Monday, January 12, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 8, 2004
Bozell Issues $1 Million Challenge to Tom Brokaw and NBC
ALEXANDRIA, Va. --- Media Research Center President Brent Bozell is issuing a $1 million challenge to NBC and NBC Nightly News Anchor Tom Brokaw, calling Brokaw on his comments made in a recent interview with Columbia Journalism Review. In the interview, Brokaw directly took on Bozell and the Media Research Center while denying the credibility of their evidence of liberal bias in the press. Among other things, Brokaw said:
"What I get tired of is Brent Bozell trying to make these fine legal points everywhere every day. A lot of it just doesn’t hold up. So much of it is that bias — like beauty — is in the eye of the beholder."
Bozell responded: "I know our evidence does 'hold up' and we'll prove it. I issue this challenge to NBC and its anchor: let's assemble a mutually agreeable third-party panel and have them review a compilation of the Media Research Center's 16 years of evidence of liberal media bias. If this panel agrees with Brokaw's contention, the Media Research Center will donate $1 million to the anchor's favorite charity. If the panel agrees with us, NBC and Brokaw will donate $1 million to the Media Research Center."
"Oh, and to sweeten the pot we'll do this: we'll limit our evidence only to Tom Brokaw and NBC. Frankly, that's all the evidence we need to prove the point."
This should be fun. No response yet from Brokaw --- then again, what can he say? Either he knows there is a liberal bias in the media, and wants to cover it up, or he does not believe there is one (in which case Bernard Goldberg's hypothesis, that the media is so overwhelmingly liberal that it accepts the liberal position by default), but is afraid a neutral panel would side with the MRC.
I look forward to this.
Steve