We’ve long known that the Media Research Center is so committed to its insistence of a liberal media bias that it will contort every story around a media-bias frame, no matter how far it is from the truth.
We see that again in the story of odious abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. A Washington Post article credits the MRC and its NewsBusters blog for cranking up complaints that Gosnell’s trial was not getting the national attention it believed was deserved. Post reporter Paul Farhi goes on to quote the MRC’s Tim Graham declaring that “This is a story that threatens the abortion rights agenda. . . . It’s bias by omission,” but adding that “Neither Graham nor any of the other critics have offered evidence for their suspicions.”
Though presumably happy that the MRC got a high-profile media mention, Graham was upset that Farhi exposed his employer’s modus operandi. He rants in an April 15 NewsBusters post:
Speaking of suspicions, I suspect someone at the Post is ignoring what I clearly said to Farhi as we talked about the Why of the Gosnell blackout. The evidence of the liberal bias is as plain as day in the blackout. The “why” is somewhat irrelevant. We believe the media want to prevent public-relations damage to the abortion industry, in the same way we believe the media want to inflict public-relations damage on other institutions — say, the Catholic Church, as I said to Farhi.
I told Farhi is what this blackout proves is that the abortion industry and their media enablers have demonstrated they don’t believe in the “safe” part of keeping abortion “safe, legal, and rare.”
In other words: Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence! If we say there’s liberal bias, we don’t need to prove it — it’s axiomatic. If you can’t see it, it’s not our problem.
Remember, the MRC has “research” in its name — and its director of media analysis thinks it’s “somewhat irrelevant” to research why something happened.
And Graham wonders why nobody takes the MRC’s work seriously.