The Media Research Center has spent years complaining about Scott MacFarlane. When he finally left CBS News, the MRC couldn’t be happier. Curtis Houck ranted in a March 9 post:
CBS correspondent Scott MacFarlane revealed shortly after Monday’s CBS Mornings that he was quitting the network in order to embrace “independence” and seek out “new spaces to share my work in line with my personal goals,” which will almost certainly include the one thing MacFarlane loves more than just about anything in a weird, crazy-ex-girlfriend manner: January 6.
And, in a totally predictable move, his final on-air report on said CBS newscast was about January 6 and a plaque hung this weekend to honor law enforcement who served that day.
So, yes, the guy who’s been almost singularly focused on January 6 is quitting the Bari Weiss-led network. Who knows if he’ll still be talking about January 6 three decades from now like that Japanese soldier who thought World War II was still going on.
Houck offers no actual proof that MacFarlane was particularly obsessed with the Capitol riot. Instead, he whined the MacFarlane’s final CBS report was “a victory lap of sorts” about getting a plaque honoring police officers for their role in quelling the riot installed inside the Capitol:
MacFarlane relayed that “federal law required the plaque to be hung by March 2023, so they are three years late when it happened unexpectedly over the weekend at 4 a.m. Saturday…on the west front of the Capitol inside the Capitol.”
The liberal partisan — who has a quick trigger finger to block on social media anyone who criticizes him — smeared tens of millions by saying the plaque was late due to “years of foot-dragging and falsehoods by Trump supporters here in Congress, but the breakthrough came because of North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis, a retiring Republican who said these delays are a slap in the face to the police responders in heroes from that day.”
“More than 140 police officers were injured. Several more died by suicide and our reporting in May 2024 about the delays triggered a federal lawsuit by two police responders who wanted a court to get involved, a judge to order the plaque be hung,” he said, adding the lawsuit will continue anyway to prevent it from being torn down.
“The families of police officers were surprised by the overnight posting of the plaque that they expect to come here for services and some tributes formally or informally, Adriana, in the days and weeks to come,” he concluded.
Needless to say, it’s a safe bet MacFarlane will be there or even emcee it since he singularly turned his career to obsessing over little else besides January 6 when he was a reporter for the Washington D.C.-area NBC affiliate, WRC.
Houck made no effort to back up his claim that MacFarlane “smeared tens of millions” by pointing out that the installiation of the plaque was delayed “years of foot-dragging and falsehoods by Trump supporter.” Indeed, he doesn’t dispute the accuracy of his claim at all, or of any other claim MacFarlane made about the riot.
Houck followed up in a March 23 post:
In not-so-shocking turn of events, former CBS correspondent Scott MacFarlane — a man with seemingly zero hobbies in life outside of January 6 — announced Monday morning he was joining the far-left Meidas Touch Network as a host and correspondent, cartoonishly insisting without a shred of irony he’s “not an opinionist” or “editorialist” but would nonetheless refuse to “platform conspiracy theories” or allow “whitewashing of history” in “such a critical moment.”
The pedantic partisan boasted to followers that, less than ten days after leaving CBS, he would become, “[e]ffective immediately,” the “chief Washington correspondent for the MeidasTouch Network” and an eponymous daily show will launch in “two or three weeks,” bringing together those who “share the same north star of communicating that when you have news to break or something important to explain, just get to it, straight to the point.”
He added his show will “simply, declaratively and conversationally explain what’s happening” in the world,” while “put[ting] aside the production theater, and the useless bells and whistles.”
[…]Like many of these wannabe authoritarians posing as beacons of freedom, MacFarlane declared his political allegiances in the rest of the video, alluding to the “critical moment” in the country and the need for Americans to stick together “to get to the other side of whatever this is”:
Again, Houck failed to back up his attacks on MacFarlane.
Alex Christy used a March 26 post to complain that MacFarlane highlighted criticism of himself by Trump toadies:
Former CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane had an unintentionally funny defense of himself as he started his new job with the liberals at MeidasTouch. According to MacFarlane, joining the liberal outlet is actually a win for “independent journalism,” and that it is actually the people criticizing him who are the hypocrites because they are the ones with opinions.
MacFarlane read a post from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “And there is a lot of chatter about the chatter here. People are giving their opinions of what they think of this new enterprise with MeidasTouch. The point of this is to be a reporter and not give opinions. So, it is noteworthy that there are people throwing opinions at us. It was the White House press secretary. It was the FCC chair. Let me read to you what they said. I do have it on my phone. The White House press secretary had an opinion, and the opinion starts with ‘Veteran CBS reporter joins far-left media company MeidasTouch as anchor, says they share the same ‘north star.’”
He then read a reply from FCC Chairman Brenden Carr, who said, “Same job, new duty station.”
Apparently, MacFarlane actually believes that people whose job it is to give opinions are being hypocritical in criticizing him for giving his opinions in a job that isn’t supposed to be about giving opinions. Nevertheless, he responded to Carr by claiming, “I actually like that. It is the same job, and it is a new duty station at the Capitol in both cases, but reporting for you from a different organization. As for the press secretary saying that I’m a veteran CBS reporter, not a veteran CBS reporter. I am a former CBS reporter, but I am a veteran reporter and here to make news and break news.”
Christy did not back up any of his attacks on MacFarlane.