The Media Research Center’s Curtis Houck got mad that a right-winger was blamed for a New York City protest in a March 9 post:
Between Saturday night and Monday morning, ABC, CBS, and NBC used their flagship morning and evening newscasts to put “far-right,” “insurrectionist” Jake Lang on equal footing for blame alongside two ISIS-inspired Islamic terrorists for the latter allegedly chucking improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at a crowd Lang had assembled outside New York City’s Gracie Mansion to protest the city’s far-left, Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
The worst example came on Sunday’s CBS Weekend News as — in a moment first flagged by the great Johnny MAGA — they placed a still photo of a Trump supporter under the caption “Terrorism Investigation,” as if to imply the terrorism had been perpetrated by MAGA.
Houck didn’t mention the fact that it was reasonable to blame Lang for the incident given that he organized the protest. As the American Jewish Committee pointed out, “Lang marched up the street carrying a roasted pig, which he and his supporters hauled on the back of a truck flying a Confederate flag. They unloaded the pig and left it in front of Effy’s, a kosher restaurant, in an apparent attempt to insult both Muslims and Jews.” Houck left out that part; instead, he whined that another right-winger was singled out for blame:
NBC’s Today went a completely different route. While they focused more on the real story that two Islamic terrorists nearly carried out a mass casualty event, correspondent Sam Brock tied the crowds to WABC’s “polarizing talk show host” Sid Rosenberg’s comments last week calling Mamdani “a jihadist before later apologizing.”
Houck made no effort to criticize Rosenberg’s vindictive statement.
The next day, Houck followed up:
CNN was thrown through the proverbial wood chipper on Tuesday morning for an absurd post on X that openly fawned over two alleged ISIS-inspired Islamic terrorists — who are charged with having brought multiple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to a New York City protest Saturday afternoon — as merely “[t]wo Pennsylvania teenagers” looking to bask in “the city during abnormally warm weather.”
Houck made no mention of Lang’s key role in the demonstration or his offensive behavior during it.
Jorge Bonilla groused in a March 11 post:
The news cycle emerging after the ISIS-inspired attempted bombing of anti-Islam protest and counter-protests outside New York’s mayoral residence has been disappointing, to say the least. There’s been rampant disinformation about both the target of the attack and the attackers, and an accompanying slew of corrections. CBS has taken a different path, choosing to highlight the heroes that have since emerged.
[…]The heroism of these men embodies a particular strain of American excellence that appears to be making a long-needed comeback. And we are thrilled to see that CBS is willing to platform that. The media hall monitors can continue to cry in their half-caf no-foam soy lattes.
Like Houck, Bonilla did not mention the fact that right-winger Lang organized the protest. He also offered no evidence that non-r9ght-wing members of the media drink “half-caf no-foam soy lattes.”