This week, NewsBusters is presenting the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Harsh to the Huddled Masses” award, for attacks on the GOP candidates for their supposed hostility to immigration. Winning the trophy: Yahoo! News anchor Katie Couric for suggesting to GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz that he lacked “empathy” because he didn’t support Barack Obama’s unilateral executive action on amnesty.
Katie Couric
By Scott Whitlock | and By Rich Noyes | November 23, 2015 | 8:57 AM EST
This week, journalists echo the Obama line on Syrian refugees, blasting Republicans for their "ugly" "fear talk," even as FNC anchor Shepard Smith scolds the "collective freak-out....We cannot resort to the tactics of the barbarians." Meanwhile, ABC's Jon Karl confronts GOP candidate Ted Cruz: "You don't think it's un-American to say, only Christians, no Muslims?" And Scott Pelley scolds new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for saying Obama is untrustworthy on immigration: "That's not wiping the slate clean. That's blowing chalk dust in the President's face."
By Erik Soderstrom | November 23, 2015 | 3:46 AM EST
Seven years after the 2008 U.S. presidential elections in which Alaska Governor Sarah Palin joined the Republican ticket as John McCain’s running mate, the former vice presidential candidate is still living rent free in the minds of Hollywood screenwriters. During Friday’s episode of veteran CBS procedural, Blue Bloods, the show took an overt swipe at Governor Palin.
By Scott Whitlock | November 11, 2015 | 5:09 PM EST
Liberal, pro-abortion journalist Katie Couric on Tuesday interviewed the President of Planned Parenthood and worried about how “tough” pro-life supporters were making things for the organization. Couric snidely noted, “While Planned Parenthood says that abortions account for just three percent of its clinical work, opponents won't be happy until that number is zero.”
By Ken Shepherd | September 15, 2015 | 5:41 PM EDT
"I think what he did was wrong" but "I also want to have compassion for him, and I don't want to judge him for his mistake," former NBC Meet the Press anchor David Gregory told Yahoo! News Global Anchor Katie Couric earlier today in a live interview. Gregory declined the opportunity to say whether he thought it was right of NBC/MSNBC to bring Williams back in an on-air capacity.
By Scott Whitlock | July 1, 2015 | 5:25 PM EDT
Katie Couric conducted a condescending interview on Yahoo with Ted Cruz, asking the Republican if he has "any empathy" for immigrants as he opposes Barack Obama. The presidential candidate also zinged the liberal journalist, reminding her that it was Hillary Clinton who first started the birther campaign. Couric lectured: "So, given the fact that your father immigrated here from Cuba, do you have any empathy for people who come here looking for a better way of life?"
By Scott Whitlock | May 5, 2015 | 5:26 PM EDT
Newly minted presidential candidate Carly Fiorina went toe-to-toe with liberal journalist Katie Couric on Monday, sparring for 45 minutes on abortion, Hillary Clinton and qualifications for President. Couric complained about Fiorina's criticism of Clinton: "You've had some unkind words for Hillary Clinton. You said that she was not trustworthy and she hasn't accomplished very much. I think people might think, 'Well, she was the senator from New York and she was the Secretary of State.'"
By Scott Whitlock | April 1, 2015 | 5:15 PM EDT
Katie Couric once again marveled over the "tolerance and compassion" of Pope Francis. Asked about who her "dream interview" would be, the former network anchor gushed over the new pontiff. The liberal journalist enthused over Francis: "He’s such a transformative figure. He has expressed some attitudes of tolerance and compassion and some Jesuit values that I really admire."
By Scott Whitlock | March 19, 2015 | 4:09 PM EDT
According to Katie Couric, "plenty of politicians" use private e-mail for work and it's not a big a deal. The veteran journalist interviewed Mitt Romney for Yahoo on Thursday and pressed the 2012 Republican nominee on why Hillary Clinton's secret e-mail system is a source of concern.
By Jeffrey Meyer | February 24, 2015 | 2:43 PM EST
On Monday, Katie Couric, former CBS Evening News anchor and current Yahoo Global News anchor, sat down with David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama, to discuss his memoir Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.
By Rich Noyes | January 19, 2015 | 9:05 AM EST
Tuesday night, Barack Obama delivers his second-to-last State of the Union address, this time as a lame duck President with relatively low approval ratings and facing a Congress entirely controlled by the opposition party. But if history is a guide, he can count on encouraging reviews from many in the establishment media.
By Julia A. Seymour | December 17, 2014 | 10:04 AM EST
Although 2014 was an election year, venomous attacks weren’t just in the campaign commercials. Most recently, anti-business attacks came from protesters across the country in the form of #ShutItDown. And there were many other anti-business views presented by the liberal news media, TV programming and left-wing extremists this year.
Attacks on businesses, executives and certain products were abundant this year. They included a propagandist “McMocumentary” that portrayed McDonald’s as heartless, which depicted Ronald McDonald driving over his own sister after she demanded a raise. Industries including agriculture, coal and retail were also under fire.
MRC Business compiled a list of the 10 worst left-wing and media attacks on business from the past year: