(CNSNews.com) – Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center (MRC), praised the Republican National Committee (RNC) for cancelling its agreement with NBC to host the party’s upcoming presidential debate in Houston on February 26.
“This was the right move by the RNC. After the dreadful performance by CNBC’s moderators at the Republican debate in October, it makes no sense to continue to allow committed left-wingers in the media to decide the nominee of the Republican Party,” Bozell said in a statement on Monday.
“NBC News’ brand has been severely diminished by its continued antics over the last year in particular. NBC has proven itself unworthy of hosting a Republican primary debate,” Bozell continued.
“If NBC News ever wants to participate in this process again, I suggest it become reacquainted with journalistic ethics and fairness.”
CNBC’s John Harwood, Becky Quick and Carl Quintanilla, who moderated the third scheduled Republican presidential debate last October, were widely criticized for the questions they asked, many of which were perceived as thinly-disguised personal attacks on the Republican candidates.
Former Attorney General Ed Meese called the CNBC-hosted debate “a verbal shooting gallery set up by CNBC, with the targets the Republican candidates and the shooters their biased antagonists from the press.”
Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer characterized the October debate as “a slam-dunk rim-rattling exposure of the media bias they [Republicans] have been complaining about for a half-century.”
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus wrote a letter last fall to NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack complaining that the CNBC debate “was conducted in bad faith” and informing him that the party was “suspending the partnership with NBC News for the Republican primary debate at the University of Houston on February 26, 2016.”
MRC is the parent organization of CNSNews.com.
Related: RNC Member: Debate Cancellation Is ‘NBC’s Own Fault’
Related: Ed Meese: RNC Leaders Who Allowed CNBC to Moderate Debate Should Be Condemned