RESTON, VA – The Media Research Center (MRC) is proud to announce the Worst of the Worst of 2015: The 28th Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting [1], with MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry taking home the “Quote of the Year” honor for scolding a guest who referred to Speaker-to-be Paul Ryan as a “hard worker:”
Alfonso Aguilar, Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles: “If there’s somebody who is a hard worker when he goes to Washington, it’s Paul Ryan....”
Host Melissa Harris-Perry: “I want us to be super careful when we use the language ‘hard worker,’ because I actually keep an image of folks working in cotton fields on my office wall, because it is a reminder about what hard work looks like. So, I feel you that he’s a hard worker, I do, but in the context of relative privilege.”
— Exchange on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, October 24.
This year’s winners were selected by a distinguished panel of radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and expert media observers. The runner-up after Harris-Perry was the Associated Press (AP) which on June 20 showed a photograph of Ted Cruz speaking at a ‘Celebrate the 2nd Amendment’ event that day in Johnston, Iowa with a gun pointed at his head.
MRC President Brent Bozell reacts to this year’s winners:
“If you thought the liberal media could not top 2014, you were dead wrong. In 2015, the media used the race card on conservatives with impunity, ramped up its fawning coverage of our failed president, spun Hillary’s lies and incompetence as positives for her uninspiring presidential candidacy, and continued to show why their numbers are plummeting. The left wing media’s contempt for conservatives and those with traditional values was laid bare day after day as reporters and anchors used their pulpit to brazenly slant coverage and slander President Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s political opponents.
“MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry is the crown jewel in the liberal media’s year of abject failure. For her constant, consistent dispensing of leftist tripe posing as intellectually-rigorous analysis, I can think of no better ‘winner’ this year. This woman is an embarrassment even by MSNBC’s standards. Think about that.”
The winners were selected by a panel of 39 judges, including nationally syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, Wall Street Journal editorial board member James Taranto, nationally syndicated talk radio host Mark Levin, Fox News Channel news analyst and Washington Times Online Opinion Editor Monica Crowley, radio host and Editor of Red State Erick Erickson, The Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen Hayes, and Senior Editor of The Federalist Mollie Hemingway, Op-Ed Editor at the New York Post Seth Mandel among many others.
**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 “winners” include:
The Obamagasm Award
“Americans are lucky to have Barack Obama as President and we should wake up and appreciate it while we can. President Obama will go down in history as an extraordinary President, probably a great one....It would be a morale booster and a sign of civic maturity if more Americans appreciated what an exceptional President they have right now. It could be a long wait for the next one.”
— Former CBS News producer Dick Meyer, now Washington Bureau Chief for Scripps News, in a July 16 Decode DC op-ed titled: “Mr. President, on behalf of an ungrateful nation, thank you.”
The “What Difference Does It Make” Award for Denying Hillary’s Scandals
“As you know, the Clinton campaign says you haven’t produced a shred of evidence that there was any official action as Secretary that supported the interest of donors. We’ve done investigative work here at ABC News, found no proof of any kind of direct action. And an independent government ethics expert, Bill Allison, the Sunlight Foundation, wrote this — he said: ‘There’s no smoking gun. No evidence that she changed a policy based on donations to the foundation. No smoking gun.’ Is there a smoking gun?”
— George Stephanopoulos to Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer on ABC’s This Week, April 26. Two weeks later, Politico revealed that Stephanopoulos had given $75,000 in personal contributions to the Clinton Foundation, a fact he did not disclose before the interview.
The Pantsuit Patrol Award for Boosting Hillary Clinton
“The two words she needs are ‘fun’ and ‘new.’ And part of why yesterday was so successful is she looks like she’s having fun and she’s doing, for her, new stuff. We’ve never seen her get a burrito before. Fun and new.”
— Mark Halperin, co-host of Bloomberg TV’s With All Due Respect, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on April 14.
The Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity
“He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry. He doesn’t belong there....This man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America.”
— Actor George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on Star Trek, talking about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a June 30 interview with Fox 10 in Phoenix, Arizona.
To schedule an interview with MRC President Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson, please contact Ryan Moy (ext. 159) or Tom Buchanan (ext. 123) at (703) 683-5004.