Despite “reported $10 million budget” and an obsession with FoxNews, Media Matters does not seem to have caused a dent in the news network’s ratings much less brought about its demise. So, like most insurgents who lose on the battlefield, they’re resorting to more subversive tactics:
The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel.
The group, launched as a more traditional media critic, has all but abandoned its monitoring of newspapers and other television networks and is narrowing its focus to Fox and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement. The shift reflects the centrality of the cable channel to the contemporary conservative movement, as well as the loathing it inspires among liberals — not least among the donors who fund Media Matters’ staff of about 90, who are arrayed in neat rows in a giant war room above Massachusetts Avenue.
Staff of 90? Wowza. Now, I agree with Ed Morrissey that it “is perfectly fair game” for this Soros-funded outfit to monitor FoxNews (after all, unlike NPR, they’re not pushing a left-wing message with taxpayer dollars):
Media critique is a game anyone can play, and it’s hard to argue that this kind of accountability is somehow bad for business. But is it legitimate to declare that these efforts will consist of “sabotage” and “guerilla warfare”?
Does seem that we may to start utilizing a new acronym: FNDS (FoxNews Derangement Syndrome.
In the end, I don’t think Media Matters’s attempt at sabotage will amount to much more than earn cheers from their liberal base and secure a few more articles in the ever-declining mainstream media.
It just rankles the left that there’s even one media outlet they don’t control.
What happens when Media Matters pathetic propaganda backfires? Apparently, David Brock’s hair turns white.
Uhm… And this is going to be any different HOW????? They have sometimes brought up legitimate critiques, but a ton of it was just yellow journalism.
I’m out the door to go play a gig, so, Auntie DOgma, I won’t be able to answer your upcoming challenge to point out where they have been in error until tomorrow.
Is it me or is Mediaite becoming more and more fixated on Beck and Rush? Just as Media Morons, they don’t get it either. They hear, but have no intention to listen.
Hi Dan,
“after all, unlike NPR, they’re not pushing a left-wing message with taxpayer dollars”
Unlike Fox, which pushes a right wing message with advertising dollars…
Actually, FoxNews doesn’t push a right-wing message in the least, but does have a tilt slightly right of center, but not nearly so far right as CNN’s tilt is to the left.
And various companies choose to market their wares on Fox because they know its audience is growing. No one is compelling them to buy that time. And no one is compelling anyone to purchase their products.
You and I, however, are compelled to pay our taxes. It would seem that a radio network taking taxpayer dollars would at least respect all viewpoints and not tilt one way or the other. NPR does. And that’s fine. Just do it in their own dime.
So what? Advertisers can choose to buy time on FoxNews or not. I have absolutely no choice in whether my taxes are spent on the NPR left-wing propaganda machine; where Nina Totenberg can express the wish that Jesse Helms grandchildren get AIDS and Executives openly admit they despise the Tea Party and the “White Racist Middle America” they claime it represents.
NPR executives admit they cater to an elite liberal audience. Fine, let them do so… but not with the tax dollars of non-elite, non-liberals.
You don’t really get the concept of a Free Market, do you Cas?
>>>FNDS (FoxNews Derangement Syndrome
How very clever.
You should invest in a chalkboard and a jar of Vick’s VapoRub.
I wonder if Media Matters is ready it this breaks out into overt warfare. Are they ready to be called and raised ?
Hi Cas! and Anti-Penis:
For the sake of debate, let us stipulate that FOX News “pushes a right wing message.”
1.) Why shouldn’t there be at least one major outlet doing so?
2.) What are the characteristics of “the right wing message” and how can we know if we are being exposed to it?
3.) Imagine Glenn Beck in Germany in 1931-32. What would Hitler have done? (That’s fair, since we always get asked what Jesus would do.)
4.) Since roughly 80% of US “journalists” consider themselves to be socially and politically liberal, how are they taught to be “objective” and select news that balances the debate?
5.) Why is Katie Couric such a dud? Who is the Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin of the left? (Naturally, you will answer this by denigrating the messengers while ignoring the power of the message.)
I would like to see coherent answers to Heliotrope’s questions, but I doubt we will get any from the left:
1. Because alternatives to the social-progressive message are “divisive,” and impede our progress toward the socialist utopia Levi, Cas, and then Anti-Penis are trying to drag us “kicking and screaming”” into.
2. A “right-wing” message apparently consists of a message that the Constitution should be followed, free markets should be allowed to thrive, and the Government should be fiscally prudent.
3. Shipped him to a camp for exposing that Communications Czar Hermann Goebbels was a socialist.
4. They aren’t. People don’t go to J-School to learn to report facts (“Boring!”), they go to J-School to “change the world,” “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” and “speak truth to power.” Those goals inherently involve an agenda.
5. a.) In reality, it’s because she’s not that good and she fronts for a left-wing propaganda machine that people are just tuning out, although the left will blame it on “sexism” and “white male privilege.”
5.b) The answer to all three is Rachel Maddow.
Media only matters if it is Lefty Moonbat cr*p!
Hi All,
I see the responses range from denial (Dan) to acceptance and a big “SO WHAT!” (VK; and maybe Heliotrope). I have no argument with the “so what.” I just recognize that this is a reliably right wing voice out there in TV “free-market” land. It is not fascist.
OK, I do look at Media-Matters, and I do listen to the occasional conversation involving Ailes, and I do clue into Fox News on an occasional basis, both listening to folks (Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity), Fox News, as well as through the prism of the MSM. I will grant that the news division is less ideological then the opinion programming.
Also, I thought the corollary to the Law was the first person to invoke Nazi Germany and/or Hitler/Goebbels, etc lost the argument? 🙂
Hey Heliotrope! Thanks for the moniker. I am an upbeat kind of individual, so it does fit. Thank you. 🙂
Cas, trying to see how my response counts as denial. FoxNews doesn’t take taxpayer dollars and doesn’t tilt as far to the right as CNN does to the left.
We’re so used to MSM’s left-wing tilt that we see a slight tilt to the right as extreme bias.
Exactly. Q. Where was balance in the MFM before FoxNews? A. George Will arguing with four liberals for an hour once a week on Sunday. That was the outer limit to which the MFM was willing to permit conservatives to have a voice before FoxNews.
The left is just accustomed to controlling everything. It drives them nuts that there are media voices opposing the social progressive agenda. They know that our ideas make more sense than theirs, which is why our ideas must be suppressed and, failing that, demonized.
Why did David Brock turn into a shill for Hill(ary) Clinton & her Media Matters propaganda outlet?
It is difficult to tag Fox as right wing. It claims to be fair and balanced. It does give voice to the right which CNN does not. The left is represented on Fox by such persons as Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, the late Geraldine Ferraro, Bob Becel, to name a few. Bill O´Reilly, when compared to Sean Hannity ar Glen Beck, hardly sees to be right wing. He´s opposed to the death penalty. To me he´s more of a centriist.
Can you imagine the howling if the situation were reversed? Not only “the chilling effect on free speech” but the use of violent war metaphors of the kind that (ahem) caused a paranoid schizophrenic to shoot people in Arizona? It’s pathetic.
Shorter Cas: It’s OK to compel people to pay for government propaganda and anti-conservative bigotry as espoused by NPR, but it’s wrong for anyone to criticize the government for any reason.
And V the K is right. People like Cas want anyone who disagrees with them to shut up. Media Matters is already on record as supporting the death threats being made against conservatives and Republicans in Wisconsin by Obama Party-funded unions and organizers. Media Matters and the Obama Party do not want free speech, which is why they are supporting and endorsing death threats against conservatives and Republicans and their families to force them into silence.
Because David Brock is a whore and George Soros is his Sugar Daddy.
That’s crazy.
Modern American journalism is a complete disgrace, and relying on Fox News or CNN as a source of reliable information is completely idiotic. Cable news companies are about ratings, and that means you get bombastic characters playing parts, and dolled-up vixens framing political news as soap opera drama. There really is no distinction between the political establishment and the media establishment – media celebrities trade fawning coverage for access and grant anonymity to anyone who wants to badmouth their political enemies because it helps boost their ratings and sells more books.
This is especially true of Fox News, although I won’t pretend like CNN, MSNBC, and the rest aren’t stumbling over themselves to copy their very profitable model. But it is undeniable that Fox has been whoring itself out for the Republican Party for more than a decade at this point, and that’s been more corrosive to the integrity of American journalism than anything else I could think of.
Which is why the lemmingcrats rely on Jon Leibowitz for their news.
Yeah, right. We all long for the good old days of 1968 to 2000 when ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR were whoring themselves out for the Democrat Party and there was no alternative. Those were good old days of journalistic integrity when there was no corrosion of American journalism.
Levi, your fly is open and we can see clear through and right out of your anal pore. Sorry, but FOX News didn’t poison your water supply, you fouled it yourselves by peeing and pooping in it like it didn’t matter.
Remember when Al Gore taught in the Columbia “J” school on deep background with the doors locked? You lib-loons are a laugh a minute. Oh, look! Was that a Madcow?
The funny part, Heliotrope, is that when Bush was in power, little Levi boy was shrieking about the necessity of “speaking truth to power” and praising the American press for things like Rathergate because, even if they were faking the news, it was against the evil Bush and that is what Levi wanted.
Levi defines journalism as repeating leftist talking points and attacking conservatives under every circumstance. The reason he hates Fox is because they do neither. The reason he is suddenly against MSDNC and CNN is because their ratings falling into the toilet have actually spurred them to do more than play Pravda to Obama’s Lenin.
Hi NDT,
“It’s OK to compel people to pay for government propaganda”
There is nothing in what I have said to infer what you say here. You are moving into Vulcan mind-meld territory here…
Hi Dan,
“Cas, trying to see how my response counts as denial. FoxNews doesn’t take taxpayer dollars and doesn’t tilt as far to the right as CNN does to the left.”
I can grant what you say about taxpayer gollars. OK, so? As for greater or lesser tilt, I think that is an aesthetic judgement.
Wow, so where does Levi get his ‘news’? Such paragons of objectivity as Stephen Colbert and SNL?
Levi would only have us watch his approved news outlets. Jsut as he’d only allow people to vote for amendments that he feels are justified, allow th majority to rule as long as he approved, and allow ideas into public debate that he thinks are worthy.
Here I’d thought the little fascist had shut up finally after making a fool of himself, and he show up again. He’s like the herpes of Gay Patriot’s comments.
I’m just loving how, as usual, the more they go after FOX NEWS, the more they bring attention to it, the more they do just the opposite of what they should be doing because their efforts apparently help boost FOX ratings. Also please note I’m no fan of the commentary on FOX – don’t care much for Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, for instance, don’t watch them – but apparently the left watches them religiously as they always know the latest topics of the latest shows, which I didn’t watch by the way. In order to discuss it I have to go look them up!
Yes, I agree that media matters, as an allegedly tax-exempt setup is now breaking the law in multiple ways – though I don’t expect anyone to do anything about it.
OK I’m not seeing how to make the pretty pink comment boxes – probably a simple way with some code but I don’t know how it works here so I’ll do it the old fashioned way:
QUOTE: ‘For the sake of debate, let us stipulate that FOX News “pushes a right wing message.”
1.) Why shouldn’t there be at least one major outlet doing so?’
Ideally all NEWS would come to us from completely unbiased sources – but then again to be human is to be biased so that is not possible. FOX clearly does indicate which of it’s segments are news and which are commentary. If the commentary was continually seen as flawed I would expect people would shy away from it over time – instead it seems they’re ratings continue to dominate. Does that suggest they’re wrong or they’re right, generally, to you? Or maybe just controversial and stimulating?
QUOTE: ‘2.) What are the characteristics of “the right wing message” and how can we know if we are being exposed to it?’
The “right wing message” seems to be one of being responsible, prudent and compassionate. To think for yourself – instead of letting people like George Soros, Al Gore and others tell you what you should be thinking and saying. I was curious, after hearing about, then finding websites containing leftist talking points. I looked for similar things from the right and didn’t find the same sort of stuff that the left provides for it’s drones, who apparently are unable to think for themselves.
As for “how do we know”, well if we’re capable of thinking for ourselves rationally I think that would be a no-brainer.
QUOTE: ‘3.) Imagine Glenn Beck in Germany in 1931-32. What would Hitler have done? (That’s fair, since we always get asked what Jesus would do.)’
Ah you forget that they ignore that he was a member of the National SOCIALIST Worker’s Party and claim dear Adolph and his cohorts were right wing goons. Good question and observation – more rhetorical and thought-provoking than anything though as the answers are trivial.
QUOTE: ‘4.) Since roughly 80% of US “journalists” consider themselves to be socially and politically liberal, how are they taught to be “objective” and select news that balances the debate?’
They aren’t. Any claim of objectivity and lack of bias is dispelled after a few minutes of observation in most cases. Oh sure there may be a few who try to be objective but the sad state of the media, and I include FOX in this by the way, is testament to their failure.
QUOTE: ‘5.) Why is Katie Couric such a dud? Who is the Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin of the left? (Naturally, you will answer this by denigrating the messengers while ignoring the power of the message.)’
This is exactly what I ask, but I leave out the names of individuals. I ask ‘Why is it that Air America died? Why is it that MSNBC has such dismal ratings? If their message is so true and critical, why do so few bother to tune in?’ The best they’ve done so far, in my opinion, is Jon “Stewart” and yeah, they have an obvious lib in conservative clothing attempting to ride his coattails (not doing very well) in Colbert – isn’t it great how, in trying to parody a “typical conservative”, Colbert comes off as so blatantly liberal?
Bob:
You make this:
Then you paste in the quote.
At the end of the quote you make this:
Instead of “blockquote” you can enter “i” for italics or “b” for bold or “u” for underline. (Without the “”, of course.) To close the italics you enter “/i” and to close bold you enter “/b” and to close the underline you enter “/u” and, again, without the “”. Just to be clear, you surround the “i” or “b” or “u” with . These command characters will be in your comment box, but not your preview box. Also, your comment box will not exercise the command in that box, only in the live preview box.
9:22 PM March 28, 2011
I have read all the comments today, my first time doing that, and I find no debatable substantive issue. What issues do “you” people believe should be debated? Immigration, Abortion, Terrorism and the control there of, Protecting or not protecting the Constitution, Term Limits, Balanced Budgets, State Rights, Strong or Weak Fed, Supreme Court, Litigation Reform, Health Care, Social Security, Tax regs, Housing and Farm Subsidies, and this is just the beginning. Let’s stop writing to prove we can type, we all know you have spell check. Can we please have an intelligent give and take on some issue?