A day after Hunter Biden was found guilty on gun-related charges, the Media Research Center continued to be weirdly angry that media outside its right-wing bubble treated him like a human being with problems and not a partisan punching bag and a cudgel to destroy his father. Jorge Bonilla displayed that anger in a June 12 post:
Hunter Biden’s conviction on federal gun charges set the Regime Media into a firefighting frenzy with the aim of Protecting the Precious- in other words, ensuring that President Joe Biden faces as little political damage as possible over the verdict, and safeguarding the post-conviction narrative.
The most emblematic of this coverage comes via the most Biden-servile of the major three network newscasts. Here’s David Muir’s introduction to coverage of the verdict on ABC World News Tonight, which might have been serviceable as a standalone brief, but is needlessly cumbersome as an anchor intro to a longer report (click “expand” for transcript):
[…]It’s all there, really. The evocation of familial sympathy, referencing 54-year-old Hunter as A CHILD. Hunter walking out of court holding First Lady Doctor Jill Biden’s hand, President Joe Biden’s statement of support, the lament that Hunter’s addiction was used against him, and the presidential embrace. These were the themes that echoed across the networks. The verdict is covered as Kennedyesque tragedy- and Wilmington is Camelot-on-the-Delaware.
The firefighting part lies in the media’s use of this verdict as a stand-in for the totality of the Biden family crimes, and in contrasting President Biden’s acceptance of this verdict with President Trump’s rightful criticism of a government that has been weaponized against him, as evidenced in the New York business records trial.
[…]The Regime Media can try to pull this nonsense because they never reported on the testimony of the IRS whistleblowers, which detailed the MILLIONS spent by Hunter on, among many other things, literal “hookers and blow” in lieu of paying taxes on monies made while serving as a board member at Burisma.
This passing mention of the September trial on NBC was more than ABC and CBS could muster, which was ZERO.
News coverage on the verdict was crafted to deflect away both from the more serious charges Hunter Biden faces, and from the Biden family’s long history of peddling influence. If it weren’t for Regime Media, we’d have no media at all.
Bonilla made no mention of the dozens of NewsBusters posts that had to stealthily corrected in the wake of one key alleged witness against Hunter turning out to be a liar and a Russian operative — which puts all of the allegations against Hunter in doubt.
Tim Graham’s June 12 column rehashed previous MRC complaining about Hunter being treated much better outside the right-wing bubble than Donald Trump:
The nation’s most self-impressed journalists, the ones who strangely self-identify as “mainstream,” could not bring themselves to treat the Hunter Biden trial as comparable in any way to Donald Trump’s trial in Manhattan. Treating Hunter as a significant “news” subject gives them the creeps, like they’ve been drafted into Rupert Murdoch’s army.
So it’s a little shocking the Hunter trial gained about half as much coverage as Trump’s — at least through the first eight days of coverage. On the ABC, CBS, and NBC morning, evening, and Sunday-interview shows, Trump’s trial drew more than 174 minutes, while Hunter’s trial drew 85 minutes. (By the Trump trial’s end, they filled the air with 640 minutes.)
It’s less shocking to notice the difference in tone. Trump’s trial was a “criminal” trial about “hush money.” On April 25, fill-in CBS anchor Margaret Brennan announced, “The former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents related to a so-called hush money payment to a porn star.” Other stories fussed that Trump was bullying and threatening witnesses and court staff.
Hunter Biden stories were loaded with empathy. On June 3, ABC’s Terry Moran relayed: “President Biden released a statement standing by his only surviving son, saying in part ‘I have boundless love for my son.’” CBS’s Norah O’Donnell echoed him that night on “the President’s only surviving son.” On June 10, NBC fill-in anchor Tom Llamas began: “For the first time, the child of a sitting president facing a potential criminal conviction. Right now, a jury deliberating the fate of Hunter Biden, the sole surviving son of the president.”
Hunter Biden is 54 and network anchors refer to him as a “child.”
The contrast in tone tells you that the media elites loathe Trump, but treat the Biden family like they’re close friends who they want to surround and protect.
Graham made sure to slip in a little luridness to distract from Trump’s handing out hush money to a porn star:
They will keep spinning in desperation that Hunter Biden’s epic crack-and-hookers binges somehow make the Bidens more sympathetic to Americans with addicts in their family. Journalists were given cocaine-powdered lemons, and the lemonade they are making is a heady brew. But not everyone wants to drink it.
Nicholas Fondacaro spent a post claiming to be horrified that ABC put a juror on camera:
Following the three felony convictions of Hunter Biden on Tuesday, ABC seemingly exposed the identity of one of the jurors against his will. The contrast was obvious, ABC broadcasted his face across the country while CBS News and NBC News both noted that he didn’t want his identity revealed and took precautions to protect him.
ABC senior national correspondent Terry Moran seemingly ambushed Juror 10 in a parking garage somewhere and shoved the camera in his face, wanted to know why and how they convicted President Biden’s “only survived son”:
[…]It would be bizarre for Juror 10 to give ABC permission to show his face but deny it for the others. It seems as though ABC may not have disclosed that protecting his identity was an option.
Fondacaro offered no evidence that the juror objected to being on camera, and we could find no statement by the juror objecting to it.
Joe Scarborough-obsessed Mark Finkelstein was upset that the MSNBC host offered advice to President Biden in talking about Hunter’s conviction:
On today’s Morning Joe, informal Biden adviser Joe Scarborough offered his boy a word-for-word script to be used should Trump raise Hunter’s gun convictions during the upcoming presidential debate.
Scarborough should have saved his advice for one of those occasions when, as he bragged about on Tuesday’s Morning Joe, he talks to Biden “for hours at a time.”
Because at this point, should Biden manage to mouth Scarborough’s script during the debate, his words would be juxtaposed with Scarborough’s suggestion. Embarrassing!
[…]Be that as it may, the gist of Scarborough’s advice was that Biden should emphasize that Trump is running against him, not against his family, and that Trump is the only candidate with felony convictions, 34 of them. This doesn’t address that Trump’s statement on the Hunter verdicts turned right to attacking the “Biden crime family.” Trump will go right to Joe Biden’s role helping his son enrich himself by meeting with and talking with his clients, including powerful people in Russia, China, Ukraine, and other countries.
Finkelstein didn’t mention all those NewsBusters posts that had to be very quietly corrected because the key witness is a lying Russian operative, and he didn’t mention that Scarborough is not alone in having the ear of a sitting president; Fox News host Sean Hannity had near-nightly conversations with Trump while president.
Michael Wnek whined that an MSNBC host juxtaposed Hunter’s trial with Trump’s:
On Tuesday night’s episode of The ReidOut, MSNBC host Joy Reid juxtaposed the trials of Hunter Biden and former President Donald Trump, specifically pointing out what she felt was “ironic” about them. Throughout the entirety of the segment, she shamelessly empathized with Biden, smeared Republicans, and expressed concern over the future consequences of his felony conviction.
Reid first poked at the difference in support displayed for Biden versus Trump. “Hunter Biden was surrounded at his federal trial by loved ones including his mom, First Lady Jill Biden. During his trial, she was there nearly every day, showing him love and support,” she fawned.
She mocked Trump’s support, which mainly consisted of “federal political surrogates, who even cosplayed in their best Trump look-alike outfits,” and blasted the “rare appearances” of his family members.
When Reid pointed out right-wingers’ lax attitude toward gun regulations, Wnek huffed in response:
Her claim that “the right doesn’t believe in any restrictions on gun ownership” was patently false. The National Rifle Association was one of the driving organizations behind federal background checks to begin with. The true hypocrite in this scenario was Reid who was obviously anti-gun rights but was fine with a drug addict breaking the law to obtain one. That’s not to mention the brevity of ownership of a firearm doesn’t negate the criminality of illegal possession or the ability to commit a crime with it.
In fact, the NRA has lobbied against expansion of background checks.