If you had any doubt that Media Matters — which just received an infusion of money from George Soros — is the most dangerous and intolerant media group in the nation, this piece by Ben Smith at Politico will convince you.
Media Matters, which started as one of the usual-sort of “watchdog” groups (which exist on the left and right) has transformed itself recently into a group devoted towards sabotaging Fox News, Media Matters’ war against Fox:
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 strategy that we had had toward Fox was basically a strategy of containment,” said Brock, Media Matters’ chairman and founder and a former conservative journalist, adding that the group’s main aim had been to challenge the factual claims of the channel and to attempt to prevent them from reaching the mainstream media.
The new strategy, he said, is a “war on Fox.”
In an interview and a 2010 planning memo shared with POLITICO, Brock listed the fronts on which Media Matters – which he said is operating on a $10 million-plus annual budget — is working to chip away at Fox and its parent company, News Corp. They include its bread-and-butter distribution of embarrassing clips and attempts to rebut Fox points but also a series of under-the-radar tactics.
Media Matters, Brock said, is assembling opposition research files not only on Fox’s top executives but on a series of midlevel officials. It has hired an activist who has led a successful campaign to press advertisers to avoid Glenn Beck’s show.
The attacks will be very personal, extending not just to Fox News coverage (which is fair game for criticism) but trying to dig up dirt on Fox News executives:
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.
But it doesn’t stop at Fox News. Media Matters also plans to attack conservative websites:
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 a political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement.
Media Matters has transformed itself into a very dangerous organization which engages in sabotage to disrupt opponents. None of this is surprising. When Media Matters says it wants freedom of speech and freedom of the press, what it means is that it wants freedom for its speech and its press.
Guerrilla warfare and sabotage. It’s what the most active Democratic media operation has come to. Scary times ahead.
And you don’t think they will do absolutely anything to get Obama reelected?
Update: I think it is a fair question to ask how what Media Matters plans differs from the recent sting operation against NPR. First, Fox News does not get government funding, as did NPR. The NPR story would have been a non-story were it not for the public funding of NPR. Also, the NPR sting took place in a public place and stood on its own merits, whereas Media Matters plans to infiltrate Fox News and go after Fox News executives for reasons unrelated to Fox News (e.g., is there something in their background which could be embarrassing). Finally, there is the scope; Media Matters has a $10 million per year budget, whereas James O’Keefe is out of money and in debt and runs his operation on a shoestring.
From my Media Matters archives:
- My First Media Matters Post
- TeaPartyTracker.org Fails
- Media Matters: Egypt Erupts, So Let’s Blame …The Israel Lobby!
- Grassroots
- I Am Just A Member Of The Tribe
- The “Section 246 Proves Joe Wilson Is A Liar” Lie
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Comments
Whatever happened to David Brock anyway? From "The Real Anita Hill" and the troopergate story at TAS to a raging left-winger. Whatever happened to make him swing 180?
[Btw, if you're taking more Donovan requests, I'd like to hear Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, if you please 🙂 ]
I wonder how people perceive this? It looks to me like Soros isn't pleased that Glenn Beck has been using Soros own words to expose him as the radical, far left, America hating creep that he is. So Soros has instructed one of his front groups to ruin the lives, careers and families of Beck's Fox News co-workers.
For more on Soros's grander scheme to reduce America's global leadership role and economic power, see this story which has gotten little attention:
http://www.mrc.org/bmi/commentary/2011/Unreported_Soros_Event_Aims_to_Remake_Entire_Global_Economy.html
This isn't a surprising development given the lack of bang for Mr. Soros' buck so far.
What is surprising is the telegraphing of punches. And, when one side escalates an arms race, the other side responds in kind. It's now a matter of record which side chose to go nuclear first.
How I wish some conservative investors would fund the best and brightest of the right-of-center alternative media onto the next level of media power; a full-fledged news outlet akin to Fox News. Wouldn't it be great to see Professor Jacobson, Professor Reynolds, John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Andrew Breitbart, Ed Morissey, Dennis Miller, etc., on TV every day? The other side has many more than one single major outlet. I can dream, can't I?
I wish I could say that I'm surprised, but I can't. None of this will work, of course, and it says a great deal more about Fox's success and influence than it does about Media Matters and Soros. Well, I suppose the one informs the other. If the "messaging" messiahs, the new media gods, are going to all this trouble and expense to demonstrate their greatness . . . well, it just shows that there's no there there.
And I have to second Luke on how great it would be to see you (and those other people, I guess) on TV every day.
Interesting. Unfortunately, personal attacks have become the currency of politics. I've seen plenty of this on this site, and I've seen plenty of it on the left. It's just so much more fun than those pesky facts. I'm glad they plan to challenge the 'facts' on fox that are 'non-facts.' I am also sorry to hear they plan to embarrass executives– unless of course it's to expose their political, financial, lobbying affiliations, in which case all that's relevant is fair.
@LHC: your list does not include Althouse. Additionally, she and those on the list are new media types unlikely to want venues other than those they create or like to participate in, such as PJM and occasionally old media if it suits them. Old media network figures are hirelings, like pro sports players, gilded slaves.
Generally: when one goes on attack, especially in spec-ops, one does not pre-announce the fact.
Spec-ops cut both ways, in principle. In fact, depends on the quality of the teams and the importance of their objectives.
Summary: I appreciate this announcement as a sign of weakness, thigh slapping. Answer: pound sand — and counter-op if one is of a mind to. I am not because MM and Soros are not in the area pointed to by the vector of attack that should govern effort: the consortium of Liberal Arts Faculties and Afro-Mohammedan Imperialists.
I don't see this as a bad thing. They have not yet figured out that they have a way of making mountains out of molehills, and for every person who is against this new mountain there is someone who is curious about the new mountain (Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are examples. If not for the obsession by the left they may be less well known. However the constant exposure has made them as many friends as enemies.) My guess is that when this is all said and done Fox news will have made some more friends.
@David R. Graham
I'm an Althouse fan, too. I'd definitely include her and others (just too many to list).
Scary times ahead.
Pffft. It's not scary. It's a bunch of Leftist hacks preaching to their Leftist choir.
The more time and money they spend chasing their tails on the eeeeeevil Fox News, the less time and money they're spending on other things.
Have at it. The majority of people couldn't care less what Media Matters has to say.
Laurie @ 1:05PM confuses criticism on this site of leftist's actions with "personal attacks". Strange misperception, that.
So David Brock has come full circle and is now a destructionist? Failed at creating something positive so he decides to tear things down, instead. How mature is that? And all at the bidding of a former Nazi simpatico, too. Life achievements that make a parent proud.
MediaMutters planning on going after mid level executives could be exploited against them. For instance, I don't know anyone in such a postion, so they would be considered a private person under libel laws.
Just make a few anonymous and untrue accusations of them and refer it to the MediaNutters, and then the mid level executives can become enriched thanks to George Soros.
Seems only fair.
This is literally nothing more than two fake establishment news outlets playing against each other like it's a real disagreement in ideology, whereas both are owned by the same interests, and play this fake left/right argument to fool people into not realizing what they're actually talking about here is trivial and designed to keep people from realizing both organizations, Media Matters and FOX News, are actually hiding the truth about the New World Order, and using this fake match to generate a diversionary situation to keep people from thinking about what really matters!
@VidTruth, perhaps next time you should wait until the sun comes up before comparing Media Matters and Fox News Channel in the same sentence. You are really in the dark!
Media Matter is not now, nor has it ever been a news gathering organization. It is not even a "news outlet" as you incorrectly stated. It has loosely functioned (in the past) like News Busters has on the right, as critics of news and other media stories, and has tried to expose what they perceive as bias in reporting. But even with that comparison, there have been a few real differences – other, that is, than their dismal record of ineffectiveness in the past election cycle. Still smarting from that, and flush with this Soros cash, they are apparently now trying to upgrade their model to that of trash mongers. How pathetic!
Media Matters hasn’t promoted a decent political idea since the Democrat party switched full time to taking what doesn’t belong to them and passing it out whatever latest group they are trying to woo for the next election cycle. And, some of the old Democrat canards have really gone stale lately – such as calling anyone who disagrees with you a "racist," or comparing all opposition politicians to Hitler.
As for the differences among dozens of media critics, everyone knows the Media Matters bus is being driven by establishment Democrats, including Podesta, and so their constant refrain is far more politically "disciplined" . . . i.e., it is focused on driving the party message and serving the party needs. Media Matters is now the official squawking parrot for the larboard-leaning "vanguard" of the Democrat Party.
As among newsgathering organizations, you can’t even compare Fox News to MSNBC, which has become more and more openly partisan, and, as a consequence, less and less attractive to intelligent people. With the alarming official connection of G.E. to the Obama political operation, MSNBC seems increasingly to be taking on the role of the "unofficial' official political news outlet for the White House.
At least CNN gamely tries to stay relevant, except when they’re getting duped into being human shields by Muammar Gaddafi.
Professor, via a hat tip by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, Brandon Kaiser writing at The Right Sphere, noted this latest admission of the switch to personal attack mission mode at Media Matters,, and he thereby questions any continuing validity to MMFA's status as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
As such, of course, lefty donors, like Soros, reap a huge windfall tax benefit by being able to "write off" their donations to an organization now devoted to systematically conducting very personal opposition research on individuals for blatantly partisan political purposes.
From Kaiser's piece, "Media Matters Finally Fesses Up".
Because of this, Media Matters should reconsider their 501(c)(3) status which is designated for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes. MMFA no longer meets any of these qualifiers (it’s arguable they never did) and under the banner of waging a war against Fox News and the GOP puts them in an entirely different zip code.
Of course, Media Matters will never reconsider that status on their own . . . it literally guarantees that they will continue to receive substantially higher donations if the donors are able to "write off" the given amounts.
But it is utterly risible to claim that MMFA is either a public charity or a private foundation.
The fact of the matter is: the Left cannot argue the issues on the merits because, when most people hear their ideas explained, they realize that they have no merit. The only way the Left can achieve popularity is through deception and delegitimizing their opponents ['Rush Limbaugh is UNMUTUAL'].
Quoted from and Linked to at:
Search And Destroy