MRC Complains About Iowa Caucus Coverage — But Won’t Critique Fox News

The Media Research Center served up some prebutting of media coverage of the Iowa caucuses when contributing writer Stephanie Hamill appeared on Fox News — a channel whose caucus coverage the MRC would refuse to critique — on Jan. 12:

MRC’s Contributing Writer Stephanie Hamill was a guest on Friday’s Fox News at Night with host Trace Gallagher to discuss how the media is covering the Iowa caucuses and the 2024 election. 

During the segment Hamill brought up former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s recent comments about ‘chaos’ following former President Donald Trump after reacting to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s ‘never Nikki’ campaign. 

But does chaos actually follow Trump or is the media manufacturing it? 

We’ll let you decide.

This was followed by a Jan. 14 “flashback” post by Rich Noyes insisting that “the national media have always twisted their caucus coverage to fit their liberal political narrative.” Of course, Fox News and similar channels twist their caucus coverage to fit their right-wing political narrative, but Noyes will never complain about that bias.

In another coverage preview on Jan. 15, Curtis Houck complained that people were saying nice things about everyone other than Donald Trump and longtime MRC fave Ron DeSantis:

The “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC used their flagship morning news shows on Monday ahead of the Iowa caucuses to cheer Nikki Haley as their preferred alternative to former President Trump, boasting of her “new momentum” and desire “to work with Democrats” has “resonate[d]” with Republicans, independents, and “even Democrats” who are considering voting for President Biden in November.

That would leave Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as the odd person out, but considering the liberal media’s fear and virulent hatred of DeSantis — especially ABC given its parent company, Disney — it’s par for the course as they’ve long reveled in, among other things, the campaign staff reshuffles and falling poll numbers as the number of Trump indictments rose.

Speaking of ABC, their show Good Morning America (GMA) was enthused with the notion of DeSantis further fading and/or dropping out. Senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott cheered Haley as having “gain[ed] new momentum, sharpening her attacks against Trump” about “chaos follow[ing] him” (which, in fact, is a line she’s used for weeks).

A Jan. 16 post by Nicholas Fondacaro whined that non-right-wing networks cut away from Trump’s victory speech:

Former President Trump gave a late-night victory speech on Monday after a historic showing in the Iowa Caucus. But despite the liberal media calling the results for him mere minutes after caucus doors closed and speeches were still ongoing, the liberals at CNN and MSNBC didn’t want viewers to hear his victory message to American voters. CNN’s Jake Tapper immediately cut away after Trump dared to mention the crisis at the southern border, while MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow opted to censor Trump’s speech in its entirety.

After Trump took a few minutes to commend the other candidates in the race for their strong showings and tout his campaign staff, Trump pivoted to talking about the issues. 

Fondacaro didn’t mention that Fox News has regularly refused to air speeches by President Biden.

Jorge Bonilla complained that MSNBC bashed Iowa voters as right-wing Trump-bots:

A common theme of MSNBC’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses was the network’s overall contempt for these voters who are largely out of their demographic. Evangelical voters, in particular, were singled out for scorn.

Watch as Alex Wagner practically calls evangelical Trump supporters a cult, and suggests that they are not attracted to anything attributable to former President Donald Trump as virtue, but to his “vice”: 

[…]

Conservative Midwestern evangelicals are the polar opposite of MSNBC’s target demographics: think what was formerly known as the “coalition of the ascendant”, and wealthy coastal liberals- the “AWFUL” voting bloc, if you will. And MSNBC has no qualms about signaling virtue to their audience by openly displaying their contempt for the kinds of evangelical voters that turned out in Iowa and, per results, for Trump.

Wagner’s contempt was not the brutish, racist contempt displayed by Joy Reid. Hers was a more florid contempt, couched in woke theology, but nonetheless grasping at an understanding of what makes these voters tick. 

The basis of such support goes far beyond the Supreme Court, but is incomprehensible to MSNBC’s viewers. 

We don’t recall the MRC complaining that Fox News doesn’t understand what makes liberal voters tick when it shows contempt for voters who don’t support right-wing candidates like Trump. Still, Fondacaro returned to parrot Bonilla’s argument as part of his daily hate-watch of “The View”:

In a time when the liberal media chorus sings in unison about how ‘democracy is in danger’ and there’s rampant ‘voter suppression,’ one would think they would be relieved and supportive of those who braved the worst mother nature could throw at them to exercise their right to vote. Of course, that’s only if they supported who the media wanted them to support. During their Tuesday reaction to former President Trump’s victory in the Iowa Caucus, the cast of ABC’s The View suggested Iowans were stupid to brave the cold and snow to vote for Trump.

[…]

Haines also scoffed at Iowa’s “first-in-the-nation” status for party nominations, suggesting her home state was overhyped. “Although, I’m a proud Iowan and we love our caucus time because it makes you feel seen…We didn’t ‘earn it,’ we just get it historically,” she chided the state.

Bitter Joy Behar lashed out at Iowans directly to smear their character. She suggested since they voted for Trump they’re pro-rape and falsely suggested they voted for a guy who called himself a “grand wizard” of the KKK.

Comedy cop Alex Christy chimed in when Jimmy Kimmel talked about the caucuses:

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel took the air on Tuesday to disparage the Iowa Caucus as “the polar opposite of MLK Day” and the way they count the votes because, to Kimmel, putting votes in a paper bag is hilarious, but the DNC’s 2020 app fiasco is something worth memory-holing.

Kimmel asserted that “Meanwhile, in Iowa, many caucuses were held yesterday” and “If you’ve ever wondered what is the polar opposite of MLK Day, it is the Iowa Republican Caucus.”

Moving on to how the caucus actually works, Kimmel played a video of caucus goers and talking over it, said, “You write a name on a piece of paper and you drop it in a grocery bag. same people who are screaming about the Dominion voting machines are digging through a brown paper sack from Stop & Shop to decide who will be president. Then they drop all the names into a popcorn bucket, they find the baldest guy they can to count them aloud.”

At least the Iowa GOP can count their votes in a timely manner, unlike Iowa Democrats, but speaking of vote counting, Kimmel then played a clip of a caucus official reading off some results which included one vote for Vivek Ramaswamy, one for Donald Trump, and two for Nikki Haley.

Mark Finkelstein played whataboutism when MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough pointed out an uncomfortable truth about Trump:

On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough repeatedly claimed that, judging by the big caucus results in Iowa, Republicans there “like candidates who have raped women,” as it was ruled by a New York judge in the E. Jean Carroll civil suit in New York.

Back in 2018, in a previous attack on Trump, Scarborough turned heads by asking “How did Democrats split the difference on Bill Clinton when they knew, or many believed and would tell me off the air that he raped Juanita Broaddrick?”

Broaddrick could name a date and a place, and NBC’s Lisa Myers placed Clinton there on that day. Carroll claimed Trump assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store, but cannot remember precisely when in 1995 or 1996 the alleged assault occurred. “I wish to heaven we could give you a date,” she replied in court. 

Finkelstein didn’t mention that Broaddrick is a liar — she spent nearly two decades denying that Clinton raped her and even testified to that under oath until she abruptly changed her story with the help of Clinton-hating right-wingers.

Finkelstein then tried to equivocate on Trump’s behalf: “The jury in the civil Carroll defamation case found that Trump did not commit rape, but had committed sexual abuse. The judge in the case — Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee — expressed his view that the two terms are interchangeable.” Finkelstein didn’t explain why they weren’t, especially when a judge ruled that the claim Trump raped Carroll is “substantially true.”

Tom Olohan unironically touted a Fox News host complaining that other outlets didn’t air Trump’s victory speech:

Fox Business host Charles Payne bodied MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and legacy media setting themselves up as the gatekeepers of facts.

After playing a sanctimonious lecture by Maddow on why the media refuses to give Trump “an unfiltered live platform,” Payne derided this strategy as both wrong and ineffective on the Jan. 16 edition of Making Money with Charles Payne. Payne said, “No one ever gave them the job of deciding what was true or false.” 

Earlier this week, both MSNBC and CNN opted to silence former President Donald Trump during his victory speech following the Republican Iowa caucuses. CNN Anchor Jake Tapper opted to censor Trump at the first mention of immigration. Notably, Tapper has been known to freak out when Trump is given a chance to speak uninterrupted or portrayed in a positive light. 

Olohan was silent about the fact that the channel that employs Payne likes to silence Biden, nor did Payne apparently address that issue.