The Media Research Center — on particular, writer Jorge Bonilla — loves to bash media who report both sides of a controversial story (that might make liberals look bad) as engaging in “firefighting.” Bonilla and crew are projecting, of course; the MRC firefights on behalf of Republicans all the time. Take the story of Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for North Carolina governor. When some unsavory information came out about him, the MRC went into firefighting mode, whining it was being covered at all and trying to distract from it. That’s what Tim Graham did in his Sept. 20 podcast:
Everyone in the liberal media is newly obsessed with North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Trump-endorsed black conservative Republican that CNN has apparently found making bizarre comments on a pornographic website. It happens in many election cycles, that they use one scandal-plagued Republican to try and tar and feather the entire GOP.
ABC, CBS, and NBC all jumped on this story out of the gate, even as they added the warning “we haven’t independently confirmed” any of it. Remember how they wouldn’t touch the Hunter Biden laptop until they confirmed it for themselves?
We can go back through old election cycles: in 1994, the networks hammered Republican Senate candidates Oliver North and Michael Huffington (they lost).In 2010, they hammered GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell in Delaware as a “witch.”
In 2012, they launched at Rep. Todd Akin as he ran for the Senate against Claire McCaskill. His claim that “legitimate rape” wouldn’t lead to pregnancy drew 96 minutes of outraged network coverage. It’s far more than the networks mustered for the rape accusations Juanita Broaddrick lodged at Bill Clinton.
Beyond that, we know that scandalous Democrats can be indicted, convicted, and jailed, and the networks never find it, or give it about 30 seconds. I thought of corrupt Reps. Corrine Brown and Chaka Fattah. The other filthy little tendency is to skip the Democrat label when the scandal figure is a Democrat as Rich Noyes has laid out.
As they obsess over Mark Robinson, we can look at what they weren’t covering.
That’s a lot of whataboutism to distract from a Republican scandal. From there, it was dismissive attitudes toward Robinson’s story being covered:
- As part of his attack on The Bulwark for not being far-right enough, Curtis Houck noted that there were Robinson-themed items in its newsletters.
- Graham whined that an NPR segment including media reporter David Folkenflik included “the Mark Robinson gloating.”
- Graham used his Sept. 23 podcast to grumble that commentators “marveled at how Donald Trump has had to struggle with ‘distractions’ like the new CNN-pushed scandal about North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, a black conservative.”
- In trying to defend Republicans against being called out at “Team Misogyny,” Clay Waters did a weird bit of downplaying, insisting that Robinson’s “remarks about women are probably the least inflammatory detail in that sordid case. But the boomlet of anti-Robinson stories bring hope and vibes to Kamala’s campaign.”
- Bonilla invoked Robinson in a desperate bit of whataboutism: “Over the weekend, the media feasted on the particulars of the scandal surrounding the Republican gubernatorial nominee in North Carolina, Mark Robinson. Prior to that, the media gorged on two weeks of ‘cats and dogs’ coverage regarding the situation in Springfield, Ohio. But there is zero time on network prime-time news for unearthed video that may more accurately reflect the vice president’s position on immigration than what the public is hearing today.” As he did before, Bonilla is ignoring the fact that J.D. Vance and other Republicans spread lies about Haitians eating pets in Springfield.
Mark Finkelstein served iup his own whataboutism in a Sept. 25 post bashing the Washington Post’s Robin Givhan:
In her current column, the closest senior critic at-large Givhan comes to fashion is to condescendingly describe Mark Robinson’s “well-fed physique draped in a so-so suit.”
But the thrust of her screed is purely political: mocking what she—five times—describes as the Christian “God people” who continue to support Robinson and Trump, despite the candidates’ shortcomings.
The headline is “Mark Robinson’s campaign and faith without deeds, just vitriol.” The subheadline adds: “Is this really what Jesus would do?” Givhan loves Kamala Harris, but she’s a Washington Post Democrat, so she doesn’t ask how backing Harris lines up with Christianity.
Comedy cop Alex Christy complained that “The Daily Show” brought up Robinson as part of Republicans behaving badly:
It’s not the first time The Daily Show has gone to Europe to trash the Second Amendment. Still, [Leslie] Jones then proceeded to play another montage of news clips covering scandals involving North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s porn scandal, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s Beetlejuice incident, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s admission she shot her dog, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decapitating a dead whale.
It is noteworthy Jones chose three Republicans and one Democrat who has endorsed Trump. Earlier in the show, the cast lampooned New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Is it too much to ask to include one more clip of him or of Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulling the fire alarm, or of Sen. Robert Menendez’s corruption scandal?
The fact that these writers so quickly resort to whataboutism i9nstead addressing the issue at hand tells us that the MRC is in denial about the behavior of Trump and Robinson and just wants to get their guys elected instead of discussing these serious issues.