Viewpoints
In its mission to show that there is a "strident liberal bias" in the national news media, the MRC has produced a number of their own analyses and has offered as evidence the claims that news reporters use the "conservative" or "Republican" label to describe conservatives more often than they label liberals or Democrats, that the media is sympathetic to Communism or "dictators", that media coverage of global warming is biased in favor of environmentalism, and that the media focuses on covering the negative side of the Iraq war. In 1999, the MRC reported that the network news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC largely ignored Chinese espionage in the United States during the Clinton administration.
Beyond the news media, MRC also publishes research about entertainment television. Reports it conducted from 1993 to 1995 found that such programs made more references to religion each later year, most of which became more favorable. In 2003, the MRC urged advertisers to pull sponsorship from The Reagans, a miniseries about President Ronald Reagan to be shown on CBS. The network later moved the program to its co-owned premium cable network Showtime.
MRC released a report in 2007 claiming that the network morning shows devoted more airtime to covering Democratic presidential candidates than Republican ones for the 2008 election. Producers for such shows criticized the MRC's methodology as flawed. During the 2008 US presidential election, MRC released a report claiming that the vast majority of news stories about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had a positive slant. MRC president Bozell praised MSNBC for having David Gregory replace Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann as political coverage anchor beginning September 8, 2008, but MSNBC president Phil Griffin disputed the statements by Bozell and others who have accused the network of liberal bias.
In March 2010, About.com, owned by The New York Times Company, named MRC one of the top 20 conservatives to follow on Twitter.
Read more about this topic: Media Research Center