The Media Research Center’s pet conspiracy theory — that the so-called “liberal media” is deliberately slanting news coverage to make Donald Trump the Republican presidential nominee — is still alive. Brent Bozell and Tim Graham push it in their April 13 column:
But if democracy was organized to give everyone a fair and equal shot to impress the voters based on their knowledge and experience, then this system has been rigged for Donald Trump for the last nine months. The media – not just the liberal media, but some “conservative” media, too – have been the gale-force wind beneath Trump’s wings.
On the nightly network news on ABC, CBS, and NBC, Trump has far outpaced anyone else for attention.
Note that almost parenthetical admission that conservative media outlets — which somehow earns scare quotes from Bozell and Graham in a subtle form of Heathering — are promoting Trump as well, which is undoubtedly a factor in Trump’s popularity. But the writers won’t call them out by name.
Why? Because the right-wing media leader in creating Trump’s presidential campaign is Fox News. Bozell and Co. regularly appear on shows on Fox News and Fox Business — Bozell has had a weekly spot for years on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show — and holding Fox specifically to account for their Trumpophilia could jeopardize that airtime.
To that end, the MRC focuses only on the broadcast TV networks and exempts Fox News from similar scrutiny.
Bozell and Graham even concede that most of the media coverage of Trump is negative — which you think would please them, but it doesn’t: “Anyone who watches is aware that the network coverage is often negative, but it still denies air time to opponents.”
One of those opponents is Ted Cruz, and Bozell and Graham have a vested interest in him, something they wait until the very last paragraph to mention: “Let’s have full disclosure here. We have personally endorsed Ted Cruz, which for some might cast doubt on this column. We challenge you to dispute any of what is above.”
If Bozell and Graham were truly interested in “full disclosure,” wouldn’t they have disclosed their endorsement of Cruz at the beginning of their column?