Media Matters Exposed?
This is going to be the talk of the blogosphere. The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson and Vince Coglianese put out a very long piece on Media Matters. This part alone is going to cause trouble…
“The HuffPo guys were good, Sam Stein and Nico [Pitney],” remembered one former staffer. “The people at Huffington Post were always eager to cooperate, which is no surprise given David’s long history with Arianna [Huffington].”
“Jim Rainey at the LA Times took a lot of our stuff,” the staffer continued. “So did Joe Garofoli at the San Francisco Chronicle. We’ve pushed stories to Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne [at the Washington Post]. Brian Stelter at the New York Times was helpful.”
“Ben Smith [formerly of Politico, now at BuzzFeed.com] will take stories and write what you want him to write,” explained the former employee, whose account was confirmed by other sources. Staffers at Media Matters “knew they could dump stuff to Ben Smith, they knew they could dump it at Plum Line [Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog], so that’s where they sent it.”
Smith, who refused to comment on the substance of these claims, later took to Twitter to say that he has been critical of Media Matters.
How much truth to these allegations are there? Well it depends on what happened. If someone pitched something and someone decided to write about it, was it written about because of a cozy relationship or was it written about because it was news worthy of being written about? See? These things can be very relative depending on how you define the parameters. Every writer gets pointed to information at one time or another. It’s then up to the writer to decide if it’s worth writing about or not. I can’t speak for the others but Stelter, based on my dealings with him, doesn’t strike me as the type who will just take what’s given to him and then run with it.
Inside Cable News 
February 12, 2012 at 11:34 pm
I’ll wait for the robots to act it out.
February 13, 2012 at 8:50 am
Liberals will never forgive FNC for blowing away the clouds. The fact that they would take a look-see at information that might discredit Fox is more expected than surprising..
February 13, 2012 at 10:36 am
Is this supposed to be some blockbuster revelation? Media Matters is a liberal media research organization. HuffPo is a liberal website, E.J. Dionne and the others listed are liberal columnists/bloggers. Of course they all work with MM. MM does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to exhaustively researching the right wing media.
But it shouldn’t be just liberal writers who use Media Matters. Journalists of all stripes should benefit. Just because MM has a liberal agenda doesn’t mean it’s research isn’t true. I would say the same about conservative media research organizations such as Accuracy In Media. Of course journalists should double-check the research in all cases, but to ignore it entirely would be a dereliction of duty as a journalist.
February 13, 2012 at 10:39 am
Yes, I know the word should be “its,” not “it’s.” I hate when other people do this and now I’ve gone and done it myself.
February 13, 2012 at 11:13 am
freddyjason,
here’s why it … uh … matters:
Moreover, Politico makes no secret of the fact that Media Matters is a left-wing organization. More often than not, Politico will qualify Media Matters as a liberal media watchdog. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong or even improper about all of this. Until, that is, you look deeper and see how often Politico follows Media Matters’ lead when it comes to what news is and is not worth covering. … Politico is frequently inspired to write a story to amplify Media Matters’ point of view on a subject MMfA feels is either getting too much or too little press.
Again, this is not necessarily improper–until you dig even deeper and discover that Politico is completely indifferent and scarcely interested in anything Media Matters’ many counterparts on the right have to say. In fact, outlets such as Newsbusters, Big Journalism, Accuracy in Media, and the Media Research Center are almost never cited as serious sources or as a counter-weight to Media Matters. Worse still, when Politico does mention right-of-center media watchdogs, it’s usually to criticize or ridicule them or within the context of maginalizing them as “right-wing blogs” or just another part of the conservative noise machine.
…
Below are the findings from a good faith search that examines how often Media Matters for America is cited by Politico, and in what context. As you’ll see, over a three month period, MMfA popped up a total of 17 times, or about once every five days. By comparison, mentions of Newsbusters, the Media Research Center, and Big Journalism during this same time period totalled only eight times. And even though that statistic is in and of itself damning, as you’ll see below, the context of those mentions is even more so.
While Politico has written a couple of stories in the last few months critical of Media Matters, overall Media Matters is treated quite seriously and frequently cited as an authority by Politico. As you’ll see, it’s the complete opposite for right-of-center media watchdogs.
The bottom line is that the only media watchdog Politico treats with respect or authority is Media Matters–and not because MMfA is more accurate than other groups. Moreover, Media Matters is a frequent inspiration for Politico articles big and small.
February 13, 2012 at 12:41 pm
savefarris,
Despite Big Journalism’s assertion to the contrary, maybe MM really is more accurate than other groups. The Daily Caller piece quotes a former MM editor who said that David Brock imposed very harsh penalties on employees who got it wrong.
Maybe that’s why Politico quotes MM more than the right-wing media watchdogs, or maybe it’s because Politico employs Ben Smith, cited in the Daily Caller piece as a writer who often sites MM. Whatever the reason, I’m not sure how this is a criticism of MM.
February 13, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Megyn Kelly had Vince Coglianese on to discuss his DC expose that Media Matters was a left leaning organization whose research has been used by left leaning reporters and bloggers. Lost on Ms.Kelly was the irony of the situation.
February 13, 2012 at 2:01 pm
MM is an oganization that makes its money via anonymous donations, and by finding outrage at non-left-wing comments. If they don’t find things to daily feed lazy “journalists,” they make no money. That alone, encourages bad behavior, poor journalistic ethics, and hypocritical aguments.
They are an ADVOCACY group, pretending to be journalists.
February 13, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Man, having a bad day. I know the word in my post above should be “cites,” not “sites.” I must need more sleep.
February 13, 2012 at 2:02 pm
You can argue context etc. and I think MM goes overboard complaining about what people don’t say or mention. But most of their stuff is backed up by video and/or audio and they just point out what conservatives are saying over the air.
Is MM biased? Absolutely. But I don’t think it’s really an unfair “attack” when they point out that someone says something stupid or inflammatory and can back that up with video or audio.
February 13, 2012 at 2:07 pm
If MM wasn’t effective, they wouldn’t be getting donations. Nor would they be constantly attacked by the right wing.
Of course they are an advocacy group. This is not a big revelation. Journalists city advocacy groups all the time.
February 13, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Danoregon: Great point. Most of MM’s stuff is just finding crazy/false/dumb/offensive stuff that conservative talking heads say, and spotlighting it. They watch Fox News and listen to Limbaugh so I don’t have to.
February 13, 2012 at 4:20 pm
“Effective” is not an appropriate measure for an alleged journalistic group. It’s like saying Glenn Beck was attacked by the left-wing because he was “effective.” I’m pretty sure that’s not an argument you want to make.
MM is popular because they tell people who don’t watch FOX or other conservative commentators what they already believe, and want to believe. They spoon feed the hungry haters, who are all too happy to eat up the distortions and hypocrisy.
And really, when you folks say, “They’re right,” lets be honest… how would you know? It’s not like you’d consider the folks who say, “No they’re not” to be anything more than “right-wing nut jobs.” You choose to believe them… and very little would/could change that.
February 13, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Journalists city advocacy groups all the time.
And they’re labeled as such all the time … if they’re conservative.
“Republicans are racist, pure and simple’ said Joe Trustworthy at the Center for American Progress. However, the Koch-funded right wing think tank and lobbyist foundation the Heritage Foundation claimed that even racists are good people too.”
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