Washington Examiner’s ‘Liberal Media Scream’ With the MRC’s Assessment #Political
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 “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2021.
> For all of 2020. For all of 2019. For all of 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for:
> July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.)
(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)
■ New on August 23: Liberal Media Scream: CNN regular says Biden’s doing a heck of a job
See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.
■ August 16: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC ‘expert’ says GOP trying to make migrants ‘disappear’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key MSNBC guest who said Republicans are trying to “disappear” nonwhites and liberal migrants from voting rolls.
MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Saturday featured a guest who charged “the politics of Republican redistricting really reflects a kind of ugly logic of removal” in which “they’re trying to disappear certain voices and populations.”
Cristina Beltran, associate professor at New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, said, “Stephen Miller couldn’t do it, or Trump couldn’t do it” — but following new census numbers, they will try through redistricting.
Beltran, author of the book, Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy, said that “the GOP really can’t make the nation whiter, so they’re using redistricting to strip citizens of their power and to make Congress look less like America.”
From Saturday morning’s Velshi on MSNBC:
ALI VELSHI: Cristina, when people — the census shouldn’t surprise most people who follow, like you do, population and demographics in America. But, I think that the conclusion is counterintuitive. Most people say, 'Well, if the census says we’re more diverse, our representation should get more diverse.' In fact, it is likely to get less diverse.
CRISTINA BELTRAN: Exactly, exactly, and I think that’s a real challenge here is that the census, one hand, is telling us something we already know: That America is a deeply multiracial nation, but the politics of Republican redistricting really reflects a kind of ugly logic of removal, right? Where they’re trying to disappear certain voices and populations, right? And so, I think they’re trying to disappear a lot of Americans politically, right? Stephen Miller couldn’t do it, or Trump couldn’t do it in their politics in a complete way, though they tried with anti-immigration politics, but the GOP really can’t make the nation whiter, so they’re using redistricting to strip citizens of their power and to make Congress look less like America.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The only ‘ugly logic’ here is from Ali Velshi and MSNBC in their decision to feature a guest with such an ugly take on a standard practice after every census when the party which dominates in a state gets to do some ‘gerrymandering.’ It’s hardly the nefarious deed suggested by Beltran and hardly unique to one party. But leave it to MSNBC to give it a racist tinge while tossing in some vitriol toward Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ August 9: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Acosta sneers, ‘Call it the DeSantis variant’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN’s Jim Acosta going full liberal bias in attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s handling of the latest coronavirus outbreak.
On CNN Saturday afternoon, Acosta blamed Republican politicians for COVID-19 deaths, particularly DeSantis.
“Instead of the delta variant, why not call it the DeSantis variant?” the anchor said. Acosta, known for his hostility to President Donald Trump when he covered the White House, didn’t say the same thing about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who earlier had a COVID death outbreak on his hands.
With a matching image on screen, Acosta suggested, “We could sell beer koozies that say ‘Don’t Florida My Fauci,’” (a play on koozies that say ‘Don’t Fauci My Florida’) before snidely concluding with how the money raised could be used “to help pay for all the funerals that will be coming.”
Acosta, on CNN Newsroom, on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 7:
“People should not have to die so some politicians can own the libs. They’re not owning anybody, but they may end up owning the pandemic, because they’re prolonging it. Perhaps it’s time to start naming these new variants that may be coming out after them. Instead of the delta variant, why not call it the DeSantis variant? We could sell beer koozies that say ‘Don’t Florida My Fauci’ and use the money to help pay for all the funerals that will be coming in the days to come.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Acosta is just furthering his image as more of a clownish political hack than any kind of fair-minded journalist. If deaths from COVID-9 are such a serious issue, which they are, why is he, an anchor for a national cable news channel, making such a crass political insult which hardly shows respect for the science?”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.
■ August 2: Liberal Media Scream: New CNN low, comparing Trump ‘cult’ to Jonestown massacre
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN’s Brian Stelter’s Trump Derangement Syndrome hitting a new low, inviting a comparison of the “cult” of Trump to the Jim Jones cult killings in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978.
On his Sunday show, Reliable Sources, the liberal media nag brought aboard Rep. Jackie Speier, who survived the Jonestown massacre, to equate the “cult of Trump” with the mass murder-suicide of 918 followers of Rev. Jim Jones. “I wanted to hear her thoughts about the comparison, the notion of the cult of Trump,” Stelter said in setting up the welcoming California lawmaker.
Speier, who was shot five times as she tried to escape at an airfield when she was a member of the staff of Rep. Leo Ryan, welcomed the spin. “There's no question” you “could compare” the two “charismatic leaders,” she said.
Stelter played along: “It’s scary to hear that when you have observed the Trump phenomenon, you have seen similarities to Jonestown.”
Stelter had opened the segment by relaying feedback from international viewers asking, “Why doesn’t the American media just call out Trump for what he is, call Trump fandom for what it is? Sometimes they use the word, cult.”
From the start of the segment on the Aug. 1 Reliable Sources on CNN:
BRIAN STELTER: Welcome back to Reliable Sources, live in the U.S. and all around the world. And one of the great things about being shown on CNN International is that I hear from viewers who observe American political dysfunction from an outsider’s point of view. These citizens in other countries sometimes email me and say, you know, why doesn’t the American media just call out Trump for what he is, call Trump fandom for what it is? Sometimes they use the word, cult. I know that’s a sensitive word. It doesn’t come up a lot in American news coverage.
So, I wanted to put it to an expert, an unfortunate expert, Congresswoman Jackie Speier started out her career in politics, working for a lawmaker. She’s on a fact-finding mission to Jonestown. She sadly knows firsthand about the weight of that word, cult. She was able to escape with her life, others were not able to that day. So, I wanted to hear her thoughts about the comparison, the notion of the cult of Trump, especially in the light of January 6th, and the mass delusion that led people to a riot of lies on Capitol Hill. When I brought this up with her, she did not mince words.
REP. JACKIE SPEIER: There’s no question that you could compare Jim Jones as a charismatic leader, who would bring his congregation together, forced them to do things that were illegal, and then took 900 of them into the jungles of Guyana, where over the course of time, he then convinced them that they should die. I’ve never been able to say they committed suicide because I don’t think they were in control of their faculties, to be quite honest with you.
So, you look at Donald Trump, charismatic leader, who was able to continue to talk in terms that appealed to those who are disaffected, disillusioned, and who were looking for something, much like those who became part of Jim Jones’s congregation, the People’s Temple. They were lost souls. And the only difference between Jim Jones and Donald Trump is the fact that we now have social media. So, all these people can find themselves in ways that they couldn’t find themselves before.
So, he basically was a merchant of deceit, both of them merchants of deceit, both of them making people not look at facts, not think independently. And sowed a story for them that was indeed destructive.
STELTER: It’s scary to hear that when you have observed the Trump phenomenon, you have seen similarities to Jonestown.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “The longer Trump is out of the White House the more Trump Derangement Syndrome seems to grow among his biggest haters in the media, with Stelter taking it to a whole new level each week. Last week, he featured Carl Bernstein calling Trump a 'war criminal.' This week, Trump’s just like a cult leader who led hundreds of followers to commit mass suicide and murder a congressman. Only Trump has never done that. Maybe Stelter should look a little closer to home to see who is in a personality-based cult.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ July 26: Liberal Media Scream: The worst of Trump hater Carl Bernstein
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest anti-Trump outburst from Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein — and his worst hits list.
Sunday on CNN’s Reliable Sources, his main venting venue, he hyped up his prior attacks on former President Donald Trump, claiming that the Republican is a “war criminal.”
His over-the-top invective against Trump is nothing new, as a quick trip through the CNN archive shows. In 2017, he declared of Trump’s decision to remove the FBI director, “This is a potentially more dangerous situation than Watergate.” In 2020, he was repeating his Watergate comparison as he charged Trump allies had “now joined hands with a tyrant.” Last fall, he described Trump’s response to COVID as “homicidal negligence” before declaring “we are witnessing the Mad King in the final days of his reign.”
Our Liberal Media Scream partner Brent Baker, the vice president of the Media Research Center, drew up a list of Bernstein’s greatest anti-Trump hits:
♦ “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.” — Reliable Sources, May 14, 2017.
♦ “Let’s look at what Watergate was because it was about a criminal president who acted as a tyrant. And what we have here now is the Senate of the United States, through the Republican leadership and membership, has now joined hands with a tyrant.” — CNN Newsroom, Jan. 31, 2020.
♦ “His response has been homicidal negligence. He has failed to protect the American people and rather to put his own interest of reelection and holding on to the office of the presidency in front of the health and well-being of the American people.” — CNN Newsroom, Oct. 3, 2020.
♦ “We are witnessing the Mad King in the final days of his reign, willing to scorch the Earth of his country and bring down the whole system to undermine our whole democracy, strip it of its legitimacy, poison the confidence of our people in our institutions and the constitution for Donald Trump’s own petulant, selfish, rabid ends.” — CNN New Day, Nov. 20, 2020.
♦ “I think we need to calmly step back and maybe look at Trump in a different context. He is America’s, our own American war criminal, of a kind we’ve never experienced before ... In international law, there have been, quote, 'crimes against humanity.' I think what we’re talking about, Trump’s crimes as an American war criminal in his own country that he has perpetrated upon our people.” — Reliable Sources, Sunday.
Baker explains our weekly pick: “Bernstein is a one-note musician, trying every week to ramp up his singularly focused anger to get some attention. With so much unhinged animus for Trump, it’s hard to imagine anyone considers his rants anything more than entertainment from a guy trying, but failing, to match Trump’s skill at creating a negative public image for his opponents through creative terminology.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ July 19: Liberal Media Scream: Press should ‘move on’ from balance to liberal advocacy
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a Washington Post columnist telling it like it is: Liberal advocacy in the media is the correct bias.
On CNN’s Reliable Sources show, Perry Bacon Jr. argued the news media “should move on from” caring about attracting just as many Republicans as Democrats to read or view their reporting. Picking up on a column he wrote last week, Bacon said the “core mission” of the media is to present “facts” and “an evidence-based view of the world.”
But his “facts,” of course, overlap with the priorities of liberals, not uncommon for Washington Post columnists who are given more freedom in their work. For example, he said, “We in the media are biased in terms of we support vaccines. We in the media hire LGBT employees. We are biased against bans against trans or gay people."
Give credit to the Washington Post for highlighting the bias of its scribes. In Bacon’s bio, for example, it offers up his coverage area. Under “The Democratic Party,” it says, “The Democratic Party is generally moving in a pro-equality (racial, economic, class, gender, sexual identity) direction.” Under “The Republican Party,” it reads, “The Republican Party is moving in an anti-democratic, anti-Democrats direction.”
Bacon on Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN:
“They should move on from this idea that they’re trying to, you know, the audience is trying to get equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats or to not offend Mitch McConnell’s office or whatever it is, and to really get focused on what is our core mission. And I would argue the core mission is to present facts, present evidence, present an evidence-based view of the world, and to also, in my view, defend the ideas of a democracy and a multiracial democracy, I think, is part of what the media should be doing. What that looks like, I think, is defending and being unabashed. Vaccines work. Joe Biden won the election. Black lives do matter, and we should be honest about when black people are discriminated against unfairly. And to sort of start from a place of, do we have some clear-cut values we can articulate — articulate those in some way on our websites, in our programming, to be honest about like, we’re trying to fight this bias thing.
“We are biased in terms of facts. We in the media are biased in terms of we support vaccines. We in the media hire LGBT employees. We are biased against bans against trans or gay people. So we can be honest about those biases, and sort of, we are in favor of a multiracial democracy. That’s why journalists behave the way they did when Trump — we are in favor of the person who won the election being president. So once we’re honest about those things, that may turn off some people, but it will help us be better as institutions and better as journalists if our first goal is, here are the values we stated we are trying to implement, and then secondary, we will take the audience who embraces those values.
“That doesn’t mean our values are Democratic and not Republican, but our values that we’re talking about are small-D democratic and not authoritarian or something like that. So I think if we get clear on values, of course, the media is for, against authoritarian people like Trump. The media cannot exist in a functional way without having, you know, without having a free press, which dictators usually oppose.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “I guess Bacon should get some points for honesty, for articulating how, presumably, many of his colleagues feel, that fairness and balance should be damned in favor of declaring liberal presumptions as the factual reality and dismiss contrary views as unworthy. But far from fixing journalism, Bacon's prescription will ensure its demise as media figures no longer pretend to be anything but left-wing political activists.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ July 12: No Liberal Media Scream this week.
■ July 5: Liberal Media Scream: ABC analysts huff at justices over voting decision
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features two ABC This Week commentators making a new argument for wide open voting — some people can’t afford enough gas to get food and vote.
The Thursday Supreme Court ruling, upholding two provisions of Arizona’s voting rules which required people to vote at their own precinct and barred ballot harvesting, irked the two who cited anecdotes about difficulties encountered by poor and minority voters.
LZ Granderson, an ABC News podcaster, ESPN contributor, and Los Angeles Times columnist, said the justices were out of touch because they are not poor: “They’re all privileged.” He recalled his “mom scraping together 50 cents, 75 cents, a dollar just for gas to get to a grocery store” and so “now you’re forcing minorities to decide” between getting to a polling place or buying groceries.
Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan cited misdeeds she saw in Mississippi with “all kinds of dirty tricks being played about closing polls, switching where you’re supposed to be, telling people they’re in the wrong place even if they’re in the right place.”
From the Sunday, July 4 roundtable after host Martha Raddatz characterized the ruling as “not exactly in line with public opinion,” an assessment based on an ABC News/Washington Post poll:
LZ Granderson: “No, of course not, but they don’t really care about public opinion, right? If they did, then all of this legislation would be looked at differently. You know, the thing that really frustrates me most is the justices acknowledged that these new laws does impact minorities. They didn’t deny that aspect of it. They just said that the inconvenience of it isn’t so great. Well, they’re all privileged. And I grew up poor. I remember my mom scraping together 50 cents, 75 cents, a dollar just for gas to get to a grocery store. When you do that to polling places, now you’re forcing minorities to decide whether or not they’re going to invest money, gas money, to get to the polling places that are now further away or do I use this gas money to get to the grocery store or do I to get to work. They’re privileged, saying that this doesn’t inconvenience them enough. Well, how do you know? When was the last time you were that poor?”
Mary Jordan: “I’d like to talk about, I went down in Mississippi, and I saw this. And on the morning of the election, people would turn out and the polling place would be closed in the place where there were a lot of Democratic voters. And so the question then was do I drive, so I spend another 45 minutes in the car to go there and wait in a really long line? There’s all kinds of dirty tricks being played about closing polls, switching where you’re supposed to be, telling people they’re in the wrong place even if they’re in the right place. I think if people really knew what was going on, because it differs state by state and county by county, they would think, you know what, it’s July 4th here. It’s all about voting, right? It’s the most fundamental of rights. We had the Boston tea party because we couldn’t vote, and we were getting taxed. And it’s kind of shocking that right now, a lot of people don’t have the same access to votes as other Americans.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Granderson and Jordan seemed to be searching for anecdotes to justify their position against very basic voter integrity rules and came up with pretty weak ones. Making everyone vote at their local precinct is the ultimate in fairness and requires the least bus money while eliminating lots of opportunities for confusion and fraud. As for all the misdeeds Jordan saw in areas ‘where there were a lot of Democratic voters,’ which force people to ‘spend another 45 minutes in the car,’ that is just what the Arizona local precinct rule is meant to prevent. And which party controls the election systems virtually everywhere where minorities and Democrats are the majority? It’s not rich, privileged Supreme Court justices.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ June 28: Liberal Media Scream: Taxpayer-subsidized PBS is more DNC than the DNC
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the clearest example yet that taxpayer-subsidized PBS is becoming an arm of the Democratic National Committee.
Appearing on Meet the Press, activist journalist Yamiche Alcindor echoed the DNC talking points on state-passed voting reforms, ignoring several fact checks that have shown that some, notably Georgia, have adopted more progressive voting changes than President Joe Biden’s home state or uber-liberal Connecticut.
Instead, the new host of PBS’s Washington Week and the White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour declared “an existential crisis in America” and went so far as to say that states are taking votes away from people “if we don’t like the way that you voted.”
And, as she has before, she gave the president a little advice, this time to “accelerate his nominees to the courts.”
From the roundtable on Sunday’s Meet the Press:
“When you talk to people who are really familiar with the thinking about this, it’s that Democrats realize that they might, that it’s not going to only be solved in a legislative way. There has to be a judicial and a court battle ahead. And when I’m talking to civil rights activists, they say they want to see two specific things: One, the DOJ really going after state legislatures. So, it’s to say you can not just, not only voters, not only suppress people’s votes, but nullify people’s votes. So, that can’t be the way that America works. The second thing that they want to see is more judges on the court. They want to see President Biden accelerate his nominees to the courts. So, I think that’s also where this is going.
“This is an existential crisis in America. Who can actually get the access to vote? Republicans in state legislatures are saying if you, essentially, and critics would say that 'if we don’t like the way that you voted, we will take away your vote.' And that, I think, is a real problem. If you look at Philadelphia state legislatures and if they, and whether or not they can even nullify a million votes in Philly — that could be a problem and a big problem.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explained our weekly pick: “If there was any doubt remaining about whether Alcindor is a journalist or a Democratic political activist pretending to be a journalist, she eliminated it with this bombast, which has no basis in reality and echos the most extreme rhetoric of far-left activists. Nobody’s vote is being taken away anywhere. In fact, while some Republican states have set rules to guarantee multiple days of early voting, some states, such as Democratic-run Connecticut, have no early voting.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ June 21: Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd calls parent-led opposition to critical race theory fake
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the dismissal by NBC's Chuck Todd of parent-led opposition to the teaching of critical race theory in schools.
“It’s manufactured,” he said, brushing aside all the protests, even many near Washington where Todd reports from, of public school parents lining up to oppose CRT. His Meet the Press guest, pollster Cornell Belcher, went further, blaming former President Trump and “tribalism.”
In fact, polls show that even in the liberal Washington suburbs, the majority oppose teaching the revisionism that America is basically racist.
From the roundtable on the June 20 Meet the Press, with comments first from PBS NewsHour chief correspondent Amna Nawaz and Republican pollster Brad Todd:
AMNA NAWAZ: Yeah. And specific to this idea of critical race theory, I have to tell you, I just spent some time reporting on this county in Virginia about an hour outside of Washington. And to your point, this is something that is mobilizing people and resonating very deeply. It was about a 100 degree day. Dozens and dozens and dozens of parents, mostly white, in this largely affluent county, showed up to a school board meeting, for many of them, the very first school board meeting they’d ever attended, specifically because of this one issue.
BRAD TODD: That’s important to note, that you mentioned critical race theory a couple times. This is a parent-led backlash at the grassroots level.
CHUCK TODD: It’s manufactured, and then sort of seems to have been lit, the fire was lit.
BRAD TODD: I disagree. I think it started because parents have had it with the education bureaucracy after COVID. They’re fed up with it. They tend to trust Democrats when it comes to education funding, but they trust Republicans on education accountability. I think that what the backlash you’re seeing on critical race theory in schools is another example of parents trying to hold educators accountable.
CORNELL BELCHER: It’s coordinated. It’s aggressive. It’s intentional, right? This is, this is part of the tribalism play. The critical race theory is yet another tool in the racial tribal boogeyman’s toolbox to drive and inflame tribalism, which Republicans think helps them in elections. This is Trump 2.0. This is, it’s a continuation of this, right? Critical race theory is an, an arcane sort of ideal. Why is it front and center right now? The same reason that Mitch McConnell attacks Stacey Abrams when she came out for the voting bill. It is racial. It is tribalism. We’ve seen it grow under Trump. And this is part and partial of it. And they think this helps ignite their base. There’s no way this is not grassroots. And, Brad, you know this is organized and is being paid for.
CHUCK TODD: But, you know, Ashley-
BRAD TODD: We’re not very good at organizing anything on our side.
CORNELL BELCHER: You all are better than us.
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Typical of arrogant news media figures, dismissing grassroots concerns as ‘manufactured’ and racist, as if on their own parents can’t recognize extremist racial teaching that will further divide the country. And it takes chutzpah for Belcher to accuse conservatives of ‘Trump 2.0’ and employing ‘the racial tribal boogeyman’s toolbox to drive and inflame tribalism,’ when liberals have spent the last months racializing efforts to pass voter integrity laws by calling them ‘Jim Crow 2.0.’”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ June 14: Liberal Media Scream: GQ journo says US may be worse than Russia on human rights
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a prize-winning Russian-born journalist suggesting that President Joe Biden has no standing to challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin on human rights.
Julia Ioffe, appearing on MSNBC, said the United States fails the moral superiority test because of “voter suppression” and police “constantly” killing black people.
Ioffe, who writes for GQ and other sites, said, “It is a lot harder to talk to Vladimir Putin about human rights when we still haven’t cleaned up our mess at home.” And, she added, “Russians are seeing exactly what we’re seeing: the voter suppression laws, the, you know, slide toward minority rule, the undermining of our own democracy.”
Ioffe on Morning Joe today:
“I did want to return quickly to the point of ‘whataboutism.’ Of course, it’s a way of not answering the question, but it works on many people because they always start with a grain of truth, right? And, you know, it’s interesting. Yes, the Soviet Union constantly talked about the violation of the civil rights of African-Americans in America in the ’50s and ’60s and even going back to the ’30s. And one of the reasons that the Civil Rights Act was passed and that the American president got behind it was to kind of take this card out of the hands of the Soviets.
“And, you know, President Biden, politically speaking, is not going into this meeting with a great hand of cards, either. You know, Russians are seeing exactly what we’re seeing: the voter suppression laws, the, you know, slide toward minority rule, the undermining of our own democracy. So it is a lot harder to talk to, you know, we’re seeing black men and women being killed by police constantly in this country, so it is a lot harder to talk to Vladimir Putin about human rights when we still haven’t cleaned up our mess at home.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Ioffe not only returned to ‘whataboutism,’ but she returned to the left-wing’s moral equivalence between the U.S. and Soviet Union of the Cold War years when all too many journalists were more upset by what President Reagan said about the Soviet Union than the human rights violations committed by the Soviets. She’s now justifying Putin’s take on the U.S. by treating some shortcomings of the U.S., and democratic debate within our nation about how to improve those shortcomings, with a Russian dictator who has no interest in civil rights for anyone as he suppresses dissent, using unjustified incarceration and murder as his tools.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ June 7: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Stelter gives the full Monty to Biden’s Jen Psaki
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN media critic Brian Stelter’s “interview” of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, a display of how the liberal cable channel has whipsawed from ripping the Trump administration to fawning over the Biden team.
Just consider his first question during his Sunday show.
“What do you think we get wrong?” Stelter asked.
That was followed up with wondering, “what’s your advice” for journalists “to stay close to the truth in this world of lies?”
Then, after noting that he and Psaki have young children, he asked, “What kind of country is this going to be when they are our age? Do you fear that, given the craziness we’re seeing from the GOP? Do you fear that for our kids, your kids and mine?”
Stelter sympathetically set up the segment, recorded on Friday and aired on Sunday’s Reliable Sources: “In this era of media bunkers and alternative realities, the White House press secretary faces some unique challenges. So let’s hear from Jen Psaki to get her perspective nearly five months into the job and about what might lie ahead.”
Some of his “questions” to Psaki:
♦ “Busy summer ahead, infrastructure, election reform. What does the press get wrong when covering Biden’s agenda? When you watch the news, when you read the news, what do you think we get wrong?”
♦ “For other P.R. professionals who watch what you do, for journalists who watch what you do, what’s your advice for them about trying to stay as close to the truth in this world of lies?”
♦ “I know this is often adversarial, but it also has to be functional. Is the relationship between the White House and the press corps now at least functional in ways that it wasn’t in the Trump years?” (Psaki: “I think so.”)
♦ “This is what I really wanted to ask you. You mentioned your kids, you have a daughter going into kindergarten, I have a daughter going into pre-K. And I think to myself, what kind of country is this going to be when they are our age? Do you fear that, given the craziness we’re seeing from the GOP? Do you fear that for our kids, your kids and mine?”Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “My how the world has changed from the Trump years when CNN treated White House officials as enemies who must be discredited. Now, White House staff are their friends and allies. Stelter should be embarrassed by such a performance after years of disdain for Trump’s politics and press secretaries. But he won’t be. In this interview he acted more like a groveling student yearning for his professor’s approval (‘Tell me what I’m doing wrong,’ ‘How can we be a truthful as you?’), followed by trying to show his shared disdain for her political opponents, than any kind of journalist holding those in power to account.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ May 31: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Some things may be true, even if Donald Trump said them’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a top critic of the Trump years, ABC’s Jonathan Karl, who finally said out loud what supporters of President Donald Trump already knew: The White House press corps had such contempt for the president that they dismissed everything he said.
Or, in Karl’s words, “some things may be true, even if Donald Trump said them.”
Karl on Sunday’s This Week grudgingly conceded that Trump may have been correct in pointing to a lab in Wuhan, China, as the source of COVID-19. He blamed Trump, not journalists, for ignoring the lab as the source because of how Trump used “racist” terms in describing the virus.
During the roundtable segment on This Week, after host Martha Raddatz suggested “some people have egg on their face” for being so dismissive of the possibility that the COVID-19 virus came out of a Chinese lab, Karl said:
“Yes, I think a lot of people have egg on their face. This was an idea that was first put forward by Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, Donald Trump. And look, some things may be true, even if Donald Trump said them. And there was — because Trump was saying so much else that was just out of control, and because he was, you know, making a frankly racist appeal talking about ‘kung-flu’ and the ‘China virus,’ his notion that he put forward that this may have, or that he said flatly that this came from that lab, was widely dismissed. But actually, there's some real reason — we don’t know, by the way, we still don’t know, we absolutely don’t know, but now, serious people are saying it needs a serious inquiry.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Karl said out loud what everyone already presumed: So many in the Washington press corps had such contempt for President Trump that they dismissed anything he said they could characterize in their minds as coming from foul motives. Thus, journalists proudly rationalized putting their prejudices first. But that meant the media failed in its basic duty to inform the public of the best information available about the source of a pandemic which has killed 3.5 million worldwide.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ May 24: No Liberal Media Scream this week
■ May 17: Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd doesn’t like to be called liberal, ‘Don’t start that!’
(Washington Examiner post)
The question in this week’s Liberal Mainstream Scream is this: Can NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd handle the truth?
An answer came in his interview with Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw after Todd hit him for five questions on the removal of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney as the No. 3 House leader after she refused to stop criticizing former President Donald Trump on his election fraud claims.
An exacerbated Crenshaw, after watching the liberal media turn the ouster into the next disaster for the GOP, blurted out, “You guys in the press love doing this” and “I get it, right? The press is largely liberal. They’re largely pro-Democrat.”
Todd wouldn’t hear it and tried to take back the conversation. “No, no, no, no, don’t start that ... There’s nothing lazier. There’s nothing lazier than that,” he said.
Todd tried repeatedly to get Crenshaw to denounce his Republican colleagues and Trump in a series of questions, starting with asking him to agree that “Liz Cheney was kicked out of leadership simply because she wouldn’t carry the water of former President Trump’s election lies.” He followed up with “Why should anybody believe a word you say if the Republican party itself doesn’t have credibility?” and “Do any of your critiques come across as credible if you can’t accept the fundamental fact that our democracy held a free and fair election?”
He then pressed Crenshaw to backtrack from ever asking courts to review some election processes, leading to this exchange on the Sunday program:
CHUCK TODD: This is an issue that many people have, is that you’re sitting here trying to, trying to say, ‘No, no, no, no, I just had a specific question,’ yet what you did gets weaponized by the former president. Did you see the rantings of him yesterday? And to the point where a Republican official in Maricopa County called the former president ‘unhinged.’ You know, I understand you guys want to put this behind you, but he is the leader of your party, and he doesn’t stop talking about this nonsense.
REP. DAN CRENSHAW: Chuck, the only — look, he’s one of many leaders in the party. He’s a former president. We’re five months into President Biden’s presidency, and there is a time to move on. And look, you guys in the press love doing this, and I, and I get it, right? The press is largely liberal. They’re largely pro-Democrat.
TODD: No, no, no, no, don’t start that. That is the laz — look, there’s nothing lazier. There’s nothing lazier than that.
CRENSHAW: It is. I mean, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of reasons to keep this alive.
TODD: I understand — what you’re trying to appease —
CRENSHAW: And there’s a lot of people in my party that take the bait. I’m not going to take the bait here —
TODD: I’m not trying to bait you. I’m trying to — I’m trying to figure out —
CRENSHAW: What is the outcome you’re looking for?
TODD: Why do you, why do you, why do we sit here and have a political party that is basically rallying around this bizarre lie and mythology that the former president is doing, and you guys just want to say, ‘Hey, pay no attention to this,’ that, that somehow we in the press are bringing that up. It’s the former president.
CRENSHAW: Well, I already, I already debunked the notion, I already debunked the notion that there's, that there’s no space in the party for that. Remember, Liz won that first election —
CHUCK TODD: She’s not there now.
CRENSHAW: She won that first leadership vote, OK? And I told you why. I helped you understand why. And what I’m trying to help you understand is these are not the phone calls I get about this, about who is the leader of the party, what’s happening with Trump? My Republican supporters do not ask me about Trump, they don’t ask me about what he said, they’re not riled up about it. You know what they’re asking about? What are we doing about over a quarter million illegal crossings on our border in the last two months? That’s what they’re asking about. How is that sustainable? What about my inflation? What about my savings that are now less valuable because of rising inflation because we’re spending money that we don’t have.
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “There’s nothing lazier than a liberal journalist, in the midst of pursuing a liberal narrative, denying the undeniable reality that the press and journalists are largely liberal. If Todd doesn’t want his guest to call out his biased agenda, then he shouldn’t keep asking a variation of the same question over and over because the guest won’t accede to his left-wing talking points.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ New on May 10: Liberal Media Scream: Six more years of ‘Stacey Abrams for president’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest and gushiest media profile of politician and author (and wonder woman?) Stacey Abrams, who lost in her last election but who journalists believe will be president soon.
CBS Sunday Morning larded on the compliments and promoted her presidential ambitions.
In a segment tied to plugging a new novel by Abrams, Erin Moriarty said, “Your main character is always a woman of color who’s smart and gutsy and cool under pressure. In short, Stacey Abrams.”
After hailing her efforts to counter Republican voter integrity rules, Moriarty celebrated how “ensuring that right to vote may someday help Abrams achieve her greatest dream: running for president.”
From the Sunday edition of the show:
JANE PAULEY: We’re in conversation this morning with Stacey Abrams, the Georgia politician who was a force in last year’s presidential election. But she’s a woman of many other talents, as she’ll tell Erin Moriarty ...
MORIARTY: Stacey Abrams has always dreamed big and accomplished much, but there’s also another side to the political activist from Georgia.
ABRAMS: I think people will be surprised.
MORIARTY: Coming up on Sunday Morning, a conversation with a woman of many talents and identities.
...
MORIARTY: Your main character is always a woman of color who’s smart and gutsy and cool under pressure. In short, Stacey Abrams.ABRAMS: Well, I try to emulate my characters, and I try to have my characters reflect who I am.
...
MORIARTY: Ensuring that right to vote may someday help Abrams achieve her greatest dream: running for president.ABRAMS: Do I hold it as an ambition? Absolutely. And even more importantly, when someone asks me if that’s my ambition, I have a responsibility to say yes for every young woman, every person of color, every young person of color who sees me and decides what they’re capable of based on what I think I’m capable of. Again, it’s about you cannot have those things you refuse to dream of.
MORIARTY: With Georgia, Florida, and most recently Texas, passing laws that limit voting, Abrams is expanding Fair Fight’s efforts around the country. She has a virtual book tour plan for her new novel and, of course, more books to write, which leaves little time for anything else. How do you have any time for a personal life?
ABRAMS: Well, let’s be clear. So Fair Fight, there’s also the Southern Economic Advancement Project, there’s Fair Count, there’s writing —
MORIARTY: You’re making my point for me. You’re making my point!
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “It must be nice to be a liberal Democrat, so easy to get a friendly profile from a major media outlet promoting your political ambitions. Moriarty is clearly a personal admirer as she poured on the effusive praise, heralding Abrams for how she has ‘accomplished much,’ citing her ‘many talents,’ and touting her as ‘smart and gutsy.’ CBS never had to identify her as a liberal or a Democrat. With that kind of excitement about her from a journalist, viewers knew she couldn’t be anything else.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ May 3: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC declares black Sen. Tim Scott a race traitor
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream featured a racist attack by a black MSNBC host on South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, also black, after he rebutted President Joe Biden’s joint session speech to declaring that America is not racist.
Leading the cable network’s attack was host Tiffany Cross, who denigrated Scott for having the gall to dispute the liberal line that America is racist.
She rolled out every racist phrase she could. Cross called Scott “a stone fool,” “slow-witted,” “a token,” and called his points “asinine,” all before the very low blow that Harriet Tubman would have left Scott “behind.”
Cross, however, didn’t have a problem when Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris agreed the United States is “not a racist country.”
From Saturday's The Cross Connection on MSNBC:
Tiffany Cross: “This week, the sole black Republican in the Senate sounded a stone fool when he said this.”
Scott, in the Republican response to Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress: “Hear me clearly, America is not a racist country.”
Cross: “OK. Let’s be clear. Tim Scott does not represent any constituency other than the small number of sleepy, slow-witted sufferers of Stockholm syndrome who get elevated to prominence for repeating a false narrative about this country that makes conservative white people feel comfortable because when you speak an uncomfortable truth, like Nikole Hannah-Jones, the party that Scott claims is not racist gets big mad and tries to silence you. Just this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to scrap teaching the 1619 Project in schools because it would ‘reorient the view of American history.’ Lucky for McConnell, he has his own tap dancer to try and reorient the view of America for him."
“There were so many contradictions in the senator’s speech that it was clear not even Scott believed the words he was speaking. I could go into detail refuting each of his asinine points, but he did that for me, and moreover, a lesson I’ve learned, don’t argue with people Harriet Tubman would have left behind. And sure, Tim Scott has spoken out about his encounters with law enforcement, and he co-sponsored the anti-lynching bill in the Senate, but there are two sides to every token. So thirsty for white approval, this dude actually stood on the national stage to defend the voter suppression law in Georgia even though, as of last month, 361 bills were being introduced in 47 states to keep people who look like him out of the ballot box.
“The ability to shame the ancestors and appease the oppressors all in one speech, that’s extreme, though not quite like the domestic violent extremism that the Department of Homeland Security is investigating within its own ranks, mind you. But please, senator, say more about how un-racist the country is while you trot out that tired line about going from cotton to Congress to clown. Perhaps this was merely Sen. Scott’s audition to be Sam Jackson’s understudy in the film Django because, as a descendant of the enslaved and damn near a daily survivor of institutional racism, I can assure you the question, ‘is America a racist country?’, is one that has been asked and answered many times over.
“Yet we still love America. Not for what it was, but for what it could be. On this one, you’re not only on the wrong side of the aisle, Sen. Scott, but you’re embarrassingly on the wrong side of history, as well.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “The five scream scale may not be adequate for this one. What a disgusting, hate-filled commentary full of personal invective, excoriating a U.S. senator as some sort of race traitor for daring to deviate from the left-wing line on how America is a racist nation and anyone who is black must not stray from specific policies advocated by the Democratic party. Cross shows how scared liberals are of contrary views, pouncing to silence any divergence from the left’s race orthodoxy before it can get any consideration.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ April 26: Liberal Media Scream: DeSantis must be top dog the way media bark at him
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows the latest evidence that the media view rising Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as a huge threat.
The same group that likes to stick “Hate Has No Home Here” posters in their front yard has pulled out every nasty name and reference they can to belittle his improvements in the state, which continues to see hoards moving there from the north.
The latest: He’s the reincarnation of former Alabama segregationist Gov. George Wallace.
On MSNBC late last week, anchor Joy Reid went on a rant trying to discredit DeSantis as a Wallace-inspired racist for signing a bill to hold rioters accountable for damages and harm to others. “It feels so George Wallace that I’m shocked that George Wallace didn’t actually think of it back when he was governor of Alabama,” she said.
After a guest from Black Lives Matter declared, “This is straight out of the Jim Crow textbook,” and that “white supremacy is scared to death of us,” Reid said, “DeSantis appears to really want to reenact the entire George Wallace history. I guess he wants to be the modern-day George Wallace, because he is enacting a slew of laws that essentially try to make it illegal to protest in the state of Florida.”
Something they didn’t highlight: Wallace was a Democrat who pursued segregationist policies, as others in his party had. He was popular enough that in the 1972 Democratic presidential primaries, he lost to George McGovern by just 2 points in the popular vote. He won the Maryland and Michigan primaries, among others, despite being shot in an assassination attempt.
From the Thursday, April 22 The ReidOut on MSNBC:
JOY REID: You know, Brittany, this feels like it’s directed at y’all. This is directed at Black Lives Matter. It feels so George Wallace that I’m shocked that George Wallace didn’t actually think of it back when he was governor of Alabama.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM, BLM ACTIVIST: Oh, this is straight out of the Jim Crow textbook, and let’s contextualize Jim Crow, shall we? When black people got more free, there were new laws created to make us less free. This is exactly what is happening right now. What this actually shows me, Joy, is that white supremacy is scared to death of us, and it absolutely should be. This is what you do when you cannot win fair and square. You suppress votes, and you suppress voice. So, we have to pay attention here, because the GOP plays the long game, and they play the expansive game. They plan far in advance. They gerrymander states so that they can control statehouses, and then, they use all of that power to maintain their power and suppress us from multiple angles. So, then they make it illegal to engage in the two most democratic practices you got in this country, and they make sure to target black folks when they do it. That way, among other things, you can leverage the police that you’ve militarized to protect your systems and to continue to terrorize us. So, it’s our job to keep them on the ropes, because this is what desperation looks like, and I want them to stay desperate. They know how powerful we are. That’s why we’re seeing this.
REID: You know, Rep. [Anna] Eskamani, the racist Miami sheriff who coined the term ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts’ was from South Florida. Donald Trump then turns around and quotes him. Ron DeSantis appears to really want to reenact the entire George Wallace history. I guess he wants to be the modern-day George Wallace, because he is enacting a slew of laws that essentially try to make it illegal to protest in the state of Florida, illegal to touch their precious Confederate statues from the losing side of the Civil War, right? But then we also can’t vote. This is Jim Crow in your state. What can Democrats do about it?
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Reid long ago lost any pretense of being a journalist and is now just a left-wing political activist dedicated to smearing and discrediting conservative politicians, especially rising leaders like DeSantis who dare gain traction on the Right by going against the woke far-left political narrative. She’s returned to her political roots. She worked for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Now, she’s working on behalf of the entire Democratic Party to abet its most radical elements.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams
■ April 19: No Liberal Media Scream this week
■ April 12: Liberal Media Scream: Smug shrugs from 60 Minutes on DeSantis hit job
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream turns to the sloppy 60 Minutes report last week on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the TV news magazine’s smug refusal to admit its reporting and editing failures in a story a Washington Post media critic called “a plume of innuendo.”
Under fire for a week for suggesting the governor was in a “pay to play” scandal it never proved, 60 Minutes instead offered a big “whatever” in response to critics.
At issue was a story two Sundays back by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who suggested DeSantis partnered with Florida’s Publix supermarkets to give COVID-19 shots after dishing contributions to him.
He denied the charges, but much of his explanation was edited out of the story, and media critics said that the reporter made her case poorly. DeSantis called the story a "big lie."
Last night, at the end of the show, when letters are sometimes read, Alfonsi did not pull back her story and instead read excerpts from three letters, starting with how “some viewers, including a retired newsman, applauded the story.”
She moved on to a woman who denounced CBS’s “shameful biased reporting,” then ended with a cutesy challenge from a man who wrote, “I will only watch” the show “one more time. Just to see if you broadcast this message.”
From the conclusion of the April 11 60 Minutes:
Sharyn Alfonsi: “In the mail this week, comments on our story about disparities in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine in Palm Beach County, Florida. Viewers focused on an exchange with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a press conference. Some viewers, including a retired newsman, applauded the story.”
Reading a letter from Nick Boryack of Vero Beach, Florida: “Ron DeSantis will continue to deny, refute, call your reporting a witch hunt. I can only hope that you continue to investigate and expose the truth.”
Alfonsi: “But many more comments condemned our editing and reporting.”
Reading a letter from Amy Ernest of Houston, Texas: “Shameful biased reporting – that is what you are guilty of. You are no longer journalists, but lobbyists and advocates.”
Alfonsi: “Then there was this:”
Alfonsi reading a letter from David Plewes of Lighthouse Point, Florida: “I have watched 60 Minutes for decades. After your biased piece on Governor DeSantis, I will only watch it one more time. Just to see if you broadcast this message."
Alfonsi: “I’m Sharyn Alfonsi. We’ll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A very prominent example of how the news media refuse to hold themselves accountable which provides more fresh evidence for why anyone right of center has no reason to ever trust journalists to be fair to a conservative elected official. After a week in which Democrats, and even liberal media observers, condemned 60 Minutes for a distorted story, the show failed to admit its misdeeds or retract the story. Instead, they dug in, downgrading accountability to reading a few random viewer comments.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ April 5: Liberal Media Scream: PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor connects Georgia voting to George Floyd trial
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows the lockstep reactionaryism to Georgia’s new election reform law that actually expands some voting protections — but is apparently too difficult for critics to read.
The list of those blasting it as racist is long, but we feature PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor because she took it another step and tied it to the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been charged in the death of George Floyd.
“Watching this [Chauvin] trial and watching what’s going on in Georgia, they absolutely connect,” she said during Meet the Press on Sunday.
The Georgia law has divided partisans, especially corporate America’s reaction, including MLB’s decision last week to move the annual All-Star Game out of Atlanta in protest. At the same time, some news outlets have started to study the new law more and found less to complain about while noting that several other states have much stricter election rules.
From the show:
Yamiche Alcindor: “Well, the Chauvin trial, and that murder trial in the death of George Floyd, is connected to voting rights because, at the end of the day, it’s about how African Americans and whether African Americans are allowed to survive and thrive in America and are able to have access to the principles that America holds up as near and dear. And that, of course, is democracy. But it’s also your ability to pursue happiness and to not have an officer kneel on your neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. Watching this trial and watching what’s going on in Georgia, they absolutely connect.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Alcindor displayed the all too typical attitude of journalists who don’t see anything wrong with presuming advocates of making voting more secure are no different than enforcers of ‘Jim Crow’ or, as she charged, are opposed to letting African Americans ‘survive’ in America. Linking Georgia, which actually expanded voting access in several ways, to a murder trial is an outrage and shows Alcindor is more a far-left political advocate, who stirs up racial animosities to advance a cause, than any kind of dispassionate journalist.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ March 29: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Sad but true,’ Joy Reid agrees GOP would make Jesus suffer
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream has an Easter and election angle, but it’s not very uplifting.
It features a famous Georgetown University professor condemning GOP election reform efforts in states such as Georgia and suggesting that the party is so racist and mean it would “pass a law to keep Jesus from getting a cup of water while he's dying on the cross.”
And, of course, it led to Joy Reid, host of her show The ReidOut, agreeing with Professor Michael Eric Dyson.
The comments came while the nation is in a heated debate over election reform, with the GOP heading to tightening ballot access and Democrats moving to open it up to a national mail-in system.
Reid’s show focused on condemning the GOP, and Dyson said Republican efforts like those in Georgia are going further than old segregationist Jim Crow laws. “The real religion, the real politics in America is whiteness and whiteness unhinged,” he said.
Dyson on the Friday edition of The ReidOut:
“I mean, President Biden is right. This is Jim Crow, this is Jane Crow ...The real religion, the real politics in America, is whiteness and whiteness unhinged ... I think he’s contemplating it seriously when he sees the consequences. What he needs to do is fill these busters with some fear of the government. These are the kind of people who would pass a law to keep Jesus from getting a cup of water while he's dying on the cross.”
Reid agreed: “Sad but true.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A cute-sounding quip but with a hard edge just before Palm Sunday as MSNBC decided to showcase Dyson, a man who always sees racial animus motivating conservatives. It’s all part of the far-left/news media joint effort to smear as racist anyone interested in keeping the voting system honest, thus discrediting their concerns without having to address their substance.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ March 22: Liberal Media Scream: Seth Meyers rants against rural whites, Constitution
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream steps outside the usual lane of angry news media figures to NBC’s Late Night show hosted by Seth Meyers and his 15-minute rant for H.R. 1, the “For the People Act” election law, and against the filibuster.
His was a sweeping condemnation of Republicans, rural Americans, whites, and the Founding Fathers.
He opened Thursday by charging that the electoral system is “heavily tilted toward a minority of voters that are predominately white and rural, thanks in large part to anti-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate.” He cited new Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s “impassioned speech in favor of sweeping voting reforms” and accused Republicans of pushing Jim Crow-style election changes.
“Republicans tried to steal the last election through the courts. That didn’t work, so now they’re trying to steal the next election through voter suppression. Nuking or changing the filibuster to stop them is a moral necessity,” he urged in his “Closer Look” segment:
Some of the lowlights:
“Our democracy as currently constituted is simply not a level playing field. In fact, it’s arguably never been a level playing field, it’s heavily tilted toward a minority of voters that are predominately white and rural, thanks in large part to anti-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate. Just consider that right now the Senate is evenly split 50-50 and yet the 50 Senate Democrats represent nearly 42 million more Americans than the 50 Senate Republicans. For example, Wyoming with a population of about 580,000 people, has two senators. And New York also has two senators, even though there are 580,000 people just on my co-op board. ...
“I mean, just consider the scope of how heavily tilted our democratic institutions are toward Republicans. They’ve only won the popular vote once in the last 32 years, yet, they’ve appointed a majority of Supreme Court justices, they’ve lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million. In 2016, lost the House by the largest margin since Watergate in 2018, lost two Senate seats in historically red Georgia this year, and yet, Mitch McConnell still basically gets a veto over what the Senate can or cannot pass. The only way the Senate can get anything done right now is through a process called budget reconciliation, which has more rules than a Manhattan parking sign. ...
“Warnock delivered an impassioned speech in favor of sweeping voting reforms, and he noted that the GOP assault on voting rights is the most ferocious attack on democracy since the era of Jim Crow.”
[Sen. Raphael Warnock: “We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights, unlike anything we’ve ever seen since the Jim Crow era. This is Jim Crow in new clothes.”]
“He’s right. And the clothes aren’t even good. I mean, look at this [picture of Trump], it looks like he was thrown naked in the dumpster behind a Palm Beach pro-shop, and given five minutes to pick an outfit. It’s a good Halloween costume if you want to go as a lost grandpa at Disney World. Warnock was on the floor specifically to call for Senate passage of H.R. 1, a sweeping package of urgent voting reforms passed by the House that are desperately needed to level what is currently a very lopsided playing field. H.R. 1 would combat virtually every GOP voter suppression tactic by, among other things, mandating nationwide early voting and no-excuse mail voting, instituting automatic and same-day voter registration, implementing public financing of elections, and banning congressional gerrymandering, among other things. It’s also incredibly popular in polls, even among the majority of Republican voters. So, naturally, Republican politicians are losing their minds over it. ...
“Republicans tried to steal the last election through the courts. That didn’t work, so now they’re trying to steal the next election through voter suppression. Nuking or changing the filibuster to stop them is a moral necessity. We badly need sweeping reforms to make our democracy a level playing field.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Meyers’s argument should be with the founders, not present-day Republicans. He’s upset that our constitutional system, with two senators from every state, is inhibiting the enactment of left-wing policies, as if the Senate make-up is something new. He’s upset by Wyoming but ignores how the next least-populous state, Vermont, has a socialist and a left-wing Democrat for senators. H.R. 1 should be known as the ‘Enable Illegal Voting Act,’ as it’s a grab-bag of left-wing policies aimed at making it easy for Democrats to get votes from those not qualified to vote. The fact Meyers is so excited about it demonstrates he’s a left-wing Democratic activist first, a comedian a distant second.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ March 15: Liberal Media Scream: Meet the Press blames Trump for Cuomo refusing to quit
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest version of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” this time on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Discussing embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s refusal to step down over a couple of scandals, the tag team of host Chuck Todd and guest John Heilemann blamed Trump, suggesting that he set the “precedent” for refusing to quit when pressed by critics.
“He’s following what is seen now as the Trump precedent,” said Heilemann of Cuomo.
Todd turned on conservatives, calling them “excited about Cuomo’s downfall” when it’s been Democrats at the highest levels calling the liberal governor to quit over COVID-19 and sex scandals.
From the roundtable on Sunday’s Meet the Press:
John Heilemann: “I think, you know, that the other thing that’s true is Cuomo is totally dug in. I think the likelihood of Cuomo resigning is close to zero. And I think, you know, he is following right now — uncomfortably for a lot of Democrats — he’s following what is seen now as the Trump precedent. You know, if you are determined enough, you are shameless enough, you can hold on.
“And so the question then just becomes: Does he actually get impeached, does he actually get thrown out? And I think that’s going to be — a large question around that is going to be what additional evidence comes out over the coming — maybe enough now, but there’s going to be a large question of what else unfolds over the next couple weeks.”
Chuck Todd: “It does feel like he’s forcing that. I’m glad you brought up Trump there a minute, John. Lanhee [Chen], I want you to respond on something Tim Miller wrote in the Bulwark. He said, ‘Dunking on Cuomo’s demise requires admitting that the other party has standards and lays bare, once again, the cravenness of the excuse-making for Trump that kept the lights on for the past five years.’ There’s a lot of conservative media, acolytes, and propagandists that are very excited about Cuomo’s downfall, but they seem to not be very self-reflective.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Trump Derangement Syndrome lives on, especially with those in the media still upset Trump’s personal foibles didn’t undermine support amongst his fans. Heilemann and Todd can’t get over their contempt for Trump and so still want to scold his supporters for hypocrisy without seeing any in themselves in cueing up a ‘Trump precedent’ to rationalize misbehavior by a liberal Democrat.”
Scream rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams.
■ March 8: Liberal Media Scream: CNN anchor says Republicans don’t feel ‘pain’ of people
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream takes a look at the overnight bias on CNN, and it’s a doozy.
According to CNN overnight anchor Rosemary Church, Republicans are callous and heartless and can’t feel the pain of those they represent. It reminded us of when they used to call CNN the “Clinton News Network” for its supportive coverage of the president who famously said in his 1992 campaign, "I feel your pain."
The comments came after Senate Republicans balked at approving the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 spending bill that the GOP said spends very little on immediate coronavirus issues.
Interviewing Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic, Church saw urgency in advancing the Biden agenda.
The first two questions to Brownstein from the Atlanta-based anchor for CNN International in the 3 a.m. hour of CNN Newsroom Live simulcast on the domestic side:
“So President Biden’s COVID relief package cleared the Senate without any Republican support Saturday. Now it’s heading back to the House for a vote Tuesday. How likely is it that it will pass this week? And how imperative is it that this gets done and done fast?”
“How does all of this look for Republicans who didn’t get on board with helping people? They don’t feel much of the pain that other Americans are feeling during this pandemic, so they can’t begin to understand what people are going through. How much of a barrier is that disconnect for a party already struggling with its own identity?”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Church perfectly encapsulates the presumptions of so many journalists who assume it’s beyond dispute that anyone who opposes a massive new spending bill is an out-of-touch and uncaring lout, that anyone who disagrees with their outlook has crass motives not worthy of consideration. It’s the kind of embedded bias which infuriates everyone right of center, but cannot be recognized by journalists like Church who are blind to their own bias.”
Scream rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.
■ March 1: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Ali Velshi says racism defines America
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC host Ali Velshi condemning America as racist forever.
“Racism is something that has defined the United States since its very founding,” said the Kenyan-born former Canadian journalist on his show Velshi.
His comments came in introducing author Heather McGhee on to talk about her book on racism. In his intro, he said American whites are so racist that they will hurt their own economic future to stop blacks.
McGhee, author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, agreed and offered Obamacare as an example of whites being racially driven to oppose a helpful program because it was proposed by a black president.
From Saturday morning’s Velshi on MSNBC:
Ali Velshi: “Racism is something that has defined the United States since its very founding. In fact, it infects nearly all facets of American life, like healthcare, about which we just heard. But it also affects our politics and our economics. The false belief that progress and prosperity for people of color comes at the expense of white people has helped prop up racist systems for generations. This zero-sum theory is what author Heather McGhee tackles in her new book, 'The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.' In it, she examines the self-destructive bargain of white supremacy and how much we’ve lost economically as a country due to racism in terms of a dollar amount.
“One of the things that appeals to me about your book is the discussion that you have about how people, often white people or people who have power and privilege in society, often make decisions that are not in their economic interests or work against their own prosperity because they feel like giving other people, in this case, black people, certain rights and privileges will take away some of their own.”
Heather McGhee: “That’s exactly right. I mean, to stay on the issue of healthcare, which you've covered so well, Ali, you know, white people are actually the largest group of the uninsured, and yet, ever since the Affordable Care Act was signed by our first black president, the majority of white people have disapproved of the pretty modest idea that is Obamacare, and there’s a huge correlation between racial resentment against black people and the southern, in most cases, states and also Maine, which is the whitest state in the nation, refusal to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. So it’s this idea that government is on the side of people of color, and that is why there’s such a fierce anti-government skepticism and suspicion among the majority of white voters — the majority of white voters who have voted for the Republican Party for president, I’ll remind you, ever since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “As people obsessed by race, Velshi and McGhee lack self-awareness in attributing racism to those with a different point of view. It’s impossible to have a rational policy discussion when so many liberals in the media hurl racism accusations at all those of one race who don’t buy into the liberal agenda, as if they cannot have a logical reason for opposing the policy other than their presumed racism. It’s very destructive politics.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ February 22: Liberal Media Scream: Liberals rush to dump on Rush Limbaugh
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream takes note of the death of conservative talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh, who influenced many and even pushed some, notably former Vice President Mike Pence, to jump into politics.
Friends and allies were effusive in their praise.
So too was the hate from his foes, too many to list here. But as an example, we feature former New York Times media reporter Bill Carter who disparaged Florida’s plans to honor the long-time resident.
Appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Carter, now a “media analyst” for CNN, contended Limbaugh didn’t deserve the attention given him by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who plans to lower the state flag.
After host Brian Stelter asked him about the plan by DeSantis, Carter said:
“Well, it’s kind of shocking because, I mean, first of all, you know the governor of Florida is just playing for conservative attention in doing that. But the justification is really questionable.
"I mean, look, Limbaugh had a huge following, and it was very popular among, you know, a group of right-wing listeners. But he wasn’t a heroic figure. I mean, he had a lot of incidents that were extremely questionable, and his views were pretty ugly, and they hurt a lot of people. They hurt some people personally.
“And I think – you know, there were an awful lot of people who are justifiably saying why are you celebrating a guy who attacked Barack Obama on race, who sang ‘Barack the Magic Negro’ and all kinds of extremely outrageous things that, frankly, the conservatives loved. They loved him for that. And he established the brand. He did. That was a brand. But to make it a heroic thing or something that should be celebrated like, you know, a war hero, I find that pretty questionable.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Pretty standard liberal ‘conventional wisdom’ here from Carter, and that’s the disappointment. You’d hope a reporter with a career covering the media could rise above just passing along liberal bromides and, at least in the days after his passing, would offer something positive about a man who earned the loyalty of millions for more than thirty years and inspired generations of Americans about the benefits of conservative policy solutions.”
Rating: 3 out of 5 SCREAMS.
■ February 15: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Don Lemon goes there and blames ‘horrible Reagan’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features ranting CNN host Don Lemon tying everything he doesn’t like to one of the most popular presidents in United States history: Ronald Reagan.
“Reagan was horrible,” said Lemon, who suggested that the Republican's two-term presidency paved the way for the Capitol riots.
Shouting over fellow CNN host Chris Cuomo, Lemon said Republicans are also bad for respecting Reagan.
“They hold him up to a gold standard. When you look at what he actually accomplished, he didn’t,” he said.
From the Thursday, Feb. 11 CNN Tonight, during the handoff from Chris Cuomo’s 9 p.m. show to Lemon’s 10 p.m. show:
CHRIS CUOMO: Reagan and Bush Republicans were nothing like these guys.
DON LEMON: I don’t know about that.
CUOMO: Just the issue of immigration. Look at how Reagan and George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush talked about immigration.
LEMON: Reagan was the first presidential election that I voted in. And listen, ... I’m just saying that people hold him up to be — Reagan was not perfect. Reagan was horrible when it came to—
CUOMO: Perfect? He gave us one of the biggest deficits we’ve ever seen, and he absolutely fed the divide.
LEMON: That's what I mean. They always hold him up as a gold standard. But when you look at what he actually accomplished, he didn’t. He was horrible when it came to racial issues. He was horrible when it came to the AIDS crisis. He was horrible when it came to uniting the country. He didn’t unite the country — he was a divider. And so they hold him up as a gold standard. ... I just think it’s degrees, but I think the Republican Party has been moving in this direction forever.
Again, they are the party of everything that they’re trying to pretend that they’re not. Now saying, "The people in the Capitol, that’s not us." Yes, it is you! "The people that were in Charlottesville, that’s not us." Yes, it is you! Those people are not marching for Democrats. And this whole weird thing that they keep saying, "What about the riots and the demonstration that happened this summer?" That’s apples and oranges. First of all, the demonstrations, the protests were for something that’s real. It was for inequality. It was for police brutality. It was for all those things. It was people who were rising up for their rights. What happened at the Capitol was built on a lie.
Media Research Center Vice President for Research and Publications Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Such disdain for the late former president, who is a hero to conservatives and an inspiration to many oppressed by communism around the world, shows the baselessness of the widespread media line that they had to be hostile to Donald Trump because he posed a new kind of dangerous and racist threat to democracy and all that is good about the United States. If Lemon had a CNN show in the 1980s he would have been just as hostile to Reagan, calling him a racist night after night, as he was and is to Trump. Conservative presidents come and go, but the media contempt for them never wavers.”
Rating: 4 out of 5 SCREAMS.
■ February 8: Liberal Media Scream: Reporter decries ‘ex-boyfriend...abuse’ from Team Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream had a lot of choices from reporters never happier than to have a new administration that thinks like they do to report on.
But only one expressed the relief she felt in getting to cover the Democratic Biden administration after the “bad ex-boyfriend” abuse she felt dealing with Team Trump.
On CNN on Sunday, Yahoo News White House correspondent Brittany Shepherd came down hard on former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She compared McEnany's White House briefings to “having a really bad ex-boyfriend. We were getting essentially abused by Kayleigh for so long.”
And worse, she charged that McEnany incited people to “go to deadly ends for some people with death threats.”
But now, with spokeswoman Jen Psaki, “It’s very refreshing.”
Shepherd on CNN’s Reliable Sources:
“It’s been really refreshing to have briefings every day and to even know who the senior officials talking to Biden are. We were not getting that in any of the Trump years, especially in those waning days of the McEnany briefings.
“And it is refreshing, I do kind of put it towards like having a really bad ex-boyfriend. We were getting essentially abused by Kayleigh for so long, or at least she was calling us fake news and inciting her followers and followers of the president to not only harass us online but obviously go to deadly ends for some people with death threats.
“Now, we have Jen and the entire Biden team. It’s very refreshing. But it’s important to remember that the bar has literally been left on the floor, and just being able to show up and clear it isn’t enough.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Shepherd exemplifies the hostility the White House press corps had toward Kayleigh McEnany and all things Trump, combined with their eager embrace of the new administration, quick to hail Biden’s press team as ‘very refreshing.’ It’s as if Shepherd just got a job transfer from an office full of people she finds disreputable to a new office full of people who inspire her.”
Rating: 3 out of 5 SCREAMS.
■ February 1: Liberal Media Scream: New high in CNN bias, blames GOP for ‘divided America’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a new high in the anti-GOP bias shown by CNN, this time blaming the political divide on the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Roger Ailes, Fox News, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and, of course, former President Donald Trump.
Over one hour last night, Fareed Zakaria pointed a big finger at the GOP in his special, The Divided States of America: What Is Tearing Us Apart? Over and over, the answer was boiled down to Republicans. And if that wasn’t enough, Republicans were sometimes described as racists.
Zakaria said, “When scholars spent time with Tea Party activists, they found that behind the talk of taxes and big government were people mostly motivated by fears about race and immigration.”
He moved on to how Ailes “turned his channel into a right-wing bull horn, blurring facts and opinion like never before.”
He added, “Trump had a role model for his exploitation of the class divide: Sarah Palin, who did it first.”
His final target was Gingrich: “Before there was a Donald Trump, there was a Republican pioneer who paved the way for the Trump brand of destructive politics. ... His legacy has been both dark and far-reaching — a permanent state of war between the parties.”
Some excerpts from CNN’s The Divided States of America: What is Tearing Us Apart? which aired Sunday night, Jan. 31:
FAREED ZAKARIA: When scholars spent time with Tea Party activists, they found behind the talk of taxes and big government were people mostly motivated by fears about race and immigration.
JON MEACHAM: The people who have been most radicalized by the Trump years believed that diversity was an idea, not a vivid reality.
ZAKARIA: In 1950, the year our political parties were said to be too similar, the country was about 90% white. Now in 2021, as we face an existential crisis of political division, America is about 59% white.
MEACHAM: We are living in the most vivid manifestation of the politics of fear in our history. That’s where we are now.
...
ZAKARIA: Ailes became the go-to right-wing media strategist of the 1980s, infamous for his vicious attacks.
TV AD NARRATOR: As Gov. Michael Dukakis gave weekend furloughs to first-degree murderers.
ZAKARIA: In 1996, Ailes found his destiny when billionaire Rupert Murdoch came calling. The right wing's favorite hatchet man was now creating a new news network. The old, mainstream media cartel had splintered.
BRIT HUME, IN OLD FNC PROMO: These days, people think TV news is about as unbiased as the commercials.
ZAKARIA: On cable, every channel needed to find its own slice of the audience. Ailes turned his channel into a right-wing bull horn, blurring facts and opinion like never before. Big ratings and profits soon followed.
...
ZAKARIA: Donald Trump had a role model for his exploitation of the class divide: Sarah Palin, who did it first. When America’s hockey mom became John McCain’s running mate in 2008 —
SARAH PALIN, FORMER REPUBLICAN ALASKA GOVERNOR: They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick.
ZAKARIA: She leaned heavily on identity politics, on American values and culture, to rile up her base.
PALIN: I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment.
ZAKARIA: Her brand of America, talking about the real America, saying, 'I’m one of you,' was the precursor of Trump’s war on elites.
GEORGE PACKER: Sarah Palin, who I think of as John the Baptist to Trump, she was the one who came first.
DONALD TRUMP: Governor Sarah Palin.
...
ZAKARIA: But before there was a Donald Trump, there was a Republican pioneer who paved the way for the Trump brand of destructive politics.
NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER REPUBLICAN HOUSE SPEAKER: I am a genuine revolutionary. They are the genuine reactionaries. We are going to change their world.
ZAKARIA: This is the story of Newt Gingrich, the man who wrote the playbook for the modern conservative movement. ... It was a very different time in politics when civility and compromise mattered. House Republican Leader Bob Michael was widely known as Mr. Nice Guy. Imagine that.
VAN JONES: Newt Gingrich comes in with a buzz saw.
GINGRICH: What we are living through is a fundamental civil struggle, a civil war fought in public speeches rather than with armies.
ZAKARIA: The Gingrich philosophy: The only way for Republicans to win back power was to be nasty — really nasty.
GINGRICH: For the Democrats to basically say not only are we going to rape you but you have to pay for the hotel room is a bit much.
ZAKARIA: To treat Democrats not as opponents but the enemy. ... His legacy has been both dark and far-reaching — a permanent state of war between the parties.
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Quite a pretentious feat by CNN and Zakaria in managing to blame all of the nation’s ills on the tone of the rhetoric from conservative political figures, as if liberals are blameless for political divisiveness. By choosing to blame only one side, CNN and Zakaria are exacerbating the very problem they claim to be trying to diagnose.”
Rating: 5 out of 5 SCREAMS.
■ January 25: Liberal Media Scream: Nuremberg trial for Trump?
(Washington Examiner post)
You would think they would be happy to move on, but this week’s Liberal Media Scream features an ABC News analyst calling for the second impeachment trial in the Senate of former President Donald Trump to be more of a truth and accountability commission process.
“To me, the impeachment — we have to separate the parts of the impeachment vote. I mean, other countries have gone through this before, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and the thing before you get to reconciliation and healing, you have to have some element of truth and accountability in this,” said Matthew Dowd.
What happened in those countries? South Africa set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the end of apartheid, Japan had the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal after World War II, and Germany had the Nuremberg trials.
In calling for a Trump truth tribunal, Dowd suggested that without one, the United States could be in for a century of political trouble that he compared to racism.
Dowd during the roundtable on Sunday’s This Week on ABC:
“Well, to me, the impeachment — we have to separate the parts of the impeachment vote. I mean, other countries have gone through this before, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and the thing before you get to reconciliation and healing, you have to have some element of truth and accountability in this.
“And even besides those foreign country examples, we have an example in our country during Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War when we went through — we were supposed to go through a process of truth and accountability and changing the nature of what went on. And when Abraham Lincoln was killed and Andrew Johnson took over, reconciling — I mean, the idea of forming a thing and demanding truth was stopped. And what did they result in, George? It resulted in this country of Jim Crow laws, it resulted in this country of the KKK, and it resulted in this country of 100 years more of a fight for justice and truth and equality in our country.
“And so, we have to get to a situation where, yes, let’s have a discussion of what was the truth, what did Donald Trump do, what should be his accountability, and the final stage of that is: What should be his punishment?
“And to me, the only way to do that is to have a conversation in the trial in the Senate where facts and knowledge and data and information is presented in such a way that the American public can see exactly what went on, what was Donald Trump responsible for, what should he held accountable to. And then, ultimately, what should his punishment be?
“But we should not do what happened in Reconstruction. When Reconstruction was ended and we went through this huge, long, centurylong process when justice finally prevailed in the end. We have to have an insight into the truth before we get to reconciliation and healing.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “To say anything Donald Trump has done is on par with genocidal regimes, or that he has left the nation in a condition anywhere similar to a segregated, race-based two-class system like the America in the decades after the Civil War, is just ridiculous. The other panelists should have laughed at him. Dowd needs his own accountability session to separate reality from his overwrought historic comparisons.”
Rating: 4 out of 5 SCREAMS.
■ January 18, 2021: Liberal Media Scream: Call to silence conservatives and kick OANN and Newsmax off air
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN providing a platform for a call to take competitors OANN and Newsmax off the air and to also rob conservative influencers of social media outlets.
On the heels of Big Tech kicking the conservative chat site Parler and firearms site AR15.com offline, the former head of security for Facebook and Yahoo said taking platforms away from conservatives is the result of the election and protests at the U.S. Capitol.
Alex Stamos said, we “have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences” on Facebook and YouTube.
“Then we’re going to have to figure out the OANN and Newsmax problem,” urging they be removed from cable systems. “These companies have freedom of speech, but I’m not sure we need Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and such to be bringing them into tens of millions of homes.”
Stamos, on Sunday’s Reliable Sources, where he appeared with Krebs Stamos Group partner Christopher Krebs, the Trump administration’s former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency:
“First, you have to focus on the violent extremists, and those companies have to be brave in that way. And, second, we have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences. There are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger daytime — larger audience than daytime CNN, and they are extremely radical and pushing extremely radical views."
“And, so, it’s up to the Facebooks and YouTubes, in particular, to think about whether or not they want to be effectively cable networks for disinformation. And then we’re going to have to figure out the OANN and Newsmax problem, you know, these companies have freedom of speech, but I’m not sure we need Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and such to be bringing them into tens of millions of homes. This is, you know, allowing people to seek out information if they really want to, but not pushing it into their faces, I think is where we’re going to have to go here.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A very solid signal Big Tech’s agenda goes beyond what they want to portray as benign efforts to shut down those advocating violence. Stamos laid out the next step: Use current concerns to justify a wider suppression of conservative voices who have allowed space for views those on the Left find appalling. The answer is more free speech, not letting a small group of wealthy Silicon Valley tech leaders abuse their power to serve as ‘speech police,’ deciding which views are OK or not with the elite at the moment.”
Rating: 4 out of 5 SCREAMS.
■ January 11, 2021: Liberal Media Scream: CNN wants conservative media squelched in ‘national emergency’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN’s senior media reporter demanding the targeting of conservative media outlets who ignored their anti-Trump bias in reporting on the president and his administration.
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, Oliver Darcy demanded conservative news sources be “held accountable,” clearly suggesting that they must be squelched, an expansion of the so-called “cancel culture” imposed with glee by outlets such as Twitter and Facebook on conservatives and even President Trump.
He cited Fox News and “TV providers that beam OAN and Newsmax into homes, or Rush Limbaugh. There are a lot of people profiting off of lies and conspiracy theories.”
He insisted, “this informational environment” must be “cleaned up.”
Darcy, at the end of Sunday’s Reliable Sources:
“The story this week was bringing our informational crisis to the forefront. It’s a national emergency. You have corporations and people that are profiting off lies and conspiracy theories, whether that’s big tech, whether that’s Fox News, whether that’s TV providers that beam OAN and Newsmax into homes, or Rush Limbaugh. There are a lot of people profiting off of lies and conspiracy theories, and I don’t really see how things get better, how we move on as a country until this informational environment is cleaned up.”
After host Brian Stelter complained that “Fox News, the Murdochs, they are still enabling this stuff because they’re obsessing over big tech bias, that’s what they call it, and trying to ignore the riot,” Darcy demanded:
“Where are they? They need to be held accountable as well. We were talking a lot about people like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, they need to be held accountable for the lies that they have peddled to this country, not only in the past two months about the election either, but in the past, you know, several years that have really brought this to the forefront.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Darcy revealed the true agenda the hard left inside CNN: Selectively cite the baseless allegations of a few on one side of the political spectrum to justify shutting down all the major outlets which allow conservative views to get an airing, silencing those with which Darcy disagrees, thus allowing the public to only hear left wing views. A perfect example of ‘cancel culture.’”
Rating: 4 out of 5 SCREAMS.
■ January 4, 2021: Liberal Media Scream: Smug Chuck Todd to senator, ‘I’ve Had Enough of Hearing This!’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features NBC’s Chuck Todd, who put on his most dismissive smirk Sunday to mock Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s defense of President Trump’s claims of election fraud.
It came on Todd’s show, Meet the Press, and despite talking over Johnson, a matter-of-fact lawmaker/businessman, the senator stood his ground and told the host after being badgered, “You have destroyed the credibility of the news media by your bias.”
When Johnson pointed out, “This fire was started when you completely ignored, for example, our investigation of Hunter Biden,” Todd jumped in: “Senator. All right, I’ve had enough of hearing this!”
During the heated, multi-minute exchange, Todd turned to ridicule when Johnson discussed investigating Trump’s allegations of voter fraud. “Why didn’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There’s plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job.” And: “How about the Moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?”
From the Sunday, Jan. 3, Meet the Press:
SEN. RON JOHNSON: Chuck, this fire was started back in, you know, January of 2017. People like Mark Zaid in his tweet, ‘The coup has started. First of many steps. Rebellion and impeachment to follow ultimately.’ This was started when the mainstream media stopped, dropped any pretense of being unbiased and actually chose sides during this election. This fire was started when you completely ignored, for example, our investigation of Hunter Biden. You know, no evidence of wrongdoing there. And now we find out after the election, no, there is a fair amount of evidence to the point that we have a real FBI investigation. So-
CHUCK TODD: Senator. All right, I’ve had enough of hearing this!
JOHNSON: No, listen. I’ve had enough of this, too. It’s the bias of the media.
TODD: No, senator. It is, you have spent, you have spent the last two years —
JOHNSON: It’s the bias in the media that has created a situation where Republicans and conservatives do not trust the mainstream media. And that is what, that is what has destroyed the credibility of the media and our institutions and really —
TODD: Right, no, the destruction of the institutions —
JOHNSON: — shaken confidence in this election result. So I didn’t start this ... I didn’t, I didn’t light this fire. This fire was lit over four years ago. And we’ve destroyed the credibility, you have destroyed the credibility of the news media by your bias. And of course people like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan destroyed the credibility of the FBI and our justice system as well. We have an enormous problem in this country. It’s unsustainable. And the only way you solve it is with information, and transparency, and hearings, and investigations. It’s not quackery, it’s not conspiracy theory. It’s what’s going to be required.
TODD: Let me ask you this. Then why didn’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There’s plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. So you’re basically saying is if there’s enough people who believe a conspiracy theory, if there’s enough people who hold, how about the Moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?
JOHNSON: There are all kinds of things that I’d like to hold hearings on. You have to kind of pick and choose based on priorities. Right now, we have this election. We’ve got tens of millions of Americans that think this election was stolen. We need to get the bottom of it. Again, what’s explained, we need to explain it, get that off the table. We also have to acknowledge there were some real problems here. There’s some issues that need to be explored and investigated.
TODD: You’ve got to ask yourself when you tell people a million times that something was stolen or something was fraud and then they believe it, I think you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why so many people believed it.
JOHNSON: Well, Chuck, you need to look at your mirror because you carried the Democrats’ water on the whole Russian collusion with the Trump campaign hoax —
TODD: Sen. Johnson, I’ve got to go. I appreciate you coming on. I’ve let you, I’ve let you say plenty of —
JOHNSON: That is what you did in the media. You carried that water for years. You destroyed the credibility of the press, not me.
TODD: Sen. Johnson, other than, other than crediting you for coming on, I appreciate that because only two of your colleagues had the guts to say yes this weekend about this conspiracy theory that you’re working on.
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Todd couldn’t have been more smug and sanctimonious toward a guest as he used his platform to discredit and ridicule a U.S. senator with whom he disagrees. Quite an egregious abuse of Todd’s journalistic role, especially since it’s very hard to imagine him ever showing such disdain toward a liberal guest, and one more example of why Trump supporters don’t trust the ‘mainstream media.’”
Rating: 5 out of 5 SCREAMS.
> Liberal Media Scream posts for 2020.
> For all of 2018.
> For July through December 2017.
> For January through June 2017.
> For July through December 2016.
> For January through June 2016.
> For July to December 2015.
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