The Media Research Center’s Brad Wilmouth wrote in a Jan. 29 post:
Appearing as a guest on Friday’s The 11th Hour on MSNBC, Washington Post columnist Philip Bump alleged that right-leaning media outlets like Fox News and Breitbart tell “fake things” to their viewers and, in doing so, cause people to disbelieve the “true things” that are discussed by MSNBC and The Washington Post.
This lack of self-awareness of how Bump and his MSNBC friends sound very partisan in their journalistic hot takes came during a discussion of the Los Angeles Times and Time magazine announcing layoffs and the decline of local newspapers.
Wilmouth went on to complain that Bump further called out Fox News and other right-wing outlets, where ” there exists an alternate reality — a different universe of media which is telling you a very different story,” huffing in response: “Bump didn’t offer specifics of the ‘fake’ news on Fox or Breitbart. It’s just assumed that anything pro-Trump is loaded with deceit.” Wilmouth seems to have forgotten that Fox News was caught lying to its viewers about election fraud, as revealed in the Dominion lawsuit (which his employer labored hard to downplay). And there’s plenty of evidence of Breitbart spreading false claims if only Wilmouth had the initiative to look for them. Talk about lack of self-awareness — then again, pretending that Fox News doesn’t have a bias is what the MRC does.
Wilmouth concluded with lazy whataboutism:
Ironically, it was just earlier the same day when, on the same network, MSNBC analyst Maria Hinojosa spread misinformation about border security to undermine presidential candidate Donald Trump in such a fashion that contrasts sharply with the more accurate reporting that is frequently seen on Fox News and rarely seen on outlets like CNN (where Bump also frequently appears) and on MSNBC.
The only evidence Wilmouth offered of any of this was from other NewsBusters posts — hardly fair or balanced examples of “media research.” Citing his own employer’s claims that Fox News offers “accurate reporting” seems like the media-criticism equivalent of getting high on your own supply.