Media Research Center

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Media Research Center
Founders L. Brent Bozell III
Type media analysis
Founded October 1, 1987
Headquarters Alexandria, Virginia, United States
Staff Tim Graham, Rich Noyes, Brent Baker
Focus Analyzing perceived liberal media bias and working to combat it
Method editorials, online newsletters, reports, activism
Slogan "The Leader in Documenting, Exposing, and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias"
Website http://www.mediaresearch.org
Topics in journalism
Professional issues

News • Writing • Ethics • Objectivity • Values • Attribution • Defamation • Editorial independence • Education • Other topics
Fields
Arts • Business • Entertainment • Environment • Fashion • Medicine • Politics • Science • Sports • Tech • Trade • Traffic • Weather
Genres

Advocacy • Churnalism • Citizen • Civic • Collaborative • Community • Conspiracy • Database • Gonzo • Investigative • Literary • Muckraker • New • Narrative • Peace • Visual • Watchdog
Social impact

Fourth Estate • Fifth Estate • Freedom of the press • Infotainment • Media bias • Public relations • Yellow journalism
News media

Newspapers • Magazines • News agencies • Broadcast • Online • Photojournalism • Alternative media
Roles
Journalist • Marketer  • Reporter • Editor • Columnist • Commentator • Photographer • Presenter • Meteorologist • Production Manager • Intern

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The Media Research Center (MRC) is a conservative[1][2] content analysis organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1987 by L. Brent Bozell III. Its stated mission, according to its website, is "to bring balance and responsibility to the news media",[1]and the MRC catalogs and reports on what it asserts to be widespread liberal media bias in the United States press.

The MRC has received financial support from several foundations, including the Bradley, Scaife, Olin, Castle Rock, Carthage and JM foundations.[3]

Contents

[edit] Foundation

Bozell and a group of other young fellow conservatives founded the MRC on October 1, 1987, with only themselves, a black-and-white television set, and rented computer at their headquarters. Their initial budget was at US$339,000.[1] Prior to founding the MRC, Bozell was the chairman of the National Conservative Political Action Committee; he resigned from that position a month before establishing MRC.[4]

[edit] Projects

[edit] Reports on the media

Since 1996, the MRC website has published a daily online newsletter called CyberAlert written by editor Brent Baker. Each issue profiles what he perceives to be biased or inaccurate reports about politics in the American news media.[5] Prior to CyberAlert, MRC published such reports in a monthly newsletter titled MediaWatch,[6] from 1988 to 1999.[7] Media analysis director Tim Graham and research director Rich Noyes regularly write Media Reality Check, another MRC publication documenting alleged liberal bias.[8] Notable Quotables is its "collection of the most biased quotes from journalists".[1] In Notable Quotables, editors give honors such as the "Linda Ellerbee Awards for Distinguished Reporting" based on the former CNN commentator, who Bozell considered "a liberal blowhard who has nothing to say".[6] Other features on its website include the weekly syndicated news and entertainment columns written by founder Bozell.

MRC staff members have also written editorials and books about their findings of the media. Bozell has written three books about the news media: And That's the Way it Isn't: A Reference Guide to Media Bias (1990, with Brent Baker); Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media (2004); and Whitewash: How The News Media Are Paving Hillary Clinton's Path to the Presidency (2007, with Tim Graham). Research director Rich Noyes has also co-authored several published books.[9]

[edit] Business and Media Institute

In 1992, the MRC created the Free Market Project to promote the culture of free enterprise and combat what it believes to be media spin on business and economic news. That division recently changed its name to the Business & Media Institute (www.businessandmedia.org) and is now focused on "Advancing the culture of free enterprise in America." BMI's advisory board includes such well-known individuals as economists Walter Williams and Bruce Bartlett, as well as former CNN anchor David Goodnow. BMI is led by career journalist Dan Gainor, a former managing editor at CQ.com, the website for Congressional Quarterly. It released a research report in June 2006 covering the portrayal of business on prime-time entertainment television during the May and November "sweeps" periods from 2005. The report concluded that the programs, among them the long-running NBC legal drama Law & Order, were biased against business.[10] Another report of the BMI accused the networks of bias in favor of the Gardasil vaccine, a vaccine intended to prevent cervical cancer.

[edit] Parents Television Council

Main article: Parents Television Council

MRC president L. Brent Bozell III branched the Parents Television Council from the Center in 1995 after he felt that decency on prime-time television was decreasing. The PTC monitors prime-time television for what it believes to be indecent content and publishes content-based reviews of television shows and oversees campaigns to make advertisers withdraw from programs that they believe to be morally offensive.[11] Extra!, the magazine published by left-wing group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, asserted that the MRC's former newsletter TV, etc. inspired the group. TV, etc. "tracked the allegedly leftist politics of entertainment industry figures".[12] In July 2002, MRC and affiliate Parents Television Council (PTC) paid an out-of-court settlement ending a lawsuit which had been launched by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in November 2000. WWE alleged 13 instances of defamation, copyright infringement and interference with prospective business relations after PTC produced a fundraising video using unauthorized WWE footage, falsely claimed WWE was responsible for the murders of four children, and falsely claimed advertisers had pulled their commercials from the show. MRC paid US$3.5 million.[13] MRC and PTC President Brent Bozell wrote in a lengthy public statement "it was wrong to have stated or implied that WWE or any of its programs caused these tragic deaths." [14] The PTC has been found to have filed the majority of complaints about alleged indecent television content to the Federal Communications Commission.[15]

[edit] Cybercast News Service

Main article: Cybercast News Service

Bozell founded the Conservative News Service (now Cybercast News Service [CNSNews.com]) in 1998 to cover stories he believes are ignored by mainstream news organizations.[16] CNSNews.com provides news articles for Townhall.com and other websites for a subscription fee. Its leadership consists of president Brent Bozell and editor Terry Jeffrey. Under editor David Thibault, CNSNews.com questioned the validity of the circumstances in which Democratic Rep. John Murtha received his purple hearts as a response to Murtha's criticisms of the U.S. War in Iraq. The Washington Post and Nancy Pelosi have commented that this approach is similar to the tactics of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which opposed John Kerry's candidacy in the 2004 election.[17]

[edit] NewsBusters

In the summer of 2005, Media Research Center launched the NewsBusters web site in cooperation with Matthew Sheffield, a conservative blogger involved in the CBS Killian documents story. NewsBusters is styled as a rapid-response blog site that contains posts by MRC editors to selected stories in mass media.[18] Although the site is advertised chiefly as a conservative site, it frequently defends Neoconservatives as well.[19].

At the NewsBusters site, a weekly mock newscast called NewsBusted parodies recent events. The NewsBusted programs are often uploaded to sites such as YouTube[20].

[edit] TimesWatch

In March 2003,[21] MRC analyst Clay Waters established TimesWatch, a website monitoring alleged bias in The New York Times.[22]

[edit] Culture and Media Institute

Main article: Culture and Media Institute

In October 2006, the MRC created the Culture and Media Institute, the mission of which is "to advance, preserve, and help restore America's culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the assault of the liberal media."[23] Robert H. Knight is the institute's director.

[edit] Viewpoints

In its mission to show that there is a "strident liberal bias" [24] in the national news media, the MRC has produced a number of their own analyses and has offered as evidence the claims that news reporters use the "conservative" or "Republican" label to describe conservatives more often than they label liberals or Democrats,[25] that the media is sympathetic to Communism or "dictators",[26] that media coverage of global warming is biased in favor of environmentalism,[27], and that the media focuses on covering the negative side of the Iraq war.[28]

Beyond the news media, MRC also publishes research about entertainment television. Reports it conducted from 1993 to 1995 found that such programs made more references to religion each later year, most of which became more favorable.[29] In 2003, the MRC urged advertisers to pull sponsorship from The Reagans, a miniseries about President Ronald Reagan to be shown on CBS. The network later moved the program to its co-owned premium cable network Showtime.[30]

MRC released a report in 2007 claiming that the network morning shows devoted more airtime to covering Democratic presidential candidates than Republican ones for next year's election. Producers for such shows criticized the MRC's methodology as flawed,[31] as did media critic Terry Krepel of the site ConWebWatch and organization Media Matters for America.[28] During the 2008 US presidential election, MRC released a report claiming that the vast majority of news stories about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had a positive slant.[32] MRC president Bozell praised MSNBC for having David Gregory replace Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann as political coverage anchor beginning September 8, 2008, but MSNBC president Phil Griffin disputed the statements by Bozell and others who have accused the network of liberal bias.[33]

[edit] Criticism

Extra!, the magazine of the progressive media watch group FAIR, criticized the MRC in 1998 for selective use of evidence. MRC had claimed that there was more coverage of government death squads in right-wing El Salvador than in left-wing Nicaragua in the 1980s, when Amnesty International claimed El Salvador was worse than Nicaragua when it came to extra-judicial killings. Extra! also characterized a defunct MRC newsletter TV etc. tracking the off-screen political comments of actors as bearing "an uncomfortable resemblance to Red Channels, the McCarthy Era blacklisting journal." [12]

Progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America[34] has also repeatedly criticized the MRC, charging they view the media "through a funhouse mirror that renders everything--even the facts themselves--as manifestations of insidious bias". [25]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d "About the Media Research Center". MRC. http://mrc.org/about/aboutwelcome.asp. Retrieved on 2008-07-26. 
  2. ^ In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on March 9, 2008, L. Brent Bozell, the founder and president of MRC, said "I know the conservative movement. I've been in the trenches fighting for an alphabet soup of conservative causes for 30 years. I've raised hundreds of millions of dollars for it."
  3. ^ Media Research Center - SourceWatch
  4. ^ "Conservative Official Resigns". The New York Times (Associated Press). 1987-09-01. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5DC143FF932A3575AC0A961948260. Retrieved on 2008-08-03. 
  5. ^ Baker, Brent. "CyberAlert". Media Research Center. http://www.mrc.org/archive/cyber/welcome.asp. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  6. ^ a b Queenan, Joe (1991-08-05). "THe Media's Wacky Watchdogs". Time. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,973551,00.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-14. 
  7. ^ "MediaWatch". Media Research Center. http://www.mediaresearch.org/archive/mediawatch/welcome.asp. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  8. ^ "Media Reality Check". MRC. http://mrc.org/archive/realitycheck/welcome.asp. Retrieved on 2008-07-26. 
  9. ^ "Rich Noyes". MRC. http://www.mediaresearch.org/bios/noyes/noyesbio.asp. Retrieved on 2008-08-01. 
  10. ^ Ahrens, Frank (2006-06-23). "On TV, There's a Killer Corporate Image Problem". The Washington Post: p. D1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201786.html. 
  11. ^ Poniewozik, James (2005-03-20). "The Decency Police". Time. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1039672,00.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-26. 
  12. ^ a b "Meet the Myth-Makers". Extra!. FAIR. July/August 1998. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1972. 
  13. ^ Higgins, John M. (2002-07-15). "Bozell's $3.5M apology". Broadcasting & Cable. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA233378.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-26. 
  14. ^ PTC (2002-07-11). PTC Retraction to WWE and the Public. Press release. http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2002/ptctext.html. 
  15. ^ Shields, Todd (2004-12-06). "Activists Dominate Content Complaints". Mediaweek (Parents Television Council). http://web.archive.org/web/20050213091055/http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000731656. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  16. ^ Hafner, Katie (1998-06-18). "New Conservative News Site Will Fill a Void, Founder Says". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E6DF1E3DF93BA25755C0A96E958260. Retrieved on 2008-07-28. 
  17. ^ Kurtz, Howard; Murray, Shailagh (2006-01-14). "Web Site Attacks Critic of War". The Washington Post: p. A5. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/13/AR2006011301736.html. 
  18. ^ Krepel, Terry (2005-09-22). "NewsBusted". ConWebWatch. http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2005/newsbust.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  19. ^ http://newsbusters.org/node/6494
  20. ^ One such upload is NewsBusted 4/24/09. Retrieved on 2009-05-16.
  21. ^ Krepel, Terry (2003-05-20). "The ConWeb's Glass House". ConWebWatch. http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2003/times.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  22. ^ "About Times Watch". TimesWatch. http://www.timeswatch.org/about/welcome.aspx. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  23. ^ MRC Launches Culture & Media Institute
  24. ^ "About Media Research Center". http://www.mediaresearch.org/about/aboutwelcome.asp. Retrieved on 2008-09-23. 
  25. ^ a b Welsch, Pete (2005-05-11). "MRC studies that "prove" media's "liberal bias" collapse under scrutiny". Media Matters for America. http://mediamatters.org/items/200505110005. Retrieved on 2008-08-01. 
  26. ^ "Megaphone for a Dictator". MRC. 2002-05-09. http://www.mediaresearch.org/specialreports/2002/sum/exec20020509.asp. Retrieved on 2008-08-01. 
  27. ^ "Clamoring for Kyoto: The Networks’ One-Sided Coverage of Global Warming". MRC. 2001-05-07. http://www.mediaresearch.org/specialreports/2001/sum/kyoto01.asp. Retrieved on 2008-08-01. 
  28. ^ a b Krepel, Terry (2007-11-20). "Not-So-Special Reports". ConWebWatch. http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2007/mrcstudies.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  29. ^ Suman 1997, p. 119
  30. ^ "CBS pulls Reagan miniseries". CNN.com (AP). 2003-11-04. http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/04/cbs.reagans.ap/. Retrieved on 2008-09-02. 
  31. ^ Bauder, Davis (2007-08-29). "Study: Democrats Get More A.M. Airtime". Associated Press. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/29/politics/p145333D83.DTL. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  32. ^ Kurtz, Howard (2008-08-20). "Conservative Group Finds Networks Positive on Obama". The Trail. The Washington Post. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/20/conservative_group_finds_netwo.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-10. 
  33. ^ "MSNBC shifts Matthews, Olbermann". MSNBC. 2008-09-08. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26610314/. Retrieved on 2008-09-10. 
  34. ^ Media Matters for America

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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