For months, the Media Research Center has been hyping claims that Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo caused deaths from coronavirus in the state’s nursing homes by ordering COVID patients early in the pandemic to be discharged from hospitals to the nursing homes (though it usually hid the fact that it was done to open up space in hospitals during that early surge of COVID patients), and then manipulated data to hide it. It has been assisted by Fox News weatherperson Janice Dean, who has a personal vendetta against Cuomo because in-laws in New York nursing homes died early in the pandemic — never mind that nursing-home coronavirus deaths were not necessarily caused by hospital patients transferred there, or that it’s highly unlikely that the deaths of Dean’s in-laws could be blamed on such transfers.
The MRC even called in Donald Trump’s dubious pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, to conduct a poll with the goal of blaming the “liberal media” for not covering this story in a way that drove up Cuomo’s negatives to levels that the MRC and its fellow right-wingers desired to see.
Given the MRC’s rampant bias, you will not be surprised to learn that it has completely censored news of a Republican state official who actually did kill a guy, then tried to cover it up.
South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg struck and killed a man with his car on a dark highway last summer. He claimed at the time that he thought he hit an animal and didn’t realize he struck a man until the next day when he returned to the scene. But it was later revealed that Ravnsborg had been browsing websites on his phone just before the crash, and the victim’s broken glasses were found inside Ravnsborg’s car. Ravnsborg has pleaded not guilty, and critics are asking him to resign, but he has so far refused.
Imagine how the MRC would have treated Ravnsborg if he was a Democrat — it would be demanding that the “liberal media” give wall-to-wall coverage to this case the way it has done regarding Cuomo. But because Ravnsborg is a Republican, it has remained silent. The MRC’s “news” division, CNSNews.com, has also refused to report on this story.
That’s the protection you get from the MRC if you’re a Republican.