For an organization that claims to be about “media research,” the Media Research Center sure gets mad when anyone else does “media research” that doesn’t fit its right-wing narratives. In a Feb. 5 post, MRC executive Tim Graham saw a conspiracy in fact-checkers investigating memes related to the protest:
Wherever the Left is challenged, you can count on the so-called “independent fact-checkers” to fan out and attack…followed by Twitter promoting what “fact-checkers say.”
This week, it was the Canadian trucker convoy arriving in Ottawa to protest the COVID vaccine mandate imposed by socialist prime minister Justin Trudeau. There were false impressions to check, but they all seem to run one way.
First, Twitter promoted checks around the theme “Miscaptioned images from around the world are being falsely associated with the trucker protest in Canada, fact-checkers report.” That included images of a 2018 event in Alberta and a 2021 event in Italy.
But mostly, the liberal pack wanted to downplay any large estimates of attendance.
Yes, Graham has decided that all fact-checkers are on “the Left” because they fact-check right-wing narratives. At no point, by the way, did Graham dispute the accuracy of any of the fact-checks or offer any numbers to back up the memes he’s implicitly supporting — he’s complaining they were done at all. It’s hard to attack fact-checkers for bias when you can’t actually identify any.
Graham even whined that a meme containing a false statement from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was fact-checked, huffing in response: “No one has fact-checked Trudeau. Because he’s on the Right Side of History.” Again, Graham failed to offer an instance of a Trudeau statement he believes should be fact-checked.
Graham really isn’t very good at this.