Having taken a victory lap over right-wing defunding of public broadcasting, the Media Research Center was still angry that PBS and NPR officials weren’t adhering to its partisan narrative. Tim Graham huffed in a July 22 post:
Before Congress and on television, PBS CEO Paula Kerger has repeatedly pretended she has seen no evidence of liberal bias on PBS, which is like saying you were not being able to find the sun outside. But last week, Variety’s Todd Spangler wrote a long leftist editorial on “Trump’s War on Truth,” and Kerger spoke more like someone who knew they were at war with Trump.
[…]Were the PBS folks “unflinching” in covering President Biden’s mental decline? Clay Waters found some serious flinching after Biden’s disastrous debate performance a year ago. They flinched in covering Hezbollah terrorists, who had “father figures.”
Conservatives can’t be dismissed as thinking PBS shouldn’t do news, when we have demanded PBS news have some fairness and balance in it. Liberals think those things are “flinching,” a “slippery slope” of “concessions.”
Kerger called the prospect of defunding “massively disruptive and potentially existential.” A 15 percent cut should not be “existential,” but that’s the panicked tone they want to use.
The MRC’s nepo-baby leader continued his victory lap with its favorite right-wing CNNer:
On Friday, MRC President David Bozell joined The Scott Jennings Show to discuss a historic victory: the House vote to defund PBS and NPR. Hosted by Jennings, CNN’s lone voice of reason and MRC’s Bulldog Award winner for “Outstanding Achievement Behind Enemy Lines,” the show spotlighted MRC’s decades-long campaign to end taxpayer funding for these far-left outlets.
Bozell credited MRC’s persistent evidence-gathering for exposing the progressive bias that fueled this legislation, declaring, “The MRC’s been bringing the receipts on NPR and PBS for 38 years.” He highlighted a recent MRC study showing PBS was 93% negative toward Trump and Republicans from April to June, even as their funding was at stake. Bozell argued that these outlets failed to even “fake” balance, underscoring their disconnect from impartiality and public interest.
Actually, that study looked at one PBS show, not the entire network, and it was rigged to ignore “straightforward” coverage so it cannot possibly be a comprehensive examination of coverage.
Graham returned to whine in a July 26 post that biased right-wing attacks on public broadcasting were called out:
The playbook for the PBS/NPR lobby in the defunding fight has been to send liberal journalists to talk with station managers in small communities in red states, as if that somehow represents the Eastern leftist elites that make the programming on “public” broadcasting. Politico’s “West Wing Playbook” column talked to Don Dunlap, a station manager in Corpus Christi, Texas. Both Texas Senators and the local congressman voting for defunding these “public” propaganda pushers.
“There are 10 public TV stations in Texas, and we’re thinking probably six of them will close down within a year,” Dunlap predicted in an interview. “I think [lawmakers’] decisions were not informed,” Dunlap said. “We’re there to help people.”
The newsletter compiled by Irie Sentner, Ben Johansen and Sophia Cai naturally accepted the wild claim that Republicans don’t know what they’re talking about when they complain about relentless leftist/Democrat bias:
[…]Curtis Houck sent this to me, knowing that the argument that frustrates me the most after documenting PBS and NPR bias for 36 years is that “conservatives don’t watch/listen.” We supplied members of Congress with years of research into “public” broadcasting aiding and abetting the Left. They were definitely informed.
No, Tim, you did not supply Congress with “years of research”; you supplied them with years of partisan propaganda. Then he whined further:
Only someone who’s never listened to NPR would pretend that All Things Considered actually considers all things. Instead, they’re telling Texans about drag queens engaging in a joyful blowout for “climate activism.”
Why does Graham demand that things like this be censored? He doesn’t explain.