A June 22 Media Research Center “Media Reality Check” by Tim Graham purported to compare coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal with that of the 2006 scandal involving Republican congressman Mark Foley. Graham declared that “the networks did not attack” the Weiner scandal, while they exhibited “a real feeding frenzy” in the Foley case; Graham asserted that such disparate treatment “underline[s] how politicians know the media is liberal.”
As befits the shoddy legacy of the MRC’s so-called media analysis, Graham makes no mention of one key factor in the initial lack of coverage of Weiner: the lack of credibility in the outlet breaking the story, Andrew Breitbart’s network of websites.
Breitbart’s embrace of James O’Keefe’s deceptively edited ACORN videos and another deceptively edited video in the Shirley Sherrod case made it clear that Breitbart put partisan hackery ahead of the truth. Given that Breitbart has declared war on the “Democrat-media complex,” and Weiner was a forceful advocate for liberal views who appeared frequently on TV, there was no reason not to assume that Breitbart’s attacks on Weiner was anything other than politically motivated and, therefore, suspect. Breitbart’s later declaration that he “loved every second of” Weiner’s downfall negates any credibility he might have gained from getting a story correct for once.
The Foley scandal, by contrast, was broken by a nonideological (to all but the hardcore right-wingers at the MRC) reporter, Brian Ross, at a nonideological (to all but the hardcore right-wingers at the MRC) news outlet, ABC News.
In short: Ross is a trustworthy reporter, Breitbart is not. That Graham refused to acknowledge this confirms that the MRC’s media analysis is no more trustworthy than Breitbart’s reporting.