The MRC vs. Oliver Darcy, Part 4
The Media Research Center continued taking personal potshots at Oliver Darcy as he moved from CNN media writer to running his own media-centric newsletter.
The Media Research Center has long obsessively hated media reporter Oliver Darcy — largely because he stopped being a right-wing hack like the MRC is. Tim Graham hurled a lot of wild overgeneralization and whataboutism — particularly aimed at Darcy for the offense of weighing in on the Lemon-Musk battle — in a March 2024 column:
Everything CNN does now underlines how Chris Licht’s doomed attempts to calm it down are almost completely forgotten. On September 18, Oliver Darcy’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter was topped by the headline “Elon’s Reality Escape.” Because CNN defines what “reality” is, and “reality” has a virulent leftist bias. That bias makes you “Reliable.”
Darcy’s screed began: “Elon Musk is showing the world how radicalized he has become. The billionaire, one of the most consequential figures to walk the Earth, spent another weekend swimming in the right-wing fever swamps of X.”
The occasion was Don Lemon’s arrogant and ignorant interview of Musk, which caused Musk to pull his funding of Lemon’s program. Lemon made all kinds of strange demands of Musk, especially his demand to have some control of the platform’s “content moderation” policies.
“He’s not used to having to answer to anyone,” Lemon said in a Q&A with People magazine after his self-destructive debacle, “especially someone like me who doesn’t share his worldview, who doesn’t look like him.”
Darcy lamented: “Musk appears to be growing more intolerant of other viewpoints. While elevating right-wing extremists, he simultaneously seeks to destroy trust in credible news sources.” This is rich, since Darcy is intolerant of the “right-wing extremist” viewpoints and has openly advocated deplatforming Fox News and other conservative networks. CNN’s opinions aren’t opinions, they’re “facts.” Conservative opinions are “misinformation” and “hate speech.”
Graham offered no evidence whatsoever to back up his claim that the interview was “arrogant and ignorant” — indeed, neither he nor Fondacaro quoted anything that was actually said during the interview. Instead, he whined that Darcy criticized Musk’s increasing right-wing extremism:
In the midst of a cascade of purple prose, Darcy concluded: “At this juncture, calling Musk a right-wing s**tposter is no longer provocative. It’s simply accurate.”
Musk is simply too powerful to be a conservative malcontent: “In his ownership of X alone, Musk controls one of the world’s most important communications platforms, spitting corrosive venom into the public discourse at a faster speed than his SpaceX rockets hurtle into orbit.” Conservatism equals “corrosive venom.”
Darcy found only a sad decline into madness: “In effect, Musk has become self-radicalized on the very website that he was forced to purchase for $44 billion, sliding deeper into the darkest and most unsavory corners of the platform that has served to only reinforce his own worldview with an echo chamber of conspiracy theorists and ego-stoking sycophants that regularly fawn at his every move no matter how outrageous or preposterously false.”
For all that whining, Graham made no effort to disprove anything Darcy said
The MRC continued to lash out at Darcy through late 2023 and early 2024:
Oliver Darcy Wails Over White House Anger at Fox Chyron, NYT’s Disobedience
Darcy’s Farce: CNN Backs Team Biden’s Letter Telling Media To Get Tougher On GOP!
CNN’s Oliver Darcy LASHES OUT at NBC’s Welker for Trump Interview
CNN Trots Out Cartoonish Darcy to Trash ‘Smear’ of Stringer Kissed by Hamas Leader
Team Biden Skips Super Bowl Softballs Again, CNN’s Oliver Darcy Falls In Line
HA! CNN’s Darcy Ridiculously Claims New York Times Is Anti-Biden, Pro-Trump
Column: CNN’s Darcy Rips Elon Musk, Sinking Into the ‘Right-Wing Fever Swamps’
CNN’s Oliver Darcy RAGES at ‘Infernal’ Wall Street Journal on Biden ‘Signs of Slipping’
When Darcy announced he was leaving CNN to start his own media newsletter, the MRC’s Tim Graham responded in a August 2024 post with all the gracelessness and childish name-called you’d expect:
Another red-hot Fox News hater is departing CNN. Oliver Darcy — or as we call him, “Farcy Darcy” — is going independent. You could count on Darcy to sympathize if you wish like the NAACP that Fox News could just be banned. Because you want to “save democracy.”
You could get the so-called CNN “Reliable Sources” newsletter for free, but Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times reports subscriptions to the new Darcy newsletter, simply called “Status,” will begin at $15 a month or $150 per year; an elite membership, with perks like private Zoom calls, is available for $595 annually.
Someone apparently thinks a private Zoom call with Farcy Darcy is a “perk” worth $595. Here’s who Darcy’s leftist commentary attracts: Keith Olbermann, who lamented “Well there goes one of the few useful reporters @cnn.” Howard Polskin of The Righting newsletter gushed “Darcy is a sharp wordsmith who knows how to make words dance.”
In recent years, Darcy ripped into the new regime of CEO Chris Licht, who lamely attempted to calm down the hyperbole in CNN’s Trump coverage. During the recent Republican National Convention, Darcy called out the network for airing “lie-filled speeches” with “little to no pushback.” The CNN brass must have wished they sent him packing alongside Brian Stelter in 2022.
Nevertheless, CNN CEO Mark Thompson proclaimed “Oliver has established himself as a tough but scrupulously fair leading voice in media reporting and commentary – never afraid to call it as he sees it.” Conservatives would not use words like “scrupulously fair.” Darcy constantly warned of “the truth under assault” by the conservative media, as if truth was an exclusively liberal category.
Graham does not explain why Fox News is above criticism, or how Darcy tone with the outlet is any different from what the MRC hurls at CNN or any other non-right-wing outlet whom Graham and crew desperately wish would be taken off the air for the sin of criticizing Trump. And Graham believes that Trump always tells the truth and it’s a personal affront for anyone to point out that he doesn’t.
After Darcy stated that he would be “a 100 percent independent voice,” Graham huffed: “This will be as ‘independent’ as the ‘independent fact-checkers’ — in other words, a reliably leftist source.” Graham refused to explain how, exactly, it’s “leftist” of Darcy to point out Trump’s lies.
Still insulting Darcy
The MRC continued to rage, such as in a Feb. 28 post by Houck, complete with petty “Benedict Arnold” smear (and a headline that called him a “snake”):
Conservative media Benedict Arnold — aka Oliver Darcy, now helming his own website, Status — opened his Thursday night newsletter with a 1,000-word-plus dispatch of Pentagon correspondents melting down about the Pete Hegseth-led department and his chief spokesman, Sean Parnell.
In essence, however, Darcy provided a helpful reminder to those dealing with liberal journalists: You can never fully trust them to abide by their own rules of when something is “off the record.” If it makes for a good story or they view you as the enemy, they’ll stab you in the back.
Darcy blared from the get-go this would be a safe space for the sad journos: “Pressed at the Pentagon; Inside a tense off-the-record meeting, the Pentagon’s new press chief confronted reporters and indicated they will do away with the regular travel pool, doubling down on Pete Hegseth’s anti-media approach.”
Ah, there it is. “Anti-media.” Darcy, Brian Stelter, et al love tossing that term around to describe spaces such as this one that — gasp — believe the corporate media have a liberal bias!
Houck was apparently too busy ranting to actually prove Darcy wrong. Instead, he ranted further by playing whataboutism:
Darcy’s thoughts were predictably, whining a Hegseth Pentagon will be based on “disengag[ing]” from the press and “elevating loyalists” who will be “friendly propagandists who won’t challenge their narrative” and instead “reshape reality itself.”
How cute. He essentially described how the liberal media largely acted during the Biden administration and largely moved on from Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin going AWOL.
Houck raged further at Darcy in a March 7 post:
Former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy used his far-left newsletter site Status on Thursday night to suffer a weapons-grade meltdown over rumors that our friend and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings — perhaps the best current articulator of conservative principles — was not only close to a new contract to stay with CNN, but “receive a substantial pay increase” despite being a “dishonest,” “insidious” man that “distorts” and “fabricates reality.”
Darcy started by whining “MAGA pundit Scott Jennings has been busy” with “quite favorable” contract talks and “reliably excusing Donald Trump’s appalling behavior” with the former yielding “a substantial pay increase” although Darcy made it seem like having his own show won’t be happening.
The conservative media turncoat never pointed out (and it’s doubtful he ever would) that Jennings’s appearances become rare-instances for political junkies in which CNN becomes must-see TV. In fact, it’s not uncommon for tweets of Jennings pull more viewers on X than actual Nielson [sic] ratings viewers.
Why is Darcy a “turncoat” and a “Benedict Arnold” for escaping the right-wing media bubble? Houck has never explained this hostility. Nor did he explain how, exactly, Darcy’s newsletter is “far-left.” He also failed to disp[ute the accuracy of Darcy’s assessment of Jennings — it seems that Houck is unable to handle criticism of “our friend.” Rather, he huffed that Darcy “views conservatives as if we’re dangerous, disease-ridden scum” — as if Houck and his fellow MRCers don’t view liberals that way.
A March 11 post by Houck included more irrational rage:
Former CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy was apoplectic Monday night in his newsletter site Status over a leaked White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) meeting showing dissent within the ranks over the White House press office taking control of setting the press pool rotations from WHCA and a refusal to collectively boycott President Trump’s appearances and remarks.
Darcy inserted his feelings from the get-go: “Press Pool Pandemonium; Frustration with the WHCA erupted during an off-the-record meeting Monday, as some members pushed the organization to respond more forcefully to Donald Trump’s assault on the press corps.”
Houck provided no evidence that Darcy “inserted his feelings” into his post — actually, it appears that Houck is allowing his extremely personal anger at Darcy to drive his “media research.”
When Darcy pointed out that other media outlets weren’t supporting the Associated Press in rejecting President Trump’s arbitrary renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, Houck spent a March 24 post complaining about it:
Former CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy suggested Sunday on his newsletter site Status American democracy was teetering and a descent into authoritarianism was afoot. Even though his unhinged outlook on life appears permanent, this new reason was legacy media outlets having refused to join the Associated Press in using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of Gulf of America (and instead vague uses of “the gulf”) to avoid the Trump White House’s ire.
The headline and subhead will have you cackling or rolling your eyes (or both): “Gulf of Fear; When news anchors tiptoe around the name Gulf of Mexico, it’s not just semantics—it’s a glimpse at how the press starts to flinch under political pressure.”
The miserable liberal tool started off on an incendiary note, comparing President Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America to communist China in that they consider Taiwan as “a province” and such an actual Orwellian policing of language is obviously “not about semantic,” but “wielding influence and asserting dominance.”
Darcy went right for the miserable wine mom vote in Northern Virginia with a doomsday scenario: “In the United States, that kind of top-down dictation might feel like a distant threat” since there’s “free speech safeguarded by the First Amendment.”
Houck doesn’t explain what the “miserable wine mom vote in Northern Virginia” has to do with any of this, and he didn’t explain why Trump’s arbitrary renaming should automatically be accepted and parroted. He concluded by whining that “In essence, Darcy suggested America has made way for the country to join history’s list of dangerous, evil regimes to grow, as evidenced by….whether you say ‘Gulf of Mexico’ or ‘Gulf of America.’”
When Darcy called out the Washington Post for downplaying its “Democracy Dies In Darkness” slogan, Houck groused about it in a March 27 post:
Tuesday night in his newsletter Status, former conservative reporter-turned-caustic progressive Oliver Darcy was in need of a fainting couch, some pearls to clutch, or a safe space over a supposed sign of the apocalypse in The Washington Post slowly backing away from its dumb slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
To be clear, the Jeff Bezos-owned paper told him it won’t be retired anytime soon. But because it’s not in your face, The Post’s supposed embrace of Donald Trump’s perceived authoritarianism is illustrated in the paper having “quietly removed the slogan…its mobile app” and at the top of articles.
Darcy wrote in his article “Democracy Dies in the Light” that “Bezos and the business community have taken an entirely different tact” in “openly” working “to woo” President Trump just years after they took “a more adversarial approach in dealing with him” and openly “signaled the stakes of the moment.”
“The removal of the slogan from the opening sequence occurred over the last few weeks when the app received an update. ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ also no longer appears at the top of the mobile homepage, though it remains visible on the desktop version of the website and in print editions of the newspaper,” he explained.
[…]
Just like he did with the “Gulf of America” hubbub and the lack of boycotts by the White House press corps in support of the Associated Press, Darcy suggested this meaningless tweak was a harbinger for the direction of the country and that the newspaper — at least in the eyes of Bezos — might not be a hate movement against conservatives[.]
Once again, Houck doesn’t bother proving Darcy wrong — he’s just mad that Darcy reported inconvenient facts for right-wing anti-media activists like himself. The only person here who sees reporting facts as “caustic” is Houck himself.