Brent Bozell and his Media Research Center are in full conspiracy mode now.
As we’ve noted, the MRC has been in spin mode all week in trying to distract attention from the “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump spewing vile misogyny, mostly serving as a surrogate for the Trump campaign by playing the Clinton Equivocation — that anything the Clintons have done to women is far worse because, you know, the Clintons.
Anyway, the MRC has latched onto what it thinks is a full-blown conspiracy. TMZ reported, citing anonymous sources, that NBC officials purportedly knew about the Trump tape sooner than it has claimed and that the video’s release was originally scheduled to influence the second presidential debate.
The MRC’s Julia Seymour was first to pick up the story, in which she downplayed Trump’s misogyny by claiming that then-“Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush “goaded” Trump into saying those awful things. But her boss got wind of it and immediately went into full froth (with crazier stuff in bold):
What NBC has done is a direct threat to the democratic process and evidence of what conservatives have been saying all along. A network that purports to hold itself up as an objective news source while at the same time attempts to fix an election has lost all credibility. NBC must take responsibility, apologize to Donald Trump, and fire whoever was behind the strategic release of this tape. If the rest of the media do not call out NBC for their actions, they are complicit in a cover-up. Until then, I call on fellow conservative leaders to join me in denouncing this network for its hypocrisy and deliberate abandonment of journalistic integrity.
The ignorance and hypocrisy Bozell is displaying here is staggering.
First, note that Bozell says nothing about the content of the tape, which as a self-proclaimed family-values guy should give him pause. And he won’t say anything beyond rote references to how “repugnant” it is, because that will make Trump look even worse, and as part of the GOP pact he and the MRC have, he can’t do that.
Second, he’s repeating TMZ’s ignorance about NBC’s structure. “Access Hollywood” is produced by NBC’s entertainment division, a different entity from NBC’s news division. The TMZ story doesn’t discuss entertainment vs. news; it talks about NBC as a single entity. According to the Washington Post, NBC News official state they weren’t aware of the Trump tape until just a few days before it was aired, and that the news side had allowed “Access Hollywood” to break the story first.
Third: The TMZ report is unsubstantiated with any on-the-record source. Is that the standard the MRC is following for credible information these days, or is lack of substantiation perfectly accessible because it suits the MRC’s agenda?
Fourth: “Fix an election”? “Complicit in a cover-up”? Really, Brent? That’s just cray talk. Are you trying to tell me your own “news” operation, CNSNews.com — which, last time we checked, is chock full of WikiLeaks articles and scant on stories about Trump’s perviness — never timed its coverage of a story to gain maximum outside coverage? That seems to be CNS’ entire M.O.; the 2015 MRC annual report touted CNS’ “constant presence on the Drudge Report.”
Because CNS is apparently little more that Drudge clickbait, it didn’t do the one thing that would have pre-empted the October Surprise nature of the “Access Hollywood” tape: vet Trump during the Republican primary process. That’s not NBC’s fault — that’s Bozell’s, even though he came out against Trump during the primary.
But Bozell is still not done ranting about it. He’s continuing to portray the predator Trump as a victim, appearing on friendly Fox Business to rant that the media is “secretly colluding with the Clinton campaign.”
Here’s a challenge for you, Brent: We dare you to release all records of contacts the MRC — all divisions, including CNS — has had with the Trump campaign and its surrogates about promoting Trump’s agenda and devising messaging for damage-control operations and discussions about the success of that messaging. After all, your invention of a media conspiracy is being done for the benefit of the Trump campaign.
Do you have the guts, Brent?
When you can’t defend the message, attack the messenger. That’s what Bozell and the MRC are doing here by attacking the media for reporting on Trump’s lengthy record of acting like a pervert.