Best of NQ 2013

The Twenty-Sixth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting


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Media Coverage

In addition to discussions on numerous radio talk shows where hosts cited quotes or interviewed MRC representatives, the Best of NQ Awards issue has been highlighted by these outlets:

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Video:

Online:

Radio

  • (Interviews as of 12/29) Portland, Oregon-based Lars Larson on his national show, Jan Mickelson on WHO in Des Moines, Bob Dutko on WMUZ in Detroit, Mark Larson on KCBQ in San Diego and Tron Simpson on KCMN in Colorado Springs, Mike Rosen on KOA in Denver and Greg Garrison on WIBC in Indianapolis.



Category 8 of 16

The Tea Party Terrorists Award

Winner

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Charles Pierce (62 points)

“We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too....We have elected a national legislature in which the true power resides in a cabal of vandals, a nihilistic brigade....We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons.”
— Ex-Boston Globe Magazine writer Charles Pierce in a post on Esquire.com’s “The Politics Blog,” October 1.


Runners-Up

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Colbert I. King (46 points)

“The New Confederacy, as churlish toward President Obama as the Old Confederacy was to Lincoln, has accomplished what its predecessor could not: It has shut down the federal government, and without even firing a weapon or taking 620,000 lives, as did the Old Confederacy’s instigated Civil War....But don’t go looking for a group by the name of New Confederacy. They earned that handle from me because of their visceral animosity toward the federal government and their aversion to compassion for those unlike themselves. They respond, however, to the label ‘tea party.’ By thought, word and deed, they must be making Jefferson Davis proud today.”
— Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King in an October 5 piece headlined, “The rise of the New Confederacy.”


Jonathan Alter / Joy Reid (42 points)

MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter: “It’s like negotiating with terrorists....”
Host Alex Wagner: “Hostage takers, sure.”
Alter: “...They [Republicans] must understand that they will pay a price with patriotic Americans who understand that shutting down the government, which is what the Republicans are talking about, is an unpatriotic act....They have to feel the heat over and over again that they are acting against the best interests of the United States. That’s not happening, yet.”
MSNBC contributor Joy Reid: “To put it another way, when somebody is threatening to bomb the stadium, you don’t go out and make a speech about how you’re willing to dismantle the stadium in order to appease them.”
— Panel discussion on MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner, July 25. [MP3 Audio]


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Paul Krugman (41 points)

“Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican Party. We’ve gone beyond bad economic doctrine. We’ve even gone beyond selfishness and special interests. At this point we’re talking about a state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable.... Somehow, one of our nation’s two great parties has become infected by an almost pathological mean-spiritedness, a contempt for what CNBC’s Rick Santelli, in the famous rant that launched the Tea Party, called ‘losers.’ If you’re an American, and you’re down on your luck, these people don’t want to help; they want to give you an extra kick. I don’t fully understand it, but it’s a terrible thing to behold.”
— New York Times columnist Paul Krugman July 15, after the defeat of a 10-year, $940 billion farm bill.