The Twenty-Sixth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting
The Audacity of Dopes Award
for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year
Winner
Melissa Harris-Perry (53 points)
“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have, because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children....We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children....We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”
— MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry in an early April “Lean Forward” spot. [MP3 Audio]
Runners-Up
Thomas Friedman (42 points)
“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.”
— New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, April 21.
Bob Herbert (29 points)
“It’s silly that there’s a liberal bias in media. Obviously, there are liberal voices and there are conservative voices. But overwhelmingly, media in the United States — television, newspapers, and that sort of thing — the bias shifts towards the right. It’s a center-right media in this country.”
— Former NBC reporter and New York Times columnist Bob Herbert on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, April 27. [MP3 Audio]
Nancy Snyderman (27 points)
“I don’t like the religion part. I think religion is what mucks the whole thing up....I don’t like the religion part. I think that’s what makes the holidays so stressful and — I don’t.”
— NBC chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman talking about Christmas during a “Today’s Professionals” panel segment on Today, December 11, 2012. [MP3 Audio]
Deborah Feyerick (27 points)
“You know, talk about something else that’s falling from the sky [besides snow], and that is an asteroid. What’s coming our way? Is this an effect of perhaps global warming, or is this just some meteoric occasion?”
— CNN Newsroom anchor Deborah Feyerick to Bill Nye “the science guy,” February 9. [MP3 Audio]
http://www.mrc.org/notable-quotables/year-end-awards-best-notable-quotables-2013?cat=14
