Media watchdog Brent Bozell tells Newsmax the “double standard” the national press employs in dealing with liberals and conservatives is “horrific” and worse than ever.
Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center (MRC), also charges that the national news media have conducted a “scorched earth” policy against Sarah Palin — and says the Obama administration’s unprecedented attack on Fox News has “backfired dramatically.”
The MRC has announced it will spend more than $2 million on a “Tell the Truth” campaign it calls a “declaration of war on the outrageous levels of liberal bias in the media today.”
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In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Bozell explained the motivation for the campaign.
“The national news media are out of control,” he declares.
“We’ve been monitoring the press for going on a quarter of a century now and I’ve never seen it as bad as we’ve seen it since 2008.
“Their love affair with Barack Obama has no end. In 2008 it was this lavish bias by omission, where they just refused to report anything that was going to be negative toward him.”
Now they are guilty of bias “by commission toward everybody else. Look at their coverage of the tea party. There’s no pretense of objectivity going on, and it’s time the American people said very resoundingly: Start telling the truth. Stop it with this bias. Stop calling yourself objective news reporters when there isn’t a drop of objectivity in your blood, when all you are doing is promoting a left-wing agenda.”
Bozell was asked if the national news media have a double standard regarding liberals and conservatives.
“Of course,” he responds. “Look at the coverage of movements. Look at the coverage of the activist movement on the left, MoveOn.org and whatnot, as they emerged on the popular scene. That was called democracy. That was called people exercising their freedom of expression. That was called citizen activism. That was glorified by the national news media.
“When conservatives do the same thing, suddenly they are crypto-fascists, homophobes, racists, all mixed up into one.
“Yes, it’s a double standard. It’s horrific. Their coverage of Christine O’Donnell — look at the nonstop negative attacks.”
The press has also been obsessed with disparaging former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, according to Bozell.
“Let’s compare two women, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. When Hillary Clinton came on the scene, and to this day, she was glorified. She was the enlightened woman. She was educated. She had a following. She was charismatic. She was attractive.
“Along comes a charismatic, attractive, smart woman, Sarah Palin, and she has scorched earth against her. She is disparaged at every opportunity.
“She comes out with a book and there are no less than 12 researchers assigned by the AP to try to find any dirt they can. There’s a reporter living next to her summertime house just to try to find some dirt on her personal life. This is the kind of coverage conservatives get.”
The left-wing media doesn’t understand why they continue to point to Obama’s successes and disparage the tea party movement, and yet the president’s popularity keeps going down, Bozell tells Newsmax.
“The reason is very simple. Barack Obama was the candidate of hope and change. That’s what the public saw in him that voted for him. Barack Obama never told you what he was going to do with his agenda. He didn’t tell you about nationalizing banks, auto industries, and all the other socialist nonsense he‘s done. Neither did the national press corps. So what’s happened is the American people have woken up and they are outraged at the lurch toward socialism he’s taking us toward.
“What’s the media reaction? Well, just turn on the people who are outraged. They’re attacking them for being outraged. How dare they be outraged when so many of them feel they were hoodwinked by the Barack Obama campaign?”
He adds that “no one in the press is going after Obama for being too liberal.”
Asked which of the three major networks’ nightly news broadcasts are most biased, Bozell responds: “These days the most outrageous seems to be ABC. Christiane Amanpour needs lithium badly. She is just out of control with her Christian bashing.
“So these days it’s ABC, but next week it will be CBS and the week after that it will be NBC.”
Bozell commented on the Obama administration’s attacks on Fox News, including the president’s critical remarks in a recent Rolling Stone interview.
“Never in the history of this republic, not even during Richard Nixon’s most paranoid moments, has a president ever gone after a news source until this president with Fox News,” he says.
“This attack on Fox News has backfired dramatically. Look at the results. Not only is Fox number one, they’re bigger than all their cable competitors combined today.
“For years and years CNN called itself the most trusted name in news. Guess what? There’s a new winner in town. The new most trusted name in news since Obama started attacking them is Fox News. So this has royally backfired on this administration.”
Bozell said Americans interested in the MRC’s “Tell the Truth” campaign can learn more at www.mrc.org.