DisHonor Awards Roast Media

NewsMax ^ | 3/19/04 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

NewsMax's Wes Vernon attended the Media Research Center's "DisHonor Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2003." Here is his report:

Boston Globe writer Charles Pierce who posited Teddy Kennedy offering comfort to Nary Jo Kopechne, won the "Ozzy Osbourne Award" for the wackiest quote of the year at the DisHonor Awards dinner Thursday night.

Here is Pierce’s comment: "If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought her comfort in her old age.”

The audience reacted with mixture of bewilderment and puzzled laughter, but based on the applause meter, Pierce’s observation in the Boston Globe magazine won hands down.

"Sick!” declared at least one woman in the audience when she heard of the comment.

Pierce won out over keen competition. All nominees appeared in their own film clips. As usual, none showed up to accept the "dishonors.”

The other awardees were:

For Parroting Baghdad’s Propaganda, ABC’s Diane Sawyer: "The love that the Iraqis have for him [Saddam Hussein] is so much greater than anything Americans have for their president because he’s been loved for 35 years, the whole 35 years”

Without stopping to mention little details concerning the unspeakable deaths imposed on many of those people who supposedly "loved” the former Iraqi dictator, Dan Harris, on the same program quoted propagandist Baghdad Bob as referring to the fact that Hussein had won re-election "by a 100% margin.”

That caused MRC’s co-emcee Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s "Scarborough Country” to comment on how it almost makes one wax nostalgic for the days of "Cook County under Mayor Daley.”

Hollywood actress Janeane Garofalo, took the "I’m not a Political Genius But I Play One Award” - she said President Bush and Saddam Hussein were "both very threatening to world peace” in the "manufactured war” in which American troops surely would be "doomed” - and the "Hollywood Award." She barely nosed out Michael Moore, who insisted the U.S. knew where Osama bin Laden was, but it was "hands off.” Why? "Because he’s funded by their friends in Saudi Arabia. He’s back among his sponsors and benefactors. Do you think Osama bin Laden planned 9/11 from a cave in Afghanistan?”

The U.S. "knows where he is,” Moore said, and "I don’t think we’re going to be capturing him anytime soon.”

Disgraced, ousted New York Times editor Howell Raines received the "Media Know It All Award" at the banquet.

That "DisHonor” was bestowed upon him for making the assertion that since World War 2, there had developed "a news reporting craft that is truly non-partisan and non-ideological and that strives to be independent of undue commercial or governmental influence—and we don’t wear the political collar of our owners or the government or any political party.

"It is that legacy that we must protect with our diligent stewardship. To do so we must be aware of the energetic effort that is now underway to convince our readers that we are ideologues. It is an exercise in disinformation of alarming proportions - this attempt to convince the audience of the world’s most ideology-free newspapers [that we are] reflecting a liberal bias.”

With a left-tilting worldview reflected throughout its pages from the top headline stories through the feature sections, the book reviews and the Sunday magazine, the MRC audience responded to Raines’s film clip with laughter.

PBS’s Bill Moyers has been a staple of MRC’s DisHonor Awards for years. This was no exception. He took the "I Hate You $%*#&@&@! Conservatives Award" for comparing the American flag on many lapels since 9/11 to China’s Chairman Mao putting "a little red book on every official’s desk omnipresent and unread,” and adding that "not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us.”

The banquet also witnessed a film clip of Cal Thomas interviewing CBS’s Leslie Stahl.

"Can you think of a conservative at CBS News?” Thomas asked.

"Well, I don’t know that anybody’s political bias at CBS News,” responded Stahl — notwithstanding exposes by former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg, and to say nothing of a retirement party a few years ago for a CBS News correspondent wherein it was implied that of course, no one present could possibly have voted for Ronald Reagan. That would be absurd!

Rush Limbaugh prompted a long standing ovation with a surprise appearance at the end of the banquet, in which he warned that the liberals "haven’t maxed out,” having been outraged to discover that they no longer have unchallenged dominance of the media.

Former ABC Newsman Sam Donaldson also made a cameo appearance.

The man who used to shout questions at Presaident Reagan on the White House lawn displayed his own brassy humor with an audience whose political leanings were markedly different from his own.

Donaldson now does his own radio talk show.

The judges who chose the winners included Ann Coulter, Steve Forbes, Lucianne Goldberg, Michelle Malkin and Cal Thomas.

[Diogenesis]

Dan Rather looking for a Conservative for CBS News.

[VRW Conspirator]

I love the smell of roasting in the morning!

[TASMANIANRED]

For Parroting Baghdad’s Propaganda, ABC’s Diane Sawyer: "The love that the Iraqis have for him [Saddam Hussein] is so much greater than anything Americans have for their president because he’s been loved for 35 years, the whole 35 years”

Kentucky born and bred to be a liberal. Her dad was a local big wig politico, Tom Sawyer.

[Mike Bates]

"If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought her comfort in her old age.”

But instead, he brought her death at a young age.

Michael M. Bates: My Side of the Swamp