Starting last week, NewsBusters has been revealing the winners and top runners-up for each category in the MRC’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Ku Klux Con Job Award,” for smearing conservatives with phony racism charges. Winning this category: Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, who on April 8 let loose a litany of complaints about the modern-day GOP, and claimed they were “really the party of Jefferson Davis.”
Hardball
By Rich Noyes | December 28, 2015 | 9:02 AM EST
Starting last week, NewsBusters has been revealing the winners and top runners-up for each category in the MRC’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Audacity of Dopes” award, for the wackiest analysis of the year. Winning this “honor,” Vox.com writer Dylan Matthews, who wrote a piece just before the July 4 Independence Day holiday calling the American Revolution a “mistake” because it led to things like the 2nd Amendment (horrors!) and a federal government that spends less (scandalous!) than the typical European parliamentary government.
By Rich Noyes | December 24, 2015 | 9:34 AM EST
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 “What Difference Does It Make?” Award for denying Hillary’s scandals. Winner: ABC chief anchor and longtime Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos, who treated author Peter Schweizer as a hostile witness during an interview about Schweizer’s book revealing potential conflicts of interest between contributions to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s work as Secretary of State.
By Curtis Houck | December 22, 2015 | 7:50 AM EST
Seeking to join in on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens hype, MSNBC’s Hardball kicked off Monday’s show with a spoof of the famous franchise’s opening credits that told of a “period of civil war within the Republican party” and “President Obama, Hillary Clinton, & the Republican establishment appear to have formed a coalition rejecting [Donald] Trump’s appeal to the DARK SIDE.”
By Rich Noyes | December 21, 2015 | 9:11 AM EST
Last week, the Media Research Center announced our “Best Notable Quotables of 2015.” Over the next few days, we’ll present the most outrageous of this year’s Notable Quotables as a way to review the worst media bias of 2015. Today, the winner and top runners-up of our “Obamagasm Award,” for journalists who get thrills and tingles when they think about Barack Obama.
By Ken Shepherd | December 16, 2015 | 8:53 PM EST
Chris Matthews has made no secret of how much he loves the "perfect" Barack Obama in everything from his speaking style on down to his family life. But far be it from the hyperpartisan Hardball host to see Rubio's good looks and polished speaking style as plusses for him in a hypothetical general-election contest against Hillary Clinton.
By Scott Whitlock | December 16, 2015 | 1:17 PM EST
During a live, post-debate edition of Hardball on Tuesday night, Chris Matthews declared Hillary Clinton the likely winner in 2016 and immediately moved on to 2020. Matthews, who famously had a “thrill" up his leg for Barack Obama, ended a segment on the current Vegas odds by declaring, “I think Hillary is favored. I think she'll probably win the general. Probably. Probably.”
By Mark Finkelstein | December 8, 2015 | 8:50 PM EST
Call Ayman Mohyeldin "the Duke Ellington Reporter" in homage to the jazz great's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." Or perhaps you could say that Mohyeldin had his Pauline Kael moment, after the New York Times movie critic who, as legend has it, averred she couldn't understand how Nixon won since she didn't know anyone who voted for him.
Isn't a reporter supposed to, you know, get around and speak with people with a range of views? Not Ayman. On this evening's Hardball, Mohyeldin said that "every single person I've spoke to" said [Trump's Muslim immigration plan] would be "disastrous." But just a bit earlier in the show, Michael Steele cited a poll showing that 56% of Americans believe that Islam is incompatible with American values. Mohyeldin apparently didn't have a chance to chat with any of the majority of Americans. Not surprising, coming from the man who called American Sniper Chris Kyle a "racist" who went on "killing sprees."
Matthews: Mass Shootings Don't Happen in Europe; When Reminded of Paris, Says That Was Terrorists, Not 'Locals'
By Ken Shepherd | December 1, 2015 | 8:20 PM EST In an interview with GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on the December 1 edition of Hardball, MSNBC's Chris Matthews insisted that mass shootings don't happen "all over Europe." When an incredulous Santorum reminded Matthews about the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks, Matthews shot back that the Paris perpetrators were terrorists and not "locals."
By Ken Shepherd | November 30, 2015 | 9:12 PM EST
Republicans like Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina seem to "enjoy" it when an abortion clinic is attacked by a crazed gunman because it opens another opportunity for them to attack the liberal media, Hardball host Chris Matthews bizarrely theorized on his November 30 program.
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 Ken Shepherd | November 20, 2015 | 12:36 PM EST
During an interview with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) regarding his efforts to ensure New York City remains safe during heightened security in the wake of ISIS terrorist attacks, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews insisted "the NRA is nondiscriminatory when it comes to who gets guns. They're for everybody getting them, including terrorists."