MRC-Fox News Revolving Door Watch

The parade of staffers leaving the Media Research Center to work for Fox News has increased in recent months.

Jeffrey Clark, who spent less than a year at the MRC as a writer on business stuff, left in November then resurfaced at Fox News the following month. His Fox News bio highlighted his work as “a speechwriter for a cabinet secretary and as a Fulbright teacher in South Korea” but mentioned nothing about his MRC employment.

The more surprising departure, though, is Scott Whitlock (pictured), who had been with the MRC since 2005 — most recently serving as research director after Rich Noyes’ retirement — but left in October to be a Fox News editor. Whitlock’s Fox News bio states only that he is “an editor for Fox News digital’s media team” and like Clark’s bio, mentions nothing about his MRC employment even though that was much, if not all, of his working career until then. Meanwhile, the MRC’s NewsBusters site has blocked access to Whitlock’s article arcihve (though the internet is forever).

An indirect person through the revolving door is Joe Schoffstall, who worked at the MRC from 2010 to 2013 and had employment elsewhere, including the Washington Free Beacon, before joining Fox News in 2021.

Then there is the case of Kristine Marsh, who wrote for the MRC until last February. Marsh’s last MRC post was on Feb. 9, 2022; eight days later, a writer named Kristine Parks wrote her first story for Fox News. We haven’t been able to confirm that Kristine Marsh and Kristine Parks are one and the same, but as with the other MRC exiles, the subject matter Parks writes about echoes the right-wing culture-war and anti-“liberal media” attacks Marsh covered at the MRC.

Who will be next to go through that revolving door? We’ll have to see.