We’ve previously pointed out how the folks at NewsBusters give deceased conservative journalists an “RIP” bon voyage while not extending the same courtesy to those to don’t reinforce the MRC’s conservative ideology (like Peter Jennings). The death of New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum has received the same non-treatment from NewsBusters, with recognition only from Tim Graham, who noted only that a questioner in a Washington Post online chat suggested that Rosenbaum was assassinated.
This ignoring of Rosenbaum’s death comes despite the fact that the MRC has praised his work in the past. An August 2003 CyberAlert called a article he co-wrote on Howard Dean “a solid, balanced piece” (except for the part about the purported conflict of Dean being a “fiscal conservative” yet favoring universal health insurance).
But the MRC has also branded Rosenbaum as a liberal as well, such as naming him runner-up for its 1997 “Bryant Gumbel Journalism Fellowship Award (for Liberal Advocacy),” presumably for daring to suggest that Republicans were in favor of “crippling Medicare and Medicaid.” Rosenbaum also ran afoul of the MRC in 1996 for the brazenly suggesting that “a strong commitment to public schools” in the 1996 Democratic platform was a “middle ground” position.
And following a 1994 Rosenbaum analysis of the independent counsel Lawrence Walsh’s final report of the seven-year, $40 million Iran-Contra investigation, the MRC wanted to know why he didn’t write an analysis of “Walsh’s documented financial extravagance.” That’s a charge we don’t recall the MRC making about Kenneth Starr’s investigation of Bill Clinton, which cost at least as much as Walsh’s investigation.