After the news that Noel Sheppard, the happy warrior who fiercely held the mainstream press to account at Newsbusters, lost his battle with cancer on Friday, those whose backs he always had paid tribute to him.
Sheppard was the the first writer to report, for instance, former MSNBC host Martin Bashir’s despicable remarks against Palin in which Bashir said that someone should defecate and urinate in Palin’s mouth. Palin, who had asked supporters to pray for Sheppard, always appreciated what he did for the conservative movement to keep the “lamestream media” a bit more honest. She called Sheppard a “fighter for truth who will be greatly missed.”
“Our prayers are with Noel Sheppard’s family,” she wrote on Twitter.
Sen. Cruz (R-TX), who had been eviscerated by the mainstream press after he got to Congress, also tweeted the “sad news” and sent his “condolences to Noel’s friends, family, loved ones and the entire MRC team.”
Our prayers are with Noel Sheppard’s family. He was a fighter for truth who will be greatly missed! http://t.co/guo6gB9cBO
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) March 29, 2014
Sad news. Condolences to Noel’s friends, family, loved ones and the entire MRC team. http://t.co/07TVlyEKjA
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 29, 2014
Matthew Sheffield, who founded Newsbusters, said that Sheppard “single-handedly brought in half of the site traffic each month.” Sheffield wrote that in an earlier time “Noel would’ve been an ace reporter or well-known editor, such was his talent for spotting the hot story and writing about it in an engaging way. He also had the rare ability to make dry subjects interesting.”
After Sheppard announced his illness on Twitter, Palin called him a “commonsense conservative fighter” who was a “stalwart voice for fairness and honesty in support of our First Amendment freedom of the press” and asked Americans to pray for his health:
Friends, please pray for a good man. Noel Sheppard is a great commonsense conservative fighter for fairness in media. He’s the Associate Editor at NewsBusters, and over the years he’s been a dogged chronicler of media bias and a stalwart voice for fairness and honesty in support of our First Amendment freedom of the press. Noel has recently been diagnosed with lung cancer though he isn’t even a smoker. His doctors give him a 50/50 chance of survival, so please let’s remember him in our prayers.
On the day he was admitted to the hospital on January 19, Sheppard exhibited the sense of humor he was known for by warning those in the mainstream press to not “get cocky” after enjoying a “rare Sunday off from my scrutiny.”
Liberal media members better enjoy a rare Sunday off from my scrutiny. Don’t get cocky for I’ll be back!!!
— Noel Sheppard (@NoelSheppard) January 19, 2014
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