Neal Boortz, Ann Coulter, Andrew Klavan, Erick Erickson, Congressman Steve King and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and a performance by The Outlaws band highlighted the MRC's "2011 Gala featuring the DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporting" presented on Saturday night, May 7, before an audience of more than 800 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
> Video of the entire event [1].
Following the presentation of the DisHonors Awards videos in five categories and a look at some "funny clips" from the news, the audience picked an anti-conservative outburst from MSNBC's Ed Schultz as the "Quote of the Year." Schultz screamed: "The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They'd rather make money off your dead corpse!" Link below.
MRC President Brent Bozell also honored leading conservative commentator and columnist Cal Thomas with the MRC's fifth annual "William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence." Thomas paid tribute to Buckley for inspiring his quest to become a columnist, thanked Los Angeles Times publisher Tom Johnson for giving him the chance and credited God with providing him "the gift of writing."
> Video of Brent Bozell presenting and Cal Thomas accepting the William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence [2].
DisHonors Awards winners were selected by a distinguished panel of 14 leading media observers: Tony Blankley, Neal Boortz, Monica Crowley, Erick Erickson, Sean Hannity, Larry Kudlow, Mark Levin, David Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Al Regnery, Cal Thomas, Walter E. Williams and Thomas S. Winter. Judge page with pictures and links [3].
Bozell served as Master of Ceremonies. Neal Boortz, a nationally-syndicated talk radio host, presented the first two awards; followed by novelist and screenwriter Andrew Klavan who set up the "funny clips" and announced the third DisHonors awards, before best-selling author and columnist Ann Coulter handled the fourth and fifth award categories.
> Video of Andrew Klavan presenting Brent Baker's funny video clips, scroll down this page [1].
Video links below for all five awards.
In place of the journalist who won each award, a conservative accepted it in jest. Those standing in for the winners: Erick Erickson of Editor RedState.com, Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, founders of the Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips, Congressman Steve King, Republican of Iowa, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli - who earned a standing ovation for his successful legal effort to block implementation of ObamaCare.
The evening began with an invocation by Bishop Harry Jackson and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Colonel Robert Rust, USA Retired.
As noted above, Ed Schultz earned the "Quote of the Year" distinction as voted by the audience.
To make the decision, MRC President Brent Bozell asked the presenters and acceptors back on stage (Neal Boortz, Andrew Klavan, Ann Coulter, Erick Erickson, Jenny Beth Martin, Mark Meckler, Tim Phillips, Congressman Steve King and Ken Cuccinelli.)
Then the attendees saw all the winning videos again in four categories - "The Obamagasm Award" (Evan Thomas), "Damn the Tea Party to Hell Award" (Tavis Smiley), "Ode to Olbermann Award" (Keith Olbermann) and "Damn Those Conservatives Award" (Ed Schultz).
As a picture of each nominee was displayed, audience members were asked to hoot, cheer, applaud and use noisemakers to express their opinion on which quote deserved the Quote of the Year designation as the worst bias since the MRC's last DisHonors Awards in early 2009.
Those on stage huddled and Mark Meckler announced they decided Ed Schultz generated the most-venomous reaction from the audience for this outburst on The Ed Show of September 23, 2009: "The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They'd rather make money off your dead corpse! They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don't have anything for her."
> Video of Neal Boortz presenting The Obamagasm Award [5], won by Evan Thomas, and accepted in jest by Erick Erickson.
> Video of Neal Boortz presenting The Tea Party from Hell Award [6], won by Tavis Smiley, and accepted in jest by Jenny Beth Martin with Mark Meckler.
> Video of Andrew Klavan presenting The I'm Not a Political Genius But I Play One on TV Award [7], won by Rob Reiner, aka "Meathead," and accepted in jest by Tim Phillips.
>Video of Ann Coulter presenting the Ode to Olbermann Award [8], won, no surprise, by Keith Olbermann, and accepted in jest by Congressman Steve King.
> Video of Ann Coulter presenting the Damn Those Conservatives Award [9], won by Ed Schultz, and accepted in jest by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here [10].