Can't anybody do conservative media criticism? Or, please stop whining about ACORN coverage

Written by Eric Boehlert

Published

Can't anybody on the right play this game. Just once we'd actually love to read a coherent, fact-based critique of the press from the right. We'd actually welcome it. Instead, we're stuck with lame attempts like this one by Media Research Center's Dan Gainor.

He's hitting the same notes all the other far-right pundits are: The media's ignoring the (supposedly) blockbuster ACORN story:

The small scandal showing an embarrassing video of Baltimore ACORN staffers looking like they were giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel, is now national news. -- This story has everything you could ever want – corruption, sleazy actions at tax-funded organizations, firings, government ties, sex, hookers. It is a network news director's dream. Imagine the ratings!

Only almost no one is covering it.

Really? According to Nexis/Lexis, these are mainstream media outlets that, prior to the publication of Gainor's piece, had covered the ACORN story out of Baltimore in the last week: Baltimore Sun, New York Post, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Grand Rapids Press, Kansas City Star, Newsday, Newark Star-Ledger, Washington Post, Washington Times, CNN.com, Washingtonpost.com.

But aside from that, almost nobody is covering it.

Later, Gainor focuses on the network news coverage of the ACORN story, or the lack of [emphasis added]:

And yet. And yet it's still been ignored by the network news. Nothing on ABC, CBS or NBC. The only thing any one of the three broadcast networks has done appeared in a blog post by ABC's Jake Tapper. It's hardly worth noting except to show that the networks know about what's going on. They just don't care to report it. Only FOX News has bothered to report on the controversy.

See the obvious apples-to-oranges connection? Gainor claims the Big Three nets didn't' cover ACORN; only Fox News did. Of course, Fox News isn't a network and Fox News has about 21 more hours of news programming to fill each day because it's a 24/7 cable news outlet. Yet for some reason Gainor ignores what other 24/7 cable news outlets have done regarding the ACORN story. Why does Gainor play dumb? Because if he reveals the truth, his silly critique collapses.

For the record, here are the days from within the last week, and prior to Gainor's piece, when CNN covered the ACORN story. (I repeated the days on which CNN offered up multiple reports):

Sept. 10, 10, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 12, 13, and 14.

Yeah, everybody's just totally ignoring the ACORN story.