Media Research Center

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The Media Research Center (MRC) is a conservative^[1]^[2] media criticism organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1987 by L. Brent Bozell III. Its stated mission, according to its website, is "to bring balance and responsibility to the news media",^[1] and the MRC catalogs and reports on what it asserts to be widespread liberal media bias in the United States press.

The MRC has received financial support from several foundations, including the Bradley, Scaife, Olin, Castle Rock, Carthage and JM foundations.^[3]

1 Projects
2 Controversies
3 Criticism
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Projects

In 1992, the MRC created the Free Market Project to promote the culture of free enterprise and combat what it believes to be media spin on business and economic news. That division recently changed its name to the Business & Media Institute (www.businessandmedia.org) and is now focused on "Advancing the culture of free enterprise in America." BMI's advisory board includes such well-known individuals as economists Walter Williams and Bruce Bartlett, as well as former CNN anchor David Goodnow. BMI is led by career journalist Dan Gainor, a former managing editor at CQ.com, the website for Congressional Quarterly.

On June 16, 1998, the MRC founded the Conservative News Service, since renamed Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com), to provide a "balanced source of news" by covering stories ignored by mainstream news organizations. CNSNews.com provides news articles for Townhall.com and other websites for a subscription fee. Its leadership consists of president Brent Bozell and editor Terry Jeffrey.

In the summer of 2005, Media Research Center launched NewsBusters in cooperation with Matthew Sheffield, a conservative blogger involved in the CBS Killian documents story. NewsBusters is styled as a rapid-response blog site that contains posts by MRC editors to what they state to be liberally slanted stories in mass media. It has also accused Wikipedia of a liberal bias, arguing it "habitually delivers unflattering content about conservative media figures while giving liberals a much lighter treatment."

In October 2006, the MRC created the Culture and Media Institute, the mission of which is "to advance, preserve, and help restore America's culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the assault of the liberal media."^[4] Robert H. Knight is the institute's director.

[edit] Controversies

In July 2002, MRC and affiliate Parents Television Council (PTC) paid an out-of-court settlement ending a lawsuit which had been launched by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in November 2000. WWE alleged 13 instances of defamation, copyright infringement and interference with prospective business relations after PTC produced a fundraising video using unauthorized WWE footage, falsely claimed WWE was responsible for the murders of four children, and falsely claimed advertisers had pulled their commercials from the show. MRC paid US$3.5 million.^[5]

MRC and PTC President Brent Bozell wrote in a lengthy public statement "it was wrong to have stated or implied that WWE or any of its programs caused these tragic deaths." ^[6]

Under editor David Thibault, MRC offshoot CNSNews.com questioned the validity of the circumstances in which Democratic Rep. John Murtha received his purple hearts as a response to Murtha's criticisms of the U.S. War in Iraq. The Washington Post and Nancy Pelosi have commented that this approach is similar to the tactics of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which opposed John Kerry's candidacy in the 2004 election.^[7]

[edit] Criticism

Extra!, the magazine of the progressive media watch group FAIR, criticized the MRC in 1998 for alleged selective use of evidence--the MRC had claimed, for example, that there was more coverage of government death squads in right-wing El Salvador than in left-wing Nicaragua in the 1980s, when Amnesty International claimed El Salvador was worse than Nicaragua when it came to extra-judicial killings. Extra! also characterized a defunct MRC newsletter TV etc. tracking the off-screen political comments of actors as bearing "an uncomfortable resemblance to Red Channels, the McCarthy Era blacklisting journal." ^[8]

The progressive media watch group Media Matters for America has also repeatedly criticized the MRC, charging they view the media "through a funhouse mirror that renders everything--even the facts themselves--as manifestations of insidious bias." ^[9]

However, groups such as Media Matters for America are themselves sometimes targets of the Media Research Center ^[10], and the two groups are generally seen as promoting two opposing viewpoints of the American Media.