View the awards for the year's worst reporting by the lamestream media

Thursday, January 09, 2014 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: lamestream media, worst reporting awards, 2013

(NaturalNews) Personalities in the mainstream media tend to say some ridiculous things, and one media watchdog, the Media Research Center (MRC), likes to hand out "awards" for some of the most outrageous every year. And this year, as in past years, the awards are definitely deserved.

From the MRC website, here is how entries are selected and judged:

To determine this year's winners, a panel of 42 radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and expert media observers each selected their choices for the first, second and third best quote from a slate of five to seven quotes in each category [List of Judges]. First place selections were awarded three points, second place choices two points, with one point for the third place selections. Point totals are listed alongside each quote. Each judge was also asked to choose a "Quote of the Year" denoting the most outrageous quote of 2013.

And now, on to some of the awardees:

-- Martin Bashir, formerly of MSNBC, for his Nov. 15 on-air comment against former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin: "One of the most comprehensive first-person accounts of slavery comes from the personal diary of a man called Thomas Thistlewood, who kept copious notes for 39 years.... In 1756, he records that 'a slave named Darby catched eating canes; had him well flogged and pickled, then made Hector, another slave, s-h-i-t in his mouth.' This became known as 'Darby's Dose,' a punishment invented by Thistlewood that spoke only of the slave owners' savagery and inhumanity.... When Mrs. Palin invoked slavery, she doesn't just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate."

Bashir, who was awarded "Quote of the Year," was reacting to Palin's comparison of excessive debt to slavery. The network allowed him to remain on the air for a week or so, but after an extended "Thanksgiving," he quit Dec. 4.

-- MSNBC's Ed Schulz, Sept. 30 - the day before Obamacare kicked in - touting the Healthcare.gov website, um, before it crashed: "This is the Web site folks, HealthCare.gov. If you go to this Web site, you will find out how easy it is to read, how easy it is to navigate all the information, all the basic questions, and all the direction you need to take to get involved, to get health care. This is a great guide, if I may say, for any of you out there who feel so confused by all of these right-wing commercials that are just permeating through your television screen."

-- New York Times columnist and economist Thomas Friedman, on NBC's Meet the Press: "Until we fully understand what turned two brothers who allegedly
perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings into murderers, it is hard to
make any policy recommendation other than this: We need to redouble our
efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant
counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young
men.... And the best place to start is with a carbon tax"

Michael Moore, in announcing his New Year's resolutions in an article for the Huffington Post: "Stop saying, 'I support the troops.' I don't. I used to.... But at some point all individuals must answer for their actions, and now that we know our military leaders do things that have nothing to do with defending our lives, why would anyone sign up for this rogue organization?"

Read the remainder of the awardees here.

Sources:

http://www.mrc.org

http://newsbusters.org

http://www.mrctv.org