The MRC Fails To Ask Questions
The Media Research Center raged that people didn't feel too bad about the murder of a health insurance CEO -- but refused to look into why people hate health insurers so much.
After health insurance CEO Brian Thompson was killed in New York City in early December, the Media Research Center started out being overly concerned that people were a little too happy to see a health insurance executive dead, given how many people aren’t terribly happy about how insurers treat them. Nicholas Fondacaro raged at a familiar target in a Dec. 5 post:
With morbid and grotesque glee, former Washington Post journalist and leftist extremist Taylor Lorenz cheered the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a Bluesky post on Wednesday. A post that was followed up with a stream of posts both from her and others justifying the cold-blooded murder and a thinly veiled suggested that the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Association should be targeted for death too.
Lorenz’s comments about killing healthcare industry CEOs started with a quoted post from the left-wing More Perfect Union reporting that “Blue Cross Blue Shield in Connecticut, New York and Missouri has declared it will no longer pay for anesthesia for the full length of some surgeries.”
To that report, Lorenz darkly commented: “And people wonder why we want these executives dead.”
Jorge Bonilla followed the next day:
Without evidence of any kind, NBC Nightly News anchor recklessly linked Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s reversal of a coverage decision to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Such a move does not render a public service, but instead further inflames the public discourse.
[…]
To tie the Anthem decision to the Thompson shooting does nothing but validate Lorenz’s insanity and encourage others to engage in, for lack of a better term, stochastic terrorism against health care executives.
Reasonable individuals can disagree on healthcare policy without calling for murder, or inferring that corporate policy decisions are the result of murder. To do so in the case of Anthem, as did Lester Holt, is absolutely reckless and dangerous.
Comedy cop Alex Christy grumbled:
While some journalists call for the October Revolution after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng quipped on Comedy Central on Thursday that just about everyone is a suspect because everyone in America hates their healthcare plan and has a gun.
Chieng recalled how the suspect engraved certain words into the bullets used to kill Thompson, “And now they’re trying to interpret what ‘Deny, defend, and depose’ means. And it looks like it’s either a criticism of the health insurance industry, or this guy was just trying to solve the Wordle on his bullets. Honestly, I think all bullets should say stuff on them. I mean, how else are we going to get Americans to read again, right? You should load up a machine gun with A Tale of Two Cities written in it. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”
“Deny, defend, and depose” is almost certainly a play on a 2010 anti-insurance industry book by Jay Feinman entitled Delay, Deny, Defend that claims insurance companies “have an incentive to chisel their customers in order to increase profits.”
As for who the suspect might be, Chieng declared, “Now the cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their healthcare plan and has access to guns. Should be solved in no time.”
Christy then tried to defend the honor or health insurers (and seemed to suggest that government employees are more deserving of being killed instead):
A 2023 survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 81 percent of Americans rate their insurance rating as either “good” or “excellent,” including 80 percent of those who get their insurance through their employer. A 2024 study from the Pacific Research Institute found 91 percent of Americans are satisfied with their plan.
Americans simply aren’t eager to do away with private health insurance. Meanwhile, government-run health care agencies deny healthcare coverage too. In America, we have Medicare, but internationally the Canadian system has a doctor shortage while the Brits ration care all the time in the name of saving money.
Christy then served up another defense of health insurers (and attack on public insurance):
If a group of conservatives took to social media to dance on the grave of someone who was recently murdered, CNN Newsroom host Jim Acosta would fiercely and unequivocally condemn them, and rightfully so. He certainly would not hype how “an entire discussion” had been raised in the aftermath of their murder, but that is exactly what he did on Friday after United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s recent murder.
After a montage of social media clips of such grave dancing, Acosta welcomed correspondent Clare Duffy by claiming, “Those posts are part of a growing online trend of Americans expressing their personal struggles with UnitedHealthcare insurance following the CEO’s death.”
Thompson didn’t just die; he was murdered. As it was, Acosta wondered, “Clare, a lot of outrage over denied insurance claims, and it’s just sparked an entire discussion on social media. How big of a problem is this?”
Duffy began, “Yes. Jim, look, I mean, obviously there is never a justification for this kind of violence. But I think what we’re seeing in the social media reaction is this pent-up frustration and anger and distrust that so many Americans feel over the health insurance industry.”
A proper pair of journalists would look at these people and first ask if they have no shame and second ask if they are aware that government-run “universal” healthcare systems deny treatment all the time.
A proper “media researcher” would look into why people are unhappy with health insurance instead of playing whataboutism.
Curtis Houck served up his own fit of rage, complete with sniping at Lorenz as “dangerously unstable”:
With the heavy and repeated use of the word “but,” Friday’s CBS Mornings and CBS Mornings Plus sought to emphasize with, normalize, and explain away the disgusting and widespread celebrations of the far-left on social media celebrating the murder of the UnitedHealthCare’s CEO and wondered if this assassination would lead to “something good” like socialized medicine.
CBS also never attached a party label to those scoffing at the need to feel sympathy for Brian Thompson’s children, wife, and loved ones as far-left, progressive, or even liberal.
In addition to not even calling this behavior extreme, CBS didn’t cite the role the dangerously unstable and former guest Taylor Lorenz has played in fomenting these claims. Even NBC’s Ken Dilanian called her out.
CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King teased a segment on “why so many people online are saying they hate their insurance company” after implicitly connecting the murder with a reversal by Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield about anesthesia coverage.
King later seemed shock as she began the segment, claiming “some of us have been really surprised by the action — the reaction, rather, online,” describing said reactions as voicing “very deep frustration with the health insurance industry.”
Like Christy, Houck doesn’t seem interested in why that is — it’s almost as if he’s being paid not to talk about that.
Fondacaro worked this into his daily hate-watch or “The View”:
Since the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was one of the biggest news stories all week, it was only a matter of time before one of the cast members of ABC’s The View said something abhorrent. On Friday, despite claiming she was against the violence, co-host Sunny Hostin highlighted some of the ghoulish social media comments mocking the murder and stoked fear of how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could damage healthcare in America.
Meanwhile, co-host Ana Navarro pointed to how at least one positive change had occurred since the targeted killing.
Near the top of the segment, Hostin wanted to draw attention to some of the heinous comments made on social media, without condemning them:
[…]
Later in the segment, Navarro remarked that the assassination “has definitely shined light on our health crisis” and seemed to tout how Blue Cross Blue Shield had reneged on an unpopular new policy shortly after the assassination of Thompson:
[…]
Of course, Behar wanted to try to smear Republicans with the shooting. She warned: “They have no interest at all in [fixing healthcare].” Farah Griffin actually stood up to her and pointed out that, “we complain about our healthcare right now, we’re living under Obamacare. Obamacare ain’t perfect either. It actually created monopolies in the healthcare system.”
“But we have nothing better!” Behar desperately tried to counter.
Fondacaro offered nothing in response.
Christy returned to complain that a former law enforcement official “raise[d] the possibility that United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson ‘orchestrated’ his own assassination.” Given that virtually nothing was known at the time about the crime, it was not entirely unreasonable to discuss all possibilities.
The complaining continues
Jeffrey Lord grumbled in his Dec. 7 column:
Let’s start with the obvious. If it’s OK to kill somebody because they are a health care executive and the killer hates health care executives? Then what if somebody out there hates journalists like, say, Lorenz’s former colleagues at the Washington Post? Or television anchors? Football players and other athletes? How about presidents?
To say that this attitude is not just wrong but exceptionally dangerous would be to understate.
[…]
At the end of the day there is zero excuse for anyone – anyone, not to mention a media figure with any kind of audience – leaving the impression that killing health care executives is one big no deal and she associates with those crazies who find it justified.
One would look forward to a public retraction and apology from Lorenz. But don’t wait up.
After the alleged killer was arrested, it was time to adjust the narrative. Christy huffed in a Dec. 10 post:
After the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was caught on Tuesday, MSNBC’s Joy Reid was extra Joy Reid-y on The ReidOut. She gleefully noted that people on the internet are not angry at the murder, and when she welcomed progressive author and radio host Thom Hartmann, wondered how such reactions could be made in the same country that just elected Donald Trump. For his part, Hartmann declared that the reason why America does not have a socialist healthcare system is because of racism.
Reid began by pretending to be shocked that liberal Twitter sleuths are not eager to find lefty assassins, “Something a bit unexpected has happened following the murder… I don’t want to call it glee but, say, not unhappiness. Especially online, where the internet sleuths who often dedicate themselves to tracking down people accused of racist behavior in public places, criminals including January 6th fugitives, and more have actively been refusing to help.”
She then hyped how “Donald Trump Jr., son of our incoming ruler, went on his X/Twitter page and did the patented ‘internet, do your thing,’ post. And the reaction was mostly, ‘yeah, no.’”
Christy served up more right-wing narratives against socialized medicine: “Meanwhile, in socialized healthcare paradises like Canada, the system merely encourages you to euthanize yourself, while in Britain, waiting times continue to break records. Perhaps that is not what Jefferson meant by ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’”
Curtis Houck cheered that his favorite CNN right-winger doesn’t think all targeted killings are equal:
On Monday’s CNN NewsNight (aka the CNN Thunderdome) sunk to a predictable low as, helmed by fill-in host Audie Cornish, the leftists loons argued Daniel Penny was no different than Luigi Mangione, the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson.
Worse yet, they claimed Penny protecting fellow New York subway riders from Jordan Neely a case of “vigilante action” and exacerbated by, of course, racism. Thankfully, CNN’s Scott Jennings took them to school with a hand-drawn chart that Penny is a “good guy” and Mangione the “bad guy.”
“[L]et me just help you understand,” Jennings began as he introduced a handy chart to Cornish. “If you’re on the American left tonight, here’s my chart. The good guys today — Daniel Penny. The bad guys — Luigi Mangione.”
Christy put on his comedy-cop hat to be angry that it was pointed out that the alleged killer is surprisingly good-looking for a killer:
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel reported on his Tuesday show that several members of his staff have become infatuated with UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s alleged murderer. During his monologue, Kimmel read several text exchanges between the staff and their friends and family, including ones who promised to bake him cookies and those who desperately wanted to get on the jury.
Kimmel declared that, “So many women and so many men are going nuts over how good-looking this killer is, and there’s a huge wave of horny washing over us right now. It’s like we’re one of the guys you work with says, ‘I had a dream about you last night.’ When it’s the FedEx guy with the big muscles and rolled-up sleeves, you’re like, ‘Oh,’ but if it’s the bald IT guy wearing Crocs with black socks, you’re on the phone with HR, it’s kind of that same dynamic.”
[…]
The next time Kimmel goes on one of his rants about how awful Republicans are or uses emotion to make a point about health care policy, just remember his staff is full of people who have fallen head over heels for a cold-blooded murderer, and Kimmel thinks that is funny.
Clay Waters groused that Elon Musk got dragged into it:
The PBS News Hour avoided the nihilist-leftist take of too many media and social media liberals in its Monday evening segment on the capture of a suspect in the murder in Manhattan of UnitedHealthCare chief executive Brian Thompson.
Co-anchor Geoff Bennett strongly condemned the murder — but the interview also took a cheap shot at the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (formerly Twitter) for the heartless comments, without noting they were coming almost exclusively from left-wing X users (there’s also plenty of left-wing pro-assassination ghoulishness on the “alternate” platform BlueSky: see Taylor Lorenz). That’s quite unlike the News Hour’s treatment of allegedly hateful comments and “disinformation” from right-wing social media, which are dutifully labeled with “extreme right”-type warning labels.
Waters didn’t mention that social media platforms might have better moderation if right-wing activists like his employer (and Musk) hadn’t demonized any reasonable moderation as “censorship,” thus guaranteeing that more extreme views will proliferate. Waters then insisted that you can’t have health insurance that’s both good and reasonably priced:
Indeed, it’s impossible to achieve all three of Bennett’s objectives at once. Better coverage and fewer denials would make care more expensive, while cheaper coverage necessarily means rationing care, either as they do it under socialized medicine, or through health insurance companies, as America does.
If both do the same thing, that means private coverage is not inherently better than socialized care — which seem to shoot down conservatives’ arguments against it.
Fondacaro made the arrest the focus of his Dec. 11 hate-watch of “The View”:
For the second time in two different weeks, The View’s Sunny Hostin made comments that were at best indifferent and at worst permissive of extremists assassinating insurance company executives. This time, she opined about how many Americans didn’t trusting the healthcare system, how America was “built on violence,” and how many believe “violence is justified right now” against corporations.
Following the rest of the cast who condemned the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and said violence wasn’t the way to change the healthcare industry, Hostin wasn’t as committed to the nonviolence.
Without a full throated condemnation of what happened, she then proceeded to lay out a reasoning for why so many thought knocking off executives was the way to bring about reform. She even argued that violence was ingrained in the American system and many people were calling for it:
Hostin also made curious comments about her husband’s interactions with insurance companies. She said her husband, who’s a surgeon, “operates on someone even though they don’t have insurance and then has to sue health insurance companies to get paid for the work that he’s been trained his whole life to do.”
Judging by what she said, it appeared as though her husband was trying to bill insurance companies for people who were not their customers.
Did she, though? It sounds like Fondacaro just vindictively wants Hostin’s husband to be screwed out of payment for his hard work as punishment for his having to watch this show.
Tim Graham rehashed all this on his Dec. 11 podcast:
CNN sunk to a new low as NewsNight fill-in host Audie Cornish implied subway “vigilante” Daniel Penny was no different than Luigi Mangione, the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson. “There you also have a victim who somebody determined did not deserve to continue living,” as if Penny was an assassin. “Tell me which vigilante action is okay.”
Attorney Arthur Aidala objected: “Talk to people who ride the subway every day, because I do all the time. I do all the time. I can’t find anyone who rides the subway who’s unhappy about this verdict.”
CNN analyst Scott Jennings also pushed back, sensibly suggesting that Penny was the good guy, and Mangione was the bad guy. “I’m just telling you what I see out in the world today,” he said.
On ABC’s The View, Whoopi Goldberg was furious that Penny’s team celebrated his win. “I don’t know that seeing them celebrating in a bar made me comfortable, you know? I mean, you killed a guy. The man is dead, and maybe you just — you take the celebration home.” Whoopi decried the verdict as a “failure on the part of the courts.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin lashed out America and questioned the lack of “compassion.” “And so, when you look at that and look at the result of what happened, my question is where is our compassion?! As a society, where is our compassion?!…Where is our compassion as a society?!”
These women have no compassion for terrified subway riders in New York. Last year, Hostin literally attacked them on ABC: “Where was the humanity of anyone that was on that train?! I would have given him money! I would have tried to give him food! I would have tried to help!” As if Sunny the multi-millionaire would feel compelled to ride the subway…
Graham didn’t explain why the only option Penny had was killing a man. Praising someone for killing the “right” person can easily become a slippery slope — there’s no reason why Graham wouldn’t eventually shift that line all the way over to someone who simply disagrees with him and points out his bias and errors (ahem).
More defense
Bonilla kept up the grumbling in a Dec. 11 post:
The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson continues to dominate the headlines. In the wake of the horrific shooting, the media have taken the left’s cue and begun to provide coverage that “bothsides” and normalizes murder.
Watch as CBS’s “Eye on America”, under the guise of nuance, amplifies voices that justify acts of terror. Below is the report in its entirety, as aired on the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, December 11th, 2024[.] […]
It is not clear what this report sought to accomplish beyond normalizing murder as a means of protesting against policies or institutions we do not like. Most of the voices featured in this report either celebrated or justified the murder. The report even amplified anger against the MdConald’s [sic] employee that identified the shooter and called law enforcement.
The interview with the “medical ethicist” sought to elicit empathy for her, given that UHC denied her procedure. She and Strassman then go into a whole thing about what she was sad or not sad about (the shooting itself). But her procedure was ultimately approved. And she is still allowed to go on, even after this bit of information is disclosed.
There is one single sentence of outright repudiation airing in the report. Everything else is either “nuance” or people on social media cheering elements of the murder.
Based on this report, it is clear what side of the story the media are on: the terrorist’s side. Compassion “denied”, indeed.
Fondacaro spent a Dec. 12 post complaining that shady “ghost guns” were being besmirched — something the MRC likes to do — because Thompson’s alleged killer used one:
In the wake of the arrest of the left-wing assassin who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, it was reportedly discovered that he used a 3D-printed, so-called “ghost gun.” Never letting a good crisis go to waste, on Tuesday, The View wanted to exploit the situation to push for gun control. ABC News co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin demanded a crackdown on homemade firearms and betrayed their ignorance of it being an American tradition dating back centuries and to before the founding.
Behar was manic because the U.S. Supreme Court was set to hear a case regarding the Biden administration’s actions against unfinished 80-percent lower receivers.
“Another point, these ghost guns are up for discussion at the Supreme Court right now so let us hope that they do the right thing, because, let me see, they do not have serial numbers,” she huffed, as if serial numbers allowed authorities to magically pin point where a gun was on the globe.
Flaunting her ignorance of the work involved and equipment required to finish an 80-percent lower, Behar decried how “they are sold online as do-it-yourself kits.” She falsely claimed a guy can make one of these guns “the same way that he can text me.”
She went onto to say she hoped Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett would join the liberal justices “to save this country.”
Despite being a former federal prosecutor, Hostin proved that she didn’t know anything about the case before the Supreme Court by conflating 80-percent unfinished lowers, which are made of metal and need to milled out with power tools, with 3D-printed models: “So, we’re not sure why this happened, but we do know the instrumentality that was used, and it was a ghost gun that can be printed on your computer.”
[…]
Of course, Hostin completely ignored that it was completely legal in America to make your own firearm and that it was a tradition dating back centuries. But that didn’t stop her from using to besmirch America, one of her favorite hate objects[.]
Bonilla returned for another Dec. 12 post claiming that Geraldo Rivera — whom he falsely described as “The Artist Formerly Known as Jerry Rivers” — was “giving the shooter credit for driving the discussion on healthcare reform.”
Fondacaro further huffed on the MRC’s Dec. 13 podcast:
On that issue, we’ve been disgusted by the liberal media’s attempts to justify the killing as some sort of vector for social good. We’ve been hearing a lot of ‘violence is never justified, BUT…’coming for many corners of the liberal media.
I bring up that healthcare hypocrisy has run amuck on The View as not-so-sunny co-host Sunny Hostin exploited the Thomson’s death to push for universal healthcare. The large liberal ladies have also been busy decrying RFK Jr.’s calls to crackdown on weight loss drugs they use and denouncing his calls for people to exercise and eat healthy.
Bonilla returned to complain in a Dec. 15 post:
Not once, but twice did Bernie Sanders offer some version of “murder is bad, BUT”. Not once did Welker interrupt or fact-check Sanders. In fact, she moved on to her next question, which was on minimum wage.
There was no repudiation from Welker with regard to Warren or Sanders’s statements. The Bernie interview was tonally opposite from Welker’s interview with President-Elect Donald Trump, some might say (D)ifferent, which featured constant interruptions and attempted fact-checks.
This interview lines up with the rest of the media’s coverage of the UnitedHealthcare shooting, and its disturbing normalization of murder in furtherance of goals that align with the left.
Bonilla didn’t explain how the alleged killer’s use of a ghost gun — which his colleague Fondacaro apparently approves — does not result in “disturbing normalization of murder.”
Christian Toto used his Dec. 28 column to rehash the MRC’s lament that late-night TV made jokes about it:
Why are late-night TV audiences cheering on Mangione? It’s a complex constellation of reasons, from the Left’s embrace of political violence to our increasingly divided age.
One possible culprit? Late-Night TV.
[…]
The status quo is maddening at times, and few politicians are offering solid alternatives or solutions. That’s on them and, by extension, us.
Killing a prominent healthcare CEO is the worst way to address the issue.
Tell that to Mangione’s fan base. To them, he’s the hero of this story, not someone accused of an assassination.
These propaganda shows have been dehumanizing their political opponents for years. Trump is Hitler … and his fans are just as bad.
Toto also seems to have forgotten that the outlet that publishes him regularly goes Godwin by smearing people it doesn’t like as “digital brownshirts.“
Toto then tried to do a comparison of purported right-wing reaction to alleged comedian Tony Hinchcliffe smearing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” at a Trump rally, which Toto did admit was “tasteless”:
What corrupt reporters downplayed, for obvious reasons, was the crowd’s reaction to the joke. It bombed.
Turns out MAGA nation sensed a tacky quip when they heard it. Even Hinchcliffe admitted it.
“OK, all right. We’re getting there. Normally I don’t follow the National Anthem,” Hinchcliffe said, backpedaling in real time.
Did they, though? Trump never criticized Hinchcliffe for saying such a vulgar thing at his rally, and the MRC itself never specifically denounced it, only complained that non-right-wing media accurately reported on it.
Toto’s proof that Hinchcliffe’s joke didn’t go ever well was an article from right-wing website The Blaze headlined “Fun-sucking Democrats will REGRET turning Tony Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico joke into a controversy.” Which tells us that right-wingers really weren’t that offended by it.
That makes it hard for Toto to credibly insist that only liberals are the ones dehumanizing people they don’t like.