Media Research Center executive Tim Graham was quite excited about the performance of Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem in deflecting from Donald Trump’s scandals on a Sunday talk show in an April 23 post:
Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) saddled up for another fight against CNN host Dana Bash on Sunday’s State of the Union. Two years ago, Bash pushed Noem around, insisting she support an abortion for a raped 10-year-old girl in Chicago. Noem kept attacking the rapist.
On Sunday, the combat resumed over the Trump trial in Manhattan. Bash kept pressing Noem about how she couldn’t possibly support Trump if he was convicted, and pulled out the usual “No Evidence” fussing when Noem attacked the Bidens.
[…]Noem added: “When I’m walking around this state and talking to people, talking to people across the country, they don’t even know which trial this is. They’re like, I don’t remember which one this isn’t about. Is this the one they’re coming after him for this or this?”
The MRC didn’t have much to say about Noem for a while after that; a few days later, a preview of her new memoir came out, in which she described shooting and killing a pet dog who had been allegedly misbehaving. The first reference to it was buried in a transcript in an April 30 post by Jorge Bonilla, who did not otherwise reference it, since the post of his post was to hype a poll “showing former President Trump garnering greater trust on the economy in three key battleground states.” A May 7 post by Bonilla obliquely referenced the scandal, but not its details, to complain that non-right-wing media were covering it and not things that advance his preferred right-wing narratives:
The corporate media, quick to characterize conservative reaction to the news of the day as “pouncing” and seizing”, are currently doing just that all over Gov. Kristi Noem’s latest book and the revelations therein. Which is their right. But in the interest of walking and chewing gum at the same time, there should be an equal focus on statements just made by New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Watch as Gov. Hochul demonstrates the left’s casual bigotry of low expectations, saying to WashPost editor and MSNBC/PBS host Jonathan Capehart’s face that there are “black kids growing up in The Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is”:
[…]There is literally no excuse for the media not covering Hochul’s statements. The lazy corporate media tend to turn New York stories into national stories. By extension, THIS is a national story. In this day and age, Hochul’s utterances warrant ceaseless A-block coverage up and down the dial. We’ll soon find out whether governor scandals draw equal coverage on the merits, or whether there in fact is a (D)ifference.
Bonilla didn’t explain his (R)eason for trying to deflect from the Noem scandal.
A May 7 White House briefing writeup by Curtis Houck complained about “the seemingly never-ending saga of Governor Kristi Noem’s (R-SD) memoir,” but like Bonilla, he refused to explain what that “saga” was about. That was followed by finally alluding to the issue to embedding a Twitter/X post by Houck featuring a clip of a question about Noem implying that President Biden’s misbehaving do, Commander, “be put down.”
A May 13 post by Houck carried the headline “Turning into a Noem” — but he didn’t address Noem’s memoir scandal, particularly the relevant one that she falsely claimed to have met North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un; instead, it was whataboutism time as he brought up that “former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s new memoir Say More will have an altered passage in future printings following the revelation that it falsely claimed President Biden never looked at his watch during the August 29, 2021, dignified transfer of remains for the 13 Americans murdered in Kabul during the U.S.’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan.” Houck didn’t even mention Noem in the post itself outside of the headline.
The closest the MRC got to the details of the Noem scandal was a glancing mention — but still an oblique reference — in a May 14 column by Daniel McCarthy touting North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s prospects as a vice presidential candidate for Donald Trump:
Who?
Is that the one who shot the dog?
No, that’s Kristi Noem, governor of the other Dakota.
And her hopes are as dead as that poor pooch.
The final allusion to Noem’s scandals came in a June 23 post by Bonilla reviewing another TV appearance by Noem, in which he complained that the interview “kicking off with questions on dog-killing and North Korea” while refusing to further explain those references.