From inauguration coverage to the reporting of the president successfully killing a fly, the right-leaning Media Research Center compiled “Obamagasms” from the news media all year and Monday announced its awards for the “year’s worst reporting.”
The media watchdog group, known for sarcastically naming its awards, gave out distinctions such as “Barry’s Big Brain Award for Journalists Bedazzled by Obama’s Brilliance,” “The Crush Rush Award for Loathing Limbaugh” and “Michelle, the Media Bell Award” to bigger names like CBS’s Katie Couric and MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and to lesser-known reporters like Discover magazine’s deputy Web editor, Melissa Lafsky.
“I’m honored to be joined today by the Godfather of Green, the King of Conservation: Former Vice President Al Gore,” Katie Couric said in November on a CBSNews.com webcast. That quote got her the “Media Hero Award” from the conservative MRC.
Couric also was given the “Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award for Obsequious Obama Interviews” for an interview in July.
Lafsky questioned what Mary Jo Kopechne would have thought about the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s career and received the “Quote of the Year” award.
Judging “The Best Notable Quotables of 2009” were 48 radio talk show hosts, righty journalists and media observers including MRC President L. Brent Bozell III. Readers of the MRC Web site also were given a chance to choose winners and picked on NBC even more than the official judges — NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann all earned top honors.
A full list of quotes and winners can be found online.
Pull Quote: Winner of “The Obamagasm Award for Seeing Coolness in Everything Obama Does” Correspondent John Harwood: “He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him. … He swatted his hand and he said, ‘I got the sucker.’ He threw it onto the ground. It was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment. …” MSNBC anchor David Shuster: “Amazing. … An amazing interview. … It never fails — great weather, rainbows, incredible speeches and three-point basket. A fly and he nails it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.” – Exchange on MSNBC after Harwood’s CNBC interview with President Obama concluded, June 16
