Fourth Runners-Up Quotes in MRC's Best of NQ Annual Awards for Year's Worst Reporting; Media Pick Ups
The fourth runners-up quotes in the MRC's 'Best Notable Quotables of 2011: The Twenty-Fourth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting.' As announced in a CyberAlert Special, the awards issue was posted, with videos, on Monday, December 19, but following tradition, the last weekdays of the year MRC.org's BiasAlert and corresponding CyberAlert e-mail newsletter will run the winning quotes followed on succeeding days by the runners-up. Tuesday's BiasAlert/CyberAlert featured the winners, Wednesday's ran the first runners-up, Thursday's highlighted the second runners-up and Friday's had the third runners-up.
The page linked above also has links for the text of the entire issue in MS Word, OpenOffice Writer or WordPerfect formats. You can also download a colorful and easily read-able PDF version.
(Tip: There's an extra quote in most categories in the online version over the PDF one.)
In addition to discussions on numerous talk radio shows where hosts cited quotes or interviewed MRC representatives, the Best of NQ Awards issue has been highlighted by these outlets: Subject of 12/22 Hannity 'Media Mash' with MRC President Brent Bozell, Steve Malzberg on Washington, DC's WMAL devoted an hour of his 12/23 show. Online: Spectator.org, HotAir.com, NealzNuze, Washington Times 'Water Cooler' blog. Print: Two different Bozell columns in Investor's Business Daily and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; Jennifer Harper Washington Times 'Inside the Beltway,' Mike Rosen column in Denver Post, Marvin Olasky in World magazine and a Waterbury (CT) Republican American editorial.
Details:
> FNC's Hannity. MRC President Brent Bozell discussed the award-winning quotes with guest host Mark Steyn on the Fox News Channel on Thursday, December 22. Video.
> American Spectator, Quin Hillyer on Spectator.org, December 1: 'The Ever-Worse Establishment Media'
> Washington Times, 'Inside the Beltway' by Jennifer Harper, December 19: 'Krugman's Moment'
> Hot Air, December 19: 'And the MRC award for the Quote of the Year goes to…'
> Washington Times, Water Cooler blog by Kerry Picket, December 20: 'Krugman wins media watchdog group's quote of the year'
> NealzNuze blog by Neal Boortz, December 21: 'Reading Assignments'
> Denver Post, column by Mike Rosen, December 22: 'Liberal media wisdom in 2011'
> Investor's Business Daily, Creators syndicate column by Brent Bozell, December 22: '2011 Could Be Called the Year of Krugman Thuggishness'
> OneNews.com, December 22: ''May I have the envelope, please?''
> World magazine, column by Marvin Olasky, December 31: 'More mush: Judging the worst journalism of 2011'
> Waterbury (CT) Republican American, January 1, 2012 editorial: 'Chronicles of Bias XXIV'
> Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Creators syndicate column by Brent Bozell, January 1, 2012: 'A look back at Big Media's mayhem'
To determine this year's winners, a panel of 48 radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and expert media observers 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. Point totals are listed alongside each quote. Each judge was also asked to choose a 'Quote of the Year' denoting the most outrageous quote of 2011.
The MRC's Michelle Humphrey distributed the ballots and was assisted in their tabulation by Melissa Lopez. Alex Fitzsimmons helped produce the numerous audio and video clips included in the Web-posted version. Rich Noyes and Brent Baker assembled this issue and Brad Ash posted the entire package to the MRC's Web site.
The list of the judges, who were generous with their time, is posted online and was also listed in last Tuesday's BiasAlert/CyberAlert.
Now, the fourth runners-up quotes in the ten of 17 award categories with a fourth runner-up (see the 'Best Notable Quotables of 2011' pages for video and audio clips - 57 have them - for the quotes):
The Tea Party Terrorists Award [fourth runner-up]
Salon's Joan Walsh: 'These people, the Tea Partiers and their friends and their enablers and their corporate friends like Dick Armey, they have created this shrieking on the right....They're paying the lowest taxes in 50 years — more than 50 years, more than my lifetime — and they are still complaining. And some of them aren't complaining. There are some good business people who know this game of chicken, in particular, is deadly and it's wrong and it's hostage-taking. And you shouldn't negotiate with hostage-takers.'
Host Chris Matthews: 'I agree with you. I agree with you. I agree. It's terrorism.'
— MSNBC's Hardball, July 5. [21 points]
The Media Millionaires for Higher Taxes Award [fourth runner-up]
'Grover, you're the eye of the tiger in all this. People take their lead from you on the Republican side and you've been intransigent: 'There will be no tax increases.' Most impartial observers outside of America say that is crazy, and you have got to change your attitude to this and allow some tax increases.'
— CNN's Piers Morgan to Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, July 25. [30]
The Grim Reaper Award for Saying Conservatives Want You to Die [fourth runner-up]
'I stopped eating on Monday and joined around 4,000 other people in a fast to call attention to congressional budget proposals that would make huge cuts in programs for the poor and hungry....These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts — they'd barely make a dent — will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now.'
— New York Times food writer Mark Bittman in a March 30 op-ed, 'Why We're Fasting.' [29]
Occupy My Heart and Soul Award for Left-Wing Protest Promotion [fourth runner-up]
'This week: people power making history. A revolt in the Midwest and a revolution sweeping across the Middle East....Populist frustration is boiling over this week — as we've said, not just in the Middle East, but in the middle of this country as well.'
— ABC's Christiane Amanpour opening This Week, February 20, referring to Wisconsin and Egypt. [32]
The Media Hero Award [fourth runner-up]
'I had a great trip yesterday. I went to Chicago, talked to new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff. It was his first time he's speaking out on a national stage....He is very happy.... The former congressman and White House chief of staff to President Obama is off to a fast start, already working his Rolodex to bring new jobs to the windy city....[to Emanuel] You know, if you do a good job here, a lot of Democrats are going to be talking about you to run for President in 2016.'
— ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, June 1. [30]
The Poison Tea Pot Award for Smearing the Anti-Obama Rabble [fourth runner-up]
'All of this, of course, is if you get what you want in a highly toxic atmosphere, and it sure looked to me from the outside like you went into the debt ceiling fight thinking, 'Surely they will do the statesman-like thing. Surely they won't go there.' And it seemed to me as if Speaker Boehner was coming to you saying, 'Look, if it were up to me, we would do this, but I've got this membership problem.' And they went there, and now that marks our politics.'
— Brian Williams to President Obama in an interview shown on the NBC Nightly News, September 12. [24]
The Ku Klux Con Job Award for Smearing Conservatives with Phony Racism Charges [fourth runner-up]
'The interesting question is: what is it about this President that has stripped away the veneer of respect that normally accompanies the office of the President? Why do Republicans think this President is unpresidential — unpresidential, and shouldn't dare to request this kind of thing? It strikes me that it could be the economic times, it could be that he won so big in 2008, or it could be, let's face it, the color of his skin.'
— MSNBC political analyst and ex-Newsweek reporter Richard Wolffe talking about the brief contretemps over scheduling Obama's speech to Congress, The Last Word, August 31. [35]
Refusing to Acknowledge the Obvious Award for Denying Liberal Media Bias [fourth runner-up]
Host Piers Morgan: 'What I've always liked about your style is it's — I wouldn't say confrontational, but you've never shied away from being opinionated. And people have always got this quaint idea about CNN, that it doesn't have opinions. What it doesn't have is partisanship, which is a very different thing from having an opinion....'
ABC's Christiane Amanpour: 'I am not an American. I don't vote. I don't have an ideological bias. I actually have a lot of both — I believe in a lot of liberal policies and a lot of conservative policies.'
— Exchange on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, June 22. [28]
The Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year [fourth runner-up]
'You also said at one point that you might want to back that [border] fence up with a moat and fill it with alligators. Was that a joke, too?'
— CBS's Bob Schieffer to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain on the October 30 Face the Nation. [31]
The Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity [fourth runner-up]
'All you Tea Party spokespeople, you work for the Koch brothers and they're like billionaires....The Tea Party is owned by the richest people in the world....Dick Cheney didn't earn one damn thing. Guy's never worked an honest day in his life....[Sarah Palin is] a loon and I think she's kind of a traitor to this country.... Her followers are the dumbest people on Earth....They can barely scare up a pulse. I'm serious.'
— Roseanne Barr on the 9pm ET edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, January 5. [34]
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.
