One of the standard Media Research Center liberal-media tropes is claiming that the media covers only one side of an issue. For some MRC employees, covering one side of a story is OK as long as it’s the side of the story they want covered.
Among those MRC employees is Tom Blumer. He starts going wrong in an April 30 NewsBusters post by insisting that Sharyl Attkisson is a “credible” and “authoritative” source on the Benghazi so-called scandal. Indeed, the big Attkisson “scoop” that Blumer regurgitates — that a newly released memo proves “reveal direct White House involvement in steering the public narrative about the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, toward that of a spontaneous protest that never happened” — is pretty meaningless. As Media Matters and David Weigel note, the memo merely shows that the White House agreed with the CIA’s early assessment that an inflammatory video touched off the Benghazi attack, is consistent with other intelligence briefings at the time, and that the memo was about the anti-American protests occurring in the region at the time, not just Benghazi.
Blumer then write: “Naturally, Poltico didn’t run a story on this until this morning so it could present the White House’s defense. It’s here, if you can stand it.” Apparently, it’s a bad thing for a reporter to give Democratic White House to be given an opportunity to respond to something in the news.
We suspect Blumer would be praising Politico if the White House it delayed its article for was headed by a Republican.