Tom Olohan wrote about his boss in an Aug. 4 Media Research Center Free Speech America post:
MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider called out a conspiracy to choke out right-of-center media and pro-free speech platforms by stripping them of advertising dollars.
Schneider shamed bad actors who participated in efforts to strip advertising from publications like The Daily Wire and platforms such as Elon Musk’s X. During the Aug. 2 edition of Saturday Agenda, Schneider went after media ratings firms, saying MRC has investigated and “uncovered so much evidence about what NewsGuard did, [the Global Disinformation Index] (GDI) and its secret subsidiaries in Texas, and what Ad Fontes did, “coordinating and colluding with these various advertising firms, mostly digital advertising firms.”
Schneider told Newsmax host Rob Astorino, “We’ve been working to stop that kind of censorship.”
Unmentioned by Olohan and Schneider: The MRC also engages in that kind of “censorship.” It runs a program called Conservatives Fight Back, designed to target advertisers on TV shows it doesn’t like:
The radical left’s effort to silence conservative media by targeting their advertisers with coordinated smear campaigns has gone unanswered for too long. It’s time the conservative movement fights back, but with a big difference – we’ll tell the truth!
- We will identify advertisers who sponsor dishonest media outlets that distort the news to fit their political agenda. This includes biased reporting as well as covering up stories that don’t fit the narrative they are trying to push.
- When the agitators on the Left bully advertisers into boycotting conservative voices, we will hold those advertisers accountable.
- We will also be closely monitoring every cable and network news show and informing their advertisers and the American public when they go beyond political commentary and engage in smear, hate and the promotion of violence.
Our message to the advertisers: If you continue sponsoring these shows and their radical left-wing vision for remaking America, we will publicly associate your company with them.
We’re going to let these advertisers know we’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!!
Sure sounds like the MRC’s program is all about bullying advertisers into boycotting non-conservative voices. Indeed, the Conservatives Fight Back contains lists of non-right-wing TV shows and advertisers for easy clicking, as well as a list of phone numbers to contact disfavored networks (not Fox News, of course).
Olohan continued to push his employer’s narrative:
During his interview, Schneider used MRC research to expose NewsGuard’s biased approach further. “So NewsGuard is this company founded by a guy on the hard left, a Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama supporter who said, ‘I’m going to evaluate media outlets and I’m going to give them nutrition labels on how good they are.’ And guess what? Our research shows that you’re on the left. You’ve got good nutrition labels. If you’re on the right, you’ve got bad nutrition labels.”
And in three consecutive MRC studies, NewsGuard repeatedly used these “nutrition labels” to give an A- average to left-of-center sources and a D average to right-of-center sources. A December 2023 study showed that NewsGuard gave a high average rating of 91 percent to publications on the left, far better than the average rating of 65 percent given to publications on the right. Earlier studies showed 25– and 27-point gaps between ratings for left-of-center and right-of-center sources. MRC used media ratings from AllSides to determine media outlets’ political leanings.
As we’ve documented, the MRC’s “studies” of NewsGuard are highly flawed, making no attempt to demonstrate taht the disparity in group scores is, in and of itself, evidence of bias or that right-wing outlets did not deserve their lower ratings. Further, AllSides is a right-leaning organization that regularly promotes the MRC’s work, so its list is a bit suspect.