While the Media Research Center is all in on defending Donald Trump against the “liberal media,” it still can’t quite make peace with Trump’s occasional liberal tendencies. Remember that the MRC has whined that the media has ignored Trump’s “past liberalism,” even though that’s an issue mostly for purity-obsessed ideologues like those at the MRC — and it hasn’t kept the MRC from offering a full-throated defense of Trump.
Nevertheless, the MRC trods this territory again courtesy of a Sept. 14 post by Scott Whitlock:
The three networks generally don’t hold back in slamming Donald Trump, highlighting his controversies and scandals. But when the liberal candidate offers up policy prescriptions that echo theirs, ABC, CBS and NBC are silent. On Wednesday, none of the networks offered any conservative critiques on Trump’s new federally mandated maternity leave plan. In fact, ABC hit the businessman from the left, worrying it didn’t go far enough.
[…]It’s not as though there isn’t harsh criticism from conservatives on this plan. Radio host Mark Levin said the plan “sucks” and that Trump “is, in his heart, a liberal.”
You know who else didn’t provide any conservative critiques of Trump’s “liberal” maternity leave plan? The MRC’s own “news” outlet, CNSNews.com.
A Sept. 14 CNS article by Susan Jones uncritically outlines Trump’s proposed policy without quoting any conservatives critiquing it. There is no separate article quoting conservative critics of the plan.
If the MRC really thinks this is such a major issue, why didn’t it order CNS to do the story the networks won’t do? That’s supposed to be CNS’ mission, isn’t it, to “provide an alternative news source that would cover stories that are subject to the bias of omission and report on other news subject to bias by commission”?
Or it could be that the MRC is just tossing this out as another cynical excuse to attack the media — hypocritically demanding the media do something its own “news” division has thus far refused to do — and really doesn’t care how pure a conservative Trump is as long as he beats the hated Hillary.