On Wednesday, the Media Research Center released a new analysis demonstrating that Utah’s largest newspapers leveled a deliberate, relentlessly hostile attack on Sen. Mike Lee for his anti-ObamaCare stance before, during, and after the government shutdown that began in October.
MRC’s Rich Noyes wrote that by a staggering margin of 33-to-1, editorial opinion at Utah’s two largest newspapers – the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News – was harshly against the strategy of linking ObamaCare’s fate to the shutdown. Coverage in the news pages was scarcely more balanced, with 32 news stories tilting against the conservative strategy versus just three in favor. MRC president Brent Bozell insisted that these two newspapers owe Sen. Lee a sincere apology after the Obamacare rollout fiasco:
"Now that ObamaCare has crashed to earth in a ball of flame, the Utah media that pounded Sen. Mike Lee relentlessly for his attempt to spare the nation this pain owe him a sincere apology. Lee led a courageous fight in Congress to defund ObamaCare in hopes of saving the American people from this big government embarrassment.
"Rather than applauding the principled efforts of their own senator, the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News parroted the national liberal media's shutdown hysteria. The wreckage of ObamaCare has vindicated Lee's efforts to tie the fate of Obama's doomed health care law to government funding. Even some Democrats are now calling for a delay.
"The honorable thing for the Utah media to do is apologize and acknowledge that while they were too short-sighted to see the oncoming disaster, Sen. Lee saw the forest for the trees."
