The Media Research Center’s Tim Graham is as mad as ever that mainstream journalists won’t buckle to the MRC’s narrative and admit they’re part of the “liberal media.” In a May 19 post, Graham takes aim at CBS’ Scott Pelley, grumbling that Pelley doesn’t talk about CBS scandals while plugging his new book:
As part of CBS kissing up to CBS, Late Show host Stephen Colbert brought on 60 Minutes correspondent (and former Evening News anchor) Scott Pelley to promote his new book Truth Worth Telling. No one was going to bring up Dan Rather, not to mention sexual harassment scandals at CBS News, from Pelley’s dismissed 60 Minutes colleagues Charlie Rose and Jeff Fager to CBS’s harasser at the top, Les Moonves. No, Pelley came on to lecture about how President Trump and foreign governments are poisoning the information well. It sounded like…collusion.
Will Graham and Brent Bozell, in plugging their new anti-media book, agree to appear on any show that might ask about, say, the scandal of Bozell hiding for years the inconvenient fact that Graham ghost-wrote his columns — let alone anywhere outside the right-wing bubble where they might face any questioning that’s less than softball or designed to tee up talking points? Doubtful. Would Graham describe that situation as “collusion”? Doubtful.
Graham, meanwhile, is still miffed that Pelley won’t play along with his narrative. Huffing that “Pelley implied the Old Media, the liberal media are the gold standard” when it comes to correcting misinformation, grousing further:
It should be said that just having experience in journalism for decades isn’t enough to make you trustworthy, as Dan Rather proved. It can also be said that at sites like NewsBusters, you have senior people who’ve been reporting on liberal bias for 30 years (ahem). Evaluating the credibility of your news media should involve engaging with media critics and their arguments, not just dismissing their criticism as “poisoning the information.”
It should also be said that “reporting on liberal bias for 30 years” also does not make one trustworthy — especially when so much of that “reporting” is in bad faith, designed not to make journalism better but to push a partisan political narrative. Graham ‘s insistence that members of the media should be “engaging with media critics and their arguments” is especially right, given that both he and Bozell have blocked or muted us on Twitter and, therefore, to more personally engage with their arguments. You can claim you’re credible if you refuse to engage with your critics, right, Tim?
And, proving that he can hold a grudge like a champion, Graham is still upset with Pelley for failing to lead his first CBS Evening News broadcast with the Anthony Weiner scandal, opting instead for a report on the war in Afghanistan. “The Washington Post showered accolades at the time, gushing Pelley had pleased the late CBS legend Edward R. Murrow,” Graham reminded us. Yes, Graham complained about it then, too.