Cybercast News Service

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The Cybercast News Service (also CNSNews.com) is a conservative news website operated by the Media Research Center. It was founded on June 16, 1998 under the name "Conservative News Service"; "Conservative" was changed to "Cybercast" in 2000 after the MRC was unable to trademark the name "Conservative News Service."[1]. CNS sees its role as serving an audience which puts a "higher premium on balance than spin" by covering stories that mainstream news organizations ignore.

"In response to these shortcomings, MRC Chairman L. Brent Bozell III founded CNSNews.com in an effort to provide an alternative news source that would cover stories that are subject to the bias of omission and report on other news subject to bias by commission. CNSNews.com endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story and debunk popular, albeit incorrect, myths about cultural and policy issues." [2]

Cybercast News Service's leadership consists of President Brent Bozell and Editor-in-Chief David Thibault, who became top editor in April 2005. Its editor from 1998-2005 was Scott Hogenson, who also worked as the chief of radio operations for the Republican National Committee in 2004.[3]

CNS itself has been accused of having its own bias. ConWebWatch, a website set up to challenge possible biases in politically conservative news sources, accuses CNS, among others, of engaging in the same tactics as the "liberal media" they criticize.

In reality, these sites are no less slanted or arrogant than they accuse the "mainstream" media of being. They demonstrate time and again that, despite promoting themselves with words like "fairness," "responsibility," "accuracy" and "balance," their real goal is to attack and discredit anyone who doesn’t agree with them, as well as to promote their own political views -- the same exact thing they accuse the "liberal" media of doing. [4]

Similar to FOX News, CNS trumpets its focus on presenting news in a non-biased manner [5]. Despite these claims, CNS's motto is "The Right News. Right now."[6]

CNS' commentaries [7] tend to echo Republican talking points[8].

[edit] Current Staff

Editor in Chief: David Thibault
Managing Editor: Patrick Goodenough
Communications Director: Craig Bannister
Senior Editor: Melanie Hunter
Senior Editor: Susan Jones
Jerusalem Bureau Chief: Julie Stahl
Staff Writer/Editor: Randy Hall
Staff Writer: Monisha Bansal
Staff Writer: Nathan Burchfiel
Staff Writer: Kevin Mooney
Correspondent: Kate Monaghan

[edit] Controversies

A July 15, 2005, CNS article claimed that Democratic strategist Paul Begala said that Republicans wanted to kill him and his family. [9] Begala vehemently denied this, claiming that when he said, "They want to kill me and my children if they can," he was referring to terrorists, not Republicans. [10] CNS refused to retract the claim, insisting that "[t]here was nothing unclear about what Begala said."[11] CNS editor in chief David Thibault attacked Begala for his "unmistakable and outrageous coupling of terrorists and Republicans."[12][13]
A January 13, 2006, CNS article assailed the military record of Democratic Rep. John Murtha, a former Marine who has heavily criticized the Iraq war. The article quoted people who were either former political opponents of Murtha or who were dead or incapacitated casting aspersions on the two Purple Hearts Murtha earned while serving in the Vietnam War.[14] The next day, the Washington Post repeated the article's allegations.[15][16] Critics likened the CNS article to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on the war record of Democrat John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign as another example of conservatives attempting to discredit the military credentials of Democrats in order to blunt their criticism of the Iraq war.[17]