The Media Research Center and its president Brent Bozell were mentioned favorably twice on Fox News Channel on Monday night.
On “The O’Reilly Factor,” contributor Bernard Goldberg said, “Look, on the right, there's the Media Research Center. They do God's work when it comes to exposing liberal media bias. Nobody is better.” It wasn't all hearts and flowers. He wished someone policed bias on both sides: “But they do go deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to exposing conservative bias.”
"Deaf, dumb, and blind” isn’t entirely true, but the MRC was founded to expose a liberal bias and act as an advocate for conservatives mistreated by the media. There’s nothing wrong with groups on both ideological sides to demand fairness.
Goldberg might be missing the old “News Council” model where news consumers would bring complaints. Today, there are still the ombudsmen at newspapers and networks, even if their independence from the people signing their paychecks might be questioned on some controversies. The discussion continued:
GOLDBERG: On the left, you have Media Matters that couldn't care less about liberal bias, but they're also character assassins, which the Media Research Center is not.
O'REILLY: No, they just deal with facts and surveys.
GOLDBERG: This is no group out there. Where can you -- where can you go, Bill, where can you go where you're going to get an organization that cares about media bias and corruption, not only when it's from the right and not only when it's from the left? That's my concern.
On “The Five,” liberal Bob Beckel paid tribute to Brent Bozell:
BECKEL: And, by the way, I have a great admiration to this friend of mine, Brent Bozell has been doing this on the right for decades.
PERINO: In a very different way. I mean, there is no comparing what Brent Bozell does to a David Brock does.
BECKEL: What --
PERINO: I mean, if you look at Media Matters in terms of the personal nature of the outrageous attacks, Brent Bozell argues on the merit and says, here's the facts. Not you're ugly.
GUILFOYLE: Not personal attacks, yes.
Because liberal outlets dominate the media, there is no way that the MRC could demand the shutdown of a single network like the left-wing pressure groups do. (We can demand the removal of taxpayer subsidies to public broadcasting entities which act like they're owned by liberals and leftists.) As MRC approaches its 25th anniversary, we have the same mission as when we started: to identify, expose, and correct liberal media bias in each news cycle.
