We’ve previously noted that NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard, as part of his barrage of sycophancy in defending Herman Cain, claimed that, according to his headline, “MSNBC Runs More Stories on Cain ‘Scandal’ Than it Did Obama’s Ties to Ayers, Rezko and Wright Combined.”
But looking more closely at Sheppard’s Nov. 7 post in which he announced that claim, it looks even more fishy. He writes:
At press time, the Obama-loving outlet had aired at least 30 segments involving the now growing Cain scandal since it broke late last Sunday.
Yet according to LexisNexis, in the over 20 months between the time Obama announced his candidacy in February 2007 to Election Day 2008, MSNBC offered viewers seventeen stories concerning Ayers, nine involving Wright, and none dealing with Rezko.
At no point did Sheppard describe how he searched in Nexis for these results. A real researcher would have disclosed his search parameters.
And then there’s this note at the end of his post:
Readers are advised that MSNBC doesn’t transcribe all of its programs.
That’s right — Sheppard has been portraying his search results as encompassing all of MSNBC when he concedes that it covers only what’s in Nexis, and he apparently doesn’t even know exactly what MSNBC shows are or are not in Nexis.
Sheppard goes on to call MSNBC a “so-called news network.” Does that mean we can call Sheppard a “so-called media critic”? And the Media Research Center a “so-called media watchdog group”?