In 2010, the Media Research Center went ballistic when the existence of Journolist — a private email forum for an invited group of journalists and opinion writers — was revealed:
- Brent Bozell harrumphed that Journolist was proof of liberal bias: “The revelation of these e-mails simply proves that we have been right all along. The liberal media have no interest in being fair or unbiased.” He added, “Any member of the media that was privy to these Journolist emails, and remained silent, is just as much to blame as the folks that crafted these e-mails. Their silence indicts them.”
- Bozell followed up with a column asserting, “What they prove is that the “mainstream” media today are often just a shameless channel for leftist message coordination, and that anyone who assumes he’s simply getting the ‘news’ from the national media is a very callow and uninformed consumer.”
- Bozell sent a letter to the Washington Post insisting that “Post readers are owed full disclosure” about which Post employees took part in Journolist.
So Bozell and Co. don’t like (liberal) journalists collaborating in secret. Gotcha.
But then, last week, we learned at presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney held an off-the-record meeting with conservative journalists and bloggers, who were under orders from the Romney campaign not to talk about the what was discussed at the meeting or even that it took place.The goal of the meeting was to solidify conservative media support for Romney.
Curiously, no MRC outlet has made any mention of the off-the-record meeting, nor has any MRC employee admitted attending it.
Why is that? And why has Bozell — who railed so bitterly against Journolist — remained silent about this sort of journalistic collaboration? Why won’t he say whether any of his employees, including those at “news” outlet CNSNews.com, took part in this clandestine meeting?
Or is he exempting his own organization from the standards of integrity he demands from others?