A Sept. 15 Media Research Center “Media Reality Check” by Rich Noyes professes outrage that Americans who oppose the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero are being “smear[ed]” as exhibiting Islamophobia. But it offers no evidence that this isn’t the case.
Instead, the MRC tallied up the number of “pro-mosque” and anti-mosque comments on network news (making sure to steer clear of Fox News, which has been relentlessly anti-mosque) but grouping them strangely — a one week period in August in which anti-mosque sentiment, and a two-week period afterwards in which a “shift in coverage occurred,” claiming this happened “after mosque proponents began tarring their opponents as bigots.”
Noyes claimed this shift meant “the networks permitted a balanced debate about a proposed real estate project, but allowed mosque supporters to attack the majority of Americans as ‘haters’ and ‘bigots’ without adequate debate.” He then moves to class-war rhetoric: “That’s yet another sign that the liberal, elite media are hopelessly out of touch with the public they ostensibly serve.”
Given that Noyes never proved the underlying thesis of his report — that opposing the Islamic center has nothing whatsoever to do to Islamophobia — it appears that he and the MRC are hopelessly out of touch with basic research methods.