Media Matters deceptively edits Limbaugh audio
By cutting off the audio, Media Matters falsely claims Limbaugh now doesn’t care about ratings because his allegedly have dropped.
We know Media Matters hates Rush Limbaugh. It’s an obsession second only to the fixation on Fox News.
Media Matters was behind the astroturfed Stop Rush campaign targeting advertisers, which ended in a complete failure.
Nonetheless, the Limbaugh obsession continues at Media Matters.
The latest iteration is an article published yesterday claiming that Rush Limbaugh’s ratings are so bad, Limbaugh’s taken to claiming ratings don’t matter, After Getting Bad Ratings News, Limbaugh Tries To Prove “Ratings Don’t Matter”
Rush Limbaugh used CBS’ decision to hire comedian Stephen Colbert as the new host of The Late Show as evidence that ratings are irrelevant following reports that the talk radio firebrands’ own ratings have collapsed.
On the May 1 edition of his radio show, Limbaugh declared that CBS’ decision to replace David Letterman with Colbert is proof that “ratings don’t matter in a lot of television.” Limbaugh latched onto recent comments by CBS president Les Moonves to repeatedly gloat that he was right when he claimed that “it’s not about ratings anymore” but rather about coolness. In fact, during the entire first segment of his show, Limbaugh repeated the phrase “ratings don’t matter” a total of nine times….
Media Matters provided a 7 minute audio, and a partial transcript, to back up its claim.
I happened to listen to that segment live when I was in the car yesterday, so I knew what Media Matters readers were not informed: The audio and transcript were edited to end just before Limbaugh made clear that the type of approach the networks can take for late night TV does not apply to him.
Here’s the part of the transcript Media Matters did not include:
And if the network can promise you that so many eyeballs are gonna see it, CBS says, “Oh, no, we’re not doing that anymore. We’re not selling ratings.”
So they’re not even buying ratings. They’re buying hip. They’re buying cool. Now, we on the other hand, can’t. We can’t do any of that. We’re not allowed to be hip and cool here. We have to exist in the real world. We have to have ratings, and we have to sell advertising that has to work. If we don’t, then nobody’s gonna keep us on with no evidence here. It isn’t gonna happen….
We have to work in the real world here where real success is real success, and where real audience is real audience, and real ratings are real ratings. We can’t live in some artificially created universe here of buzz and hipness. We couldn’t survive. We are, for what it’s worth, mired in reality here. That’s why I’m called the mayor of Realville.
By cutting of the audio, Media Matters was able to attribute to Limbaugh a view exactly the opposite of what Limbaugh had stated.
When I saw Eric Boehlert, a Senior Fellow at Media Matters tweet out the story (which he did not author), I called his attention to the deception and requested a correction:
@EricBoehlert audio cut just before he said that he can't get away w/out ratings like on late night – misleading post @mmfa shld correct
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 2, 2014
@EricBoehlert @mmfa Why right post that he doesn't care abt ratings when he said the opposite? I was listening to that segment
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 2, 2014
@EricBoehlert @mmfa "They're buying cool. Now, we on the other hand, can't. We can't do any of that." http://t.co/lavH7kvi64
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 2, 2014
@EricBoehlert @mmfa "We have to have ratings, and we have to sell advertising that has to work." http://t.co/lavH7kvi64
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 2, 2014
As of this writing, there has been no correction.
Update: DailyRushbo has the audio Media Matters cut out:
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Comments
As long as there is no price to pay for lying, people will lie. Media Matters is an entire organization of shameless liars.
Rush Limbaugh likes to throw verbal hooks to get people’ attention. He often spends a LOT of time providing the context, so that, in context, the hook makes sense. Dishonest media have been using this tendency for years as a means of making him sound like a nut.
South Park did an episode about this, where one of the characters (a proud liberal, naturally) just decided to tune in, and was horrified to find out how much he agreed with Rush.
The big, dirty secret is that Rush Limbaugh is not a radical at all. He just loves to make a point by formulating it in an attention-getting manner, and then backing it up.
Anybody can falsely edit a transcript. You can even do it with the Bible. The Bible has text in two places that says “there is no God.” Of course to get there, you have to delete something like “the fool says in his heart”.
was that south park or family guy?
don’t know of any SP episodes dealing with it but Rush did a FG episode about 2 yrs ago that went like this.
You’re confusing South Park with Family Guy.
South Park has never even touched on Rush. They did do an episode (Dances With Smurfs) in which Cartman was a very obvious caricature of Glenn Beck, not Rush Limbaugh. It’s actually one of my favorite episodes.
Family Guy featured an episode of Brian, the raging liberal, who joined Rush. Of course the liberal writers of Family Guy ended up claiming that he did it not because he agreed with him, but because Brian had to be part of the ‘struggling out crowd’.
Ok, your description of the Family Guy episode is as I remembered it. I only catch bits and pieces of cartoons when the kids turn it on. They insisted I watch that one.
I’m pretty sure Rush has a huge audience….look at how many FM stations carry him now.
Rush REALLY is the most powerful man in media…I was listening when he forced CNN to switch from covering the Malayian Air story to reporting on the mudslide. Wow….just wow!
I have driven several times from Oklahoma to California to visit my parents. During the drive, regardless of where I am, when he comes on, I can listen to Rush uninterrupted the entire 3 hours by switching radio stations a couple times as I move.
And that’s with a couple large segments of the drive being literally nothing for 100+ miles between cities.
Good catch, Professor!
Normally when the MSM or one of the liberal websites that pretend to be newsworthy reports a Republican saying something dumb, I automatically discount the report, and when they report a Democrat saying something dumb… well, that’s never happened so far, so I don’t know how I would respond to that.
Media Mutters (to itself in a cold, dank basement) is an excellent example of pure Collectivist practice.
Collectivists lie. Everyday, pretty much all day. First to themselves. It is there first article of faith.
They’ll never get Rush! The lefties have been pulling this crap for years. All it does is drive more listeners to his stations to hear his side of it and listen to his tongue-in-cheek ridicule of these morons.
Eric Bohlert trades in dishonesty.
The day after Cliven Bundy became the outrage of the day, I woke up and the TV was tuned into Fox Business News. That channel airs Don Imus for a couple of hours early in the morning.
Anyway, Imus was talking about how Hannity’s staff had let him down by not vetting the Bundy guy. Then he went into a spiel about how he had been talking to a radio industry executive who allegedly told him the right wing talk radio format is over. Imus then exclaimed excitedly, ‘IT IS OVER! IT IS SO OVER!’.
I don’t have a clue what the truth is. Just relaying what Imus said during his show.
That prediction has been made for about the last 22 years.
Still, Limbaugh roars on like a Tiger tank.
Imus is a senile old fool. He likes Matt Tahhibi and Paul Begala, so you know he’s losing it.
Listen to Bernie or the crew, but anything Imus says is like to be some neuron misfiring from his cocaine days.
He’s always been a jackass. His wife is also a jackass.
But but … she’s cute. So there’s that. You can be an airhead and still matter if you’re cute & female. Don’t blame me – I’m just an observer (h/t Rush).
Hillary Clinton = among founders of Media Matters
Rush = Clinton-era nemesis
Hillary & MM still after him 20 years later.
Thank you, Prof. Jacobson.
His ratings fell? From at the top to still at the top? Except for a temporary slip in couple of stations in California and one in New York?
Hahaha. This must be some kind of leftist delusional thing. If they say it, then it will be so. The M.O. is a running theme.
Well, dear leader did prevent flooding of the east coast by getting elected. Just saying.
Eric Boehlert is lying filth.
I wouldn’t engage anyone from MMFA even on Twitter. No telling what you might catch.
I need a shower just reading that weasel’s lies.
Rush saved the AM radio band with his talk format. If we can ever get rid of the corruption in the IRS they need to investigate the tax exempt status of this Soros front group which has been given a free pass by the IRS up to this point.
Rush came in 37th in Los Angles? I’m surprised he was that high in Libtard Central.
According to wiki which I will believe before MMFA,
” Rush Limbaugh’s show has been the number one commercial talk show since at least 1991 when record keeping began.”
I quit listening to Limbaugh when the ads started outweighing the content. Not that I especially disagreed with the content, but even back in the day, Rush had a bad habit of preaching to the choir about the Devil, which just makes the choir and the Devil both smug.
More recently he’s been taking the Republicans to task, which may actually accomplish something. Too bad he’s now sliding ads into his program material, which corrupts the material enough to make him unlistenable, at least for me.
Wow, it sure was easy getting rid of you. 🙂