The Watchdog with David Bozell

President Trump didn’t just call out the media. He changed the locks.

On Friday, Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banned from the White House, and the U.S. Secret Service confiscated their press credentials. Someone had a very entertaining shift on Saturday. 

Asked why, President Trump didn’t bury the lead. He called them “fake news” and said he was “so tired of reading and seeing fake news.” The press corps erupted, naturally, but President Trump didn’t blink. Instead, he pointed to the overwhelmingly negative coverage he has received over the years, something MRC has documented again and again.

During the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, MRC researchers found his coverage on the broadcast evening newscasts was 92% negative. At 92%, you’re not covering the guy. You’re spamming his Yelp page with negative reviews.

Trump also went after something MRC has been documenting for nearly four decades: bias by omission. He pointed to major accomplishments he says receive little or no favorable coverage and argued that the problem isn’t simply what these outlets report. It’s what they decide Americans never need to hear about in the first place.

That is one of the oldest tricks in the media playbook. If a story hurts a politician they dislike, it gets a marching band. If it helps him, suddenly everybody’s out to lunch. MRC has spent nearly four decades documenting both sides of that equation: the attacks that make air and the facts that somehow miss the broadcast.

And now that work is being cited at the highest levels.

Vice President JD Vance cited MRC’s 92% negative-coverage finding while defending the administration’s decision. The White House Rapid Response team highlighted MRC research, and the White House has now released a statement, "White House Access Is a Privilege — Not a Right," featuring MRC’s work.

For decades, MRC has done the painstaking work nobody else does: record the broadcasts, count the stories, study the guests, document the omissions and save the tape. Those findings are now helping shape one of the biggest debates in America over media power, bias and access.

The factual record we’ve built is impossible to wave away.

Look through the White House’s material on CNN and MS NOW, and you’ll find example after example supported by MRC and NewsBusters research. Our work is being cited because we have the receipts, and we have them because MRC has been doing this job every day since 1987.

That is the part I don’t want lost in all the shouting. MRC didn’t arrive at this moment last Friday. We helped build the factual foundation underneath it.

Since 1987, the MRC has told you exactly what President Trump is telling you: The media lie. They twist. They advocate. They hide. And they cannot be trusted.

But you can always find the truth here at the MRC.

Take it easy,David Bozell
President