L. Brent Bozell III

Leo Brent Bozell III (born July 14, 1955) is the American founder and president of the Media Research Center, the Conservative Communications Center, and the Cybercast News Service. Bozell served as president of the Parents Television Council from 1995 to 2006, after which he was succeeded by Timothy F. Winter.^[1] In addition, currently, Bozell serves on the board for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and has served on the board of directors in the American Conservative Union. Bozell is also a nationally syndicated writer whose work appears in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Washington Times, New York Post Los Angeles Times and National Review.

The Media Research Center operates on a self-reported $10 million annual budget, using what it calls "the most comprehensive media monitoring operation in the world"^[2] to track major televised broadcasts and print news with the goal of "documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias."^[2]

Career

Early career

After receiving his B.A. in history from the University of Dallas, Bozell joined the National Conservative Political Action Committee, working with the group's founder, Terry Dolan, to help elect conservative politicians.^[3] Bozell headed NCPAC for a brief period after Dolan's death in 1986, resigning in 1987 to start the Media Research Center.^[4][5]

Media Research Center

Before founding the MRC in 1987, Bozell ran the National Conservative Foundation project at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which he moderated debates between Sam Donaldson and Bob Novak over media bias.^[6]

In 1998, Bozell founded the Conservative Communications Center.^[7][8] The MRC also established CNSNews.com, the site of the Conservative News Service later becoming known as Cybercast News Service, as well as numerous other MRC-affiliated web sites.^[4] On its website, MRC publishes Bozell's syndicated columns, the CyberAlert daily newsletter documenting perceived media bias, and research reports on the news media.

In his MSNBC news program Countdown with Keith Olbermann, as Olbermann named Bozell the "Worst Person in the World" several times in 2006 and 2007.^{[9][10][11][12]} In response, Bozell posted a press release on the MRC site claiming that Countdown "Preaches Hate Speech".^[13] In October 2006, Bozell founded the Culture and Media Institute, an MRC branch whose mission is to reduce what he claims to be a negative liberal influence on American morality, culture, and religious liberty.^[4]

Parents Television Council

Bozell founded the Parents Television Council in 1995, initially as a branch of the Media Research Center focusing on entertainment television, after he felt that decency was declining on prime-time television programming.^[14] The PTC's stated mission is "to promote and restore responsibility and decency to the entertainment industry".^[15]

In 2001, the PTC also organized a mass advertiser boycott of the professional wrestling television program WWF SmackDown! over claims that the program caused the deaths of young children who they felt were influenced by watching the program, only later to be sued by the WWF over claims that the PTC used false statements in their campaign.^[16] That year, Bozell and the PTC had appeared as the subject of criticism in the book Foley is Good: And The Real World is Faker Than Wrestling, a memoir published by former WWF wrestler Mick Foley, who questioned the reasoning and research that the PTC used to associate SmackDown with violent acts performed by children watching the program.^[17][18] In July 2002, Bozell settled the WWE lawsuit out of court, the PTC paying $3.5 million to the WWE.^[16]

During his tenure as PTC president, Bozell led many campaigns derived from the PTC's stated mission to restore its view of decency to the entertainment industry. Among the numerous campaigns Bozell has led with the PTC have included campaigning to bring back the "Family Viewing Hour",^[19] filing complaints with the FCC over what he sees as indecent programs, and boycotting corporations that advertise on television programs that the organization believes to be offensive. Among the PTC's largest campaigns for FCC complaints was over the 2004 Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show in which co-performer Justin Timberlake caused the brief exposure of lead performer Janet Jackson's right breast, leading the CBS network that carried the halftime show to be fined $550,000 by the FCC.^[20] PTC filed about 65,000 complaints,^[21] and Bozell was concerned that many children were likely to have been watching the halftime show, as he told the Associated Press a few days after the show.^[22] In fact, excluding Super Bowl-related complaints, the vast majority of FCC complaints from 2003 to 2006 were found to have come from PTC.^[23]

Responding to two columns that Bozell wrote in early 2005,^[24][25] San Francisco Chronicle columnist Neva Chonin claimed that Bozell wanted to forbid offensive television programs not only from his views, but "from all our living rooms, choice and taste be damned."^[26] Television Watch, an organization promoting parental responsibility for children's television viewing over increased government regulation of television, used a short clip of Bozell saying that the V-Chip is ineffective at blocking inappropriate television programs in a promotional video^[27] released in July 2005 intended to claim that special-interest groups like Bozell's own Parents Television Council are using such propaganda to justify increased government control of the public airwaves.^[28]

Board membership

Bozell is currently on the board of advisors of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a group against the defamation of Catholics in America.^[29] He has also served on the board of directors for the American Conservative Union.^[8][19] After resigning as president of the Parents Television Council, he remains an advisor to that organization.^[30]

Written works

His articles have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post^[31][32], Washington Times, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today^[33], and National Review. He is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Creators Syndicate, and he is a regular on television, including the Fox News Channel program Hannity & Colmes.^[8] He writes two weekly columns, one covering the news media published Tuesdays or Wednesdays, and one covering entertainment published Thursdays or Fridays on the sites for the Media Research Center^[34][35] and Cybercast News Service.^[36] Other web sites such as Townhall.com, Catholic Exchange, Yahoo! News, and others have published these columns. For some time, the Parents Television Council web site carried Bozell's entertainment column, but as of late January 2008, the PTC no longer hosts the columns, instead linking to the columns hosted on the MRC web site.^[37] In his columns, Bozell has written about such topics as media consolidation, indecency, media violence, and anti-Christian sentiment.

Bibliography

To date, Bozell has written three books covering the news media.

• And That's the Way it Isn't: A Reference Guide to Media Bias (with Brent Baker) (1990)
• Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media (2004)
• Whitewash: How The News Media Are Paving Hillary Clinton's Path to the Presidency (with Tim Graham) (2007)

Personal life and views

He is a nephew of conservative writer and National Review founder William F. Buckley through Bozell's mother, Patricia Buckley Bozell. His father (L. Brent Bozell Jr., a Catholic convert) was Buckley's debating partner at Yale University and a conservative activist; his grandfather, Leo B. Bozell, was a co-founder of Bozell Worldwide.^{[citation needed]} L. Brent Bozell III has a wife, Norma, and five children, David, L. Brent IV, Joseph, Caitlin, and Reid, and lives with his family in Alexandria, Virginia.^{[citation needed]} Bozell has stated that contrary to speculation by some in the media, he is not a Republican.^[38][39]

Awards and recognition

Bozell was named the 1998 "Alumnus of the Year" at the University of Dallas.^[8] That same year, Grove City College named Bozell "Pew Memorial Lecturer".^[4]

References

External links

• Media Research Center
• Town Hall
• Podcasts of Bozell's articles
• Media Transparency profile