Best of NQ 2010

The Twenty-Third Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting



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Media Coverage

In addition to discussions on numerous talk radio shows where hosts cited quotes or interviewed MRC representatives, the Best of NQ Awards issue has been highlighted by these outlets:

Television:

Print/Online:

Master of His Domain Award for Obama Puffery



Winner

Chris Matthews (63 points)

Clip of Barack Obama from 2008: “My family gave me love. They gave me an education. And most of all, they gave me hope. Hope, hope that in America, no dream is beyond our grasp if we reach for it, and fight for it, and work for it.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “I get the same thrill up my leg, all over me, every time I hear those words. I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, that’s me. He’s talking about my country and nobody does it better. Can President Obama stir us again and help his party keep power this November?”
— Setting up a segment on MSNBC’s Hardball, September 7. [MP3 Audio]


Runners-up

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Richard Stengel (54 points)

“It is impossible to write about Nelson Mandela these days and not compare him to another potentially transformational black leader, Barack Obama. The parallels are many....And while it took twenty-seven years in prison to mold the Nelson Mandela we know, the forty-eight-year-old American president seems to have achieved a Mandela-like temperament without the long years of sacrifice....Whatever Mandela may or may not think of the new American President, Obama is in many ways his true successor on the world stage.”
— From Time managing editor Richard Stengel’s introduction to his new self-help book, Mandela’s Way: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage, quoted by Politico’s Mike Allen in a March 30 Web posting.


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Michael Leahy and Juliet Eilperin (37 points)

“The moment was vintage Obama — emphasizing his zest for inquiry, his personal involvement, his willingness to make the tough call, his search for middle ground. If an Obama brand exists, it is his image as a probing, cerebral President conducting an exhaustive analysis of the issues so that the best ideas can emerge, and triumph.”
Washington Post writers Michael Leahy and Juliet Eilperin in an October 12 story about the President’s pre-oil spill endorsement of offshore drilling.


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Anne Kornblut and Michael Fletcher (36 points)

“When he turns to solving problems through policy, he reveres facts, calling for data and then more data. He looks for historical analogues and reads voraciously. ‘This is someone who in law school worked with [Harvard professor] Larry Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity,’ said senior adviser David M. Axelrod. ‘He does have an incisive mind; that mind is always put to use in pursuit of tangible things that are going to improve people’s lives.’”
Washington Post reporters Anne Kornblut and Michael Fletcher in a January 25 front-page story about Obama headlined, “The Seeker as Problem-Solver.”


Joe Scarborough and Richard Stengel (30 points)

Host Joe Scarborough: “The President so easily outperformed Jay Leno, it wasn’t even close. It was like Secretariat against my 17-year-old dog....”

Time editor Richard Stengel: “I think that’s one of the things that undermined Jay’s routine is that it’s like coming after the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.”
— Discussing the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, May 2. [MP3 Audio]