The Media Research Center will never inflict on Fox News the journalistic scrutiny it regularly inflicts on CNN and MSNBC, despite the fact that it’s at least as guilty, if not more, of the things it regularly attacks those other news channels of doing. Note the whataboutism Joseph Norris uses in deflecting uncomfortable criticism in a Nov. 6 post:
Leftist-aligned CNN, noted Biden sympathizers, are now calling out Fox News for their pro-Trump reporting. This coming from party of the DNC controlled media that has spent the past four years trying to tear the President down. Rather than take a look in the mirror, CNN host Jake Tapper goes on the offensive: “So if you are a Fox reporter or anchor, somebody not on the opinion side and you’re going to abide by this crazy instruction, you might as well hand in your press credential at the same time because you can’t be taken seriously as a journalist.”
In a move that smacks of jealousy, CNN is taking the time to insult their leading competitor. And to do so with yet another unnamed source that the leftist media seems so fond of using. Leftist CNN anchor Brian Stelter joined the 9:00 am ET hour to discuss to memos he allegedly received from Fox that has requested the people on air to refrain from calling Joe Biden the “President-Elect” till the election is fully resolved in the courts.
Actually, that claim was not based on an “unnamed source” but internal memos that CNN obtained copies of. (And, as we’ve noted, the MRC has no problem hypocritically using anonymous sources when doing so advances its right-wing agenda.)
Of course, CNN showed its usual bias, dismissing these cases as “frivolous lawsuits.” Instead, they outright accuse Fox of “Fox still assumes he’s telling the truth, promoting voter fraud innuendo, they are denigrating cities like Philadelphia, and they are treating these long-shot lawsuits like they are serious pursuits.” I believe that is called reporting the news, something CNN could learn from.
So uncritically repeating anything Trump does is “reporting the news,” even if it’s obviously false or doomed to failure? We suspect that this MRC reporting standard will change when Joe Biden takes office.
Norris whined further:
These facts did not stop CNN correspondent Abby Phillip from joining the attack: “Fox is acting as an arm of the Trump campaign. And Trump is treating Fox as an arm of the campaign. … The Trump campaign wants Fox to get in line, and it sounds like, based on Brian’s reporting, they are getting in line.”
Given how CNN has vastly favored their own preferred candidate and their ruthless attacks on Trump for the past four years, they should be taking a hard look in the mirror before making these attacks. The hypocrisy on display is astounding. But it is not surprising.
If this sort of media bias is a bad thing — and Norris is, by letting CNN’s statements about Fox News being an arm of the Trump campaign pass unrebutted, effectively admitting those accusations are true — why won’t Norris criticize Fox News? Perhaps because not only is the MRC also an arm of the Trump campaign, MRC staffers tend to appear on Fox News and it doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that relationship. At the top of that not-to-do list is anything that might document how Fox News uses the exact same “bias” techniques it bashes CNN and MSNBC for using.
Which makes the “astounding” hypocrisy on display here that of Norris and the MRC, not CNN.