Alexandria, VA – The Media Research
Center (MRC) is proud to announce the Best Notable Quotables of 2012: The 25th
Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting [1] with MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry taking home the “Quote of
the Year” honor. This year’s winners
were selected by a distinguished panel of radio talk show hosts, magazine
editors, columnists, editorial writers, and expert media observers.
Although
challenged by perennial favorite and eternal gasbag, Chris Matthews,
Harris-Perry’s underdog victory should send a thrill up any media observer’s
leg. Harris-Perry delivered her award-winning Notable Quotable on the July 1
edition of her eponymous MSNBC talk show when she wished America “happy
birthday” the MSNBC way:
“The land on which they [the Founders] formed this Union was stolen. The hands with which they built this nation were enslaved. The women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class....This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we’ve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it’s ours, all of it. The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”
There are two runners-up this year. First is Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief and former political director for ABC News David Chalian, whose racial open mic joke about the Romneys during ABCNews.com coverage of the RNC on August 28 earned him a pink slip along with consideration for this year’s top honor:
“They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
The other runner-up is Harris-Perry’s MSNBC cohort, Chris Matthews, who was much happier about Superstorm Sandy on November 7 than the residents of Staten Island:
“I am so proud of the country, to re-elect this President....A good day for America. I’m so glad we had that storm [Hurricane Sandy] last week, because I think the storm was one of those things — no, politically I should say, not in terms of hurting people — the storm brought in possibilities for good politics.”
MRC President Brent Bozell reacts to this year’s winners:
“Give the Mayans some credit. 2012 was the end of the world – for serious journalism. So many so-called news reporters eagerly sacrificed their integrity on the altar of Obama to keep their false god in power. Their contributions to his re-election campaign were truly remarkable, and will not soon be forgotten. It was a daunting task to pick which true believers to honor this year. So we say ‘bravo’ to you, the selfless journalists across America who joined arms, cast aside your ethics, and in lock step marched Barack Obama right back into the White House. It takes true commitment to overlook this Administration’s disastrous economy and crumbling foreign policy, but you found a way to put lipstick, eyeliner, and a prom dress on that pig. We congratulate your fierce determination to never let the truth stand in the way.”
The
winners were selected by a panel of 46 judges, including nationally syndicated
columnist Cal Thomas, RedState.com managing editor Erick Erickson, nationally
syndicated talk radio host Lars Larson, Boston
Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, radio personality Mike Rosen, and former
nationally syndicated talk show host and author Neal Boortz.
**For
audio and video clips of the broadcast quotes, to access full quotes, or see
winners and runners up, please visit www.MRC.org [1]**
Other highlights include:
The “Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste” Award for Exploiting Tragedy to
Promote Liberalism
“There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado
page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea
Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s
Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.”
— ABC correspondent Brian Ross on
Good Morning America, during July 20
coverage of the movie theater shooting. A few hours later, Ross appeared on ABC
to confess: “An earlier report that I had was incorrect, that he was connected
to the Tea Party.”
The Politics of Personal Destruction Award for Ripping Romney
“This man does not have a soul.
If you opened up, you know, his chest, there’s probably a gold ticking watch in
there and not even a heart. This is not a person. This is just a robot who will
do whatever it takes, whatever he’s told to do, to make it to the White House.”
— New York Times columnist Charles Blow on MSNBC’s The Last Word, July 17.
The Throwing Granny off a Cliff Award for Portraying Romney and Ryan as
Heartless
“Repeal equals death. People will
die in the United States if ObamaCare is repealed. That is not an exaggeration….
They [the Obama Campaign] can bring death into the conversation and say, ‘No,
we’re not calling Mitt Romney a murderer. What we are saying is that if he’s
elected President, a lot of people will die.’”
— Ex-Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, now an MSNBC political
analyst, on The Ed Show, August 9.
The Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity
“First of all, give an honor to
God and our Lord and savior Barack Obama!”
— Actor Jamie Foxx during the Soul Train Awards, November 26 on BET.
To schedule an interview with MRC President Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson, please contact Jeremy Little - jlittle@crcpublicrelations.com [2] (703)-683-5004