WASHINGTON, January 7, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Media Research Centre has released it’s sixteenth annual “year’s worst reporting” awards for 2003 - a compilation of the year’s most outrageous and/or humorous stories. A panel of 46 columnists, radio talk show hosts, magazine editors and writers selected their top three choices for a range of five to eight quotes in each category. The 46 panelists also chose a “quote of the year” from among all the choices offered. Some samplings of the categories and awards: 1st runner up in the “Damn Those Conservatives Award” went to CBS’s Vince Gonzales who wrote a report on the “dark side of home schooling,” describing how home-schooler Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub and Deanna Laney beat her three sons with rocks, killing two of them. “Both mothers home schooled….It’s hard to know how widespread abuse might be because the government doesn’t keep track…Not one state requires criminal background checks to see if parents have abuse convictions,” he wrote. Read more at: http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/bestof/2003/best1-3.asp In the same category, National Public Radio correspondent Nina Totenberg was also given a runner-up “Damn Those Conservatives Award” for a statement made on Inside Washington, October 18: “Now they’ve got this guy [General Jerry Boykin], who’s head of the intelligence section in the Defense Department, who’s being quoted as telling various groups, while he’s in uniform, that this [war] is a Christian crusade against Muslims….I mean, this is terrible, this is seriously bad stuff….I hope he’s not long for this world.” Host Gordon Peterson asks: “You putting a hit out on this guy or what?...What is this, The Sopranos?” Totenberg replies: “No, no, no….In his job, in his job, in his job, please, please, in his job.” The “Media Suck-Up Award” was notable only in that all those awarded were flattering Senator Hillary Clinton. Go to: http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/bestof/2003/best4-6.asp#media Read about the “Begala & Carville Prize for Demonizing George W. Bush,” at http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/bestof/2003/best7-9.asp#bush The 1st place winner, Hearst columnist Helen Thomas was quoted as saying “This is the worst President ever. He [George W. Bush] is the worst President in all American history.”
Read the full article at: http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/bestof/2003/welcome.asp