MSNBC's Brewer adopts anti-gay rhetoric
November 04, 2009 2:50 pm ET by Jamison Foser
I have frequently noted that, in addition to the three hours a day in which MSNBC is hosted by a former Republican congressman, the cable channel's daytime news reporters often adopt conservative framing. Here's an example, from anchor Contessa Brewer's introduction of a segment about Maine's repeal of a law allowing same-sex marriage:
Contessa Brewer: "And today you can add Maine to a long line of states, about 30 so far, where voters have chosen to define marriage traditionally: The union between one man and one woman."
"Define marriage traditionally" is straight out of the anti-gay movement's talking points. They work the phrase (and variations of it) into everything they say about the subject.
And it isn't accurate or neutral language.
It is telling that the construction "Define marriage traditionally" is a relatively new one. If you go back a decade, you'll be hard-pressed to find many uses of it (or variations of it) in the media. A Nexis search for "marriage w/5 tradition! w/5 defin!" returns only 317 hits from prior to the past 10 years.
No, the phrase is new -- cooked-up by anti-gay activists, because they know "deny gay couples the right to marry" doesn't poll as well. So why is an MSNBC anchor adopting it?
It's not like it's accurate. It wasn't too long ago, after all, when laws in America defined marriage as the union of one white man and one white woman, or of one black man and one black woman. That was the "traditional" definition of marriage in America, until people saw the light. Now they want you to believe marriage has always been defined the same way, so they can claim tradition is on their side. It isn't true -- but MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer parrots their rhetoric
If Brewer had introduced the segment by saying that Maine voted to "discriminate against gays," you can be sure the Right would be apoplectic -- and other reporters would point to it as evidence that MSNBC is a left-wing channel.
But that isn't what happened. What actually happened was that Brewer adopted anti-gay talking points as though they were neutral descriptions.
And Howard Kurtz, Campbell Brown, Ruth Marcus, David Zurawick and the rest of the "MSNBC-is-the-liberal-Fox" crowd won't say a word about it.
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Ah. Didn't think so.
Otherwise, Lord knows how many times Pat Buchanan would have qualified
Question 1: People’s Veto
An Act To End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom
“Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?”
Based on the question, Jamison has a point, but it's kinda trivial.
Anyone who watches this often and is OJBECTIVE knows this. Even Morning Joe is fair-and-balanced in its 3 hours every day. Co-host Mika Bzrezinski and other left-leaning guests balance Joe Scarborough way more often than not. (Ed Schultz's show is balanced as well but that is considered night programming)
MMFA fails and refuses to admit that about Morning Joe. They act like Morning Joe is 3 hours of conservative TV and is the equivalent of Hannity. That is totally wrong, of course.
Picking out ONE instance every once in a while of one MSNBC reporter, Contessa Brewer, "parroting" conservative talking points ignores the MANY other instances which she and other reporters are fair and balanced or give left-leaning views. She has (as has David Shuster) even read Media Matters reports on the air (attacking Jerome Corsi over his book's falsehoods on Obama)!
And don't tell me that other morning/daytime anchors like Nancy Snyderman, Willie Geist, Dylan Ratigan, Andrea Mitchell, David Shuster, Tamron Hall and others "often" parrot conservative talking points because they don't.
Therefore, Jamison would only be correct if he stated that MSNBC daytime news reporters spout conservative talking points EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. But to say "often" is wholly inaccurate.
This would be using facts and respecting the truth.
"Brewer adopts anti-gay rhetoric"
This would be pushing the right's biases, and bigoted opinion. Not facts.
You've been caught using a false equivalency argument of comparing offensive opinions with lies and distortions. It's not the same. How unlike all the other complaints we hear from people on the right! NOT!
Nor did I make any false equivalences. Saying Brewer used MMFA research to point out where Jerome Corsi was not accurate in his book is similar to MMFA pointing out that the anti-gay rhetoric this same reporter used is also, as MMFA put it, "not accurate or neutral language." Nice try though.
PS Just because I criticize MMFA does not mean I'm a righty - I've also been called a liberal on conservative blogs, which is even funnier. Unlike many people who read liberal and conservative blogs, I don't comment to cheerlead, I think for myself.
That's the only use of the phrase "traditional marriage" in the guide.
Feel free to use the comments feature to disagree with my posts.
But please don't use it to lie.
I first thought your post was in jest. This is simple, straight-forward language. You act like Brewer went way outside the lexicon to parrot someone's ideology. Really? Traditional+marriage = conservative? Webster's uses 'traditional' to contrast types of marriage in the same way Brewer did. Whether or not it's a phrase used as a talking point by conservatives does not make it, or someone who uses it, anti-gay. The use of such simple language by one group or another does not suddenly render it unavailable to others. It simply IS a neutral description , it IS accurate in this context. What are we going to do, take every repeated phrase from this that or the other manifesto and brand everyone who uses it with OUR interpretation of what they meant? If that's not what you're suggesting, could you clarify where I've missed your point?