Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, out attacking the press for reporting on the legitimate news story about Herman Cain's former employer settling sexual harassment complaints against him, claims the three major news networks “ignored” the Paula Jones story during the 1990's, but are overplaying the Cain story this week.

That seems like a stretch considering Jones' lawsuit against president Clinton remained in the headlines for nearly seven years as it dragged its way through the courts and eventually became joined with the Monica Lewinsky impeachment scandal. How is it possible that ABC, CBS and NBC “ignored” the Jones story for all those years?

Simple. They didn't ignore it.

A search of Nexis indicates that in the `90's the networks aired more than 600 reports that mentioned the Paula Jones controversy in detail.

So what does MRC base its “ignored” claim on? It looks at the Paula Jones coverage for just three days during the `90's; the three days following her infamous press conference in Washington, D.C., (sponsored by the Conservative Political Action Conference) where she aired her claims against the Democratic president. Three days, of course, represents a tiny window to view the Jones story, which played out over many, many years and was covered almost non-stop.

During the 1990's, the three major networks averaged a combined total of nearly 90 Paula Jones reports every year, for seven straight years. But according to Brent Bozell's crack staff, the networks “ignored” the Jones tale.