debate over the National Anthem and NFL players taking a knee to protest it.
It came Sunday on Meet the Press during an exchange over President Trump's comments between National Review editor Rich Lowry and Detroit Free Press editorial page editor Stephen Henderson:
Rich Lowry of National Review: "He's not randomly attacking these players. He is attacking them because they're kneeling during the national anthem. And the national anthem is not a white supremacist symbol. And the President has become-"
Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press: "Some of the words of the national anthem are white supremacist."
Lowry: "You think the national anthem is racist?"
Henderson: "I think this is a country whose history is racist, whose history is steeped in white supremacy, and the anthem reflects that in its very words, in verses we don't sing anymore."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Henderson well reflects the racial obsession of those given such prominence in the media, who see the bad in America before the good, and see everything through a racial prism. They have disdain for the millions, for whom Trump speaks, who are angry millionaire players would disrespect the national anthem of a nation which has provided such opportunities."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ New on September 18: Mainstream Scream: CNN’s Stelter sees victim in ESPN not Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter suggesting that ESPN and host Jemele Hill, who tweeted "white supremacist" at Donald Trump were a victim of rivals.
On his Sunday show, he said:
"The world's biggest sports network, ESPN, is in the crosshairs after SportsCenter host Jemele Hill tweeted that President Trump is a white supremacist. Hill prompted new conversations about whether the U.S. president is a racist. So, why did this particular tweet back on Monday, made on Hill's personal account, catch fire and become a week-long story?
"After all, she's not the first to call Trump a racist or white supremacist. And this is far from the first time members of the media or news outlets have questioned Trump's complicated relationship with white supremacy. You can see these recent magazine covers all published in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"There's a couple things going on here that we should be honest about. Number one: This controversy gave conservative media like rival Fox Sports -- ESPN's wanna-be rival Fox Sports – the opportunity to cast ESPN as the liberal enemy. We also saw President Trump and his White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders addressing this controversy, being asked about it. It seemed the White House embraced this fight. Perhaps another example of media bashing.
"So, there's a lot of dynamics at play here, including ESPN's social media policies. And we're going to get into that with two top newsroom leaders. But maybe we should call this was what it is: It's media bashing of another color....”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Stelter holds himself as some sort of independent media critic, but in framing ESPN and Hill as the victims of unfair attacks from conservatives, he placed himself clearly with those on the left who presume an illegitimacy to media criticism from those on the right. Looking at ESPN's liberal political correctness, and hypocrisy in how they treat political comments from staff, would have been the main focus for a true media critic."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 11: Mainstream Scream: Whoopi Goldberg asks if Clinton’s loss was ‘fair and square’
(Washington Examiner post)
2016 presidential runner-up Hillary Rodham Clinton still can't get over losing to President Trump, and apparently neither can her fans.
Whoopi Goldberg is first among them and is this week's Mainstream Media Scream featured example of the alternative thinking by the Left's media stars.
Ahead of the release of Hillary Clinton's book about why she lost the 2016 presidential election, on ABC's The View on Friday, Goldberg blamed Clinton's loss on Fox News Channel attacks on former President Barack Obama and offered a very confused history of when candidates have succeeded a two-term president of their own party.
She then suggested nefarious things occurred as she asserted "if this election happened in any other country the way it happened here, we would have sent people to go and check to see what was going on" before declaring: "We don't know that she did lose fair and square."
Goldberg on ABC's The View on September 8:
"She's not the president. But let's be realistic. Do you really think she was going to win? Based on everything that the Democrats did when they let Obama -- left him out there floating and the flotsam and jetsam and all this stuff that Fox News did and all those folks. You know, there have been very few eight years of one party and eight years of the same party. It doesn't generally go back to back. The last time I think was Nixon and whoever came in after him was the last. Ford. And he pardoned. That was the last time we had a long stretch when it wasn't Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican. So given all the crap that Obama had to sort of eat from his own party, I don't think Bernie was going to -- I don't think any Democrat was going to – people were going to vote...
"The truth of the matter is, if this election happened in any other country the way it happened here, we would have sent people to go and check to see what was going on. We will never know. We'll never know. We'll never know....
"But we don't know that she did lose fair and square. See that's the thing. That's what I'm saying."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: If Goldberg wants to convince anybody there's anything to her unusual analysis about how ‘we'll never know' if Hillary really lost – blaming Fox News attacks on Obama, for instance, for somehow leading to Trump's victory – she should first bone up on recent American history. Her big film, Sister Act, was released during the presidency of Republican George H.W. Bush who had succeeded two-term Republican President Ronald Reagan."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 5: Mainstream Scream: MSNBC guest hits Trump’s ‘white supremacy agenda’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features an MSNBC guest slapping President Trump's decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
During Labor Day's MSNBC Live, frequent MSNBC guest Karine Jean-Pierre, a lecturer at Columbia University, national spokesman for MoveOn.org and ex-deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama, tried to discredit repealing DACA by charging:
"We're hearing tomorrow that he might, he might do away with DACA, which is another moral line that he would be crossing, which is something that would be enforcing -- advancing a white supremacy agenda, and also against what the majority of Americans want."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "‘White supremacy agenda' is the new way to smear those holding views contrary to the liberal/media narrowly-defined ‘diversity' agenda. Sad that MSNBC welcomes those so eager to silence opposition through baseless claims of racism instead of addressing the specifics of the policy."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ August 29: Mainstream Scream: Hurricane Harvey was Trump’s fault
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features a New York Times reporter who concludes that Hurricane Harvey, storming through the Gulf Coast, is hurting President Trump's supporters and that he isn't helping them in avoiding climate change policies.
On MSNBC Monday, Times reporter Yamiche Alcindor discussed her story where she wrote, for example, that the "unleashing of the fossil energy sector that Mr. Trump has championed could have repercussions more immediate than the global climate. In Houston, predominantly African-American neighborhoods like Sunnyside and Pleasantville have been dealing with pollution from the energy sector for years."
On TV Monday, she added:
"I should say I just was reporting in Galveston, Texas, and my story was focused on climate change and on the idea that middle class and poor people would be some of the first people hurt by climate change and there's this idea that these storms, these hurricanes are getting worse and worse, scientists say, and that working class and poor people, poor people that voted for Donald Trump, that are excited about his presidency, that thought his presidency was going to improve their lives, that these are the same people who can't afford to get in their car and drive four or five hours or can't afford a hotel room to try to escape these floods."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Alcindor reminds me of the old headline mocking the New York Times: ‘World to End Tomorrow, Minorities and Poor Hardest Hit.' Her real article could be headlined: ‘Climate Change to End the World, Trump Voters Hardest Hit.' As if a Hillary Clinton presidency, or different policies from Trump, would have prevented Hurricane Harvey or would really impact hurricane formation in the foreseeable future."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ August 21: Mainstream Scream: CNN doubts Trump’s fitness, ‘crazy, unhinged’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features CNN's media analyst wondering aloud if President Trump has an illness that makes him unfit for office, crazy even.
Brian Stelter, host of CNN's Reliable Sources, opened Sunday's show by maintaining "this is not a normal week so this is not a normal show. President Trump's actions and inactions in the wake of Charlottesville are provoking some uncomfortable conversations, mostly off the air if we're being honest."
He then contended:
"In discussions among friends and family and debates on social media, people are questioning the president's fitness. But these conversations are happening in newsrooms and TV studios as well. It's usually after the microphones are off, of after the stories been filed, after the paper has been put to bed, people's concerns and fears and questions come out. Questions that often feel out of bounds, off limits, too hot for TV. Questions like these:
"Is the president of the United States a racist? Is he suffering from some kind of illness? Is he fit for office? [long pause] And if he's unfit, then what?
"These are upsetting, polarizing questions that are uncomfortable to ask. But we in the national news media can't pretend like our readers have viewers aren't already asking. They are asking. This is how deep the country's divide has really become.
"My impression is that since President Trump's inauguration, there's been a lot of tiptoeing going on. His actions have been described as unpresidential, as unhinged, and sometimes even crazy."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Can you say ‘projection'? The media have hardly been ‘tiptoeing' around their condemnation of the Trump presidency, but he's still in office so, it seems, activist journalists like Stelter think they've failed and must prod their colleagues to step it up by calling Trump ill and unfit. They're just alienating themselves further from much of America."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ August 14: Mainstream Scream: ABC’s Cokie Roberts blames Trump, Sessions for violence
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream could have picked any of dozens of media figures decrying President Trump's words and his administration's actions for what happened in Charlottesville, Va. But only one, ABC's Cokie Roberts pointed the blame at the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
On the Sunday after Saturday's deadly clash, she claimed that Trump "has to share responsibility." She also blamed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for going "backward" on race issues, charging: "He's saying ‘let's keep voting rights suppressed.' He's doing a lot of things that send signals to these white supremacists."
During the roundtable on the August 13 This Week on ABC:
"The president has to share responsibility. The fact is that through that campaign, he blew all kind of whistles that those of us who grew up in the Jim Crow south, like I did, recognized immediately. It was just calling out to these white supremacists who then felt empowered by it. And the President now not calling them out....
"This is also a really watershed moment for the Justice Department. Because it's not just categorizing these hate crimes. Jeff Sessions has gone backwards on a lot of these things having to do with race. Taking a look at the Obama federal investigations of how police treat people of color. He's saying, ‘let's not do that anymore.' He's saying ‘let's keep voting rights suppressed.' He's doing a lot of things that send signals to these white supremacists."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "Journalists, who are so anathema to tying Democrats to far left violence, are all too eager to blame Republicans for far right violence, at least partly absolving those who have committed the violent acts. In this case, Roberts smeared Sessions for promoting standard conservative policies, thus trying to discredit them as somehow racist."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ August 7: Mainstream Scream: Hardball’s Matthews frets lack of Trump-Russia news
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews worried that non urban America, where big city liberal newspapers are AWOL, is missing out on the Russia scandal because small local papers cover, well, local news.
While all polls showing that most people get their news from TV, where the Russia story is hot and heavy, Matthews told of traveling out west where the newspapers are thin on national news. That, he explained, is a reason why Trump voters still support the president.
On his Thursday show, and after New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters pointed out Republicans stuck with former President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, so no surprise Trump's base is sticking with him, Matthews opined:
"I think part of that is the loss of newspapers in many parts of the country. I was out — no, I was just out in the west with my wife. We were driving around, you know, in Colorado and Utah and Wyoming. There's no local big serious newspaper in the — the Denver papers, they're — you don't pick it up in the morning when you go down the driveway or whatever, the mailbox — there's not a newspaper that tells you what's going to nationally. There are local newspapers that are okay but the days where people had a pretty good newspaper to read. So, how are you going to keep up with Russia? Even if you're slightly interested it there's no story to read. That's a fact."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: "It took until 2017 for Matthews to notice the decline in newspaper circulation which has led to fewer and smaller printed newspapers? And hasn't he heard of the Internet? There's more news available than ever to the people of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, so say nothing of channels like CNN and MSNBC which are obsessed withe the supposed Russia ‘scandal.' I guess he realizes, correctly, few watch his program."
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ August 1: Mainstream Scream: Brian Williams hails GOP ‘courage’ to keep Obamacare
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC host Brian Williams as the example of the media cooing over Sen. John McCain and the other GOP senators who killed the party's promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
After the defeat early Friday morning of the final opportunity in the Senate to move toward repealing Obamacare, Williams hailed McCain as a "profile in courage" for voting no, despite the fact the Arizona senator campaigned on a promise to repeal the law.
Later in the day, he touted McCain's "moment of moral courage," and also praised the "courage" of the two other Republican senators who voted no, wondering with some hope: "Is that kind of courage, for people cheering them on, going to be contagious?"
Williams on MSNBC at 2 AM EDT Friday morning, just after the vote:
"We'll leave this hour quoting Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, saying ‘I ran into John McCain as we walked underground to the Senate for the final vote. Someday, I'll get to tell my grandkids what he said to me.' The words of John McCain, who was indeed a profile in courage tonight, along with two women in the Republican caucus, Senator from Maine, Murkowski — Senator from Alaska, Murkowski — Senator from Maine, Collins."
Then, about 21 hours later, on MSNBC's The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, he offered a dramatic recounting of McCain's vote:
"In the well of the Senate, it came down to one very dramatic moment. Senator John McCain walks in, asks to be recognized, raises that right arm broken three different places in North Vietnam, a quick indicator with a thumbs down. The Democrats briefly react, Senator Schumer waives off any verbal reaction. But with that, it was done. Seven years of talk about repeal and replace done in one hand gesture.
"Our panel remains with us and we'll go to Charlie Sykes. Charlie, much was made of that moment, a moment of moral courage, a man staring down his own mortality yet again, not the first time in his life. But let's also talk about the courage of Murkowski of Alaska and Collins of Maine, because without those two women, there is no moment like that for John McCain. My question to you: Is that kind of courage, for people cheering them on, going to be contagious?"
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "The very definition of outrageous liberal bias. Can you imagine Williams heaping such praise on McCain if his vote was the one which enabled the Senate to repeal Obamacare? Of course not. But betray a promise made to your constituents in order to advance a liberal goal and you earn the media's adoration."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 24: Mainstream Scream: Now CNN says Trump’s ‘rhetoric’ is a scandal
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features a classic TV duel between CNN "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter and senior Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Called out by presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway to name the "big scandals" of the Trump administration, Stelter, on Sunday's Reliable Sources, cited President Trump's "demagogic behavior when it comes to the media." The CNN host insisted that when Trump "calls real news outlets fake news, he poisons our public discourse" and "makes it harder for us to trust each other."
From the July 23 Reliable Sources on CNN, after Conway complained about the media's obsession with Russia as they undercover other important administration achievements:
BRIAN STELTER: But journalists also recognize there are big scandals going on.
KELLYANNE CONWAY: What scandals are going on? Brian, name them. Go ahead, I'll sit here, I want to hear about. No, you can't get away with that. What are the, quote, "big scandals" going on? Please, name them for me.
STELTER: When you look at this president's rhetoric, his demagogic behavior when it comes to the media–
CONWAY: His rhetoric is a scandal?
STELTER: Yes, it actually is. But the more important scandals–
CONWAY: It is? His rhetoric is a scandal?
STELTER: –are what happened before -- you don't think that his words against the media are poison, Kellyanne, actually hurting the country on a daily basis?
CONWAY: Wait, his rhetoric is a scandal?
STELTER: When he calls real news outlets fake, when he calls real news outlets fake news, he poisons our public discourse. It makes it harder for us to communicate as a country, it makes it harder for us to trust each other.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Talk about a lack of self-awareness. CNN, and the MSM, long ago lost the trust of much of the public because they so obviously favored liberals and denigrated conservatives. Trump is not the cause of distrust in the media or a poisoning of discourse, but someone who successfully exploited the table set by too many politically-driven journalists."
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 17: Mainstream Scream: WaPo vet hits scandal-shunning ‘competing press’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features Len Downie, former executive editor of the Washington Post and an editor during the Watergate era, bemoaning how the proliferation in media outlets means that now, unlike during Watergate, coverage of supposed Trump scandals is being undermined because there's a "right wing press that is not concerned about facts."
He appeared on Sunday's Reliable Sources show on CNN to hit the media that isn't onboard with all the Post's "scandal" reporting on President Trump.
Downie:
"There's so much more media now than there was then. For a long time, the Post was alone on the Watergate story. There were — it was a whole string of editors, including myself, who vetted all the stories, who would challenge Bob and Carl on whether or not the conclusions they were drawing were the right conclusions to draw from the facts.
"And we were able to do that without — without other things going on. And there was no Internet then. There was no cable television. And there was no — there was no competing press of the kind that there is now. There's a sort of a right wing press that is not concerned about facts. It constantly attacks the legitimate reporting that's going on. None of that was present then."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Ah yes, the good old days when we few media oligarchs controlled the news agenda without those meddlesome conservatives having any voice. What chutzpah. Incredibly, Downie really seems to believe the challenge to media credibility does not come from any of the major media outlets which distort news to the left, but from a few conservative one which arose to counter them."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ July 10: Mainstream Scream: Lupica says McConnell more a threat than Putin
(Washington Examiner post)
This week's Mainstream Media Scream features New York Daily News and MSNBC regular Mike Lupica blasting the GOP Obamacare repeal plan, claiming that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is more dangerous than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On MSNBC Monday, he referenced his column in which he wrote:
"To the 22 million Americans who will be without health insurance by 2026 if this bill passes, it actually makes McConnell and all the 12 other angry men in the room who helped him draft this bill a lot more dangerous than even a bum like Vladimir Putin."
He repeated that while on MSNBC's Live with Stephanie Ruhle on Monday morning July 10:
"I think it is, and I actually wrote about this today. If you are an at-risk American, if you are the poor or the elderly or somebody with a pre-existing condition or somebody who relies on a rural hospital, Mitch McConnell is more of a danger to your life right now than Vladimir Putin is. If he gets this thing through, it attacks so many people in this country who will end up, eventually, without health care and without health insurance."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: "Lupica is a ‘sports' columnist in name only, putting politics ahead of sports. In this case, enabled by MSNBC to espouse the all-too-common left-wing pretense that Republican policies will kill people. He should stick to sports."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
> Mainstream Media Screams for January through June 2017.
> For July through December 2016.
> For January through June 2016.
> For July to December 2015.
from NewsBusters http://bit.ly/2Gg178N
Web Market Power providing the latest marketing tips, news and tricks throughout the industry.
Sourced by the online web marketing guys. Web Marketing Experts that know how to drive business uniquely using creative marketing methods, and self-sufficient social media strategies.
No comments