Conservatives complain about Anderson Cooper's coverage of Falwell's death

Conservative media watchdog organization The Media Research Center has been complaining about news media coverage of Jerry Falwell's death. While the group has a beef with Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer and Tucker Carlson's reporting, they give the most grief to the coverage seen on Anderson Cooper 360 Tuesday. I've tried giving the MRC a fair hearing in the past but I usually find that their reports don't hold up to scrutiny. This instance isn't very different.

Reading the complaints about 360, you'd think that Cooper only gave airtime to people who disagreed with Falwell like former Falwell associate and gay rights supporter Rev. Mike White, atheist Vanity Fair editor Christopher Hitchens and GLAAD President Neil Giuliano. However, a look at the show transcript reveals that Cooper also spent time talking to former Christian Coalition spokesman, Ralph Reed, as well as Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and friend of Falwell. Reed talked about Falwell's influence on politics and his view of Falwell as someone who acted out of genuine concern for his country, while Graham defended Falwell's anti-gay reputation, saying that "He didn't hate the gay people. He loved the gay people. And he wanted to warn the gay people that God is going to judge sin one day."

I'd say Cooper tried to give a balanced look a Falwell's life. Knowing the MRC's history, however, I suspect the only report the MRC would accept as "fair" would have stopped with Reed and Graham.

The group complains further about the segment that examines Falwell's anti-gay history, a report that included Falwell's statements blaming "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians" for 9/11, calling Ellen DeGeneres "Ellen Degenerate" as well as saying that "There's no way, as a Christian who takes the Bible seriously, we could ever condone the behavior of homosexuals. What they do is wrong." In covering this side of Falwell, the MRC claims that 360 followed GLAAD's "call to media outlets to stick to a script of liberal bias". Yes, heaven forbid we judge a man by what he actually said in life.