Paul Farhi of the Washington Post offers "Billionaire Koch brothers use Web to take on media reports they dispute" (link), an example of why dislike of the MSM never goes out of style.

I'm no fan of the Koch family; see the link. In fact, I've been opposing them (and their surrogates) for years. See Reason Magazine and libertarians. But, like everyone else, they have a right to defend themselves against misleading news reports about them.

Paul Farhi isn't entirely clear on that point:

...[the Kochs posted a rebuttal to a news story on their site KochFacts dot com and took out ads against the author]...

Such aggressive tactics have become part of the playbook for Koch Industries and its owners, Charles and David Koch. Faced with news articles they consider flawed or biased, the brothers and their lieutenants don’t just send strongly worded letters to the editor in protest. Instead, the company takes the offensive, with detailed responses that oscillate between correcting, shaming and slamming journalists who’ve written unflattering stories about the company or the Kochs’ myriad political and philanthropic activities...

...Unlike most companies, which tend to work out their differences with reporters behind the scenes, Koch (pronounced “coke”) often takes its feuds public, using KochFacts as its spearhead.Journalists who’ve run afoul of the Kochs will often see their personal e-mail exchanges with company executives posted, on the Koch Web site - sometimes to the reporters’ shock. KochFacts also posts lengthy, point-by-point critiques of news stories and calls out reporters for alleged factual errors and biases. A typical KochFacts headline from May: “New Yorker’s Jane Mayer Distorts the Facts and Misleads Readers Again.”

At that point in time, I'd guess most readers who are at least a little skeptical of the WaPo's daily coverage are going to say, "more power to them!" Many such readers might become even more favorable to the Kochs than they would otherwise due to them challenging the MSM.

If the reporters thought their emails were private and if KochFacts publishes lies and smears that's one thing. But, if they're doing it in a fact-based and honorable fashion, more power to them. The more people who hold the news media accountable the better. If they do it out in the open rather than behind closed doors as Farhi wants, then so much the better.

In his post, Farhi twice refers to the Pulitzer Prize received by one of the Koch opponents, as if he's shocked that someone who's an authority figure would be challenged.

P.S. For the best way to undercut them to their base, see the Koch family page. Of course, since those in the Farhi sphere align with those in the Koch sphere on those issues, don't expect to hear anything about that from Farhi or others like him.