media matters for america
Media Matters for America
Summary (posts follow):
Left-wing "media watchdog" group headed by David Brock and funded with money from George Soros and others. Their overall goal is to stifle debate through the usual "liberal" practice of calling people 'racist" and the like. Their entries frequently have a pompous, faux-academic tone, a tone that the contents of those entries rarely if ever live up to. Some of their entries about anodyne comments from their opponents leave even those on their side scratching their heads wondering what was wrong about the comments that MMFA was shocked - shocked! - by.
Staff and helpers include the following persons of various levels of disrepute:
Eric Alterman
Duncan Black (Atrios)
Max Blumenthal
Eric Boehlert
Jamison Foser
Eric Hananoki
Paul Waldman
Oliver Willis
Last modified Dec 22, 2008
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):
Courage Campaign has no credibility or ethics (Russell Pearce, ALEC) - 02/06/14
The Courage Campaign is a California NGO linked to higher-profile groups including Media Matters for America [1]. A recent tweet [2] from them shows that they have no ethics and no credibility:
Every wonder why @ALEC_states supports extreme anti-#immigration laws? Here’s a clue… #TBT #StandUpToAlec
Truth Revolt: yet another incompetent rightwing media watchdog (David Horowitz, Ben Shapiro) - 10/07/13
Truth Revolt (truthrevolt . org, "TR") is a new site from David Horowitz that aims to be the Media Matters for America of the right. A glance at their site shows that they aren't even close to rising to MMFA's low level.
Solange Uwimana of MMFA hypes Bloomberg / Rockefeller study designed to lower wages (immigration reform) - 09/17/13
Solange Uwimana - immigration point person for Media Matters for America - offers "New Study Shatters Conservative Media Claims About Immigration" ( peekURL.com/zkRAeZM ). A brief discussion of her post follows after the excerpt:
All in with Chris Hayes isn't diverse, despite his race obsession (MSNBC) - 03/30/13
Chris Hayes of the new MSNBC show "All in with Chris Hayes" has a quota system: few white men need apply ([1]).
However, despite Hayes' obsession with race, his show is like other TV news shows in that it's woefully lacking in diversity, as will be described below.
Pat Buchanan fired from MSNBC; why couldn't conservatives have kept him on the air? - 02/17/12
Pat Buchanan is now officially off MSNBC; he was basically fired and he didn't quit of his own accord as he makes clear in "Blacklisted, But Not Beaten" (link) [1].
Daily Caller series on Media Matters: reporters they feed information; coordination with White House? - 02/12/12
The Daily Caller has released the first in a series of reports [1] on Media Matters for America ("MMFA") based on internal memos, statements from former staffers, and other interviews. Notes follow, first an excerpt:
How Glenn Beck could have kept his Fox News show - 04/07/11
Glenn Beck announced yesterday that he was going to stop his daily Fox News show as of the end of the year. He'll still be doing the occasional special for them, and he promises that he'll have surprises in store and that the best is yet to come.
Some notes:
Rightwing wants to stoop to MMFA, CAP level (opposition research, SHOCK!, hypocrisy...) - 04/03/11
Kenneth Vogel of the Politico reports (link) that conservatives are trying to offer their own alternatives to opposition research groups like Media Matters for America and the
Reason Magazine misleads about Jared Loughner (+AllahPundit, Glenn Reynolds) - 01/18/11
Reason Magazine offers the deceptive video "The Week in Stupid: Cable Pundits on the Gifford Shooting" (below). If you trust anything Reason tells you, keep reading.
Juan Williams fired by NPR, and his supporters won't be able to do anything about it - 10/21/10
Political commentator Juan Williams was fired by NPR yesterday for making what should be non-controversial remarks about Muslims and terrorism on the Bill OReilly show; a transcript is at [1].
Jocelyn Fong of Media Matters misleads about immigration (Harold Hurtt, ICE) - 06/27/10
Former Houston police chief Harold Hurtt was recently named to a leadership position at ICE; see the backstory here.
Mari Del Carmen Aponte nominated Ambassador to El Salvador: NCLR, PRLDEF links; cleared of being Cuban spy - 12/21/09
Barack Obama has nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be Ambassador to El Salvador:
Drop Dobbs: illegal activity-supporting racial power groups and far-left want Lou Dobbs off CNN - 09/17/09
A coalition of illegal immigration-supporting far-left and/or racial power groups has launched a campaign called "Drop Dobbs" to get advertisers to pull their ads from CNN's Lou Dobbs show (dropdobbs.com, mediamatters.org/blog/200909150031): "...The effort aims to let companies know that their continued financial support of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight makes them complicit in the hate speech and wild conspiracy theories that he promotes..."
Campaigns like this - following on the heels of the somewhat successful similar campaign against Glenn Beck - stand a greater chance of success given the fact...
Media Matters lies: Hawaii has not authenticated the certificate on Obama's site (Corsi, Dobbs, FAIR) - 09/16/09
Media Matters for America offers a smorgasbord of smears in "At "hate group" event, Dobbs embraces discredited birther Jerome Corsi" (mediamatters.org/research/200909150042, not bylined):
On his radio show -- broadcast from the anti-immigration organization Federation for American Immigration Reform's (FAIR) "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" legislative advocacy event -- Lou Dobbs interviewed WorldNetDaily staff reporter Jerome Corsi, who Dobbs described as "a pretty good guy to talk to" about immigration issues... ...On Fox News, Corsi claimed that Obama's presidential campaign "has a false,...
Alexandra Marks of CSM lies: Hawaiian officials never confirmed the certificate on Obama's site - 08/05/09
Alexandra Marks of the Christian Science Monitor offers "Should CNN attack its own anchor over ‘birther’ flap? /A media watchdog group releases an ad criticizing CNN anchor Lou Dobbs for stoking the 'birther' controversy" [1] about an ad Media Matters for America is running against Dobbs for him daring to mention the Obama citizenship issue. It includes this:
Officials in Hawaii have confirmed multiple times that the birth certificate produced by the Obama campaign in 2008 is legitimate. Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has also...
When even Glenn Beck turns on the "Birthers", should they get a clue? (+ HotAir <3 MMFA) - 08/04/09
Even Glenn Beck has turned on the "Birthers", saying that he doesn't believe Obama was born in Kenya, that if it came out that he was born there it would result in "civil war", and that "there are other things that you should concentrate on... Who cares about the birth certificate thing? ...What do you say we pay attention to he's appointing Communists..." (The audio is at mediamatters.org/mmtv/200908040011)
Media Matters lies about Obama certificate issue ("The Definitive Birther Takedown") - 08/01/09
Media Matters for America offers the un-bylined "The Definitive Birther Takedown" (mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200907280002). A brief glance shows it contains at least one lie and other misleading statements.
Ed Morrissey must think that Hawaiian state law is a "Birther theory" - 07/23/09
Low-level conservative commentator Ed Morrissey of HotAir recently got a special treat: a shout-out from Media Matters for America in their article 'Unlike Dobbs, some conservative media think birthers are "nutburgers"' (by Julie Millican, mediamatters.org/research/200907220051). Rather than criticizing him, they were giving him a cookie for helping "[to] debunk[] the birth certificate rumors" about Barack Obama, linking to Morrissey's "The sadly obligatory SCOTUS birth-certificate post" [1] as proof of just how reasonable he was.
Just one problem: the HotAir post they linked to contained a...
MediaMatters, Campaign for America's Future cheer political benefits of declining numbers of whites (Eric Lotke) - 05/27/09
Two George Soros-funded groups - the Campaign for Americas Future and Media Matters for America - have released a report authored by Eric Lotke entitled "America: A Center-Left Nation" (ourfuture.org/report/center-left-nation):
The wind is at our backs. It's safe to push. It's important that we do. We need to channel the energy of our center-left nation, and achieve the promise, not the compromise. The crisis is great, bold action is needed, and the people are hungry for progressive change.
They're very clearly painting a rosy picture of their chances. But, they do have one growing advantage...
Jesse Washington /AP mainstreams MMFA smears, shows no regard for protecting U.S. from epidemic - 05/02/09
Jesse Washington of the Associated Press - author of this sleazy pro-Obama article - now offers "Immigration foes link flu to Mexican threat claims" (link, assistance from
Low-wattage radio, TV hosts say dumb things about Mexicans and swine flu; leftwing attacks in order to support illegal activity - 04/30/09
Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post offers "Swine Flu A Mexican Immigrant Conspiracy: Conservative Media (VIDEO)" (huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/30/swine-flu-a-mexican-immig_n_193707.html), linking to a Media Matters for America video apparently containing instances of conservative radio and TV hosts discussing the issue of Mexicans - speci
Irony meets stupidity: Chicago May 1 immigration rally might have gotten more people than all tea parties - 04/17/09
Media Matters for America offers a clip from Fox News in which Geraldo Rivera says (mediamatters.org/countyfair/200904160042):
"[T]he grand total of all of the tea party demonstrators" was less than the number "at that immigration rally in 2006 in the city of Chicago alone"
Even if the "parties" got a little more than that, Rivera isn't far off. And, that helps illustrate just how pathetic the entire "tea party" concept is.
And, in my case, it's sadly ironic. Back in February 2007, I went to an Obama appearance hoping to ask him a question about the fact that the very same immigration march...
Morgan Weiland of Media Matters leaps to defense of illegal aliens, ACORN - 04/07/09
Morgan Weiland of Media Matters for America offers "Conservative media consistently scapegoat undocumented immigrants, ACORN" (mediamatters.org/items/200904070005). That former United Nations intern is here to defend both, even if she doesn't do it so well.
Dennis Roddy /Pittsburgh PG, SPLC, LGF, HotAir, Kos use tragedy to smear opponents - 04/05/09
Dennis Roddy of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette offers "Suspect in officers' shooting was into conspiracy theories" (link) about the recent shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh by an obviously deranged 22-year-old. He takes advantage of that tragedy to smear his or his paper's opponents:
Mr. Poplawski's view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews...
McCain lashes out over leading on immigration "reform" and not getting "Hispanic vote"; not a moment of clarity - 04/03/09
All that pandering in vain takes a toll, and John McCain can't keep things bottled up for long. From this:
John McCain sounds angry and frustrated that, despite the risks he took in pushing immigration reform, Hispanic voters flocked to Democrat Barack Obama in last year's presidential contest. McCain's raw emotions burst forth recently as he heatedly told Hispanic business leaders that they should now look to Obama, not him, to take the lead on immigration.
What follows is he said, she said hearsay. Whatever he said and however he said it, don't worry: the GOP will be back to pandering in no...
Hannah Dreier /MediaMatters misleads about Nancy Pelosi position on raids (Lou Dobbs) - 03/25/09
Hannah Dreier of Media Matters for America offers a misleading view of Nancy Pelosi's recent remarks in Dobbs falsely claimed Pelosi said "immigration law enforcement is, quote-unquote, 'un-American" (mediamatters.org/items/200903240035):
Summary: On his radio show, Lou Dobbs asked his guest for his "reaction" to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "saying last week that enforcement in the workplace, immigration law enforcement is, quote-unquote, 'un-American.' " In fact, Pelosi criticized as "un-American" immigration raids that separate undocumented parents from their documented children, not "...
Terry Krepel needs logic lessons (Obama certificate issue) - 03/11/09
I hesitate to discuss blogs that criticize this site when the blog in question only gets about 400 visits per day. However, a week ago Terry Krepel of "ConWebWatch" offered "Blog Misleadingly Comes to Kincaid's Defense" [1] about a recent video I made.
Zogby poll shows how misinformed Obama's supporters are (and is yet another example of Obama's opponents making mistakes) - 11/19/08
John Ziegler - a former KFI talk jock who was pushed out after a dispute with John & Ken - has a video documentary including interviews with Barack Obama supporters showing how ignorant and/or misinformed they are.
His site (link) also includes a Zogby poll he commissioned that tries to show the same thing. Unfortunately, some of the questions that are supposedly true either aren't true or are disputed.
So, it's a two-fer. The poll shows not only how misinformed many Obama supporters are, but also provides yet another example of Obama's opponents making mistakes. See #18 at that list...
Lil' fascists: Barack Obama supporters on Jerome Corsi's detention in Kenya - 10/07/08
It used to be that "liberals" would strongly oppose corrupt foreign governments "losing" paperwork in order to stifle speech. However, when things like that are done in support of Barack Obama, their response is a bit different. Here are some instances of those discussing the detention in Kenya of Jerome Corsi, author of the anti-BHO book Obama Nation. Think of these as a preview of how his supporters will act should he become president:
Truth Fights Back, just not too well (John Kerry on anti-Obama smears) - 08/14/08
John Kerry's "Campaign for Our Country" has started a new website called Truth Fights Back (truthfightsback.com), and it's pretty bad. For instance, consider the post "Barack Obama is not aligned with Weather Underground", which combines 3rd-grade-level writing with 3rd-grade-level thinking. This is the "smear" (truthfightsback.com/site/smear/200):
Republicans have repeatedly pushed a bogus story about William Ayers, a member of the 60s-era Weather Underground. They make all sorts of bogus claims about his association with Barack Obama and repeatedly try to make the connection between the two...
Judy Bachrach/Vanity Fair smears Lou Dobbs - 08/08/08
Freelance writer and Vanity Fair contributor Judy Bachrach offers a smear of Lou Dobbs in "Lou Doubts" (poder360.com/article_detail.php?id_article=549). It's yet another example of the illegal activity-supporting establishment trying to reduce his influence in order to profit from illegal activity in one way or another.
Pew Hispanic: interest in immigration lags behind education, cost of living, jobs, healthcare, and crime - 07/24/08
The Pew Hispanic Center has released their "2008 National Survey of Latinos: Hispanic Voter Attitudes". It finds that a great majority of those surveyed support Barack Obama over John McCain (66% vs. 23%). And, interest in immigration is lower than that in education, the cost of living, jobs, healthcare, and crime.
Paul Waldman wins the BOSA! (Barack Obama Sycophant Award) - 06/19/08
Congratulations to Paul Waldman of Media Matters for America, who's just now won the BOSA, also known as the Barack Obama Sycophant Award, the Toady, the Yglesias, and other names too numerous to mention!
Last seen here calling the NAFTA Superhighway a myth and then admitting that it exists in one form, Waldman contributes to the American Prospect's TAPPED. BOSA judges "tapped" the following excerpt from this post as one of the reasons for the award. Referring to BHO, Waldman says:
He has always presented himself as the embodiment of what we all want America to be: inclusive, future-oriented...
Media Matters for America on immigration "myths" ("Fear and Loathing in Prime Time") - 05/21/08
Media Matters for America offers a "report" called "Fear and Loathing in Prime Time/Immigration Myths and Cable News" (mediamattersaction.org/reports/fearandloathing/online_version). It attempts to address some of the "myths" supposedly promulgated by Lou Dobbs, [[Bill O'Reilly]], and Glenn Beck.
Eric Hananoki/Media Matters tries pretending that McCain differs from Hillary and Obama on immigration - 03/26/08
Eric Hananoki of Media Matters for America offers "Chicago Tribune falsely claimed Clinton, Obama, and McCain "essentially agree" on immigration" (mediamatters.org/items/200803250002):
Summary: In an article on immigration as a campaign issue, the Chicago Tribune reported that Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain "essentially agree on the need for an overhaul of U.S. Immigration law that would combine increased border enforcement with a new guest-worker program and measures to permit the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country to eventually apply for...
Brave New Films: Robert Greenwald attacks Fox News "virus" - 03/16/08
Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films has a new crusade: trying to stop the Fox News "virus" that supposedly spreads from Fox to the rest of the MSM, specifically as it relates to criticism of Barack Obama. Their foxattacks.com/virus page makes it clear that, if Greenwald had his way, Fox would be off the air:
Fox is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization.
We Can Stop The Hate: Mexico-linked groups try silencing opponents of illegal immigration - 01/31/08
The extremist-funding National Council of La Raza has started a new effort called We Can Stop The Hate (wecanstopthehate.org) which is attempting to silence those who support our immigration laws by highlighting what they call examples of "hate". Three of their cohorts in the effort have at least indirect links to the Mexican government. Note that that government has explicitly stated that they're going to be using U.S.
Barack Obama's extremist church? (Trinity United Church of Christ) - 01/17/08
Does Barack Obama belong to an anti-white, far-left church? Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ certainly appears to have made some interesting statements (link, link, link). The last includes excerpts from Obama's book.
CNN, the most Soviet name in "news" (plants at Democratic debate) - 11/17/07
Thursday's CNN Democratic debate featured more than wimpy questions and a CNN-approved lie. Some of the audience members who asked questions weren't just regular Joes and Janes. And, CNN failed to disclose those links.
From the transcript:
[Wolf Blitzer:] you're going to be hearing directly from voters here in Nevada. They're going to have a chance to ask these Democratic presidential candidates questions...