[2] The nonprofit MRC has received financial support primarily from Robert Mercer,[3] but with several other conservative-leaning sources, including the Bradley, Scaife, Olin, Castle Rock and JM foundations, as well as ExxonMobil.

[9] In Notable Quotables, editors give honors such as the "Linda Ellerbee Awards for Distinguished Reporting" based on the former CNN commentator, who Bozell considered "a liberal blowhard who has nothing to say".

BMI's advisory board included such well-known individuals as economists Walter Williams and Bruce Bartlett, as well as former CNN anchor David Goodnow.

It released a research report in June 2006 covering the portrayal of business on prime-time entertainment television during the May and November "sweeps" periods from 2005.

The report concluded that the programs, among them the long running NBC legal drama Law & Order, were biased against business.

The Washington Post and Nancy Pelosi have commented that this approach is similar to the tactics of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which opposed John Kerry's candidacy in the 2004 election.

NewsBusters is styled as a rapid-response blog site that contains posts by MRC editors to selected stories in mass media.

was critical of primetime TV shows like The Golden Girls, Head of the Class, and thirtysomething for containing storylines or dialogue believed to be hostile to conservatives.

[30] Then at its annual convention in July 1989, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists passed a resolution criticizing the MRC's newsletter.

named the NBC made-for-TV movie Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story the most biased program of the season; others included Roseanne and The X-Files.

[39] In 2008, it published a report detailing its opposition to reinstatement of the FCC fairness doctrine, a policy requiring broadcasters to present differing views on controversial issues of public import.

The MRC claims the rule had been politically weaponized by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to suppress conservative radio, before being abolished by a bipartisan FCC in 1987.

[40] The CBS crime drama Cold Case has been twice criticized by the CMI for alleged anti-Christian prejudice in two episodes.

[52] In 2017, MRC sponsored a conference by the Heartland Institute, an organization known for its effort to cast doubt about the scientific consensus on climate change.

[56] In 1999, the MRC said that network news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC largely ignored Chinese espionage in the United States during the Clinton administration.

[60][61] MRC released a report in 2007 claiming that the network morning shows devoted more airtime to covering Democratic presidential candidates than Republican ones for the 2008 election.

[63] MRC president Bozell praised MSNBC for having David Gregory replace Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann as political coverage anchor beginning September 8, 2008, but MSNBC president Phil Griffin disputed the statements by Bozell and others who have accused the network of liberal bias.

[65] Bozell was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries, describing him as "the greatest charlatan of them all", "a "huckster" and "shameless self-promoter".

Extra!, the magazine of the progressive media watch group FAIR, criticized the MRC in 1998 for selective use of evidence.

also likened a defunct MRC newsletter, TV etc., which tracked the off-screen political comments of actors, to "Red Channels, the McCarthy Era blacklisting journal.

[68] The Media Research Center has also faced scrutiny over the group's $350,000 purchase in 2012 of a Pennsylvania house that a top executive had been trying to sell for several years.

[70] When the Media Research Center bestowed an award named for William F. Buckley to Sean Hannity, Bret Stephens, a neoconservative columnist for The New York Times, wrote an editorial in which he lamented, "And so we reach the Idiot stage of the conservative cycle, in which a Buckley Award for Sean Hannity suggests nothing ironic, much less Orwellian, to those bestowing it, applauding it, or even shrugging it off.