When it was revealed that Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones wrote disturbing texts about another candidate, the Media Research Center had a field day with it, in no small part because Jones is a Democrat:
- OMISSION: Legacy Sunday Shows SILENT About Virginia AG Candidate’s Murderous Text Messages
- Democrat Jay Jones’ Heinous Texts Get a Scant 63 Seconds on NBC, 0 on ABC/CBS/PBS
- Va. Fraternal Order of Police ‘Unequivocally Condemn’ Dem AG Candidate’s ‘Violent Text Messages’
- Pelosi Dodges a Bullet When Asked About Democrat AG Candidate Jay Jones’ Violent Texts
- SUNDAY SUPPRESSION: No Legacy Mentions of Jay Jones, Red Mass Bomber
- Joy Behar Tries to Claim Jay Jones Is GOP and ‘Only Democrats Denounced’
It also cranked out not one but two MRC posts placing the story on a list of scandals the non-right-wing media purportedly don’t want you to see.
When it was pointed out that right-wingers were pouncing on the Jones scandal, the MRC whined about it. P.J. Gladnick groused in an Oct. 7 post:
Whenever journalists are tempted to use the P-word, they would be advised to consult a thesaurus to find an adjective for a term that has become a tired, deservedly mocked cliché. “Pouncing” as in “pouncing Republicans” which is used to describe supposedly opportunistic Republicans taking advantage of a political situation. Of course, the term “pouncing Democrats” is rarely used by the mainstream media.
The latest “pouncing” example comes to us via Monday’s USA Today in which correspondent Phillip Bailey invoked that tired cliché in “‘Sick’ texts from Democratic AG candidate could threaten Spanberger chances in Virginia.”
Gladnick didn’t dispute that his fellow Republicans were pouncing — he’s just mad it was called out. He complained some more in an Oct. 9 post:
When you gaze at politics through the left tinted lenses of New York magazine, you might conjure up some mighty bizarre observations. Such was the case Tuesday in an Ed Kilgore story entitled: “Republicans See an Upset in Violent Texts From Virginia Democrat.”
Kilgore’s conclusion in his final paragraph about the “violent texts” from Virginia Democrat Attorney General candidate Jay Jones was to slam Republicans for “cynical manipulation.” Nevermind the texts were authentic. New York magazine has determined the reaction to them is the issue:
[…]Gee! What’s wrong with conservative media? Didn’t Jones offer “abject apologies” (without withdrawing from the race) after he was exposed? Shouldn’t that be acceptable to them? Well, perhaps IF you live in the New York magazine liberal bubble.
Again, Gladnick didn’t dispute the article’s argument that Republicans were engaging in “cynical manipulation.”
But when the text message scandal was on the other political foot, the MRC complained that it was covered. Jorge Bonilla huffed in an Oct. 16 post:
After weeks ducking the murderous text messages sent by Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, the legacy media appear to have finally found a text scandal they like. The Young Republicans’ text scandal as broken by Politico has given the legacy news the cover it needs.
[…]Once Politico broke the chat, you just knew that this was the story that would provide the legacies with the permission structure needed in order to provide de minimis coverage of the Jones scandal. And so they did, with Hallie Jackson making sure the report leaned the right way.
[…]This story compels several questions. Had the YR chat scandal not broken, would they have still covered Jones? Why was there no mention of the Jones text scandal within the context of the current climate of political violence? There is much to consider. But, for now, we can conclude that NBC used the YR scandal as little more than a convenient vehicle through which to “wash” the Jones texts.
Curtis Houck similarly groused:
With NBC having been the only broadcast network to (twice) mention on any of its flagship newscasts Democrat Virginia Attorney General candidate Jay Jones’s 2022 texts musing about murdering Republicans, it was a significant development when Friday’s CBS Mornings aired a full segment that went into detail about Jones’s texts. The problem? Half of the report concerned the anti-Semitic, racist, and sexist messages in a Young Republicans group chat.
[…] [Reporter Taurean] Small made the pivot to the group chat: “It comes amid another controversy over political rhetoric. Earlier this week, Politico reporter on a drove of racist, anti-Semitic, and violent messages exchanged by leaders of the Young Republicans national political advocacy group.” […]Small merged the two stories with Vice President JD Vance’s Wednesday appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show “seem[ing] to minimize [the group chat] comments, instead lashing out at Jones[.]”
“But the Politico story suggested the group chat members weren’t just kids. One, it says, currently serves as a state senator in Vermont. Another was fired from his role as chief of staff in a New York state assemblelyman’s office after the story’s release. Another is a senior adviser in the U.S. Small Business Administration. Politico said he declined to comment,” he concluded.
The MRC did not separately address the Young Republicans scandal, and neither Bonilla nor Houck explicitly denounced their messages.
Tim Graham tried to spin the comparison away in an Oct. 17 post:
The partisans at the PBS News Hour have skipped over the scandal of Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones sending texts in 2022 wishing to murder a Republican opponent and his small children, since he was “breeding little fascists.”
After almost two weeks of silence, they finally spent a piece of a minute on Jones in a story on Thursday…as a side note to promoting a Politico story on Republican non-candidates saying awful things. The segment carried the online headline: “Young Republicans’ hateful group chat sparks bipartisan condemnation.” The texts are worth condemning. The question is whether they matter on the same level as a statewide candidate for a law-enforcement office.
[…]Bennett quickly returned to the “juicy” part, the massive bigotry among Republicans: “Based on your reporting and the conversations you have had connected to this investigative piece, to what extent has the current Trump era normalized or even emboldened the racist, homophobic, sexist language and attitudes among some young conservatives?”
Ngo replied: “These are jokes, dark humor, sort of a casual kind of cruelty that were repeated over and over again in a pattern. And we put them in the context of what’s happening now in the political climate, where people are at each other’s throats, where, in social media, on podcasts, including very, very widely listened to, watched podcasts, and very popular hosts, this language is being echoed, it’s being exemplified. They’re not getting this from nowhere. And sort of it’s been OK in some stratospheres, when it really shouldn’t be.”
As if Jay Jones doesn’t show “dark humor” and “casual cruelty” among Democrats?
Note that Graham doesn’t want to talk about the exact content of those “awful” messages or address what they might say about Republicans as a whole — all he has is lame whataboutism.