WATCH: RSBN Interviews the Staff Writer for MRC, Tom Olohan - 07/20/26

And joining us right now is the staff writer for the Media Research Center, Free Speech America. Tom Olihan joins us right now. Tom, thanks so much for joining us here on Right Side Broadcasting Network. Great to be with you this morning. Definitely. Let's talk about a few things. We know that there are a number of people talking about President Trump's recent speech about election integrity, that kind of thing. I wanted to get out of the gate, though, the reaction from MRC when it comes to some of the major networks saying, we're not going to air the speech. What's your reaction to that, Tom? Well, just another example of the legacy media, as always, putting their thumb on the scale. We've seen it for years. And that's how we've gotten to a place where some people on the left will say things like the whole Obama administration went by without a hint of scandal, or Obama's biggest scandal was wearing a tan suit, because they just didn't cover what was relevant. And they only covered what one side wanted to show. So of course, yeah, they're going to cut away from important Trump speeches. That's who they are. Yeah. It was wild to see that, you know, I thought what would happen, and some of the networks did do this, they watched President Trump's speech, they aired it, and then when he started talking about things they disagreed with, that's when they pulled back. I thought all of them would do that. I didn't think they would actually not air any of the speech. You would think if President Trump was lying about the evidence and receipts that the networks would say, hey, wait a minute, the president is lying here. We should investigate these claims. They didn't, they dropped the ball. They're not real journalists, in my opinion. Much easier to shut things down. As we've seen, not just with the media, but with social media, there was a time when President Donald Trump, along with many other people, got kicked off every social media platform and shut down and censored for years. It's much easier to do that than to potentially look at hard truths. That's a great way to put it. Yeah, it's a great way to put it. Can you believe it's 2026 and this is the United States of America and we're dealing with censorship at a mass scale? This wasn't one, you know, far left social media company. This was the major networks, which you guys always are examining and researching. So can you believe it's 2026 and we're dealing with censorship in America? Major credit to Brent Bozell and Tim Graham and everybody who's been in the office in the late 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and now the 2020s, showing year after year that they don't change and that they're rigging the news to favor the left. That's perfectly said. I love that. Rigging the news. You know, we hear about rigging elections, rigging the news. That's perfectly said. Now, also, I know you've been talking about Google trying to and then failing to rebut the MRC special report on suppression of Graham-Plattner scandals. Can you talk to us about that? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So we got Google News and Apple News dead to rights, just completely ignoring Graham-Plattner's huge scandals for months and months and months. We checked their top results on the apps and saw that in November, December, January, February, March, April, and May, all the way up to the 30th, there was not a single prominent headline about any of his major scandals, even his Nazi tattoo. You think that's pretty newsworthy, but not to them. But then we really caught them because when he was polling highly against Susan Collins, they couldn't find a bad thing to say about him, Google News and Apple News. But then as soon as he gets steps in it big time and gets accused of rape, and his poll numbers start to fall, then on July 7th and 8th, we found a dozen stories between the two apps. It just boggles the mind that they'll flip the switch when he becomes inconvenient. And now Google's complaining about it, they're blaming users, they're saying that we just must have missed it or something. Like checking every single morning for all of those days. That's unbelievable, but we see that that's what's happening out there. That's what I love about you guys. You guys just rip the left-wing media a new one, let's be honest, that's what you guys do. But what's it like, Tom, to work there, to be able to be a part of the right side of history showing how awful the mainstream media is, really just going at it every single day with MRC? Oh, it's been great, and I cannot tell you how great it's been with just so many victories over the last year and a half. Just PBS and NPR being defunded, that's years and years and years of our tax dollars going to pay for leftist propaganda of the most unbelievable kinds. And just to see us finally get victories like that, to see social media platforms like X and to a lesser extent, Meta, and even YouTube making some signals in a free speech direction. It's just been amazing to see all the wins in the media and on social media against censorship and bias. It's awesome to be, I'm sure, a part of MRC Free Speech America. I love the title because it has the words free and speech and America in it. And also being a research center, it's great to see that. There was a story, did you see this in Fort Worth, Texas, where some of the officers were out there and saying the speech that some of these street preachers were doing was offensive and therefore it's a crime. It reminded me of something you might see in Europe. Did you catch any of that? And then the police chief had to come out and apologize and say, okay, we have to have some training on basically the constitution. Your thoughts about that? Yeah, I've seen at least one of those videos. Unbelievable abuse of power, lack of understanding. A lot of people seem to really believe in the concept of a hate crime. And when they say that, they don't even mean the concept of committing a crime because of someone's background, but just of saying something that the person didn't want to hear. And yeah, it's incredible how many people don't seem to understand the first amendment, but we're out there fighting for that and hopefully spreading the word. Exactly. And as long as there's no threat, you have a freedom to say what you want. But if you're threatening, of course that's against the law because you can't do that. But outside of that, yeah, there's no real such thing as a hate crime with your speech. Anyway, so Tom, let's talk about also joining MRC Free Speech America. Tell us about your background before you even got to MRC. What was that like? I mean, how did you get that gig and what was it about politics that drew you in? Well, honestly, I don't know how far back to take you. I got into politics in the first place because of how much I cared about the right to life. As a child, it's incredibly distressing to hear about abortion and cases like Terri Schiavo, a woman who was effectively euthanized when I was little. And, you know, that and growing up in a family of 13 made me fairly conservative. And from from there, you know, I saw that people are really, you know, really determined to muzzle people to stop them from speaking the truth for babies, for speaking the truth that men cannot become women, or even in some cases for speaking up for the right to free speech. So obviously, you know, I joined the Media Research Center after the incredible censorship of 2021 and 2022, after I'd just gotten really an eyeful at how bad the censorship had gotten. That's awesome. That's a great story. Wow. One of 13. That's awesome, too, man. Well, tell your family we said hello here at Right Side Broadcasting Network. Thank you so much for joining us. This is Tom Olihan, the staff writer with MRC Free Speech America. Thank you again, Tom. Thanks for having me. Definitely.