The Media Research Center led up to its coverage of the New Hampshire primary in the usual way, with a “flashback” post by Rich Noyes complaining about coverage of previous primaries. Nicholas Fondacaro then complained that “faux-conservative” co-host of “The View,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, had fallen victim to the “identity politics of the left” for not immediately boarding the Trump train he’s on: “Instead of reacting with glee to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis bowing out of the GOP primary during the Monday edition of ABC’s The View, Farah Griffin whined and called him sexist for endorsing former President Donald Trump and not her preferred candidate: former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. She also lashed out at America for not electing a woman to be president yet and denounced the entire country.” Fondacaro followed with another hate-watch fest in a Jan. 23 post:
With the polls open for the New Hampshire primary, the Tuesday edition of ABC’s The View began with the Cackling Coven giving their worthless hot takes on the state of the Republican field they would never vote for. Confirming what many have suggested, co-host Joy Behar admitted that Democrats, including some of the cast, wanted former President Donald Trump to be the GOP nominee because they thought he posed an easier fight in the general election.
They also pleaded for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to stay in the race and at least just be a nuisance to Trump.
When MSNBC’s Joy Reid touted how President Biden won big in New Hampshire despite having to rely on write-in ballots, Jorge Bonilla complained:
MSNBC’s coverage of the New Hampshire primary has been weird to watch, to say the least. With no large number of white evangelical voters to malign, the network’s coverage quickly shifted to general election mode, which at MSNBC means shilling for President Joe Biden.
Watch as host Joy Reid coughs up one of the more bizarre takes of the night by declaring Biden the grand winner of New Hampshire:
[…]This is a performance on the caliber of North Korean anchors extolling the virtues of Juché, and the strength and virility of the Dear Leader while riding a white horse atop Mount Paektu.
An hour later, Bonilla once again tried to make “Acela Media” happen:
Every once in a while, you get to see the contempt that the Acela Media has for regular people- for voters who live normal lives and who might not think like them. Such was the case when NBC’s Garrett Haake interviewed a voter at the Trump victory party in New Hampshire.
Watch as Haake browbeats an elderly woman on the economy, and on the facts surrounding the 2024 presidential election, during NBC News Now’s coverage of the New Hampshire primary:
[…]It is always fascinating to watch the media act as, in this case, Joe Biden’s praetorian guard, compelled to defend his job performance from everyday citizens- in this case, an elderly woman from New Hampshire.
‘[…]
This contempt was further on display in subsequent questions on the legal challenges faced by President Trump. One always suspects that the Acela Media are contemptuous of their viewers and everyday voters. It is always something else to watch that contempt in real time.
Mark Finkelstein registered an odd complaint in a Jan. 24 post:
Morning Joe despises Donald Trump. So yes, the show would clearly be delighted to see him humiliated by Nikki Haley in the GOP primary.
On the other hand, Morning Joe just as clearly wants Biden to win re-election. So why, on today’s show, were Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski so happy that Haley declared that she is staying in, despite losing the New Hampshire primary to Trump? After all, the strongest argument that the show made for Haley was that she can beat Biden, whereas Trump supposedly can’t.
Why would Morning Joe be boosting the Republican who, in their opinion, has the best chance of beating their boy, Biden?
Could this be a Br’er Rabbit and the Briar Patch tactic by Morning Joe? Are they boosting Haley because they actually believe that Trump has a better chance of beating Biden, and thus would prefer Haley, whom they secretly think is the weaker candidate, to be the nominee?
Doubtful. Polls show Haley doing much better than Trump against Biden. And Morning Joe show reported on the Biden campaign declaring the GOP race over, with Trump as the candidate, precisely because they believe Trump to be the more beatable candidate.
We don’t recall Finkelstein asking why his employer spent so much time boosting Robert Kennedy Jr.’s campaign last year (until he stopped running as a Democrat, anyway) when no MRC employee would be caught dead voting for him and would instead mindlessly cast their votes for Trump.
Jeffrey Lord spent his Jan. 27 column complaining that the “liberal media” will not report on just how good Trump supposedly performed in New Hampshire:
The bottom line here is simple.
America is now one month into the election year. Clearly, Trump is winning. And just as clearly, the so-called “mainstream media”, aka the liberal/left-wing media, is already at work employing whatever they think will silence Trump news outright- aka censorship. And failing that there is the fallback of using omission journalism, simply not performing the central job of real journalism: reporting the facts. And not reporting them because they think to report the facts could help him.
Surprised? Of course not.
So with ten full months and a couple days to go before the election, keeping a sharp eye on the conduct of the liberal media, specifically what they censor outright or simply choose not to report, is going to be a daily task.
A long year stretches ahead.
This from the guy who chose not to report the fact that Trump got less than 55 percent of the vote and refused to even speak Haley’s name in his column. A long year indeed.
As with its coverage of the Iowa caucuses, the MRC offered no scrutiny of right-wing channels, even though Fox News was caught repeatedly cutting away from Haley’s post-primary speech — something that would anger the MRC if a non-right-wing channel had done it.