Led by Curtis Houck, the Media Research Center targets media reporter Oliver Darcy with unusually personal attacks, for instance smearing him as a “Benedict Arnold” for escaping the right-wing media bubble. When Darcy left CNN to start his own newsletter, the MRC — this time Tim Graham — hurled more childish name-calling his way. As Darcy continued to do his job of a media reporter, the MRC continued to rage, such as in a Feb. 28 post by Houck, complete with petty “Benedict Arnold” smear (and a headline that called him a “snake”):
Conservative media Benedict Arnold — aka Oliver Darcy, now helming his own website, Status — opened his Thursday night newsletter with a 1,000-word-plus dispatch of Pentagon correspondents melting down about the Pete Hegseth-led department and his chief spokesman, Sean Parnell.
In essence, however, Darcy provided a helpful reminder to those dealing with liberal journalists: You can never fully trust them to abide by their own rules of when something is “off the record.” If it makes for a good story or they view you as the enemy, they’ll stab you in the back.
Darcy blared from the get-go this would be a safe space for the sad journos: “Pressed at the Pentagon; Inside a tense off-the-record meeting, the Pentagon’s new press chief confronted reporters and indicated they will do away with the regular travel pool, doubling down on Pete Hegseth’s anti-media approach.”
Ah, there it is. “Anti-media.” Darcy, Brian Stelter, et al love tossing that term around to describe spaces such as this one that — gasp — believe the corporate media have a liberal bias!
Houck was apparently too busy ranting to actually prove Darcy wrong. Instead, he ranted further by playing whataboutism:
Darcy’s thoughts were predictably, whining a Hegseth Pentagon will be based on “disengag[ing]” from the press and “elevating loyalists” who will be “friendly propagandists who won’t challenge their narrative” and instead “reshape reality itself.”
How cute. He essentially described how the liberal media largely acted during the Biden administration and largely moved on from Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin going AWOL.
Houck raged further at Darcy in a March 7 post:
Former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy used his far-left newsletter site Status on Thursday night to suffer a weapons-grade meltdown over rumors that our friend and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings — perhaps the best current articulator of conservative principles — was not only close to a new contract to stay with CNN, but “receive a substantial pay increase” despite being a “dishonest,” “insidious” man that “distorts” and “fabricates reality.”
Darcy started by whining “MAGA pundit Scott Jennings has been busy” with “quite favorable” contract talks and “reliably excusing Donald Trump’s appalling behavior” with the former yielding “a substantial pay increase” although Darcy made it seem like having his own show won’t be happening.
The conservative media turncoat never pointed out (and it’s doubtful he ever would) that Jennings’s appearances become rare-instances for political junkies in which CNN becomes must-see TV. In fact, it’s not uncommon for tweets of Jennings pull more viewers on X than actual Nielson [sic] ratings viewers.
Why is Darcy a “turncoat” and a “Benedict Arnold” for escaping the right-wing media bubble? Houck has never explained this hostility. Nor did he explain how, exactly, Darcy’s newsletter is “far-left.” He also failed to disp[ute the accuracy of Darcy’s assessment of Jennings — it seems that Houck is unable to handle criticism of “our friend.” Rather, he huffed that Darcy “views conservatives as if we’re dangerous, disease-ridden scum” — as if Houck and his fellow MRCers don’t view liberals that way.
A March 11 post by Houck included more irrational rage:
Former CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy was apoplectic Monday night in his newsletter site Status over a leaked White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) meeting showing dissent within the ranks over the White House press office taking control of setting the press pool rotations from WHCA and a refusal to collectively boycott President Trump’s appearances and remarks.
Darcy inserted his feelings from the get-go: “Press Pool Pandemonium; Frustration with the WHCA erupted during an off-the-record meeting Monday, as some members pushed the organization to respond more forcefully to Donald Trump’s assault on the press corps.”
Houck provided no evidence that Darcy “inserted his feelings” into his post — actually, it appears that Houck is allowing his extremely personal anger at Darcy to drive his “media research.”
When Darcy pointed out that other media outlets weren’t supporting the Associated Press in rejecting President Trump’s arbitrary renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, Houck spent a March 24 post complaining about it:
Former CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy suggested Sunday on his newsletter site Status American democracy was teetering and a descent into authoritarianism was afoot. Even though his unhinged outlook on life appears permanent, this new reason was legacy media outlets having refused to join the Associated Press in using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of Gulf of America (and instead vague uses of “the gulf”) to avoid the Trump White House’s ire.
The headline and subhead will have you cackling or rolling your eyes (or both): “Gulf of Fear; When news anchors tiptoe around the name Gulf of Mexico, it’s not just semantics—it’s a glimpse at how the press starts to flinch under political pressure.”
The miserable liberal tool started off on an incendiary note, comparing President Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America to communist China in that they consider Taiwan as “a province” and such an actual Orwellian policing of language is obviously “not about semantic,” but “wielding influence and asserting dominance.”
Darcy went right for the miserable wine mom vote in Northern Virginia with a doomsday scenario: “In the United States, that kind of top-down dictation might feel like a distant threat” since there’s “free speech safeguarded by the First Amendment.”
Houck doesn’t explain what the “miserable wine mom vote in Northern Virginia” has to do with any of this, and he didn’t explain why Trump’s arbitrary renaming should automatically be accepted and parroted. He concluded by whining that “In essence, Darcy suggested America has made way for the country to join history’s list of dangerous, evil regimes to grow, as evidenced by….whether you say ‘Gulf of Mexico’ or ‘Gulf of America.'”
When Darcy called out the Washington Post for downplaying its “Democracy Dies In Darkness” slogan, Houck groused about it in a March 27 post:
Tuesday night in his newsletter Status, former conservative reporter-turned-caustic progressive Oliver Darcy was in need of a fainting couch, some pearls to clutch, or a safe space over a supposed sign of the apocalypse in The Washington Post slowly backing away from its dumb slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
To be clear, the Jeff Bezos-owned paper told him it won’t be retired anytime soon. But because it’s not in your face, The Post’s supposed embrace of Donald Trump’s perceived authoritarianism is illustrated in the paper having “quietly removed the slogan…its mobile app” and at the top of articles.
Darcy wrote in his article “Democracy Dies in the Light” that “Bezos and the business community have taken an entirely different tact” in “openly” working “to woo” President Trump just years after they took “a more adversarial approach in dealing with him” and openly “signaled the stakes of the moment.”
“The removal of the slogan from the opening sequence occurred over the last few weeks when the app received an update. ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ also no longer appears at the top of the mobile homepage, though it remains visible on the desktop version of the website and in print editions of the newspaper,” he explained.
[…]Just like he did with the “Gulf of America” hubbub and the lack of boycotts by the White House press corps in support of the Associated Press, Darcy suggested this meaningless tweak was a harbinger for the direction of the country and that the newspaper — at least in the eyes of Bezos — might not be a hate movement against conservatives[.]
Once again, Houck doesn’t bother proving Darcy wrong — he’s just mad that Darcy reported inconvenient facts for right-wing anti-media activists like himself. The only person here who sees reporting facts as “caustic” is Houck himself.