Media Matters' war against Fox
A spokeswoman for Fox News, Irena Briganti, declined to comment on Media Matters’ efforts, but the group draws regular barbs from Fox hosts Beck and Bill O’Reilly.
“Tonight is not an episode you casually watch and take out of context like Media Matters does,” Beck remarked last month.
Continue ReadingA more extended attack came in February on the freewheeling late night show Red Eye, which conducted a mock interview with a purported Media Matters employee.
“It’s horrible. All we do is sit and watch Fox News and make up stuff about Fox News. It is the saddest place I have ever seen in my life. I think about it, and I want to throw up,” the mock employee said. “I get to work and I take off my clothes, and they strap me into a chair in front of a TV with [Fox News Channel] on. They keep my eyelids propped open like in “Clockwork Orange,” and I sit and type all day.
“If there was no Beck, George Soros would come down and demand we make it up,” the “interviewee” continued. “I would watch the “Flintstones” and transcribe Fred Flintstone’s words and attribute them to Beck. It was the only way to get Soros to stop hitting me.”
(A Soros associate said the financier, who gave Media Matters $1 million last year, did not earmark it for the Fox campaign. Soros suggested in a recent CNN interview that the Fox depictions of him as a sinister media manipulator would better be applied to Murdoch.)
In some views, the war between Media Matters and Fox is not, necessarily, bad for either side. Media Matters has transformed itself into a pillar of the progressive movement with its aggressive new brand of media campaigning. And the attacks cement Fox’s status on the right.
“Fox is happy about it — and it makes their position more vivid among their supporters,” said Paul Levinson, a media studies professor at Fordham University. “One way of keeping your core supporters happy is to be attacked by people your core supporters don’t like.”
But Media Matters says its digging has begun to pay off. The group has trickled out a series of emails from Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon, leaks from inside the network, which show him, for instance, circulating a memo on “Obama’s references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists.”
The leaks are part of a broader project to take advantage of internal dissent, Media Matters Executive Vice President Ari Rabin-Havt said.
“We made a list of every single person who works for Fox and tried to figure out who might be disgruntled and why, and we went out to try to meet them,” he said. “Clearly, somebody in that organization is giving us primary source documents.”
Media Matters, he said, is also conducting “opposition research” on a dozen or so “mid- and senior-level execs and producers,” a campaign style move that he and Brock said would simply involve recording their public appearances and digging into public records associated with them.
And Brock’s 2010 planning memo offers a glimpse at Media Matters’ shift from media critic to a new species of political animal.
“Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press,” its memo says. “Fox News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”
Readers' Comments (4804)
Fraud News.
Some people need to get a life.
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving station.
Fox is not news for the most part. In local editions, it is ok. But the main channel is full of misinformation, lies, deceit and rhetoric beyond compare. I quit watching many many years ago cause I choose not to be brain washed with stupidity and polarization.
I don't watch "news" to get commentary or opinion, I watch it to get the straight facts and weigh the information based upon what is presented and check those facts I deem questionable.
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving station.
Fox is not news for the most part. In local editions, it is ok. But the main channel is full of misinformation, lies, deceit and rhetoric beyond compare. I quit watching many many years ago cause I choose not to be brain washed with stupidity and polarization.
I don't watch "news" to get commentary or opinion, I watch it to get the straight facts and weigh the information based upon what is presented and check those facts I deem questionable.
I agree with you Goldman, Media Matters is definatly fraud news.
If media matters really matters in this country than we are in a world of s#%#%
Fox gives both sides ,like it or not .
Fox has always been a complete joke as a news organization. It's a propaganda arm of the GOP, nothing more. Keep up the good work, Media Matters !
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s...
DOOCY RULES...
Media matters is just another group like MSNBC with limited base of supporters and limited money supply. In the end they can do all they want and say all they want. The proof is in what is reported as correct or wrong. Is what Fox reports on their programming correct?
Where? It is ironic that a supposedly enlightened liberal group would try and stifle free and open speec h.
It goes back tot he issue if you dont agree with "Thier View" of the world and agenda then they will do all they can to hurt and silence those who disagree. The are found to be exactly what they are HYPOCRITS.
If Fox programming where so off and wrong why do they have the largest ratings in cable news? Perhaps it maybe just maybe americans exercise they rights in watching what they want and like? Does media matters have an issue with that? Perhaps media matters is upset that the majority of this country is not liberal and is more conservative/centrist?
PATHETIC.
LOL!!!
Unfortunately, during the late 1970's, the major television networks began configuring the news as entertainment and the quality of reporting was reduced. FOX is a refreshing entry into the news mix and I am thankful that you can make your own decision among a group of alternatives and pick those that ring true to the facts. I'd hate to have my news censored, sifted and spun the way the big three have done. And I believe most Americans are with me that news needs to be fair and balanced and above all true. FOX's market share proves that they are well accepted notwithstanding all the liberal media set against them. I believe that Americans are savy enough to see who is telling the truth and decide for themselves . . . we don't need a politically correct intermediary such as Media Matters to interject group think into the process.
So you are still around. I was beginning to wonder, because I haven't seen you on ANY of the boards about the "kinetic military action" in Libya. Hope things are well.
wow...somebody's got their thinking cap on this morning...lol
Nothing wrong with that
But that is stupid and may well backfire.
Yes, it may. He should have said a "kinetic military action" on Fox.
I don't watch "news" to get commentary or opinion, I watch it to get the straight facts and weigh the information based upon what is presented and check those facts I deem questionable.
So, you're either saying you are incapable of discerning the news broadcasts from the
commentary broadcasts, or you just don't watch news.
That aside, media matters is doing this for media matters, attacking fox narrowly puts you in the headlines, like now.
Two things are likely to come from this. As with every news outlet accountability is always a good thing, and this will simply encourage fox to make fewer mistakes (and the all - cnn msnbc, networks, etc make tons of them) and secondly, fox will be sending MM a thank you card for another post attack ratings increase.
Fox News needs to follow the axiom…"You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own FACTS"
LIBERALS: CHAMPIONS OF FREE SPEECH!!!! (some restrictions apply. See Media Matters, gay rights groups , civil rights groups, the Clinton Administration, the ACLU and your local college campus for details)
It is about time that Fox News is challenged---It should be called Fox's Opinion. It is NOT a news organization, it is a mouthpiece for the ultra-conservative evangelical religious right.
Limbaugh has never been adequately challened. He is NOT a commentator, he is obviously being paid to be an attack dog. Hannity is another almost neo-nazi. All the others are just band-wagon wannabes.
The conservatives, such as the tea party implants into the Republican Party, have completely twisted the conservative philosophy. I don't agree with it anyway, but to see it distorted and abused by the radicalized Christians is awful and extremely dangerous to our freedoms.
So now it's all out in the open.
The purpose of Media Matters was NEVER to give an unbiased view of the news. It was ALWAYS about promoting a marxist agenda and attacking those who did not do likewise.
Media Matters, CBS, NBC, ABC, the leadership of the Democratic Party, public sector unions, the so-called "progressives", the socialists, the communist party, are all just different heads of the same monster and they all have the same goal - destroying the institutions that made America what it is.
Media Matters is now coming out of the closet and admitting it. How long before the rest of these anti-American marxist institutions do the same?
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