The MRC vs. Oliver Darcy, Part 2
Wether it was Jussie Smollett or Elon Musk, the Media Research Center couldn't stop lashing out at CNN's media reporter for the offense of doing his job.
ConWebWatch has documented how the Media Research Center has repeated attacked CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy as a non-right-wing hack and, worse, a “Benedict Arnold” who chose journalism instead of kneejerk right-wing orthodoxy. The MRC’s Darcy-hate has unsurprisingly continued, and here are a few examples of it.
Jussie Smollett
Darcy — mortal enemy of the MRC in general and Curtis Houck in particular for ceasing to be the right-wing hack he remains and turning into a real journalist — called out Fox News (and, by extension, the MRC) for a December 2021 post using the media’s early reporting of actor Jussie Smollett’s now-discredited claims of a hate crime to discredit the media as a whole (bolding in original):
The tactic is dishonest, yet simple: Take an actual act of deception, in this case one that was perpetrated by an actor and covered heavily by the press, and then use it to suggest that anything reported by mainstream sources cannot be trusted. Everything is a hoax.
Propagandists know that their power increases substantially when they can convince their audiences not to trust other sources of information. And so, Smollett’s case is very valuable to them. They can hold up Smollett’s guilty verdict and then attempt to extrapolate it onto other stories which are politically inconvenient for them.
[…]
When you cannot argue on the facts, it is much easier to dismiss a story in its entirety and go after the credibility of the press for reporting on it. It’s the timeless play — one that played on repeat during the Trump administration — and one that is only growing more and more popular in right-wing media…
Unsurprisingly, Tim Graham spent an entire Dec. 11 post whining about it:
When Jussie Smollett was convicted on five of six counts for his hate-crime hoaxing in Chicago, CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter Thursday on the media didn’t spend some time eating humble pie about being swindled. Instead, Oliver Darcy turned the occasion into an attack on Sean Hannity and the right-wingers. Like nothing demands CNN humbly examine themselves. Everything that happens calls for an attack on the right-wingers.
[…]
This is mildly funny when his cohort Brian Stelter wrote an entire book on Fox News titled Hoax, which quite obviously attempts to convince their audience not to trust that source of information. So is he a “propagandist”? Or are all propagandists conservative? Did everyone who hammered the false Smollett narrative escape the term “propagandist”?
Note that Graham doesn’t deny that’s what Fox News is doing — instead, he goes straight to whataboutism by attacking yet again Stelter’s book (and doesn’t address, let alone rebut, its content).
When Darcy went on to cite Trump and Russia, COVID and the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as other examples of the right-wing media trying to reframe a story that’s counter to the facts, Graham took offense to that as well by slinging more whataboutism:
CNN never admits that its dominant narrative of the Trump era — that Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 election — did not turn out to be true. CNN’s Democrat minions energetically spread conspiracy theories funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign, starting with the phony Steele dossier.
Darcy wasn’t going to engage on what CNN did to argue against conservatives as Smollett’s story collapsed. After the guilty verdicts, conservative Twitter replayed Brian Stelter’s attempts to suggest “we may never know” the truth, which doesn’t seem like the proper pose for journalists who boast of being “pro-truth.”
The “CNN Media Unit” should be doing an examination right now about how the “mainstream media” that endlessly proclaims it is “pro-truth” should have been more careful. It should not have immediately rushed to judgment when someone cried “hate crime in MAGA hats,” without confirming basic facts. Instead, it’s all Fox News is terrible, Trump is terrible, and we have never done anything wrong, ever.
Again, no defense is offered for the tactics used by Fox News or even his own employer. He may as well be officially acknowledging that Darcy is correct, and that delegitimizing the media is the MRC’s (and Fox News’) goal.
Elon Musk
When Elon Musk started releasing his so-called “Twitter files” purporting to document moderation bias, the MRC made sure to parrot the pro-Musk line. Alex Christy devoted a December 2022 post to lashing out at CNN for not adhering to the right-wing narrative on the files:
Against a chyron headline that read, “Culture War Theater,” co-host Poppy Harlow began by asking senior media reporter Oliver Darcy, “the Hunter Biden laptop and the New York Poststory that squashed weeks ahead of the election. What has come out of the Twitter Files on that?”
Darcy began by reporting, “that Jack Dorsey admitted that suppressing the New York Poststory was a mistake, so that he did, I think, last year.”
Beyond that, he also added that these things happen because of the nature of the business, “So, the Twitter Files, though, they really showed the– I think the messy content moderation that was happening behind the scenes and I think we’re seeing and it’s probably no surprise but we’re seeing that not everyone agrees, is on the same page when they’re making these complex decisions.”
That conveniently ignores the mental gymnastics Twitter had to perform to justify the ban, but Darcy nevertheless continued, “I will say on this specific Twitter Files drop, I thought what was really noteworthy was Elon Musk’s handpicked reporter, Matt Tiabbi [sic], said that there was no evidence of government involvement in trying to suppress this story and that was a big claim that Elon Musk had made earlier when he was hyping these Twitter Files. I think that’s very important to point out here.”
Christy further complained that CNN pointed out that Taibbi was Musk’s “handpicked” journalist chosen to put out Musk’s preferred narrative, huffing in response, “Even if Musk had given the materials to Darcy for a traditional news story, he would still be a ‘handpicked’ journalist, just one that CNN approves of.”
When Darcy pointed out that FBI paid Twitter to fulfill document requests, not “censor” anyone, Joseph Vazquez raged in a December 2022 post:
CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy acted like a flunky for the FBI, throwing a conniption over Twitter owner Elon Musk’s revelations that the bureau paid the platform millions to “censor” Americans.
Darcy flailed in a Dec. 20 so-called “analysis” that Musk was “misleading the public — again.” He editorialized that “[t]he embattled billionaire, perhaps seeking to distract from the chaos he has wrought at his social media company, is making grossly misleading claims about Twitter and the FBI.” Darcy couldn’t handle Musk’s criticism that the FBI paying Twitter $3.4 million through a “reimbursement program” for staff time dedicated to “processing requests from the FBI” was related to censorship.
Darcy tried to portray Twitter as some kind of symbol of transparency. “Twitter’s guidelines for law enforcement, posted publicly on its website, openly disclose: ‘Twitter may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706).’” This is the same platform that lied to the public about its shadowbanning.
Darcy painted himself as a legal savant by preaching how the “law” he cited effectively meant “the money Twitter collected had nothing to do with censoring anyone.” Rather, “The money was simply given as reimbursement for the processing of legal requests, similar to how a journalist might have to pay a fee for a government agency processing a Freedom of Information Act request.”
That Darcy managed to equate a journalist paying to get information from government via FOIA to government placing pressure on a Big Tech platform over gaining access to user data and processing “requests” on flagged accounts is appalling at worst and outright idiotic at best.
Vazquez is acting like a flunky for Musk by perpetuating a lie. Is that appalling or idiotic on his part? Also, there was nothing secret about its “shadowbanning” given that Twitter’s terms of service specifically state that it may “limit the distribution or visibility” of any content on its site. Still, Vazquez desperately clung to his lie, this time with added boldface:
Darcy called the $3.4 million “reimbursement” a typical feature of “mundane procedures” that companies exercise when working with government entities. [Emphasis added.]
Newsflash Darcy: The FBI wasn’t “simply” paying Twitter for acquiescing to “mundane” government “requests.” In fact, the FBI’s “requests” may have violated the First Amendment. Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovksy told Fox News that “when a private company is censoring information based on direction, coordination and cooperation with the government, then legally it may be considered to be acting as an agent for the government, and it may be found to be violating the First Amendment.” [Emphasis added.] […]
The FBI should have never communicated with Twitter about private user data outside of standard legal procedures. Period.
Vazquez concluded by spewing more anger at Darcy for letting reality intrude on his right-wing pro-Musk narratives:
But Darcy injected his own definitions of “facts” and “information,” letting readers know he’s supposedly concerned about both of those things. “Facts be damned in the world we now live in. Musk’s claim [about the FBI paying Twitter for censorship] has absolutely saturated right-wing media,” Darcy wrote. “[T]he poisoning of that information well is also confusing others, who hear the nonsense and aren’t sure what to believe.”
Given Darcy’s sordid history of “poisoning” the “information well” with his ongoing leftist drivel, it’s unclear why anyone would take him seriously as a truth gatekeeper anyway. This is the same guy who flailed that Fox News as a network “works to cater to the fears of White America.” He would have us all believe that he’s a keyboard warrior for plebeians against misinformation, a self-aggrandizing image that is confusing others, who hear and read his nonsense and aren’t sure what to believe.
Vazquez made no effort to disprove Darcy’s assertion that Fox News “works to cater to the fears of White America.”
When the rest of the right-wing media glommed onto Musk’s “Twitter files” narrative, Graham devoted a February 2023 column ranting at Darcy for spoiling the party:
CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy climbed to the mountaintop of shamelessness in his so-called “Reliable Sources” newsletter on February 8 under the heading “The Collusion Delusion.” Who’s delusional now? House Republicans investigating the role of the Biden campaign and the “intelligence community” in Twitter’s suspension of the New York Post over a Hunter Biden story.
This is not a “news” letter.
Republicans are living in a reality distortion field,” Darcy began. He blustered there was “no real evidence” to support the claim that Twitter bowed to government bureaucrats when they suppressed the Hunter-laptop story and branded it as toxic misinformation. Just forget all the reporting that Twitter executives had weekly meetings with the FBI (which had the laptop in its possession) and engaged in a “tabletop exercise” about “hack-and-leak” operations with the Department of Homeland Security. That’s some thick smoke, if not fire.
Darcy continued: “Republicans were unrelenting in peddling it to the American public. At Wednesday’s hearing they showed no regard for misinforming those who turn to them for accurate information, or the fact that they were smearing a private business and its former executives in the process.”
It’s not “smearing” to make the former Twitter chieftains testify. Liberals just don’t like other liberals being on the wrong end of the hardball questions.
As ConWebWatch has pointed out, if the New York Post — a biased pro-Trump publication — didn’t want its laptop questioned (a story pitched to it by pro-Trump partisans like Rudy Giuliani), it should have immediately provided independent verification of the story that have overcome questions about partisan motivation.
Graham got really angry, though, when Darcy challenged the right-wing “censorship” victrimization narrative:
But probably the most hypocritical passage in this purple prose was about election denial: with this hearing, “Republicans are not so subtly feeding their election-denying base reason to believe that the 2020 election was effectively rigged against Donald Trump.”
Earth to Darcy: what did your network obsess about in the Trump years? We could easily counter with “CNN was not so subtly feeding its election-denying base reason to believe that the 2016 election was effectively rigged against Hillary Clinton.”
Darcy, who believes that Fox News should be de-platformed, then ranted that Fox News recounted “the nonsense coming out of the hearing as if it were a serious affair uncovering considerable wrongdoing. The facts — reality — simply do not matter.”
But it’s Darcy who is pushing the transparently counter-factual narrative that there is no such thing as Big Tech “intentionally and unjustly censoring conservative views,” when the evidence is ubiquitous. MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack.org database has reached the milestone of 5,000 verified incidents of conservatives being censored, suspended, and cancelled.
Of course, CensorTrack is not legitimate “media research” — it’s a partisan tool designed to advance a narrative, which means it’s not really evidence of anything other than that the MRC can manufacture numbers in service of a narrative. Graham also seems to have forgotten that his employer devised its own conspiracy theory about how the 2020 election was “rigged” against Trump.
Fox News
When Fox News was mired in the lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems filed against it for defaming the company in the wake of the 2020 election, Tim Graham huffed in a post promoting a March 2023 podcast: “CNN’s Oliver Darcy, one of America’s premier haters of Fox News, reported with glee in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter that text messages and emails showed that privately, Fox was much harsher with these election-fraud claims than they were on television..” In the actual podcast, Graham’s focus was not on what Fox News did, but that CNN reported on it.