In 1987, a group of young conservatives set out to not only prove, through sound scientific research, that bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene.
This project was named the
Media Research Center (MRC).
The result of the MRC’s work is a mountain of evidence to use in combating the bias they saw in our major news organizations. The key to the MRC’s effectiveness is the ability to prove bias by using scientific studies and word-for-word quotes from the media.
The New York Post names it "
Hoisted by their own petard".
For 20 years they have compiled quotes from every major television, newspaper, and magazine group, for their annual most notable quotable awards and they have just released this year's winners.
This year's quotes, from December 2006 through December 2007, were chosen by the center, with the help of 53 judges, which were made up of, radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and media observers.
It consists of a compilation of the most outrageous and/or humorous news media quotes from 2007.
The list of panel member/judges can be
found here.
To pick their award winners, each selected their choices for the first, second and third best quote from a slate of five to eight quotes in each category. First place selections were awarded three points, second place choices two points, with one point for the third place selections.
Each judge was also asked to choose a “Quote of the Year” denoting the most outrageous quote of 2007.
This year the judges picked as their "notable quotable" of the year a McClatchy News Service headline, to an article written as violence fell and news from Iraq started being seen in the news less and less.
The headline read
"As Violence Falls in Iraq, Cemetery Workers Feel the Pinch”
Highlighting a few of the most memorable quotes, they list one under the "
America makes us sick award" category, and the winner of that one was William Arkin, when he called U.S. soldiers "mercenaries".
“Through every Abu aib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform....We pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?...[T]he recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary — oops sorry, volunteer — force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.”
— WashingtonPost.com military columnist William Arkin in a January 30 column reacting to a report by NBC reporter Richard Engel. Arkin later apologized for using the word “mercenary.”
The original article where he published that was on
Mr. Arkin's blog page at Washington Post, where they have added an editor's note saying they were forced to close comments on that article after 900 comments came in a firestorm of criticism to Mr. Arkin, because the page wouldn't load properly if they allowed any more comments.
Another one of the MRC's notable outrageous and/or humorous quotes is listed under the "Madness of King George" award, where Ex-Washington Post sports reporter and Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman in a June 20 Huffington Post blog item says
“You could argue that even the world’s worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought [they] were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc....Bush set a new precedent. He came into office with the attitude of ‘I’m so tired of the public good. What about my good? What about my rich friends’ good?’"
The original entry for that can be found over at
Huffington Post.
Moving right along to the "
Tin Foil Hat" award for crazy conspiracy theories, the winner is Joy Behar, from the popular morning show "The View", discussing Democratic Senator Tim Johnson’s illness on December 14, 2006, where MRC captured the video of a conversation between Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck:
Co-host Joy Behar: “Is there such a thing as a man-made stroke? In other words, did someone do this to him?...”
Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck: “Why is everything coming from the liberal perspective a conspiracy?...”
Behar: “I know what this [Republican] Party is capable of.”
Other amusing awards can be found on their best of notable quotables for 2007 page, which include the ,
Blue State Brigade,
(Barack Obama and Chris Matthews on MSNBC)
Channeling the Nutroots (Chris Matthews and Michael Moore on MSNBC) ,
Damn Conservatives (Bill Maher, HBO),
Drive By Media (Matt Lauer, Reporter Michael Okwu, and Paul Waldman, Media Matters for America on NBC)
Dynamic Duo (Chris Matthews on MSNBC),
Goreacle (Harry Smith and Al Gore on CBS),
Meaningless (Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran on ABC),
Media Hero (Barbara Walters recounting her interview with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez on ABC),
Media Millionaires (Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift discussing the Minneapolis bridge collapse, August 25 McLaughlin Group),
Morning Morons (Meredith Vieira talking about global warming on NBC),
Not Biased Enough (PBS’s Bill Moyers, in a January 12 speech to a conference on “media reform” aired four days later on the left-wing Pacifica network’s Democracy Now.),
Perky Princess (Katie Couric on CBS evening news), and the
Streisand IQ (Rosie O’Donnell on ABC), awards.
Winners and media outlet in parenthesis and all links also list the runner-ups in that category.
