Unsurprisingly, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell took a dim view of Univision’s Jorge Ramos interrupting Donald Trump at a press conference:
Jorge Ramos is a pro-amnesty activist masquerading as a journalist. The stunt he pulled at Donald Trump’s press conference reflects poorly on Univision — again. Ramos is not a ‘reporter’ nor does he therefore have the ‘right to ask questions.’ Ramos embarrassed both himself and his profession by becoming the story with his unseemly antics. Those who expect a fair and honest debate on the policy issues impacting the U.S. Latino community should ignore Jorge Ramos.
Bozell was joined by MRC Latino director Ken Oliver-Mendez, who claimed that “Jorge Ramos clearly crossed the line between reporting and editorializing” and is “operating outside the confines of honest journalism.”
It also shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that Bozell doesn’t feel the same when the interruptor is a conservative and the person being interrupted is a Democratic president.
A search through the MRC archives found no indication that Bozell said anything about a 2012 incident in which conservative Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro heckled President Obama during a news conference — no declaration that Munro was an activist masquerading as a journalist, or that Munro embarrassed himself and his profession, or that Munro is operating outside the confines of honest journalism, or that conservatives who expect fair and honest journalism should ignore Munro.
Meanwhile, the rest of the MRC was more than happy to cheer Munro’s stunt. Clay Waters mocked the New York Times for supposedly being “aghast at the audacity of a reporter from a conservative news site interrupting President Obama’s Rose Garden speech.”
At NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard tried to temper things by baselessly claiming that “we are by no means condoning Munro’s behavior” (even though we could find no criticism of Munro by anyone at the MRC), but then tried to justify that same behavior: “As the Daily Caller is a conservative website, isn’t it far more likely Munro doesn’t agree with the new immigration policy the current White House resident was presenting that just so happens to be an edict without any approval from Congress?”
Tom Blumer huffed that Munro’s stunt was hardly “the first time any reporter has ever shouted a question at a U.S. president out of turn,” then touted Munro’s defense “as well as sturdy defenses from Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson and Publisher Neil Patel.” He concluded by whining of Munro’s critics: “What a bunch of flaming, presidential boot-licking hypocrisy.”
And Jack Coleman offered his own defense of Munro: “Henceforth the Obama administration might want to signal when questions will be allowed from the media and when reporters will be expected to emulate statuary.” We suspect Coleman won’t be asking Trump to make that same signal.