EIN: 54-1429009
Media Research Center, Inc.
Alexandria, VA 22314
From Slanting the Story
"...it is [Brent] Bozell's Media Research Center that stands out as the right's preeminent media cop. Bozell is a Republican operative with credentials earned in George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. The nephew of William F. Buckley, he headed the Conservative Victory Committee that year. He is also connected to the Political Club for Growth, a network of conservative and libertarian activists and groups sympathetic to cutting taxes and shrinking government.
What Bozell and others perceive as liberal bias often means presenting information about government help for the poor, the homeless, the weak, and so on -- information that conflicts with the objectives of the right. Tim Graham explained that ABC was once "the worst" in its approach to stories. He said that the Center had seen on ABC what he called "a repeated stream of stories on victims of spending cuts. ... We don't see victims of tax hikes..."
...When journalists and their work are noted favorably in the "Kudos" section of MediaNomics (MRC's newsletter), it helps further the kind of reporting the right prefers. In December 1998, the newsletter praised "ABC World News Tonight" for being "one of the pioneers in network investigation of government waste," and pointed out that "its regular segment 'Your Money' delves into ways that Americans are being ripped off." In the next issue, it lauded NBC's "Fleecing of America," a similar show that identifies ways that the government wastes taxpayers' money. MediaNomics called "Fleecing of America" along with "Your Money" "one of the best news segments on network television." Both programs reinforce the view that government is evil, bungling, and wasteful, which is precisely the message the right wants to convey.
"Opposes any traces of liberalism on TV or in films. Chairman L. Brent Bozell III publishes the newsletter TV, ETC., with an advisory board that includes Elliot Abrams, Mona Charen, Pete DuPont, and Rush Limbaugh.
Bozell wrote a scathing piece against Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain in February 2000 to help George W. Bush.
May 19, 2017
MRC at SourceWatch.org
http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Media_Research_Center
Taylor Marsh
July 9, 2006
JOHN MURTHA: Anatomy of a Smear
http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=24234
...Prior to 2005, The Cybercast News Service (CNS), purveyor of all things conservative and run by L. Brent Bozell III, had only one article about Rep. John Murtha. The headline was laudatory: Congressional Bill Would Establish Memorial for Victims of 9/11 (March 8, 2002). But on November 18, 2005, Bozell's team shot into action and hasn't stopped attacking Rep. Murtha since.
Terry Krepel
ConWebWatch
July 4, 2006
The Bush Administration Research Center
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2006/mrcbush.html
As its promotion of a dubious WMDs-in-Iraq claim and its attacks on the New York Times demonstrate, the Media Research Center is much more interested in advancing White House talking points than engaging in media research
The Media Research Center, historically, has been less about media research and more about advancing Republican talking points. Events of the past couple weeks make that clearer than ever.
John W. Mashek
US News
April 5, 2006
Media critics need to look in the mirror
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/mashekblog/archive/060406/media_critics_need_to_look_in.htm
Leave it to the right wing to cross the preposterous line just when you think it reached that point long ago.
The Media Research Center, an outfit dedicated to proving that every story in the newspapers or on TV is slanted left, every year hands out its DisHonors Award. The master of ceremonies this year was Cal Thomas, who has far-right credentials.
But the big joke is the panel of judges. They were William F. Buckley Jr., Ann Coulter, Steve Forbes, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Robert Novak, and L. Brent Bozell, who founded MRC...
The... judges are primarily propagandists or entertainers who have no real standing as journalists with the exception of Buckley. Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Ingraham are entertainers and not very good at it either.
Public Eye
CBS
September 21, 2005
The Bias Debate: Evening News Exec Producer Defends Piece To Conservative Critics
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2005/09/22/publiceye/entry879424.shtml
"My problem with many of the MRC's [Media Research Center] complaints is that it regularly exaggerates the impact of whatever it disagrees with. If a President Clinton or a President Carter were in the exact same situation as this President, the MRC wouldn't peep about this script. It is a much more biased organization than any institution in the MSM."
MediaMatters.org
August 7, 2005
MRC's response to news of Peter Jennings's death? Promote its political agenda
http://mediamatters.org/items/200508080002
...when it comes to exploiting death, MRC set a new standard...On August 7, longtime ABC News anchor Peter Jennings died of lung cancer. The MRC acted quickly to put together a response. Words of condolence to his family? An acknowledgment of a distinguished career?
No. The MRC chose to use Jennings's death to advance its political agenda. This is what MRC vice president for research and publications Brent Baker wrote in the MRC's August 8 "CyberAlert":
"The MRC's archive is packed with documentation of liberal bias from Peter Jennings, who was frequently cited in CyberAlert, but on this day after his passing we'll focus on how a couple of times he acknowledged the media's liberal tilt."
Terry Krepel
ConWebWatch
May 26, 2005
Falsely Asserting a False Assertion
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2005/mrcjudges.html
The MRC piles on qualifications to try to turn a truth into a lie. Plus: Is sister site CNSNews.com resorting to Republican talking points on judicial nominations? And CNS won't point out judicial activism when a conservative does it.
Brian Montopoli
CJR Daily
March 22, 2005
Propaganda Clothed as Critique
http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001395.asp
We'd like to take Brent Bozell's Media Research Center seriously. We really would...[but] Underlying every assertion by MRC...is the notion that the media is consciously and deliberately acting to distort the news, thanks to an overriding and all-consuming ideological bias.
MediaWeek
December 5, 2004
Brent Bozell's PTC files 99.8% of all FCC indeceny complaints!
http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000731656
In an appearance before Congress in February ... Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.
The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, "a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes."
What Powell did not reveal — apparently because he was unaware — was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by [Brent Bozell's] the Parents Television Council, an activist group.
MediaMatters.org
July 26, 2004
Bozell repeated lie that Lay slept in Lincoln Bedroom during Clinton years
http://mediamatters.org/items/200407270010
Though he was introduced by CNN ... as "part of the truth squad [at the DNC]," L. Brent Bozell III repeated the lie that former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay stayed in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom during Bill Clinton's presidency.
Terry Krepel
ConWebWatch
July 5, 2004
Brent Bozell, Pundit Without a Clue
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/outthere/otbozell2.html
The Media Research Center's Brent Bozell is at his most entertaining when he's asserting something that has no basis in fact or making claims on which he has done no research. He recently accomplished both in a two-day span.
James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder / Washington Bureau
June 29, 2004
As war and the economy influence election, conservatives turn their sights on the media
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9049444.htm
[MT Editor's note: This otherwise good story on the MRC spending money to benefit the Republicans doesn't mention, yet again, the money it has received from the conservative philanthropies]
Conservatives across the country decry news coverage of the war as relentlessly and unfairly negative. Last week Brent Bozell, a conservative activist, launched a $2.8 million advertising and talk-radio campaign to discredit the "liberal news media."
Also see:
Terry Krepel
ConWebWatch
June 22, 2004
Translation: Tell Our Spin!
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2004/truth.html
Perhaps the Media Research Center should be a little more generous with the facts before it starts demanding that others "tell the truth."
The Daily Howler
November 18, 2003
BRENT BOZELL, LYING LIAR
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh111903.shtml
Let’s face it, readers—if there’s a way to commit fraud with a “quote,” the MRC will find it.
Also from Daily Howler: In his new book, Arrogance, Bernard Goldberg continues cadging bogus “quotes” from the pathologically dishonest MRC
New York Times
November 4, 2003
Shifting 'Reagans' to Cable Has CBS Facing New Critics
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/business/media/05TUBE.html?ei=1&en=2163c6474be84cfb&ex=1069002888&pagewanted=print&position=
CBS's decision yesterday to drop its mini-series about Ronald and Nancy Reagan, after an impassioned campaign by Republican and conservative groups, roiled the television industry...
...On Oct. 28, the Media Research Center, a conservative group led by L. Brent Bozell ...wrote a letter to a list of 100 top television sponsors urging them to "refuse to associate your products with this movie."
Terry Krepel
ConWebWatch
July 28, 2003
Tapped Out
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2003/mrctapper.html
An MRC writer tries to dismiss Jake Tapper as just another liberal reporter; Tapper proves him wrong. Plus: The MRC demands an apology from CNN for passing on bum information -- but won't correct its own.
Terry Krepel
ConWebWatch
April 29, 2003
The MRC's War
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2003/mrcwar03.html
Fox News Channel, unsurprisingly, gets the "research" group's highest marks in war coverage -- and it's still hard-pressed to be overly critical of Geraldo Rivera.
When the Media Research Center issues a "special report," watch out.
Also see:
Democratic Underground.com
July 11, 2002
The MRC and Liberal Media Bias: Creating Their Own Enemy
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/07/12_mrc.html
"..Bozell has been charged with what may be the most important job in conservative circles: verifying that Liberal Media Bias exists, and therefore vindicating the overwhelming amount of conservative punditry that we are subjected to daily.
Columbia Journalism Review
March 31, 2002
Framing the Flag
http://archives.cjr.org/year/02/2/Scherer.asp
...the center took on a "new and vital mission" in the months following the attacks on Washington and New York, according to its founder, L. Brent Bozell III. "We are training our guns on any media outlet or any reporter interfering with America's war on terrorism or trying to undermine the authority of President Bush," he wrote in a recent fundraising letter...In practice, the center defined the home team as the Bush administration and its policies. Journalists and pundits who challenged them were tarred with the epithet "political activist," or in the case of the cartoonist Aaron McGruder, "America-hater."
Media Whores Online
February 28, 2002
Congratulations MWO Whore of the Week: Brent Bozell
reprints/bozellwhoreofweek.htm
Now that the rightwing has unleashed the "attack journalists" on David Brock’s Blinded By The Right, it shouldn't be too surprising that 'Media Watchdog" L. Brent Bozell has weighed in.